A Fantasy Football Story Worth Hearing | Engel Angle

Halloween is coming up, and this is a warning to all parents who give out candy.
All men joy is a punishment.
Mack Engle, Fort Worth Start Telegram, Engle Engle podcast here on the Sunset Lounge.
Thank you very much for joining me.
It is that time of year.
It's always that time of year.
Two observations, no guests for this episode.
Two observations that I have, and I don't understand how this happens.
So I asked a guy recently on a visit to a liquor store where I noticed it seemingly is entirely now occupied by beer, white claw, and tequila.
When and how did tequila become the drink when it comes to hard liquor?
Used to be vodka, maybe a little bit of a gin, but tequila was always kind of off to the side.
And now, seemingly when it comes to the real estate at your favorite liquor store, it's all tequila.
Tequila sold by some celebrity that has attached their name to it in exchange for an easy buck.
I counted the bottles.
This was a big tequila, this was a big liquor store.
I counted the bottles, the different types of bottles that existed at this liquor store between tequila and mezcal.
I put them in the same category.
I counted more than 130 different labels of tequila and mezcal.
So I asked the guy I ran the place.
I'm like, when did this happen?
He's like a seven or eight years ago.
He said, COVID had a lot to do with it, and it used to be, and it all comes down to marketing.
And it used to be marketed as sort of the poor man's white liquor.
And now, if it's sudden, it's become wildly successful, thanks to ranch water.
I don't get it.
I like tequila, but it goes to show, if you put a pretty celebrity's name by something like George Clooney or Matthew McConaughey,
you can take a dog piece of dog poop and make it popular amongst consumers.
One of the random things that happened to me, I work out at a gym.
That is, it's the TCU gym.
I belong to it.
And I'm usually the old creepy guy there.
There's like five or six older guys amongst a host of college students working out.
And one thing I really noticed about working out at the gym, I can't speak to 24 hour fitness or other places.
Nobody talks to anybody.
Everybody is in their own little world, wearing headphones, listening to either or watching the workouts they are doing on YouTube or some other fitness app, or just damning out to music.
I'm guilty of this.
I wear headphones and listen to Duolipa, as noted here on the podcast before.
So I'm lifting weights, not a lot.
And I see this guy who's standing about 15 feet away from me.
And he's older than I am.
He's got a shaved head, tree trunks or legs.
And he's doing these workouts that I don't, I had seen before, but I don't know why I had seen them.
But they were different.
They weren't your standard leg press, lunge or whatever else.
There was, there was a, there was some change to it.
And I'm looking at him and I'm like, who am I?
I got him.
That dude is in great shape.
And he's got to be over 60.
And he's in great shape.
And he's still got a lot of muscle to him, which is obviously a lot harder the older you get.
And I cannot place it.
And I keep coming back to these workouts that he's doing these specific lifts that he's doing with dumbbells.
That I know I recognize, but I can't place either.
I can't place either one.
And I'm like, I know I'm old and I'm forgetting everything now with the exception of people who really angered me from yesterday or the day before and certainly 20 years ago.
And then I'm looking at my white, why can't I figure it out?
He's, there's probably three old guys on the floor of the gym where there's just free weights, all the machines and stuff like that are upstairs.
So that's where all the females are.
Mostly people who are messing around with weights typically tend to be males for whatever reason.
There's some females there, but overwhelmingly the people on the machines are females.
The people on the weights are males.
Don't get me started on that wide, but that's just the way it was.
So he stands out as do I not for the right.
I stand out because who's this old idiot?
And that guy stands out because he's really throwing around some weight.
And again, I'm like, who is that?
Why do I know this?
Who is this guy?
And then it dawns on me.
That over there is a member of the hockey hall of fame.
None other than the great member of the Edmonton Oilers and captain of the New York Rangers, Mr. Mark Messier.
And he's doing a bunch of workouts that I did when I was a much younger man,
when I worked out with the handful members of the Dallas stars, including Bill Garen,
who I believe now is the general manager of the Minnesota Wild when he invited me to work out.
And let me just tell you, working out with a professional athlete like Bill Garen and some of those other guys
and seeing Mark Messier at 60 plus doing what he's doing is a very, very humbling thing.
