In the last few years, I've murdered fantasy football in the same way that...well, a murderer murders things. I've also had very little going on in my professional and personal life outside of the normal doings of a late 20's slacker, so taking time to set a perfect line-up seemed pretty easy.
This year, I planned on spending the same amount of time on fantasy sports while adding a few hours a week for writing about the subject. Turns out, I've been busy as hell in real life working for a radio station/website in Chapel Hill, shooting photos at UNC Football, and working whatever other hours I have left at Jimmy John's for some money and subs.
I've had a few things each week that I wanted to share with the fantasy sports world, but finding time to research fantasy sports AND write about it has been tough. I'm in five leagues, and I am exactly one game over .500, and no more than one game over .500 in any league.
I AM TRULY MEDIOCRE.
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| This guy was so tired from fantasy research, he spelled Michael Jordan J-O-R-D-E-N. True story. |
Timing is everything in fantasy sports, as well. An article about busts or sleepers really doesn't do much good at 1:01 PM each Sunday, much less a few days later. I've noticed that it is nearly impossible to write for free AND for a deadline...I think human minds are just unable to make it happen. Call it writer's block if you want.
So, after going for about ten weeks since my last post, I'm here to post...something.
In a $50 buy-in league, I had Aaron Rodgers, Julio Jones, Justin Blackmon, and Kyle Rudolph all go down. Add to the silly scoring from that league, and I went from sure-fire money winner to probably not making the playoffs.
Every fantasy team has it's ups and downs, but this is ridiculous. My RBs are Trent Richardson and Stevan Ridley, who I've had to keep because of my weekly waiver-wire scavenging. Each week, I've had to replace another starter that went down for whatever reason, and each bye week seems to just ravage my starting lineup.
So, yeah, had I picked Jimmy Graham in the first, second or third round (and I had the research to back it up) and picked literally anyone but Julio, Stevan or Trent with those picks, I'd be hanging out. Right now, my lineup looks like this:
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| This lineup sucks. |
Turns out that every week, I missed out on the players I needed to fill holes (Julius Thomas, Zac Stacy, etc) because my team was either too good to be low on the waiver priority, or I'd spent my waiver wire priority patching another hole from some mysterious, random blow to my team.
Having done the same research for all my fantasy teams, the Julio Jones injury has hurt the most. I owned him in every league, and in every league have struggled to make a dollar out of fifteen cents with the remaining players weeks into a fantasy season.
So, now that I'm stuck trying to make fantasy teams competitive that can't score, I'm doing a slightly different form of research for my picks. I'm spending a huge amount of time normally left for making my DTV antenna work or ordering a pizza on finding low-risk, high-reward players that are somehow under the radar.
See my lineup for proof- I've scored Coby Fleener, Kendall Wright, and Nick Foles in order to make my team somewhat respectable. Fleener was an obvious choice after the dude Allen from Clemson went out for the season. Kendall Wright is a true possession receiver and has had multiple receptions each week, never less than 50 yards or so. Nick Foles just happens to play on a REALLY up-tempo passing offense and have prototypical skills.
Where this is different from winning teams' selections, is the uncertainty. I'm always putting Calvin Johnson in if he's alive, period. Same goes with Drew Brees, or Brandon Marshall, or the Seahawks D. Players in the first few rounds of drafts and on top of leader boards tend to have less possibility of performing poorly and tend to have consistent results.
These are proven fantasy performers that barely have bad games. Simple, right?
It isn't so simple, even for the experts. This year was the year of the running back in most leagues, and I don't need to try hard in order to list the disappointments found in first rounds all over America. C.J. Spiller was a one-way ticket to the fantasy outhouse. It seems crazy right now to think that Frank Gore went in later rounds than Trent Richardson, or that Danny Woodhead and Knowshon Moreno are winning fantasy weeks for owners basically by themselves.
What doesn't seem crazy, is that some examples of 2013 fantasy busts are NOT "proven fantasy performers that barely have bad games".
Trent Richardson had plenty of slow games for the Browns, but I chased the handful of runs shown on ESPN that made him look like the unstoppable bowling ball he was in the NCAA. Same goes for Kyle Rudolph- I knew he was inconsistent, but fantasy football commercials and the "young-QB-safety-blanket" rhetoric made me feel secure.
Boy, it sucks to be wrong in gambling.
Even though I've had these mis-hits and poor decisions on my teams, I've still managed to do okay. The same logic that brought me to get Julio Jones (receptions in the NFL at the time of his injury) made me feel comfortable rolling the dice on Desean Jackson and Vincent Jackson. I drafted the Seahawks' defense really early in every league, and have reaped the benefits of a team that clearly pushes the limits of competitive advantage.
Basically, I know what I'm doing.
I can't help it if a collarbone decides to break, or an ACL decides to tear. Injuries are, at this level of sport, nearly completely random. The coaching staff does not know or care about the one reception I need to beat my opponent.
The second-guessing that comes with a bad fantasy season isn't worth it. I now understand that I didn't make the wrong decisions, I just guessed incorrectly.
It's my moment of fantasy Zen.
So, until next week, I'll be eating Thanksgiving leftovers, trying to find that next hit of ZacStacy that will have my opponent sweating.
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