I didn't notice this article when it came out earlier this month. Here, someone named Michael Rowe explains why he thinks fantasy football is partly to blame for what he claims is the demise of sportswriting in recent years:

This internet-facilitated imaginary game, in which you “draft” players whose statistical achievements become points for your team, has become so popular that TV sports analysts and sportswriters routinely advise viewers and readers on which players they should or should not stock on their fake roster. In one particularly entertaining instance, an NFL Network analyst queried ex-coach Jim Mora—who piloted the Saints and Colts before retirement—about his fantasy football squad. Mora dismissed the whole caboodle with mumbles and an eye roll.

Of course Mora doesn't get it: He used to coach in the NFL. Football coaches rely on probabilities generated by statistical analysis to inform their play-calling. And that's the central appeal of fantasy football: It mimics the act of coaching by passing off numbers—who gains more yardage against whom, who tends to choke when, and how one defense fares against a certain offense—as insight into the game. Thus we play at possessing professional knowledge, and, in the absence of the required muscles, numbers transport us inside the game as virtual shot-callers. Mora has no more interest in fantasy coaching than I have in playing a game of “fantasy infant”—been there, done that. It's the fantasizing spectator who wants to be caught up in what he imagines are the details.

Rowe's argument boils down to this: Fantasy sports are worthless because they're all about numbers, rather than stories and personalities. Rowe imagines fantasy managers the way most people imagine stock brokers - poring over statistical trends, buying and selling assets when the conventional wisdom dictates that they must, drearily blinded to everything but the data flickering on the screen. It's the oldest joke in the book about fantasy sports, repackaged as a cause for, and reflection of, the decline of sportswriting.

Sorry Mike, but you're being ridiculous. Fantasy sports are simply a relatively new way to bet on sports. Their growing popularity in recent years isn't an indication that, due to poor sportswriting, "readers have been left to digest fantasy fluff and their own obsessions" - really, it isn't indicative of anything beyond the fact that people love to gamble and are drawn to new and fun ways to do it.

And fantasy football's a whole lot of fun. It's that rare form of gambling where your own research, foresight and decision-making skills are every bit as important as luck. I fail to see why I should care that Jim Mora doesn't play. I bet he'd love it if he let his crotchety guard down for a minute and gave it a shot. Mora might just be more the exception than the rule, anyway - it sure seems to have caught on with the players, anyway.

If the rapid growth of fantasy sports concerns you, note that the vast majority of fantasy leagues exist in this rapidly-growing realm known as the Internet. Ten years ago, I don't know that you could have found a decent, easy-to-use fantasy league online. Today, it's an industry that's still in its infancy. It's going to continue to grow, right along with the ranks of bloggers and writers who will eye it warily and blame it for whatever they think is ailing the world of sports.