It's dizzying, no?

Mr. Feely, whose team, "Just Kickin' It," steamrolled the league last year in the regular season but lost in the first round of the playoffs, sees it as more of a fun time than a crazed experience. Last season, while with the Dolphins, he sauntered over to league-mate Jerricho Cotchery of the Jets during warm-ups. The two had a conversation about their fantasy teams. Minutes later they faced each other in an official NFL game.

And Mr. Jones-Drew, who starts Dallas Clark as his tight end, found himself rooting for the Indianapolis pass-catcher in a game two weeks ago.

While his team was playing against him.

"I wanted him to have a good game," he says, "but for us to win."

Mr. Jones-Drew readily admits that his mother ran a fantasy team for him last year ("It's all me this year, though!" he says). Sitting on a 3-1 record, he has emerged as an early favorite in the NFL Players league, but he doesn't want to leave anything to chance.

"I want to call some of the guys on my team and tell them I need them to have good games," he says. He refers to himself as, "one of these coaches" who runs a "strict organization." After perennial All-Pro Chad Ocho Cinco got off to an uncharacteristically slow start, Mr. Jones-Drew dropped him.

Adding to the sense of the surreal in this league is the commissioner, Summer Sanders, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming and the former host of "NBA Inside Stuff." She isn't just a pretty face that the organizers threw into the mix. She's been playing fantasy football for four years and serves as the commissioner of the "Girls Night Out Fantasy Football League," an all-female competition.

Already, more players are asking NFL Players, the marketing arm of their union, to include them next season. Mr. London says more of his players want to get involved, too.

The agent brings up Bears rookie running back Matt Forte as an example. Besides distinguishing himself as one of the more impressive fantasy performers to date, Mr. Forte also moonlights as a fantasy football player, in multiple leagues. But don't go looking for a manager named "mattforte22" in your league. Mr. London says that his client uses different handles so people won't know who he is.

NFL Players has hit on something that even the staunchest opponent of fantasy football would have trouble criticizing. One would be hard-pressed to find a grumpy old-school media personality who would be willing to accuse fantasy "nerds" like Mr. June or Mr. Jackson of fitting the tired stereotype of "living in their mother's basement on the computer." The NFL Players league may not be the most competitive or the deepest of leagues, but it is revolutionary. The players had long ago served as fantasy football's driving force. Now they're taking it over, using pseudonyms, clever handles and locker room chatter to beat us in fantasy off the field while they pummel our favorite team on it.