Tim Cowlishaw: Fantasy football obsession is all good � until it goes bad

My longest running addiction is in its 30s now, and I used to refrain from discussing it publicly until about a decade ago. That’s when I would walk into the Rangers clubhouse in, say, early June, and Michael Young would ask, “What are the Browns doing with their running backs?”

Or when the Rangers simply picking their draft order would have them, in the words of Mark DeRosa, “giggling like schoolgirls.”

Then there was the Super Bowl where Beyonce talked about how she and Jay Z follow their teams every Sunday.

And then there was Sunday night when I tuned the radio to XM 87 and heard a former NFL physician, now (at)profootballdoc, claiming a 92 percent success rate in predicting injury recovery rates for fantasy players last year.

Fantasy football. Like it or not, it is everywhere.

I will refrain from giving you a detailed description of the overly complicated blind auction fantasy league that currently causes me sleepless nights. I feel like I may have put in an expensive bid late Saturday on Tennessee running back Bishop Sankey, something even the Titans would shy away from. But it may have been a bad dream.

I don’t keep records of these things, but I believe my first pick ever was St. Louis’ Ottis Anderson in 1982, which tells you I have been engaged in this shadowy pursuit for ages.

Of course, I have always been able to play the “It Helps Me With My Job” card, knowing full well I would be doing this if I were waiting tables.

In the ‘90s, I wrote virtually all of the copy for a national magazine’s first foray into fantasy football. I won’t say which one because you might find a way to uncover my “Ryan Leaf Will Be Better Than Peyton Manning” story.

Back then, fantasy was in its infancy. Today, well, when I say it’s everywhere, I challenge you to listen to a sports talk station for 30 minutes and not hear a Draft Kings or Fan Duel ad.

Every sports telecast provides a crawl across the bottom with individual stats for the fantasy players. Starting Sunday, the NFL’s Red Zone channel will provide viewers every scoring play as it happens around the league. You think that isn’t fantasy fueled?

Of course, the fantasy craze has crossed over to other sports. When he’s not matriculating toward his degree, my son at George Mason spends a considerable amount of time stocking his daily hockey fantasy teams with Islanders and Capitals. Says he has a formula ... but he still asks for monthly checks.

Naturally, football rules the fantasy kingdom, and the NFL can’t even begin to calculate how many of the billions of dollars it generates annually are indirectly related to the fantasy obsession.

It’s all good.

Until it goes bad.

For now, there’s nothing to fear at AT&T Stadium. Jerry Jones has built a magnificent tribute to outrageous excess, and fans come from miles around to see it. Of course, when the team is average, thousands of those fans show up in the visiting team’s jerseys, but that still beats empty seats.

Following a 12-4 season, I would expect a higher percentage of actual Cowboys fans at Cowboys home games in 2015. But that doesn’t mean you won’t have some guy next to you checking his phone and exclaiming, “Ameer Abdullah just scored for me!”

This is something you should avoid even though we know that the appeal of fantasy has gone mainstream. A man trying to impress a female friend of mine a few years ago momentarily lost his focus and shouted, “Pujols hit a home run? I have him on two of my teams!”

She looked at me and mouthed, “What does that even mean?”

Fantasy football might keep fans engaged in December in cities where teams have lost their playoff hopes. But it also divides fans’ interests. As more and more people care about their teams first and foremost and not the local club, cynicism grows.

If free agency and monstrous salaries and outrageous ticket prices have driven fans from the stadiums or reduced the connection with the local team, fantasy madness will only do more of the same.

But that appears to be in the distant future. For now, fantasy remains the NFL’s best friend. I mean who can get seriously concerned about the league’s denial of medical evidence on concussions for years when there’s another game to play and your team is in first place.

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