It’s like when you’re sitting at a blackjack table. Some drunk girl is sitting on an 18, and the dealer is showing 10. So the drunk girl (or stupid dude, seen it both ways) says, “Hit me.” The table rolls their eyes in disgust, and then the dealer throws down a three. The drunk girl is all proud. “I knew it! I had a feeling!”
And I’m like . . . No! That was dumb! Just because it worked out doesn’t mean it was a good decision, you idiot. You just happened to get lucky. Had you stayed on 18 and the dealer revealed his 20, you would have lost. But it would have been the right move.
Because it’s not about that one hand. It’s about the whole time you’re at the table. And not just that one night but every time you play. Because odds are, most times you bust when you pull a card while you are showing 18. And over the long haul—a night of playing cards or a season of playing fantasy sports—playing the odds will work in your favor many more times than not.
Once more: Matt Hasselbeck knew the game plan, he had as much control over an NFL game as any fantasy player could ever have, he wound up as the highest-scoring player at his position in the league . . . and he was sitting on his own bench.
If Matt couldn’t nail it, what the hell chance do any of us have? The answer is that it’s a very tough challenge, predicting the future. So this is as good a piece of fantasy advice as you’ll ever hear: ask yourself what is most likely to happen, play the odds that give yourself the most likely chance to win, and let the chips fall where they may. All you can do. It’s that simple.
17.
The Top 20 Most Soul-Crushing Ways to Lose: Numbers 10–1
or
“I’ve Hated Kris Benson Ever Since”
I don’t know that anything tops the Matt Hasselbeck story for ways to lose, but then again, I don’t know many fantasy football players who are also playing in the NFL. So for the rest of us mortals, here are the definitive top 10 most soul-crushing ways to lose.
Number 10: Hey, Coach, I Thought We Were Trying to Win Here
Coaching in the NFL is a demanding job. No doubt. And you have everyone second-guessing you at all times. So I give a lot of leeway to coaches. But sometimes a coach does something so boneheaded that it defies all logic. One of the most famous examples happened in week 13 of the 2011 NFL season.
At that time, Dan Bailey was a very good fantasy kicker. Averaging almost 11 points a game in ESPN standard scoring, he was among the top three guys at his position in week 13 (and finished fifth highest among kickers that year). So with the score tied and time running down, Dallas drove down the field against Arizona and lined up to kick a field goal, which Dan Bailey knocked through the uprights. Hold on. There’s a time-out. We see it a lot—the attempted “icing” of the kicker. Only issue? The guy who calls the time-out is Jason Garrett—Bailey’s own coach!
After the time-out, Bailey comes out and misses the field goal! That four-point swing (lost three points, minus one for a missed FG) caused thousands of teams to lose that week. All because Jason Garrett decided to “ice” his own kicker. The bizarre coaching decision is frustrating not just for the loss it generates but for the complete lack of logic behind it. It never should have happened because it makes no sense.
Number 9: One of Those Plays
Like the top five plays we discussed in chapter 15, every once in a while there is a play so crazy, so out of the norm, so “that-should-never-have-happened,” that it boggles the mind. The Brian Westbrook kneel-down is the all-time leader in this category, of course, but as I was writing this chapter a new one just happened. Heading into the 2012 season, the NFL had locked out the referees in a labor dispute. So replacement referees, many of whom had limited experience above Division III or high school football, were called in to, er, replace the real refs. It was a disaster waiting to happen, and in week 3 disaster struck.
On a Hail Mary play at the end of the Monday Night game, the replacement refs missed what appeared to be an obvious offensive pass-interference call as Seahawks wide receiver Golden Tate shoved Packers cornerback Sam Shields out of the way. Refs then ruled that Tate, not Packers safety MD Jennings, had control of the ball and that it was a touchdown. Replays appeared to show Jennings had possession, it should have been an interception, and the Packers should have won. But the replacement refs gave the victory to the Seahawks, who then kicked an extra point, making the final score 14–12, Seattle.
