10,000 Americans Searched 'NFL Inactives Today.' Breece Hall Still Didn't Play

More than 10,000 people in this country went to Google on Sunday morning and typed "nfl inactives today," the biggest number on the Trends list when we looked. Another 200 or so asked it in plainer language: "is jonathan taylor playing today." You'll notice that's not a question anyone asks about a loved one. Nobody has ever typed "is my father coming to Thanksgiving," and if they did, Google would have a better answer than the family does.

For the fortunate among you, the inactive list is what a team publishes shortly before kickoff, naming the players on the roster who won't suit up. It's a piece of paperwork, and it has become the most anxiously awaited document in American life since the draft notice. The reason is fantasy sports, which the Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association says 53 million Americans played over the past year, though that number covers every sport and not just football. Let's say a good share of them have a running back. The league has gotten tens of millions of grown adults to care about a stranger's quadriceps, which is more than most of those adults can say for their own.

Jonathan Taylor, for those 200 people, was fine. Ian Rapoport reported him officially active for the Colts in Jacksonville. Breece Hall of the Jets was not. ESPN's Rich Cimini reports he missed his fifth straight game with a quad injury, leaving Braelon Allen to carry on against the Raiders. The fifth straight. If you were still checking on Hall this morning, you're not a fantasy manager anymore, you're a widow who sets a place at the table. The Jets are hopeful he'll be back next week against Kansas City. Being hopeful is the whole of the Jets' football operation, and it has been since about the Nixon administration.

My favorite name on the list was Tim Patrick, a Jets wide receiver who was inactive as what they call a healthy scratch. That means there's nothing wrong with him, and they looked him over and said no thank you. The NFL is the only employer in America that'll publish that about you on a Sunday, by name, while 10,000 people refresh the page to read it.

I've come around to the system. When I go, I'd like to be listed as questionable right up until an hour and a half before the service, so the family has to search for it. Men used to pray on Sunday morning to find out who'd be saved. Now they refresh a list to find out who's out, which is the same theology with better graphics.