I have been playing fantasy football since 1994 — in my first draft, I took John Elway and Warren Moon with two of my first three picks. I mean, how could I pass on Warren Moon in Round Three? Those fools. I was convinced I going to score so many points that the league was going to kick me out and I was going to find another hobby. Maybe I could take up in-line skating or something.   

Not surprisingly, I didn’t win the title. I don’t recall how I lost, but I suspect a lack of RB depth had something to do with it. In the years that have passed, I have mastered the one-QB-per-lineup rule, but I’ve had other teams perish because of precious too little RB talent.

Some years I’ve been in as many as six leagues; others, only one. I have been in TD-only leagues and leagues with complex scoring systems. I was, from 2004-05, the commissioner of our office’s Big Ten college football fantasy league. No, I am not the guy Ogre dangled off the roof in “Revenge of the Nerds,” but thank you for asking.

I have had moments where I’ve questioned why I played fantasy football, usually after joyless four- or five-win campaigns that were over, for all intents and purposes, by Columbus Day. But I’ve always come back for more.

And so here I am, preparing for my 15th season. We held a mock draft on Monday for a league we’re not even going to play out — the results will simply run in our next issue — but there I was, fidgeting between picks, trying to decide between taking Tony Romo and Peyton Manning at the top of Round Three. I took Romo; Manning is more highly ranked on our draft board, but I thought Romo gave my team — a team for which I’ll never submit a starting lineup — a better chance to win.

I have been chasing that winning feeling ever since I entered that first league years ago. If you don’t play fantasy football and don’t know what that feels like but want to get an idea of what it looks like, go to a sports bar on a Sunday afternoon and look for NFL fashion victims. That guy sitting two tables over from you at the sports bar isn’t wearing an Eagles hat on his head and a purple Adrian Peterson jersey on his frame while imploring the Colts to throw the ball to Dallas Clark because he is related to Mr. Clark. But he does have a stake in the outcome that someone without a fantasy team doesn’t have.

And that ownership stake can be an absolute pleasure to possess. It can be a drag, too, if you load up on running backs who get substituted for at the goal line, receivers renowned for their blocking and tight ends best known for their long-snapping ability.

But once in a while, you put a team together that gets to the playoffs and breaks everyone else’s hearts. And then, you know what it feels like to win. We can go over the myriad reasons why fantasy football is so popular, but forget not the thrill of victory, and especially as you start preparing for yet another season.

Here is to hoping you’ve won every which way along the way in fantasy football.

Here’s to the time you’ve built a powerhouse that won by daylight. Here’s to the time you snagged the final playoff spot and got hot at the right time. Here’s to working the waiver wire like a maestro. Here’s to getting every break and winning the title because Jon Runyan yells at Brian Westbrook. Here’s to defensive tackles picking up fumbles and running like hell. Here’s to two-point conversions thrown by backup quarterbacks in stadiums seven-eighths empty in front of announcing tandems thinking about where they’re going to eat after the game. Here’s to drives that stall in the red zone, allowing your kicker, a position you filled only after picking seven running backs (including both Lions backs, so as to theoretically monopolize Detroit’s rushing touchdowns) to boot you to victory. Here’s to rookie cornerbacks in awe of your star receiver. Here’s to knowing whose contracts are up after this season and slotting your draft board accordingly. Here’s to quarterback sneaks and halfback passes and receivers extending the ball to hit the pylon against the laws of gravity and the will of the free safety.

I have won a little, not a lot, and thankfully not at the beginning, because Rollerblades were expensive at the time. But I've had a great time along the way, having to tally the scores in the Big Ten league notwithstanding.