So I was creeping through the Better Half’s Facebook page the other day, and one of her friends posted about how her new husband had the audacity to watch a preseason football game, thus auguring the beginning of her fantasy football widowhood for the season. Several more women commented on the post, agreeing in the most venomous tones possible about how their husbands or boyfriends were guilty of the same crime.

What they don’t understand is that men use fantasy football as an excuse to watch the preseason. They may claim that they need to watch the games as research, but this is one of the great fallacies of our time. In truth, there is not an iota of useful fantasy information to be gleaned from the preseason.

Actually, useful might not be the right word. Trustworthy is more accurate.

Can you believe in any of the statistics that come out of the preseason? Not really. You’ve got first-stringers against second-stringers, teams playing the most vanilla offenses and defenses possible so as not to reveal anything noteworthy to other teams scouting them, and star players just trying to get in their time without ever getting hurt, if they even get on the field at all.

Now, ladies, this is where your fantasy-playing significant other will try to sell you on the fact that he needs to watch the game to avoid all of the pitfalls of the deceitful statistics. But without knowing the motivations of the coaches and the players, he might as well be watching a game of Madden.

He’ll tell you that the preseason is the best place to get a glimpse of fantasy sleepers, guys who use the preseason to announce to the world that they’re going to be a force in the upcoming season. Take a guy like Anthony Dixon, a no-name who rumbled for 100 yards in one early preseason game for the San Francisco 49ers. Surely that means that he’ll be a factor once the season starts, right?

Wrong. The 49ers thought so much of Dixon’s brilliant efforts that they went out and signed Brian Westbrook, who might as well be made of glass at this point, to be the backup running back. Unless certain leagues award points for busting wedges and spraying water down Frank Gore’s gullet during timeouts, Dixon doesn’t have much fantasy value anymore.

So why watch preseason football? Because it’s on, of course.

And now, thanks to the NFL Network, it’s on all the time. We’re talking a continuous stream of preseason games, broadcast and rebroadcast, so I can come home at any time of the day and see fantastically random guys like Curtis Painter and Kregg Lumpkin in all their ineffectual glory. It’s strangely mesmerizing for reasons I can’t fully explain.

There are other charms to watching the preseason action. I particularly like NFL Network’s replays because you get to hear the local announcers, which is usually good for a laugh or two. There is usually a combination of an annoying local anchor with a broadcasting-school voice doing play-by-play with some former player who desperately wants to get to the networks on color.

On the Eagles-Jaguars game last week, for instance, the local Philly play-by-play guy insisted on calling LeSean McCoy “Shady McCoy” each and every time he touched the ball. He was so proud to know this obscure nickname. Hugh Douglas resisted the urge to blind-side the snot for stealing his airtime.

Mostly though, it’s the whiff of authenticity that makes me watch an NFL preseason game over, say, an Arena League game, which I wouldn’t watch if they played one in my garage.

It’s great to see all the familiar colors and faces again, to see the stars, even if it's only for a few plays at half speed. And, every once in a while, something truly newsworthy happens, like Eli Manning spewing blood like Jake LaMotta because Tom Coughlin felt the need to risk the Giants season over a rivalry with a team they don’t even play when it counts.

Had I missed that, well, I wouldn’t have missed it because I would have watched the replay, but, still, you get the point.

But do I get any Fantasy edge from watching preseason? That’s a big negative. LaDainian Tomlinson has looked great for the Jets. That won’t make me forget the last two years when he ran like that other LT, Leon Trotsky. (Give me a break. You try finding notable LTs who aren’t athletes for a sarcastic comparison.)

So, ladies, don’t fall for the ruse. When he’s watching some God-awful Lions-Rams game in the regular season instead of a matchup between top teams, that’s because it’s directly affecting his fantasy game. When he’s watching a preseason game, it’s just because he likes pro football.

Or he’s trying to get away from you.