The implication of this play was felt in the fantasy world. The Packers defense/special teams had been started by 62 percent of the more than 5 million people who played on ESPN.com that year. By not allowing the interception, the refs cost the Packers D/ST two points (which are awarded to a defense for a turnover). And because they called it a touchdown (along with the subsequent extra point), it pushed Seattle’s score past 13 (holding a team under 13 was worth three points), so ultimately that incorrect ruling cost the owners of the Green Bay D/ST five points. The result? Approximately 33,500 players lost their matchup instead of winning that week because of that one call.
Added to the anguish is the fact that controversial plays like this get replayed millions of times on TV. You don’t just lose, oh no, you have to relive it again and again and again. Cruel and unusual.
Number 8: Can I Just Take a Zero?
Dennis had a decision on his hands in week six of the 2006 season for his 14-team league. Dallas’s Drew Bledsoe was Dennis’s quarterback, but there were rumors he might not play the whole game so they could let his backup, Tony Romo, get some game action.
So instead, Dennis chose to start the Bears’ Rex Grossman against the Cardinals. Rex goes out and has one of the worst fantasy performances in the history of the sport: 144 yards passing, no touchdowns, four interceptions, and two fumbles for a final score from Rex of negative 7. Dennis lost by four. He’d have been better off starting no one. I’ve seen it a million times, especially with defenses—the negative points bring such pain when you realize you would have won if you had just started a guy on a bye. Or retired. Or dead . . .
Number 7: Shanahan!!
Do I even need to write anything here? No coach in the history of the NFL has tortured fantasy owners more over the years than Michael Shanahan. First in Denver, later in Washington, it’s not the giving unheard-of running backs starts over established veterans despite no visible evidence the vet has lost anything, nor is it the musical chairs at the position. It’s not even the running back by committee that drives us nuts. They’re all annoying, to be sure, but for me it’s the inconsistency about the inconsistency.
It’s always something different. The guy named the starter and listed as #1 on the depth chart? Doesn’t touch the ball in a game. The guy signed from the practice squad on Wednesday? Twenty carries for 120 yards and a score. Players will “start” and play the first three plays, only to be never heard from again. And then after a guy goes off and we’re all like, okay, he’s the guy now, the next week that running back goes back to being benched. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, and Shanahan’s depth charts bear no actual resemblance to what happens on the field. This track record of messing with fantasy owners caused many people to miss Alfred Morris’s breakout season in 2012 because no one trusted it. Nor should they have, based on Shanahan’s track record. Just when you think you can’t trust him, he goes out and starts Morris every week. Every year, every week, every play . . . he’s consistently inconsistent. He’s a brilliant offensive mind, but as far as fantasy owners are concerned . . . Mike Shanahan is the devil.
Number 6: The Statistical Improbability
Something so improbable that, heading into the matchup, you know, “unless something totally crazy happens,” you’re winning. Tom Schmidt has one such story.
Going into the last week of the 2011 regular season, Tom needed a win to get into the playoffs in both of his Bismark, North Dakota–based leagues. Heading into Monday Night, Tom was ahead in one matchup by 23 points, he had no players left
, and his opponent had Maurice Jones-Drew.
In the other matchup, he was down by 25 points heading into Monday Night. His opponent was done, but Tom had, yes, Maurice Jones-Drew. Not ideal, but at least Tom probably wins one league, right?
Nope! MJD goes out and scores exactly 24 points!
“I lost both leagues!!!!!” Tom remembers. “I needed him to score under 23 or over 24, and I would have won at least one! But 24 points and I lose both. And he hit exactly 24!”
That’s like roulette-wheel-level odds of bad luck. You know, I’ve been playing fantasy sports for 30 years. I thought I had heard of every possible way to lose. But even for me, that story was a new one.
Number 5: But He’s Active!
We all hate our player being a late scratch due to injury. But it happens, and when the player is declared inactive, you at least have about an hour before kickoff to find a replacement. In 2011, Marshawn Lynch had become a fantasy revelation. After a promising start to his career in Buffalo, it had floundered recently. But a 2010 trade to Seattle revitalized him, and in 2011 he was a midround pick and a sleeper for some, including, ahem, yours truly. Anyways, he exceeded everyone’s wildest expectations, scoring a touchdown in every single game from week four to week 16. Well, every single game he played in, that is. Heading into week seven, Lynch had scored in two straight, was clearly “the guy” in Seattle, and, coming out of a bye in week six, had a terrific matchup with a porous Cleveland run defense.
