Fantasy Gazette

Durham, NC – The Kettlemans are like any other blue-collared, red-blooded American family. They enjoy summer vacations to Myrtle Beach, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and their golden retreiver, Sadie. They also like the National Football League. More specifically, the draft…which they’ve just gathered together to watch this Thursday evening in addition to an absolutely soul-crushing amount of white guilt.

“I can’t wait to see who my beloved Carolina Panthers take first this year,” said father Sean Kettleman. “It’s going to be great to see our next franchise player get selected, but my god it wrecks me to watch a young black man get involuntarily chosen to work for a bunch of old white guys that are in a completely different room. They just parade them around on that stage, it’s horrible. On the other hand, it’s super cool to see them hold up their jerseys.”

The Kettlemans and their children are also internally damaged by the sheer amount of horrible life circumstances they’ll soon learn these young African-American athletes went through on their journey to play professional football. “My favorite team is the purple birds [Baltimore Ravens],” said Rebecca Kettleman, age 9. “But I’m scared the men on TV will say our new player’s cousins were all gunned down in front of him after a fight broke out at his middle school basketball game. That part makes me sad.”

NFL fans across the nation share the family’s sentiments, with previous draft nights drawing backlash for revealing personal stories within player families like drug addiction, death, and incarceration. For the Kettlemans, it’s another brutal night facing the realities of a still-healing America.

“I’ve been learning a lot about slavery in my history class this semester,” said Maxton Kettleman, age 13. “Did you know in America they used to hand-pick the guys that came over on boats for work and possibly trade them to different plantations as well? Sorry, what was the question? Oh, right, right, my favorite team is the Eagles!”

Neighbors have said the NFL draft is a rough night for the neighborhood, with the Kettleman family loudly going back and forth from excited cheers regarding the NFL’s upcoming seasons to gut-wrenching sobs about the fractured state of America’s racial lines.

At press time, the family was excitedly watching an incoming black quarterback’s highlight reel after his top-10 selection, but were quickly brought down by an emotional avalanche when a graphic revealed he had been called the n-word 17 times by opposing fans at his college games and that his grandmother was personal friends with Emmett Till.