How I Dealt With Having The Worst Fantasy Football Team Ever

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I may have had the unluckiest fantasy football season of all time. This fall, 17 other Grandex writers and I reluctantly banded together to form a ridiculously large fantasy league, which we appropriately named #GrandexFantasy. The league is so large that our draft lasted three hours. Of course, in a league 18 teams deep, decent starters get sucked up faster than an NBA team’s dunk spunk in the Kardashian household, so your only hope for survival is to make the most out of every single draft pick so you have a good starting team and, more importantly, be able to make key trades.

I started out late in the first round picking Foles as my quarterback, because last year, he was almost turnover-free–no brainer, right? Chip Kelly’s offense could rack up the points for me. Then I took a couple risks. I drafted Ray Rice, because first of all, fantasy football is not about morality, it’s about knocking out your opposition. Second, I figured when he came back from his (at the time) two-game suspension, he was going to tear up the field and hit defenses right in the mouth. (Too soon?) I drafted Matt Prater as my kicker, Big Ben as my backup quarterback, and snagged the Panthers’ defense. I felt I was putting together a team that could compete, but then disaster struck.

First, the Ray Rice video came out, and when that wife beater’s haymaker went viral, it wasn’t long before my second round pick was kicked off his team and basically banned from the NFL. Now, I didn’t have a running back, so I had to get a mediocre second string running back off waivers. A minor setback, but I figured I’d be okay. I was wrong. Right after the Ray Rice fiasco, Matt Prater was kicked off of the Broncos for getting a DUI. I had to scramble to get a replacement kicker off waivers, but I was able to get the Bills’ kicker, so that wasn’t too disastrous. But not having a starting running back was killing me, so when someone put one of the best running backs in the NFL on the trading block and needed a quarterback, I jumped at the opportunity, trading away Ben Roethlisberger for none other than…Adrian Peterson. Yeah. About two days after the trade, the news broke that All Day had been accused of child abuse. Fuck. I started guzzling my way through a handle of bourbon as I tried to cope with the fact that I had traded Big Ben for nothing. Literally nothing. And I still didn’t have a running back. I drunkenly browsed the free agents and tried to get a couple decent rookies who no one wanted to gamble on. But, as the saying goes, when it rains, it pours, and not long after, Greg Hardy was suspended, which apparently crippled the Panthers’ defense more than I thought it would. Up to that point, the Panthers’ defense had been tearing it up–now, Riverboat Ron’s defense is in deep shit.

So to recap, that’s three original draft picks wasted, not one fantasy point resulting from any of them, in an 18-team league. I was 1-1 before Suspensionpocalypse 2014. After Hardy and Peterson’s suspensions, I lost six games straight. My season had been destroyed by off the field issues. I felt like Mark Richt, especially since I had drunkenly picked up Isaiah Crowell off waivers. They should do an ESPN “30 for 30” on my completely brutalized fantasy team. And as if that wasn’t enough, a couple weeks ago, Foles was injured and now my starting quarterback is Mark Sanchez. The fate of the rest of my season is in the hands of Mark fucking Sanchez. Dez Bryant, Brandon LaFell, and Roddy White better hide in their fucking basements every week until game day–apparently, being on my roster is toxic.

Thanks to Gio Bernard’s injury and Ben Tate’s release, I now have two starting running backs and am on a three-game winning streak. Am I going to make the playoffs? Fuck no. My goal is simply to finish with a better record than the Falcons, which shouldn’t be too difficult. I’d also like to spoil some playoff runs if I can…why the hell not? When you’re 4-7, you can’t exactly reach for the stars. But, thanks to a drunken night and a moment of general managerial clarity, I was able to snag some lucky free agents who have done well for me. Winning is the best way to cope, but if that doesn’t work, my alma mater isn’t doing too bad this year. So how do you cope with having the shittiest fantasy football team ever? Alcoholism, apathy, alternatives, and occasional property damage. It’s the American way..

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