Now there had been no indication anything was bothering Lynch. And so Sunday morning, on the field warming up, he is declared active for the game. I had Lynch in an intense 14-team league involving all the ESPN editors and other analysts that year. So of course I played him, just like everyone else did, and saw . . . my stud running back, standing on the sideline, doing nothing. He’s completely dressed and yet never gets in the game, never touches the ball, I get a zero, I lose by 1.3 points, and that one loss keeps me out of the playoffs. I was furious, and I wasn’t alone.
Lynch had apparently reaggravated something (even though no one knew he had something to aggravate in the first place!) in warm-ups, so he didn’t play. When asked about it later, head coach Pete Carroll said, “I guess I should have put him on the injury report this week.” Ya think, Pete???!??!
The cruelest part of an NFL star being active but not playing in the game is watching the game itself as the cameras continue to pan over to your stud, dressed in pads, but not in the game, saying things like, “The Seahawks sure could use Marshawn Lynch today,” or whatever. Yeah, not just the Seahawks, guys!
Number 4: Wait! Where Are You Going? Get Back in There!
Similar to number five, I decided this was slightly more frustrating because it happens much more often. Because when your star gets injured in a game and leaves early, you still have hope he’ll return to the game. It’s this hope that really sharpens the despair when they ultimately never return. We’ve discussed the most famous example of this a few times. Week 16, 2011, the Super Bowl for many leagues, and Tony Romo hurts his right hand, leaves the game, and doesn’t return. He is 0-for-2 with zero yards. Having to spend the rest of the game hoping he returns and getting knots in your stomach as the guy you benched for him goes off is the part of the player’s injury they never mention, but it hurts just the same.
Now we’ve all had bad-luck seasons, when all your guys get banged up and there’s nothing you can do to plug the holes. You just limp along, desperately wishing the season would end and put you out of your misery. Even worse is when the injury happens to your first-round stud. It’s one thing to lose a midround wide receiver. But your first-rounder? The anchor of your team? There’s nothing to do but ride it out and wait until next year.
But what if next year the same thing happens? And the year after that? And after that?
Graig Harris would still have you beat. Because he had the greatest string of bad luck I’ve ever heard of. Check out his draft history in the Andover, Minnesota–based Husky Ballas league. Remember, these are mostly first-round picks. Supposed to be the safest of the safe.
2004—Priest Holmes: 8 games played
2005—Deuce McAllister: 5 games played
2006—Clinton Portis: 8 games played
2007—Larry Johnson: 8 games played
2008—Tom Brady: 1 game played
2009—Steve Slaton (second-round pick): 11 games played
2010—Ryan Grant (also second-round): 1 game played
2011—Jamal Charles: 2 games played
As Graig notes, “My fantasy curse has never failed in eight years.”
Number 3: Can’t He Just Suck at One Position?
Justin Ring, GM of the Debutante Ballbusters, plays in the Mac ’n Cheese league, a league that uses Individual Defensive Players (IDP) and where a missed extra point is worth negative 15. That’s a lot of points, but hey, they are hard-core. So, okay, in 2010 Jets were playing the Lions, featuring Justin’s IDP star, rookie defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh. Justin remembers, “The Jets stop the Lions at their 3-yard line, and they decide to kick a field goal on fourth-and-goal.” The Jets get a roughing-the-kicker penalty on the play, which injures Lions kicker Jason Hanson, but also gives Detroit an automatic first down at the 1. Lions QB Matthew Stafford runs it in for a touchdown. But their kicker’s hurt. Who’s going to kick the extra point?
“Do they go to their punter?” Justin asks. “No. They go to 300-plus-pound defensive line rookie Ndamukong Suh, using the logic that ‘he played soccer in high school.’ I swear this is true. Of course, Suh shanks the extra point.” So Justin lost 15 points because he had Suh in there for IDP. He then loses his fantasy matchup by three points, the loss costs him the playoffs, and, as it turns out, he would have made the championship and won a few thousand dollars.