And I'm looking at him.
He's wearing a white t-shirt.
Mark Messier is wearing a white t-shirt and very basic gray shorts.
No headphones.
He's the only guy without headphones.
And his white socks are pulled up a little bit.
So I'm looking at him in an amazement.
I'm like, dude, how the hell is this guy doing it?
Well, one, he's been doing it for probably his entire life.
And two, he's got the jeans.
He's a professional athlete, even though he's retired.
So I walk up and I'm going to grab a weight from the weight rack as he's standing right there.
And I looked at him and I said, you know what?
That's not bad for an old hockey player.
And he said, thanks a lot, brother.
I appreciate it.
I said seriously.
I knew it was great.
He said, thanks a lot, man.
I really appreciate that.
And I left him alone standing there looking and wondering at this 60 plus year old guy,
lifting a bunch of weights around a bunch of young people who have no clue who he is.
Why is Mark Messier at that particular gym?
Just an FYI, his daughter is an undergraduate at TCU.
This particular episode is going to violate a sacred code that I have,
which is nobody wants to hear about two things.
One, your child's athletic exploits if they made the select team.
If your child has made a select team, it basically means you can cut the check.
Good for you.
That's great.
Winning a game between two 13-year-olds doesn't really impress me that much,
but hey, it's positive, it's exercise, it's competition, a lot of life lessons,
so good on you.
And the other one, of course, is the dreaded, you want to hear about my fantasy team?
No, let me climb up here to the fifth floor of the building and jump out the window.
I'd rather do that than listen to about your fantasy team exploits.
However, like any code and any rule, there are exceptions, and I offer you this one
that is unbelievable and should be studied by sociologists and scientists
all over major universities in these United States.
However, before I get to that, let's break time.
Time to mention that all of the shows, and I mean all of them,
here on the Sunset Lounge, don't cost any money for you.
Otherwise known as free, not fake free, free free, free free free free free.
All the shows on the Sunset Lounge are free as we continue to grow.
We are on every major platform now.
Name it, we're on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes, name it, every place you can find
the shows on the Sunset Lounge, which include, we're going to add a couple shows.
Here in the next couple of weeks, I'm very excited about that.
This includes the Clubhouse featuring Rob Alex and Don,
top-top pop culture, sports movies, wrestling, also beer 30 sports o'clock,
featuring Ziggy, who will be mentioned prominently here in the next segment.
He'll catch you up on beer, sports, football, and betting.
Maybe he's involved in the latest FBI indictment on pro sports athletes taking money
to rig games.
Maybe, I'm not saying he is, maybe.
Al Maximo, football, soccer, F1.
This is our Spanish speaking show featuring the great, the wonderful Victor Vialba.
He's the Spanish voice of the Dallas Cowboys and Dallas Mavericks,
who had a wonderful season opener against Victor Webb Mayana,
the San Antonio Spurs, and turn him into the NBA's MVP after only one game.
Cooper Flag's first game.
He got a double, double, and they got their ass kicked.
Carlos Navajo, hardest working man in the world, not just sports,
joins Al Maximo.
That is our Spanish speaking show.
Also, two things to look forward to here in the sunset lounge.
We're going to have a soccer show featuring Taylor Kern and the return of a really good show
that I think you'll like if you are into true crime.
Area 51 featuring my friend from Fort Worth magazine,
Fort Worth, Texas magazine, Mr. John Henry.
The show for a while.
And if you are into true crime, which for some reason I don't understand,
women love true crime, but they cannot stand war stories.
True crime, they love war stories, they hate.
Area 51?
Maybe I get that right.
War stories, they hate true crime, they love, yeah.
Area 51 will be coming here on the sunset lounge shortly.
Look for it in the next week or two.
As well as Mr. Mike Reiner's award winning.
I don't say that sarcastically, Mike Reiner's your dark companion won an award.
What award?
That one.
Also, Mr. Norm Hitzkes multiple times a week here in the sunset lounge.
All the shows on the sunset lounge are free.
Now, back to my show.
Okay, like I told you, this is the exception to a rule that says,
nobody wants to hear about your fantasy football team,
baseball team, basketball team, hockey team, etc.
