Sweating visibly as he surveyed a room of dual-monitor laptops and proprietary draft algorithms, local uncle Gary Higgins reportedly arrived at his family’s cutthroat fantasy football draft Sunday clutching the "F" volume of a 1993 World Book Encyclopedia. The 58-year-old was seen carefully adjusting his reading glasses to review the historical origins of the leather helmet before the first round began.
Sweating visibly as he surveyed a room of dual-monitor laptops and proprietary draft algorithms, local uncle Gary Higgins reportedly arrived at his family’s cutthroat fantasy football draft Sunday clutching the "F" volume of a 1993 World Book Encyclopedia. The 58-year-old was seen carefully adjusting his reading glasses and placing the four-pound, gold-embossed hardcover onto a folding table wedged between his nephews' color-coded spreadsheets. Witnesses confirmed Higgins immediately opened the book to a glossy two-page spread detailing the dimensions of a regulation field in order to familiarize himself with the basic mechanics of gridiron play.
As the twelve-team dynasty league began its high-stakes selection process, participants noted that Higgins remained silent, his finger tracing a column of text about the 1920 founding of the American Professional Football Association. While the rest of the room debated the hamstring integrity of rookie running backs and executed zero-RB strategies based on expected target shares, the nervous uncle was reportedly taking meticulous pencil notes on the structural transition from the flying wedge to the modern T-formation.
He used his entire two-minute clock in the first round just reading the entry on the 1985 Chicago Bears defense before asking the room if Walter Payton was still an active option.
Attempts to assist the elder Higgins were met with polite dismissals, as he insisted he just needed to cross-reference a few things before committing a large sum of fictional money to a roster. At 2:45 p.m., league members watched in stunned silence as Gary abruptly stood up, walked out to his 2011 Honda Accord, and returned carrying the "S" volume, explaining that he needed to ensure he fully comprehended how a safety was scored. He then spent several minutes trapped in a sidebar about the invention of the shoulder pad while his queue automatically selected a retired backup tight end.
At press time, a panicked Higgins had abandoned his encyclopedia research during the fifth round and simply drafted a local car dealership mascot he remembered seeing on television.