Fantasy Football Draft Unveils Startling Transformations Among Old Friends

Has anyone else noticed that the longer you’re in a fantasy football league, the more it starts to feel like an awkward biology symposium with a beer cooler and twelve slowly decomposing science experiments? I mean, really—when did “draft day” become less about strategic picks and more about marveling at your buddies’ alarming new bodily developments? As if you’re playing “Guess Who?” with adult-onset eczema, mysterious jowls, and mesh shorts as the wild card . It’s deeply unsettling, also wildly entertaining—kind of like seeing what fate, genetics, and Ozempic have cooked up this year, all while pretending to care about who’s got the best running back sleeper. Maybe the real fantasy is that anyone escapes unscathed from another year’s physical decline—unless, of course, you’re that one guy whose garage never changes, no matter what grotesqueries unfold within. LEARN MORE

SAN DIEGO—Calling the in-person gathering an exciting chance to check in on old friends, local resident Anthony Crews told reporters Thursday that this week’s in-person fantasy football draft had been a great excuse to see how weird-looking everyone in his 12-person keeper league was getting. “It’s really less about who I get at tight end and more about seeing who’s balding, who’s putting on weight in strange places, who’s got intensely jacked calves from cycling—it’s a fun surprise every time,” said Crews, describing the four-hour snake draft as a perfect opportunity to hang out and compare asymmetrical physiques, gross skin blotches, unruly neck hair, and whatever other biological oddities had developed since the previous year. “Mike started taking Ozempic, and it’s given him these huge, pendulous jowls—makes a whistling sound whenever he says ‘McCaffrey.’ And something’s going on with Andy’s knees. They look super dry and scaly, and I know they weren’t that way at the last draft, because he was wearing the exact same pair of mesh shorts. Also, I don’t know what happened to Mark, but I’m pretty sure he used to be able to move the left side of his face.” Crews added that while his league mates’ appearances had continued to deteriorate, they could all take solace in the fact that the commissioner’s mother’s garage hadn’t changed one bit.