This is a story you won’t see covered on ESPN. You won’t hear about it on "Inside the NFL", and it won’t make Peter King’s column, but there is another side to the Tom Brady injury story, and after much deliberation in the daily Big Blue View meetings, we’ve decided to run the story.
A man sits alone in his mother’s basement; tears in his eyes, Taco Bell Gordita Supreme wrappers litter the floor around him. On his lap, his HP notebook. In his ear, his Bluetooth headset, and he is screaming into the phone:
"YOU WERE THE ONE WHO SAID WE DIDN’T NEED TO PICK ANOTHER TOP STARTING QB! YOU SAID "WE’VE GOT BRADY! HE’S MONEY!!! JUST GRAB SOMEBODY LIKE BRODIE CROYLE IN THE LATER ROUNDS TO PLAY THE BYE WEEK." NOW WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO????"
Kevin Garmin ponders fantasy football life after Tom Brady
Kevin Garmin of Weehawken,N.J., has been playing Fantasy Football since 1997. He admits to some early rookie mistakes ("Danny Kanell in 1998? What was I thinking?"), but after years of training, and taking online classes at the Kanavis McGhee Institute for Higher Fantasy Football Learning, he’s taken the championship in his league 3 of the last 4 years. When he selected New England QB Tom Brady in the first round of his fantasy football draft, he felt this would once again be his year.
Brady didn't play in the preseason, but Garmin wasn’t worried. He knew his man would be there when the bell rang Opening Day against Kansas City. Brady did indeed start the game, and got off to a good start, and Garmin began to plan how he would spend his $50 winnings after capturing another league title.
And then……..
"The hit on Brady keeps replaying over and over in my head, like the Zapruder film" says Garmin, "I just keep seeing Pollard fall into Brady, and Tom’s leg bend the wrong way; back, and to the left……back…and to the left………back…………and to the left."
After two days of mourning, Garmin is back at it today, trying desperately to find another starting QB. "One of the other teams offered me Jamarcus Russell, but they wanted Ladanian Tomlinson and Plaxico Burress in return. I may have to do it." The phone rings, "I gotta take this" Garmin says, "It’s another one of the team owners, I may be able to get Kyle Orton for Marion Barber and T.O..."
Kevin Garmin’s story is not a unique one. There have been numerous reports of laptops being thrown out windows, and some Domino’s pizza franchises have had to temporarily suspend delivery because many of their drivers are just too distraught to come to work.
Life will go on for Kevin Garmin. "Like hell it will! This interview is done! Mom! Get this guy out of my room!!!!"
This is just one man’s story. There are hundreds of thousands of stories just like his, men and women alike, mourning the loss of Tom Brady for the 2008 Fantasy Football season.