Tony Scheffler’s phone rang with an urgent message from a friend in Michigan.
The buddy, it seems, drafted the Broncos rookie tight end in the third round of a fantasy football league, and wanted to share the good news.
Scheffler’s response was hardly a ringing endorsement of his friend’s choice.
“I told him, ‘I think you should re-evaluate your selection process,”‘ Scheffler said this week of the choice that essentially put him among the top three-dozen players in the National Football League.
“I was shocked that he’d pick me that high,” Scheffler said. “I hope this isn’t a league that’s costing him a lot of money.”
Across the country, millions of wannabe NFL general managers open their fantasy football seasons this weekend, beginning 17 Mylanta-inducing weeks of stressing over every yard gained, every field goal missed and every ankle sprained.
And in some cases – especially at the season’s start when fantasy players are settling their rosters – that means a few attempts at getting inside information from some well-placed sources.
“I tell people not to call me,” said Broncos wide receiver Javon Walker, who was a top fantasy producer two years ago in Green Bay before injuring a knee last season. “I’m not paying attention. I don’t even know how to play it.”
But the game is becoming harder to ignore.
From fans who tell players that they are “owned” in a particular league to players hearing from friends who wonder how the depth chart will shake out once the season begins, the world between football fantasy and reality is becoming increasingly blurred. And few NFL teams have generated as much fantasy buzz this season as the Broncos, in large part because coach Mike Shanahan refuses to name the team’s starting running back. Both Mike Bell and Tatum Bell are fantasy players’ choices to get a bulk of the carries, but Cedric Cobbs was picked in multiple drafts across the country, said Ken Daube, a senior columnist with talentedmrroto.com, a fantasy sports site.
“Denver running backs are being taken simply because of the success that system has had over the years,” Daube said, citing previous backfield prosperity from then-unknowns such as Mike Anderson, Olandis Gary and Reuben Droughns.
Experts in the field estimate there are between 15 million and 18 million fantasy sports players in the United States, and the number has grown 7 to 10 percent each of the past three years. About 85 percent of fantasy players play football, according to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association.
The rules are simple. In most leagues, points are given for passing, receiving and rushing yardage, offensive and defensive touchdowns, sacks, safeties and field goals. For example, in a league that doles out one point for every 25 yards and six points for each touchdown, a 150-yard, three-touchdown game from Tatum Bell would earn a team 24 points.
In leagues in which awards run from neighborhood bragging rights to several thousand dollars, each point is like platinum, making it even more important for fantasy general managers to anticipate real-life roster moves.
“I think (people) have to understand what I can and can’t say about the team,” said Mike Bell, the rookie running back and choice “sleeper” option in some drafts after starting throughout the preseason. “I have a job to do here.”
That doesn’t stop fantasy players from asking, though.
“If someone tells me I’ve been drafted, I just say, ‘OK, thanks,”‘ Tatum Bell said.
But what would he say to a guy in Fresno looking for a running-back option, say, in the fourth round?
“Draft me,” Tatum Bell said, without a hint of sarcasm. “I’m gonna have 1,000 (yards), regardless.”
Staff writer Robert Sanchez can be reached at 303-954-1282 or rsanchez@denverpost.com.
