Today's column is about losing.
Everyone loses. Even winners. Even undefeated fantasy champions lose the following year, or the year after . . .
I'm hearing some of you vent about losing. Hey, I'm with you. Sure, my teams are 8-3 and 7-4 and likely headed to the playoffs. But I've lost this season in some really rough ways. Like the time I swapped out kickers Sunday morning, and that proved to be the difference between winning and losing. Or the time I benched James Conner (Week 1) to "see what he could do" (I saw enough never to make that mistake again).
Then there's this past Sunday, when my DFS lineup went from winning to losing an hour before I posted my column, swapping out Eli Manning and Saquon Barkley for Matthew Stafford and Michael Thomas. Don't think I haven't dwelt on that mistake the past three days.
Look, I'm here for you all. So are Aaron, Joel, Matt, Robbie, and Tommy. We sympathize. We empathize. We encourage and cajole.
But if you sign up for fantasy football, you sign up for losing, plain and simple. In a 12-team league, six to eight people aren't making the playoffs. 11 are ending the season unhappy. Season after season after season.
So let's keep one foot on the pedal and the other on the ground. Or something like that. Basically, let's all try to be winners, and let's embrace the fact that if one of our players craps the bed, so be it. We make the best decisions we can with the information we have. If we're losing too much, let's get smarter. Let's find new sources of information. Let's shift how we analyze projected production.
If we view losing as a result, what a waste. But if we view losing as a means and motivation to improve, well, there's no better option, is there.
Everyone loses. Even winners. Even undefeated fantasy champions lose the following year, or the year after . . .
I'm hearing some of you vent about losing. Hey, I'm with you. Sure, my teams are 8-3 and 7-4 and likely headed to the playoffs. But I've lost this season in some really rough ways. Like the time I swapped out kickers Sunday morning, and that proved to be the difference between winning and losing. Or the time I benched James Conner (Week 1) to "see what he could do" (I saw enough never to make that mistake again).
Then there's this past Sunday, when my DFS lineup went from winning to losing an hour before I posted my column, swapping out Eli Manning and Saquon Barkley for Matthew Stafford and Michael Thomas. Don't think I haven't dwelt on that mistake the past three days.
Look, I'm here for you all. So are Aaron, Joel, Matt, Robbie, and Tommy. We sympathize. We empathize. We encourage and cajole.
But if you sign up for fantasy football, you sign up for losing, plain and simple. In a 12-team league, six to eight people aren't making the playoffs. 11 are ending the season unhappy. Season after season after season.
So let's keep one foot on the pedal and the other on the ground. Or something like that. Basically, let's all try to be winners, and let's embrace the fact that if one of our players craps the bed, so be it. We make the best decisions we can with the information we have. If we're losing too much, let's get smarter. Let's find new sources of information. Let's shift how we analyze projected production.
If we view losing as a result, what a waste. But if we view losing as a means and motivation to improve, well, there's no better option, is there.