For many gay men, fantasy football conjures images of jockstraps, locker rooms, and quality “alone time” with a Chi Chi La Rue video.

But for millions of straight and GLBT football fans, fantasy football has become a maddening and addictive obsession. On game days, fantasy players will pour over statistics, such as the number of points the Packers’ defense allowed, or the number of touchdowns LaDainian Tomlinson rushed for. You see, fantasy players don’t care who wins or loses a game. No, instead they care about individual performances. In some cases, an added yard to a Nate Kaeding field goal could mean the difference between winning or losing, regardless whether the kick affects the outcome of the actual game.

This year marked my first foray into the realm of fantasy football. I joined a league with my three older brothers and four of my nephews. The idea to have a family league was hatched by my brother Lance, who is a firefighter in Los Angeles (hence the LAFD hat you see in my photo).

When our mother passed away last year, we lost the person the four of us took time out of our own lives to gather around. Lance thought this league might be a great way for us to stay in touch regularly during the year, by including something we love to do anyway, which is follow football.

Most would say my brothers and I don’t have a lot in common. Two of them are at least 11 years older than I am, have been married for at least 20 years and, between them, have eight kids. One is extremely conservative, a devout Mormon and was even a missionary. I’m the youngest, and, at 34, I’m still six years younger than the next youngest brother in the family, Lance, who is also about to get married to his longtime girlfriend. In addition to life experiences, current familial status, and broadly different political views, my brothers and I all have very different lives.

The one thing we do have in common is a great love for football. We all played at some point, and a couple of us even played in college. Brian once tried out for the Arizona Cardinals. Hell, there’s even a rumor that my name, Roman, came about because my oldest brother Blaine is a Rams fan, and their quarterback for years was named Roman Gabriel.

So, at Lance’s behest we decided to use football as the adhesive to repair the damage caused when we lost our mother.

I entered the game as a bit of an underdog. Almost all of my brothers and nephews had been in fantasy leagues before, while I was considered a “virgin.”

My immersion into this realm began at the end of summer, when I trekked to Phoenix, where most of the family now lives. We had a draft party, where we picked the players we wanted according to what we had guessed their overall individual productivity would be, not based on whether the teams they were on would have good seasons.

My nephew Junior wound up with the marquee player, Tomlinson, and I got Peyton Manning. In fantasy play, running backs are the top prize because they are usually the ones who cross the goal line the most. Because touchdowns score the most cumulative points, fantasy managers covet the players who score them with ease. Fortunately, Tomlinson got off to a slow start this year, while Manning was hot. This allowed my pass-happy quarterback to pretty much single-handedly win me some games in the early going.

To start the season, I was 4-1 after five weeks, but then lost steam as Manning cooled off. I dropped six of my last 11 games, finishing up at only 9-7, barely good enough for a fourth place standing out of eight other players.

Fantasy football changed how I watched the game. Normally I’m a sit-on-the-couch-and-watch kind of fan, and my previous habits had me casually enjoying a game with some snacks, friends, and, occasionally, a margarita or five.

But this year I sat on the couch with my laptop, intently watching ESPN before every kick-off, wondering who was going to play and who was injured, what conditions were like in Green Bay and if the Vikings were going to start their star running back. When the games actually started, my laptop stayed put and stayed logged on to the stats page for my particular starters, and I clicked “refresh” every few minutes to watch as my players across the country caught, passed or intercepted balls, accruing points all the while.

Instead of screaming at the TV when Chargers QB Phillip Rivers failed to read a zone blitz and threw an interception, I was yelling, through the computer screen, at Eli Manning for completing a pass to Jeremy Shockey instead of Plaxico Burress, whom I had started that week in the place of Donald Driver.

And now that it’s over, for this year anyway, I find that I sort of miss that casual fan I had been, when I didn’t care that much about YACs (yards after a catch) or incompletions. Now I’m a stat-happy football freak who logs onto Adam4Adam to ask my friend Jeff for his football picks so I can compare them with mine before locking my roster in for that week.

Yes, fantasy football has changed other things, too, such as how often I talk to my brothers and nephews. It turns out we have more in common than I thought. For example, we all think a two-tight-end set is a bad way to run a fantasy offense.

For more information about fantasy football, try my favorite site: www.myfantasyleague.com.