I just absolutely love the retort Rodney Harrison had for Joey Porter a couple days ago. After a bunch of smack talk from Porter, now a member of the Dolphins, claiming he and the fins were going to take apart the Patriots on Sunday, Harrison had the following to say:

“The great thing about football, about sports is, you get an opportunity to prove it. It doesn’t matter what I say, he says, or what anyone else says. You have your opportunity to prove it. Just prove it on Sunday. Talk is talk. Just prove it.”

This is a classic statement, in my opinion. It speaks volumes about the NFL and its relationship to fantasy football. As I emphasize in my new book, The Art of Fantasy Football: Mastering the Metagame, true mastery involves mirroring the emotion and the intensity of the NFL. Professional football – more than most, if not all sports – is a highly emotional endeavor. The speed and ferocity of the game forces its players to call upon any technique to ratchet up the adrenaline. Human beings thrive on emotion and that’s what it means to get “fired up”. Emotion is like a fuel that ignites our will and intensity. It is a focusing technique.

Rodney Harrison is the type of player you want to be aligned with in the world of fantasy football. No matter which way it goes on Sunday, he cares. He has something to prove. Same with Joey Porter. I want to be involved with players like Porter and Harrison . This is what I am always striving to do in fantasy; align myself with outstanding players who are dedicated to the same thing I am: proving it on the field.

I win so many trophies and create league dynasties because I tune in to what is really happening in the world of the NFL. This is the “fantasy” part of the football, me tuning into it. I utilize all of my research, number crunching, schedule preparation and all the different techniques I discuss in my book, to achieve a state of oneness with my dudes.

This is how I prove it on Sunday and beat my opponents. I don’t just talk about it. I do all this insane research and preparation and then I pick and nurture players who want it more than the other ones. They want it more, just like I do. I want doers, not talkers. I want a Rodney Harrison, a Joey Porter.

More to the point, I am Joey Porter and Rodney Harrison.

This past weekend after obliterating my week one opponent (our league commissioner) he stated with disgust how lucky I always am. His take on me was that it didn’t matter who I put in. If I had started Ronnie Brown then he would have gotten two hundred yards and three touchdowns. He must have been referring to all the points Willie Parker and Michael Turner got me on Sunday. Conversely, my friend argued, the guys he started always seemed doomed to failure. (I don't have Ronnie Brown, by the way, and neither should you.) His point was that I was lucky at fantasy football and he wasn’t.

You know what? He’s right.

The thing is, though, I don’t view luck as something that happens to me but something I make happen. I create my own luck and it feels good. Like karma, luck is something I generate myself through my actions. My preparations are consistent and conducive with success and that is why good things constantly happen to me in the world of fantasy football.

Just as karma implies a reaction to a prior action, luck is the universe’s response to solid preparation. Let’s briefly break down my friend’s psychology on this whole subject. Was it luck that Willie Parker and Michael Turner had such wonderful performances? True, maybe not a lot of people saw it coming. I stole these guys in the middle rounds of the draft because Fast Willie had a disappointing season last year and was coming of a broken leg and Burner Turner was an unproven commodity as a starter because he was Tomlinson’s backup. People were very unsure about them. But I wasn’t.

Both of these guys looked absolutely awesome in the preseason and the vibes all through training camp were outstanding. According to everyone Fast Willy looked better than ever. He was back in 2006 form, the year he helped win me the league trophy. Watching him in the preseason confirmed what I heard. He looked great. Also, the Steeler offense was now geared to be pass-happy, with Santonio Holmes emerging and a new commitment to open up the offense. This was obviously going to have a positive effect on Willie Parker, which was proven on Sunday. The same was true of Turner. He looked great in camp and in the exhibition season and the Falcons were committed to getting him the ball. I had poured over the NFL schedule for weeks prior to our draft and I realized both these guys had excellent matchups from start to finish, especially in a division with relatively poor defenses they were destined to play twice that year. I thought they’d be overlooked in the draft and they were. I thought they’d come out banging right away at the beginning of the season and they did.

I thoroughly research and prepare. I put myself in a position to succeed. Is it luck? I don’t know what you call it but it might as well be the same thing. I appear lucky to my opponents because I manifest what is happening. I use what is naturally occurring to make things happen. I create my own reality. It sounds esoteric and goofy but it is scientific and real. Humans tend to see events in a linear way and so things seem more magical than they are. They see Parker and Turner go ballistic and chalk it up to blind chance when in reality the truth is far different. Other people whom I dominate in fantasy people are unlucky (especially against me) because they are not nearly as prepared as I am. In The Art of Fantasy Football, I show you how to create this type of luck for yourself.

I am lucky at fantasy football. Luck is one of the key reasons I consistently win and create league dynasties. However, my concept of luck is not the one most people understand. This is why so many people hold the false notion that fantasy football is a game based on luck. It isn’t. Or maybe it is. It all depends on how you define the word and the process. And as you now see I prefer to create my own definitions. I define my own terms. And I manifest my own destiny: I take down the trophy and scoop the cash. In fantasy football, nothing else matters.

Seek to create your own luck. This is the way to mastery in fantasy football.