Well, regular season football officially began last night and while my fantasy team is still waiting to get out of the gates, I’m super stoked that the season is finally underway. We hosted the Labor Day draft party again this year and I’m playing commissioner to our league for the second season straight. Since I was runner-up last year, I picked ninth out of a ten-team league but came up with a roster I think is strong in some spots and disappointing in others (Ya, who didn’t, right?).

Sometimes when I fess to my fellow moms that I run a league with my husband and have my own fantasy football team, they are completely shocked or perplexed. I’ll admit that I only played a couple of years of flag-style intramurals of the sport, I don’t know all the ends and outs of the game, I don’t know what it’s like to get mashed by a 300 pound linebacker and can’t call out a coming play just by the formation of an offense; but I love a little competition and managing a winning fantasy team is just plain fun. It’s kind of like being an evil genius moving life-sized pawns around a huge football-shaped chess board. Now if my players would just perform the way I want each week, I’d be happy and my pockets would be full. . . but I guess that’s where the “fantasy” part enters the picture.

In the several years I’ve been playing this game, with mostly men, I have noticed that there are some real differences in the way the genders seem to pick and manage teams. Our reasons for choosing players are different, our free-agent practices differ a little and emotional choices can play a big factor in who starts and who rides the bench each week.  So as a tribute to all you fabulous female fantasy owners out there, here is a tongue-and-cheek list for everyone to consider before jumping into the game.

10 Reasons Women Shouldn’t Play Fantasy Football (But We Do Anyway)

1. Draft day doesn’t happen without cute little fingers foods, decorated cupcakes, matching plates and napkins and the latest hand-crafted football banner project found on Pinterest.
2. Bio pictures weigh too heavily into our draft choices –” Oh, doesn’t he look nice. Great Smile. Wow, what a cutie!” Yes, they have all been heard (and said, by me).
3. We get too attached to our previous teams and have to go through a 12-step grieving process when someone else drafts them.
4. We spend too much time begging to wash, cut and style that scraggly mess hanging out of certain helmets. (You know who you are.)
5. We get all “Momma Bear” when someone tackles our players too hard.
6. All that football watching food really packs on the pounds.
7. We’re prone to start a player just because we feel sorry for him — “Oh, you missed the game-winning field goal last week? You poor thing; I’ll give you another chance.”
8. Two words — “Uniform choices.”
9. We routinely wonder, “Oh, you pulled a hammy? It’s not like you just gave birth — now get back in there and play, you big baby.”
10. There’s nobody left to make sure the kids eat, bathe and go to bed on Monday nights.