The fantasy football season is right around the corner, and I can’t wait to start drowning myself in vegetarian buffalo wings (you heard me) and living and dying by my league’s stat tracker every Sunday.  But before that starts, we all have our own fantasy football draft day, a.k.a. the best day of the year this side of Opening Day.

So, in between practicing the art of my “I look like I care about your fantasy team, but I’m really thinking about doughnuts with pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles” face, dreaming up no-chance-in-hell trades, and studying mock drafts like I should have studied biology in hike school, I’ve been seeing three goons all over ESPN trying to give fantasy football advice.  ESPN refers to these guys as their fantasy football “experts” but I’ve always wondered what exactly makes them qualified to give us advice about players who will make or break our fantasy football teams.  Here are their credentials.

ERIK KUSELIAS

Pros: Mr. Kuselias is basically a bona fide genius.  He went to Brown University, an Ivy League school, for undergrad, went to Michigan Law School and was admitted into the Ph.D. program at Columbia University.  He’s also a member of MENSA, which only accepts people in the highest 2% for IQ.  Lastly, he’s the only guy on the panel with hair.

Cons: He’s apparently a die hard Hartford Whalers fan even though the team left Connecticut more than 10 years ago.  You know who else was a fan of something that had been dead for years?  Norman Bates.  He was the host of NASCAR Now on ESPN, but he only lasted a year before being replaced.  He has no known fantasy sports background.

MATTHEW BERRY

Pros: Mr. Berry claims to have been playing fantasy sports since he was 14 years old.  He started two fantasy websites called RotoPass.com and TalentedMrRoto.com, and he’s been ESPN’s director of fantasy sports since 2007.

Cons: He used to be a Hollywood writer, with Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles being his career highlight even though it was nominated for a Razzie award under the “Worst Remake or Sequel” category.  He often has unbearably long introduction sections in his articles that take some legitimate effort to skip.  He grew up in Texas, but is somehow an open Washington Redskins fan, and he cannot seem to stop starting sentences with, “Look…”

TIM HASSELBECK

Pros: Mr. Hasselbeck is a former NFL quarterback, and that’s about it.

Cons: He has more career interceptions (7) than touchdowns (5), and he recorded the lowest possible single-game passer rating against the Cowboys in 2003 by completing only 6 of 26 passes (23%) for 57 yards and 4 interceptions.  He is married to former Survivor contestant, Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

With all this in mind, the only one who seems to come close to being a fantasy football expert is Matthew Berry, but even he has a checkered past.  I don’t know about you, but I’ll be going a little more with my gut this year and a little less with these “experts” when I pick my team.

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