Really. Don’t go away right off. It’s not about my team and how I lost by one yard to somebody. I don’t have a fantasy football team. Played one time, 10 years ago, didn’t really care for it, never been back.

I’ve been watching it as a phenomena, however, and I have to give this to NFL fantasy leagues:

They are taking the league places it normally would not have penetrated.

Here at The National, in Abu Dhabi, on the other side of the world from Los Angeles, the newsroom has several fantasy leagues. I’m not even sure how many. More than one for sure.

And one of those leagues has a batch of Brits in it.

That is amazing. That is huge for the NFL.

Despite the rise and fall of the NFL’s Euro-based World League, “American football” (as it is generally known to the Brits, surpassing usage of the word “gridiron”) … has to be more popular overseas than it ever has been.

The one semi-secret about fantasy anything leagues … that the leagues understand but sometimes the fantasizers do not … is that it familiarizes the unfamiliar with your league. They come to know the stars and the franchises, the trades and the hot rookies. All fantasy leagues do that, and that’s why they are good for sports.

I work with Brits who not only know the difference between the Jets and the Giants , they know who the top two running backs are for every team in the league.

True story: Three weeks ago, Arian Foster of the Houston Texans ran for 240 yards against the Colts.  I don’t play in a fantasy football league and I haven’t had a home team since 1994 … and I had no idea who Arian Foster was. OK, he played at Tennessee … but so have a lot of other guys.

I found out about Arian Foster only after those 240 rushing yards. Yet a British guy who sits across from me in the office not only already knew about him … he drafted him … and he had started him on his team in Week 1.

A decade ago, 1 Brit in 1,000 knows who an Arian Foster is.

Now, it may not be 30 in 1,000 — it takes a lot of cranial capacity to memorize every First XI in the Premiership — but it’s a lot higher than 1 in 1,000.

Guys from Leeds, Machester, London … they absolutely would crush me at this point in history if I joined their NFL fantasy league. Not that they have room for me, me only being an American and it being an American sport, and all. Their leagues are full up, thank you.

Every league should support all fantasy version of their games (does the NHL have one? does anybody play?), and give fans stat updates every few seconds on televised games (on the games NOT on that station, that is).

The NFL fantasy game, which is fairly simple, and fairly brief (17 weeks, counting playoffs), clearly is the most popular American fantasy game. I imagine the NFL knows it and will keep putting up fantasy info on its website, etc.

Because if the English guy across from me knows way more about Arian Foster than I do, something important is going on.