Morris has seen his league flourish over the years, much like fantasy football in general. He has gone from struggling to fill a six-man league in the inaugural season of 2000 to having guys plead for a spot each time he has an opening in what has now become a 12-man league.

Operating as if they were owners of their own NFL franchises, Morris and the other members of the Big Dawg League convened on a recent Saturday for their player draft. Each week during the NFL regular season, members play head-to-head, and the person whose players put up the best statistics wins.

While each fantasy football league varies at some level, the overall draw of the hobby across the nation is the same. Fantasy football has existed since the early 1960s, but the Internet caused it to surge in popularity in the last five years.

A recent report by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a Chicago employment research firm that tracks corporate office trends, suggested that the 36.8 million fantasy football participants cost employers as much as $1.1 billion every week in lost productivity during the NFL season.

Sportswriter Ed Barkowitz has written a fantasy football column for the Philadelphia Daily News since 2001 and said he receives an average of 25 to 30 e-mails a week during the regular season from fans looking for advice on roster moves for their teams.

Imagine walking into McDonald's one Saturday morning in 2001 to pick up your Egg McMuffin, looking over into the corner near the Playland ball pit and seeing six grown men drafting NFL players for their fantasy football league.

By the second season, though, Morris knew he needed something to take his league to the next level. He decided to invite some women from the area to run his draft board.

Like most other fantasy football participants, Metz has joined a few other leagues since his baptism into the craze. He said he spends $300 to $350 on fantasy football each year. That includes his league entry fees, transaction fees that many leagues charge and assistance tools, such as fantasy football magazines and Web sites.

``I start usually the first part of August buying magazines, and once (the season) gets closer, it's just like me studying to become a firefighter or taking a test for a job. I study every day for an hour, sometimes two hours a day,'' said Metz, 26, who also calls himself ``The Guru.'' His friends refer to him as the ``Buffalo Bills of fantasy football'' because he advances deep into the playoffs every year, but has never won it all.

Morris said he spends even more time and money than Metz, as much as four hours a day, even ``sneaking in time at work.'' He estimated he pays $600 to $700 to play.

Dave Cross was so committed to his fantasy football league in Akron that he didn't let a little thing like moving 125 miles away stop him from participating.

Now the head of his own mortgage company in Westerville, near Columbus, Cross grew up in Cuyahoga Falls and started a league called the ``Legendary Egos'' with four of his high school friends in 1992.

Cross said he spends about 90 minutes per day during the season on fantasy football, especially late on Sunday nights. He scours the waiver wire to check for free-agent pickups and reviews the top performers of the day to locate trade opportunities.

It also helps that Cross purchases DirecTV's Sunday NFL Ticket, which allows him to watch every NFL game from 1 p.m. Sunday afternoon until the wee hours of Monday morning.

Also a big believer in fantasy football aids, Cross said he subscribes to numerous Web sites and one magazine, in addition to his $125 league entry fee.

Of the millions of people participating in online fantasy games, those engaging in fantasy football do so in much higher numbers than any of the other professional sports leagues.

Buffalo Wild Wings has been advertising itself as the home for fantasy football drafts, offering $100 worth of free food, free CBSsportsline.com draft boards and cheat sheets, weekly player reports and fantasy magazines to any league that holds its player draft there.

Aeros catcher David Wallace participates in a 10-man league made up primarily of current teammates Dan Denham, Travis Foley, Adam Miller, Pat Osborn, Sean Smith and Jim Ed Warden.

It is a common reality of fantasy football that an owner might have to draft players from a rival of his favorite NFL team and correspondingly root for them on Sundays.

Facing the conundrum of cheering for the Browns your whole life but having Ben Roethlisberger as your fantasy quarterback is too much for some to handle. Many people end up setting aside any loyalties to one particular franchise to embrace the one they actually own.

Most fantasy football fans would argue they have actually become bigger football fans and that the addictive hobby has done wonders for the NFL.

Plus, it doesn't seem that fantasy football will be going away any time soon, with almost every major sports Web site or publication catering to a new, growing audience with pages and pages of content.

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