By MATT ROSENFELD

I have a dilemma. I’m an avid football fan. I like college and professional football more than any other sport and it’s not even close. Like most big football fans these days, I participate in fantasy football. If you think about it, fantasy football is the best invention for the common football fan. It gives you a rooting interest in almost every game, every weekend, and when money is on the line things are always more interesting.

Most sports fans dream of being the general manager of a football team. We all think we can make the right decision on who to play, who to sit and when to drop a certain player. Fantasy football seems to be all the fun in the world. But late last year, when I was competing for my fantasy league’s title, I realized something:

I hate the way fantasy football makes me watch the NFL.

The easiest way I can explain it is that it pulls your heart in so many different directions that it’s only a matter of time until it breaks. If you’re just a casual fan of a team (let’s say, the Giants) and you don’t play fantasy football, your happiness on Monday morning is directly proportional to your team’s success. If the Giants win their game, you have had a successful football weekend. If they don’t, however, you’re counting the days until next Sunday.

That’s how I used to be. Until I was 17 or 18, I just rooted for my team, the Giants. I went as they went. Then, I started to play fantasy football and, after putting a lot of thought into this, I think I can explain how fantasy football ruins the NFL viewing experience.

The fantasy element drastically expands the spectrum of good and bad football weekends. Instead of being on a scale of zero to one, now this scale is one to 100. There are many more possible results, and a much smaller chance that you reach the pinnacle of a successful football weekend.

I’ll use myself as an example. I currently partake in three fantasy leagues, along with being a big New York Giants fan. Come Tuesday morning, the results of four games will factor into my mood, one real, three virtual. The Giants come first. I always, put the team I’m rooting for in front of my fantasy results. I don’t know how anybody can do otherwise, and I’m definitely judging you if you do. If the Giants win, it’s a good week.

But, instead of just ending there, I have three other games to worry about. If the Giants win and all of my fantasy teams lose, well, it’s still a good week, but not nearly as good as when I just worried about how the Giants played.

If you reverse it and say all my fantasy teams won, but the Giants did not, again, I’m a little happy but still a bit sad. Rarely do I have a week where all of my teams win across the board, and rarely is there a time when all of my teams lose. The result is me, just stuck in this gray area of happy and sad with the way the football weekend went.

And that’s just the big picture of fantasy. The real problem comes with watching the games that have nothing to do with the Giants. I love football, and I enjoy watching the game for the game itself, not so much certain players. With fantasy added, however I turn into a guy that only wants Matt Stafford to throw to Calvin Johnson, or yelling at the 49ers to give Anquan Boldin the ball more often. Rarely can I sit back and just take in a good game because I’m more concerned with the stats that my players are or are not putting up.

I fully understand why fantasy is great. So many people have reasons to watch so many more games because of it. Would the average fan watch the Vikings and Browns game that will be on Sunday? Probably not. But, if a fantasy owner has Adrian Peterson or Trent Richardson, he or she certainly will tune in.

Week after week, I find myself always a little bit stressed, a little bit upset and always on edge about my fantasy teams and the decisions that come with it. So why do I do it? Because I think I’ll win a little money in the end. And guess what? I rarely do. Is it worth it? That’s my dilemma.

I ask myself the same thing every year.

Every August I come close to cutting off all fantasy ties and trying to enjoy the Giants and the NFL season as a whole. I never do it, though. And, I probably never will. I withstand the ups and downs. I hope the Giants make the playoffs, because that’s when I can shower them with unconditional love. I can’t give fantasy football up, because, unfortunately, this light form of gambling is too much fun when you win…and I always think that I’m going to win.