“And as an awesome postscript, Hanson returned in the fourth quarter to kick another extra point just fine.”
Yeah, those IDP leagues can be tricky like that. Brendan Meyer, owner of The Tolbert Report, thought he had won a super-close game in week seven of the 2010 season, having survived a huge game from his opponent’s Hakeem Nicks, who had 108 yards and two touchdowns. Until the next morning when he woke up and the dreaded “overnight scoring adjustment” had happened. You see, Nicks’s quarterback, Eli Manning, had also thrown a few interceptions in this game, and Hakeem Nicks made two solo tackles on those plays! Those tackles counted as points for Hakeem’s owner in their IDP league, and Brendan lost, 184.1 to 185.1. The margin of two Hakeem Nicks solo tackles.
Having a player score (or not score) points in a way they normally don’t is the third most soul-crushing way to lose at fantasy.
Number 2: Defies All Logic
Mike W. is dominating the Buggy Jockeyz league from Orlando, Florida. As he enters his week 16 Super Bowl in 2007, he’s the number one seed.
He is facing a guy they call “Four Leaf” because he is so insanely, consistently lucky. Four Leaf isn’t going to be there for the playoffs. He has to go visit family doing a mission in Sarajevo, Bosnia. He’ll have no Internet access. So before leaving, Four Leaf has to set his lineup in advance. Against all logic, he benches the red-hot running back Fred Taylor (four scores and 100 yards in each of his last five games) for Najeh Davenport, the backup running back on Four Leaf’s beloved real-life NFL team, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Davenport is not getting any kind of consistent work at this point.
At worst, Mike thinks, maybe Davenport will vulture a TD or something, but anyone looking at it would agree. Mike’s got this in the bag. And yet . . . on the very first carry of the game, the Steelers’ starting running back, “Fast” Willie Parker, is tackled and breaks his leg. And yep, here comes backup Najeh Davenport, who rumbles for 167 total yards and two touchdowns. He outscores Fred Taylor by 10 points that day, and it’s enough for Four Leaf to squeak by Mike for the title.
That would have driven me up a wall. You lose in
fantasy, it happens. You make the best decisions you can, so does your opponent, you see what happens. But when your opponent makes a decision that clearly has significantly fewer odds of happening than the alternative . . . and it works out!?!? Arghhhh.
The woman from accounting who doesn’t follow sports at all but wins the NCAA pool. The guy who leaves three injured players in his lineup and still wins. The person who starts his pitchers who are playing in Denver and Arlington—and gets two shutouts.
It shouldn’t work out. It defies all logic. And yet it works.
You lose a title because a guy starts a backup who gets two scores and over 160 total yards? That’s pull-your-hair-out time.
Number 1: The Combo Meal . . .
Sometimes it’s not just one thing, like an active player who doesn’t play, a QB kneel-down, or getting Shanahan-ed, which is too a verb. No, if you’ve truly angered the fantasy gods, you get a combo meal where multiple things happen to crush your dreams.
Just such a moment happened in week 13 of 1998. I heard from a lot of people about this moment, and the story of Jeff Waltz’s father Dan was typical. Dad was playing for a playoff spot in Saline, Michigan’s own JTFFL, and his team, the Ransackers, were done. All his opponent had left was Patriots kicker Adam Vinatieri. The Ransackers were hanging on to a one-point lead as the Patriots-Bills game was winding down. On the second-to-last play of the game, Patriots quarterback Drew Bledsoe completes a fourth-down pass to Shawn Jefferson to the Bills’ 26. Questionable call. Looks like Jefferson was out of bounds, but the refs rule it a catch. Six seconds remain.
Bledsoe throws for the end zone, it’s incomplete, but the Bills are called for pass interference! So now there has to be one last untimed play, as the game can’t end on a defensive penalty. But the Ransackers still have this fantasy game in the bag. Even if the Patriots score a touchdown and Vinatieri kicks an extra point, the Ransackers will finish with a tie in their matchup and they held the tiebreaker.
Fantasy Life: The Outrageous, Uplifting, and Heartbreaking World of Fantasy Sports from the Guy Who's Lived It Page 21