Here's why.
I participated somewhat begrudgingly in the sunset lounge's fantasy football draft.
I say begrudgingly because it takes time and I stink at fantasy football.
I don't have time for fantasy basketball or hockey or any of that other stuff.
It's too much time and I'm not any good at it.
So when I do it, football is the easiest one,
which is one of the reasons why football is so popular,
because it's easy and it's the easiest one to bet on.
And I don't bet on games because I'm terrible at it.
However, to be a good sport, I was invited to join the fantasy football league
by the sunset lounge and I was like, okay, yeah, great, I'll do it.
Normally, what people do in these instances is do a little prep work
and come up with a draft order.
Now, you can find all the research online and you can find lists,
you know, one through a hundred and top running backs, quarterbacks,
kickers, defenses, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I did none of that.
In fact, hauntingly, it reminds me of why I was such a poor student
from grades six through 10, 11.
Yeah, let's kick that one to 11.
As a senior in high school, I decided to wake up.
Hmm, who knew these books opened?
However, when it came to prepping for a fantasy football draft,
I just figured I'd do it the good old-fashioned way and wing it.
Or try something a little bit different.
I participated in this draft with the idea that I was going to do one thing
and one thing only and that is I'm just going to draft white guys.
That is much more difficult than it looks.
Can you field a fantasy football team with just white dudes?
Can you win a fantasy football game with white dudes?
Can you win a fantasy football league with nothing but white guys
in the National Football League?
Yes.
This is something that should be studied by economists, sociologists,
and scientists, and scientists, Harvard, Stanford, Duke,
my alma mater, Kansas.
Let's see if I can get that up there, Kansas.
Yeah, I just wanted to see what would work if I could do it.
So here's the deal.
The quarterback position to breeze.
It's just the legion of white guys.
It's not hard.
You can find, you can draft like two or three white guys.
It's easy.
So I was like, OK, I'll draft Baker Mayfield.
I called out one time as a boss.
I actually said that.
There's a story behind that.
Matt Stafford and Justin Herbert.
Why does they come?
Easy.
The quarterback position is the easiest one.
Almost as easy as the kicker.
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure in the NFL right now there are anything but white dudes kicking.
Occasionally, you would find the random grammatica
or some guy with Latin heritage should be a kicker.
But I think right now with kickers,
it's nothing but white guys.
So then tight ends.
Very easy.
Travis Kelsey.
OK.
Tight ends.
Very easy.
I went with Tyler Warren, Rookie, Trey McBride.
He's with Cardinals.
And who else was my other time?
I don't even know.
Dalton Kincaid.
All white dudes.
Again, easy.
Now we start now.
But I got to say this.
Defenses don't count.
You just grab the defense.
There's nothing I can do about that.
OK, that's out of my hands.
OK, I'm not gone.
Now we start getting into the tricky spots.
Wide receivers.
There are white white receivers.
And there are some pretty good ones.
And then there are guys who are the possession receivers.
You know, they're the shifty ones.
The guys who play the slap.
And they, you know, they'll coach on the field
and they get them dirty and they'll make the hard catches
and all that other stuff.
So you can do the white dudes as white receivers.
There's just enough of them.
Not a lot of them.
But there's just enough of them.
And a few of them are really, really good.
At times, sometimes, they've even
be the best white receiver in the league or top five.
I'm talking about Adam Thielin a few years ago
with the Minnesota Vikings had a phenomenal year.
And one of those types of seasons
were fantasy football owners.
And they're like, oh my gosh, why didn't I draft him?
Cooper Cup when he was with the LA Rams.
He's with the Seahawks now.
He had a phenomenal year.
Big reason why they won the Super Bowl against my Bengals.
There's been some other guys too.
Obviously, Wes Welker, Julian Edelman,
when they were with Tom Brady and the Patriots
had big fantasy seasons.
I find them.
One of the great receivers in the last 50 years of the NFL
when obviously sports was finally integrated
was Steve Largent.
Now, obviously, since then,
most of your best receivers in the national football league
and the best skill players are black players.
And so finding these white dudes is just,
there's just not as many of them.
But you can do it.
