Old People Fantasy Football Is Adorable

A Massachusetts nursing home has started a fantasy football league for its residents, to give them something to do on Sundays. If their teams are anything like mine, that "something to do" is likely "wishing for death."

At the Beaumont Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Center outside Worcester, a dozen seniors have joined the league, and attendance in the common room on Sunday afternoons has doubled. But with the youngest GM being 77, it's unlikely they know their PPR from their DNR (do not resuscitate). Wait, let's try that joke again without the implied death: none of them drafted receivers because they're not aware that the forward pass is now legal.

Basically, the league scoring is a little simplified.

The seniors took turns drafting entire teams, and points are based on those teams' wins. Ed Wallace wanted the Patriots in the first round, but had to settle for the Bears, who are steadily cutting his life expectancy with every Jay Cutler pick.

Wallace likes to tease [Phyllis] Patterson, a former Natick resident, about her management of the Pats and promises to buy a red Cadillac with his league "winnings.''

Barbara King, 87, of Quincy said she joined the house league because football was her favorite professional sport. "Baseball is too slow,'' she said.

She monitors her teams - the Cincinnati Bengals, the Houston Texans, and the Cleveland Browns - with a teddy bear named "Champ'' on her lap.

What are the odds of the league being ruined by the young (read: late-70's) lady who doesn't know anything about football, but drafted the Saints and Colts because she liked their uniforms?

In A League Of Their Own [Boston Globe]