I dislike fantasy football. Not merely because I ended my seven-year retirement from it this NFL season and acquired Adrian Peterson, Keenan Allen and Corey Coleman in advance of their debilitating injuries.

What I hate, more than the dumb-luck aspect that makes filling out a March Madness bracket look like skilled labor by comparison, is the way that it has turned the lamest of laymen into presumed experts. Kind of like the internet and social media did for politics.

All broadcast football analysis is now governed by the same logic that prevails in the roto world, whether that is explicitly stated or not. Then it trickles down to the viewing masses, who spew the silliness relentlessly as if it makes them profound and perceptive.

We’re left with coverage of the game that is statistics-based and reactionary. That explains, in part, the lunacy inherent to most September 2016 chatter about the four-time world champion New England Patriots.

It explains the folly of the Pats being almost a double-digit underdog on the road against the Arizona Cardinals, and the insanity of the Houston Bleeping Texans being a road favorite at Gillette Stadium.

The Patriots (3-0) won both those contests, in case you need a reminder, including a shutout of You-stun that made its past egg-layings in the series look like instant classics.

None of that is the most intolerable ignorance. That dubious achievement belongs to the palest of pink-hatters who call radio programs marketed to the Patriots’ congregation and yell (presumably with a straight face) that the team has a quarterback controversy.

Larry from Leominster and Bobby from Barnstable were ready to slide a 10-year, $500-gazillion contact under Jimmy Garoppolo’s front door after one-and-a-half starts. I suspect they consider Jacoby Brissett the pet-friendly Mike Vick after one bootleg.

Seriously? Perhaps the greatest craftsman ever to slap a center’s butt is neither dead, nor even injured. He appears physically and mentally fit to lead the franchise well into his 40s. He is eligible to return in Week 5 and carve up the Cleveland Browns’ defense like the roast at Sunday dinner.

Yet after three clinics in game management and nothing more by his understudies, Tom Brady is deemed expendable. People who were hugging everyone in sight when TB12 shredded the Seattle Seahawks’ “historic” defense only 19 months ago are eager to trade him for a box of athletic supporters and a conditional draft pick.

They’re clueless, but I feel sorry for them because they’re taking their cue from a society and a media that blindly chase after The Next Big Thing. Which means they parrot jargon that they don’t really understand.

My favorite of these assertions is that, “Now we can see Tom Brady is a system quarterback.” I cannot comprehend the strength of the mind-altering substances abused by the first person who strung those words together and poisoned the hot-take pool for the world’s consumption.

If I have to explain this to you, you’ll never understand, anyway, but here goes: Brady and Belichick built the system. They ARE the system. The glorious day 15 years ago this past week when we found out Drew Bledsoe was going to live, but not until he sat out a few games, coach and quarterback finally were free from the stodgy, pocket-confined, throw-off-the-wrong-foot system of the past.

Around those two immortals of the game, everyone else — assistant coaches, receivers, linemen, backup quarterbacks, even pass rushers and defensive backs — are “system” players. That’s why Belichick and Bob Kraft don’t throw money at people who think they can make more of it wearing a different uniform.

Brady is such a commanding figure in the locker room that he makes the second through 53rd guys on the roster better, even when he’s banned from the practice facility. That, and oh, right: Belichick is OK, too.

Their collective greatness is the reason the rest of the world believes Bill O’Brien, Romeo Crennel, Charlie Weis and Josh McDaniels can be capable head coaches, or that Matt Cassel, Brian Hoyer, Ryan Mallett, and yes, Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett could be serviceable NFL quarterbacks.

They’re the system guys. Wes Welker was a system guy. Julian Edelman? Dion Lewis/James White? BenJarvus Green-Ellis before them? System guys, all.

Belichick and Brady are the founder and CEO, respectively, of the system. That’s reality. Everything else is pure fantasy.

Kalle Oakes is a 27-year veteran of the Sun Journal sports department. He is now a writer and editor in Kentucky. His email is kaloakes1972@yahoo.com.