Lamar Miller fumbled. Joe Flacco threw an interception. Brandon Weeden did not. Chris Johnson and Shonn Greene both ran for long Titans touchdowns. All true statements, but what do any of them mean for you, the fantasy football player? These observations and others were the impetus for millions of tweets over the first couple nights of preseason football attempting to answer that question. Many interesting and entertaining tweets, too. What seemed new to me this year was that for every hyperbolic tweet concerning a preseason play there were two making fun of preseason hyperbole. These were even more interesting and entertaining. It's very hard to figure out which are the important takeaways from the preseason's first games. That's not my job, thank god. I watch, I take notes, I have ideas, but I don't share them. It's the scientist in me. I don't like to speak up until I know all the facts--and week one of the preseason is quite far from all the facts. But preseason hype is fascinating to me, so I wanted to see how neuroscience might be able to explain its existence.
First off, let's take the hype generators, the hype train engineers. I'm talking about the analysts, from armchair to ESPN, who live tweet the games, who seemingly write blog posts faster than I can sip my beer, analyzing the fantasy implications of each game on a play by play basis. A staggering amount of "knowledge" is generated. This is amazing. Having access to the interpretations and opinions of all the best minds in football at once is what makes Twitter the best thing to ever happen to fantasy sports. In order for hype to be generated, people need to take a stand, stake out an opinion and prediction based on what they've seen on the field. Because so many people analyze football for fantasy purposes, there are a ton of opinions and predictions on any given player or system. The whole purpose of putting your opinion out there is so you can show later on that you were right. If you're right, then more people will pay attention to your future opinions, and pretty soon you have a nice following. As I wrote about last time, being right stimulates the reward circuitry in our brain, leading to that pleasurable release of dopamine that makes us feel so good. It's the same pathway that drugs or sex take advantage of to get you to do them more. So you try to find a different take than anyone else, and you try to be first with your opinion. You might even go out on a limb with your prediction. Studies show that making a riskier move that pays off is more rewarding than a less risky move yielding the same result. I mean, if you tell me on August 9, 2013 that Brandon Weeden will be a top 5 fantasy QB this year, and he IS a top 5 QB come December, I'll swoon, I promise. And I won't be alone.
Which brings me to the audience. Not that there isn't a significant overlap, there definitely is. You can ride the hype train and take a turn as conductor. Why are we so receptive to the hype? Some part of us knows that it's only early preseason, a million things can happen, and there are a hundred reasons we might see what we see on any given play. But still, we buy in for the most part. The first thing is, we have waited FOREVER for this preseason. We are not blessed with a 9 month season (ahem, NHL--still not worth it). We are starved for *real* football data and game analysis. We had the combine, we had the draft, but for most of us, those were like the raw veggies of the appetizer course. We're now on to the stuffed mushrooms and bruschetta, aka week 1 of the preseason games. It's better than raw cauliflower, but what is yet to come in weeks 3 and 4...bacon wrapped shrimp, spanakopita, pigs in a blanket...will be a lot more satisfying. The regular season will be the filet and lobster tails if you're not following here. Anyway, it's week 1 and we're hungry, so we eat up all the analysis and opinion we can.
That hunger, the craving we have for NFL football, the anticipation, it all leads to heady excitation, especially on game days. The way the brain signals excitation is through changing its levels of certain neurochemicals. The one to focus on here is norepinephrine (NE), which is closely related to adrenaline. The job of NE in the brain is to set the responsiveness of neurons, individual brain cells, to stimuli. When there is more NE, neurons react more quickly and more strongly to incoming information. Not surprisingly, levels of NE change throughout the day, going essentially to zero while we sleep. One of the indirect effects of caffeine is to increase NE, thereby making you more alert and ready to deal with whatever comes your way. NE can also be increased by internal states. As football approaches, football related memories become activated, you plan games you might attend, dream about your team winning the superbowl, your fantasy team winning the league, and you are feeling happy. The combination of these states-positive emotion, memory, and looking ahead--stimulate various populations of neurons that can lead to the release of more NE. Think of NE as the fuel that the hype train runs on.
So watching or reading about your team's RB running hard, breaking tackles, and generally looking like a stud out there for 3 or 4 plays is more than enough to fill the NE tank. You're primed and ready to roll when the analysis starts flying, the predictions get crazy, and the hope springs eternal. Except for Joe Flacco fans. Sorry guys, not looking good for y'all. OK, there, I did it too. Enjoy the ride.
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