Ken Jackson
Sports Writer

Can you smell sweaty shoulder pads and flak jackets?

You better hope it’s that, and not mold. You can shower stink away.

Training camps, exhibitions and a lot of hitting guys wearing the same colors is real drudgery, but some of football season’s most important work is taking place right now.

It goes further than the hot, damp, humid practice fields. There’s depth charts and head-to-head matchups to pour over, because it’s all about personnel. I don’t have to play near as well if my guys are better than your guys, right?

And that goes for guys who will never get off the couch, unless they leave the remote in the kitchen.

Long live fantasy football!

For you guys, at least.

You go on weighing the option of Ray Rice vs. Frank Gore and in what round you’re gonna draft your tight end/kicker combo.

You can keep it.

I’m not an anti-fantasyball miser. On my game room shelf, I have four trophies, showing my one-time commitment to the game, my prowess at it, and how shallow the lives are of the people who ran leagues I won.

At the time, I loved every minute of it. The careful study of the league. The intimate knowledge of the players, their strengths and their hamstrings.

You draft that team, and it’s yours. Victory is sweet, but not as sweet as defeat is rotten.

But if you partake, move your TV near a mirror some Sunday. See what fantasy football turns you into.

A sign of affliction is when that little chime sounds on Fox or CBS. Scores scroll, and the ears of the fully-engulfed perk up.

Scores? Irrelevant. Stats? Essential. Invariably comes the shriek: “NO! ELI THREW THE TD PASS TO THE WRONG GUY!”

Nevermind that the Giants now only trail 28-7. Doesn’t matter, right?

But the scariest scenarios surface on Sunday morning, when you’re reviewing your team, and that week’s opponent’s. That’s the time when you realize your soul is for sale.

You’ve got Ryan Grant against the Bears. Your villain has Aaron Rodgers, so you don’t want the Pack to throw it much, but if they do they have to go to Donald Driver, who you have. But not too much, as you also have the Bears defense going because the Cowboys are on their bye week. The Pack still have to score a little bit, because you have Mason Crosby at kicker.

And you’re an Eagles fan.

The league standings mean nothing to you. You’re not watching teams. You’re watching players. All because you “need something riding on it.”

You go ahead and completely change how you watch football. I freed myself.

After falling in the championship of the 2008 Newsroom League final, I retired with a 100-59 career record, three titles and two regular-season top records. Nice resume, and I went out on top. Unlike Brett Favre, there will be no training-camp resurrection of my career.

I’ve moved on to consulting. For example: I should charge for this, but here’s the positions you want to draft in the first 12 rounds, but only if you want to win: RB, RB, QB, RB, WR (or TE if one of top 2 still available), WR, WR, QB, TE, DEF, RB, K.

After that, just fill in the holes, and send me a cut of whatever you win.

ooo

Tiger Woods probably doesn’t care about his fantasy team much these days. It’s probably not even safe to use the term “fantasy” around him.

“Nightmare” is the better word.

After feeling positive about a 28th place showing at the PGA Championship, a mere 21 shots closer to the lead than the week before, I implore him to shut it down the rest of the year.

Stop frustrating yourself. Go hang with your kids. Focus on sippy cups instead of the cup on the green (Or D-cups).

Don’t even think about the Ryder Cup. That’s the one time golf is Us vs. Them. Like the Olympics, winning’s cool when it’s the Stars and Stripes.

I’d help, but my trophies are for fantasy football, not golf. That’s still pretty shallow.