Which leads me to the most difficult position
to address if you want to follow through
and execute this experiment.
I'm talking, of course, about running backs.
You'll find the big bruising fullback.
A couple of them.
There's not many of them.
But I'm talking about a good running back
who can get your 100 yards
and produce fantasy points for you.
The only way this works.
Because there's, I think there's less than five
and I think you have to draft,
I don't know, three or four running backs.
So you basically have to get them all
and two of them aren't any good.
They're like fullbacks who never touch the ball.
So for the purposes of filling out your roster,
you're basically flushing it with just guys who are bodies.
You have to draft
San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey
with your first pick
and then pray to God
that he does not get hurt.
Now he's proven to be a phenomenal player
since he's coming to the league when he's healthy.
But he's broken down quite a bit.
So I made him my first overall pick
and when I did make him my first overall pick,
I'm nervously looking
and everybody says, ooh, good pick, Mack.
That's a good one.
That's a good idea.
Or when I picked Tyler Warren,
the rookie from Penn State to the Colts.
That's a good pick, Mack.
Lad McConkey.
But that's a really good one.
And I'm thinking, I don't know if anybody's catching what I'm doing.
So at the very end, now I've gone,
I got the guy that I needed.
Christian McCaffrey was the key.
If I get him, I can do this experiment.
Now, I am going to say one thing
that I think somebody might look at this and say,
well, that doesn't really count.
I picked Los Angeles Rams receiver,
Puka Nakua.
I don't have pronounced his name.
P-U-Kit Puk.
I drafted Puk, who is a really good player.
However, when you look at him,
you would say, I don't know.
That's not a white, dude.
Okay.
There's a gray area in there, one.
Okay.
Work with me on this.
So I did pick him.
And he's been great, by the way.
So I did get Christian McCaffrey.
Well, now, I'm going through every picture
of NFL running backs.
I'm like, he's not white.
Most of these guys don't even know who they are.
If I don't care how big of a football fan if you are,
you may be.
If you go through all the photographs,
you're like, I don't know all the names.
I don't know these guys are.
You know, some of the big names and the players
are the teams that you follow.
But I'm like, I don't know these guys are.
So then I'm down like, hey, you've got to draft another running
back.
There is no other running back other than Christian McCaffrey
and fullback Kyle Yusik,
who nobody has heard of,
with the exception of the fact that his wife made headlines
last year of the year before when she designed these
jackets based on NFL jerseys.
She did it herself.
That's the only reason anybody knows this guy.
He's never going to touch the ball ball.
I'm like, okay, fine.
I'll take him.
And then, at the very end,
it dawns on me.
Oh, my God.
There's another white dude.
There's a running back.
I can pick him.
And I'd see him play.
And I always thought, yeah, he might,
he might do something.
Give me some of that cam.
Scat a boo.
Pride of Arizona State.
All five foot two of them.
And a guy who will probably get hurt,
considering the way he plays in next season.
This is not about next season.
This is about this season.
And whether or not a team,
loaded with white dudes,
can win a fantasy game.
I'm here to tell you.
Yes.
I was a machine,
blowing through opponents,
crushing all of them.
McCaffrey may feel worn.
But everybody just tearing it up.
Defying all of these stereotypes
that said, little white dudes can't be good fantasy football players.
Unbelievable.
Yes.
I started out eight and oh.
And I am powering my way through
to a fantasy football championship.
However, here is the problem.
If you decide to follow this experiment,
know this.
None of your players can get hurt
with the exception of kickers.
I wish they had let punters be a part of this.
If any of these guys get hurt at all,
I am so screwed.
So right now,
the season ends,
I don't know, like middle December,
something like that.
I tell you how much I follow this.
But right now,
it's working.
And it can happen.
But here's the most important part to this detail.
No one can get hurt
and without a doubt,
Christian McCaffrey,
it's your most valuable player,
ever.
So if somebody debates you,
gee, there's no way you can win
with an entire roster,
as a fantasy team.
Yes, you can.
Now, whether or not I win the championship,
well, we won't know for another month or so.
And this, my friends,
is the one exception
when you can tell a story
about your fantasy football team
and it's worth listening to.
See you next week.
This is a stolen water media production.