Fantasy Football: The Kohler League

For many, the NFL season is a welcome distraction from life's responsibilities. Nothing quite like spending all day Sunday eating snacks, watching our favorite teams and ignoring the chores around the house. Or coming home on Mondays and Thursdays from a long day of work, kicking up our feet and drinking that first beverage. And if our teams win, well, that’s a perfect day. However my team usually loses… I am a Raider fan, don’t judge me, I was born into it.

Whole lotta smack goin on!

But for this reason I choose to focus my attention on a different football team, my Fantasy team! At Kohler Pools we have had a friends and family league for 7 years now. We start each season with an in person draft and old school draft board. We find a venue to host us, print out all of the players' names, and make enough food for a small army (or football team would be the better metaphor). Former and current employees, family members, and friends all make up our league. Kohler Fam is for life, so even those that have moved on to other places still participate each year. 

Old School

After a few hours of scrutinizing each other’s picks and lack of football knowledge, we have our respective teams. The trash talking has only just begun. We now have 4 months to prove that we are the savviest owners with the best expertise. We even convince ourselves that we should be running NFL teams.

This year there was a clear leader all season (Kevin will debate this). My team entered the Playoffs as the number 1 seed with Marc, Gio and Kevin’s teams as strong contenders for the title. However at the start of the playoffs Gio and I both lost our best players, our QB’s (he had Lamar Jackson and I had Jalen Hurts). But the measure of a true leader is not how they act when things are good, it is about how they respond when things are bad. Gio and I both took to the free agent list and found replacements. (which was not easy because Marc carried 4 QB’s on his roster, hoarding all the replacements) But like I said, when the tough get going, the going gets tough.

Gio and I both navigated the entire playoffs with back ups but still managed to meet in the Fantasy Super Bowl (sorry, “Big Game”, please don't sue me Roger Goodell). And it truly was a BIG game. Both our teams were as evenly matched as possible. With each game being played our scores were teetering back and forth, switching leads seemingly by the minute.

Finally the entire season came down to one game. The final game of the 2022-23 NFL season. All I needed to win my second title in the Kohler Fantasy Football league was Jamar Chase to score 9 points, 5 less than his average of 14 per week. My title and subsequent bragging rights were all but guaranteed.

If you are still wondering how this ends, for the first time in NFL history, the game was started and then stopped and declared a ‘no contest’. Meaning my guy did not have a chance to score the points and the season ended in a whimper. Thankfully Damar Hamlin, the player whose injury stopped the game, is ok and set to make a recovery! My team however will never recover, and my ego has a fresh new bruise.

Congrats to Gio on his first title, it was well deserved and his team will be enshrined in Kohler History.