Fantasy Barbecue Team

I've been playing a fantasy football league via CBS Sportsline for four seasons and really enjoy it a lot. I won the league championship the first year in the league, but with fantasy team members Hines Ward, Peyton Manning, Peerless Price, and Marvin Harrision; I couldn't lose.

For most of that first season these four players as a group garnered more points than any other combination of players in the NFL. Of course, I'd like to say that I ended up with them on my team as a result of many hours of analysis, study and calculation, but in the end I have to admit that I picked Peyton Manning because he was my favorite player when he was in college at the University of Tennessee and Peerless Price was his favorite receiver during those years, but the others were just purely lucky selections. With the exception of Price, these players have consistently been some of the best performers in fantasy football for the past four years.

Likewise to win a competitive barbecue contest, luck does play a part at times. (1) The judges that end up judging your barbecue are completely out of your control as a barbecue cook. (2) The weather for the weekend, which will have a profound effect on your cooking times and ability to gain consistent performance from your barbecue smoker, is out of your control. (3) For the most part, the meat that you select from your meat supplier is purely happenstance. Sure, you can purchase your meat from a particular supplier and purchase a particular cut of meat or a cut prepared by a certain packing house, but you have no control over the particular cattle, pigs, or chicken that produced your barbecue entries and you certainly have no control over the guy in the slaughterhouse that processed it.

Don't get me wrong....I'm not saying that the top barbecue teams that consistently rise to the top at nearly every contest they enter do so because they are lucky. I submit to you that exactly the opposite is true. Barbecue cook teams like Bar B Quau, Lotta Bull, Smokin Triggers, Boys from Tornado Alley and Parrothead Smokers win a lot because they are able to take all the aspects where luck of the draw does come into play and consistently overcome them better than other cook teams.

If there was a fantasy barbecue league, those guys would certainly be at the top of my list come draft day.