Foster will be ready for Week 1, calls some fantasy owners ‘sick’

Yahoo! Sports

Sun Aug 28 01:34pm EDT

Foster will be ready for Week 1, calls some fantasy owners ‘sick’

Houston Texans running back Arian Foster (notes) has a message to all those people sincerely concerned about the hamstring injury he's been suffering through during training camp. He has a separate message for those sincerely concerned about how said hamstring injury will affect their fantasy football teams.

Last year's top-rated fantasy back tweeted a message to both parties over the weekend stating his intention to play Week 1 of the NFL season despite the ailment:

Arian, you're a professional athlete. Nobody sincerely cares about you, they care about your performance. It's great that you're planning to be back for Week 1. Most people would agree. (Indianapolis Colts fans may not.) They do so because you're a great running back who gives a team, whether it be the Texans or a not-so-cleverly-named fantasy squad, a better chance to win, not because you seem like a nice guy in real life.

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Why do athletes differentiate between people who care because they're fans of the Texans and people who care because they're fans of their fantasy team? They don't make distinctions between fans and, say, gamblers. For that matter, what's the point of alienating any fans at all? People in Hollywood don't do this. "Hey everybody," Christian Bale makes a point of not saying, "'The Dark Knight Rises' comes out in July but if you only care because you want to see how it compares to the comic books, you're a loser." All fans are good fans, Arian.

It's not like cheering for a fantasy team is much different than cheering for a real team. They're both fairly irrational things adults do as diversions from real life. Heck, you could argue that fantasy is less pathetic; at least people play a role in creating and assembling that team. The only thing a Texans fan has to do is throw down $49.99 for a jersey, cheer when the team does something good and have absolutely zero expectations of ever making the playoffs.