Fantasy Football is Awful or Yes, I Did Lose Week 1.

Labor Day marks the end of the summer. Some look forward to the Fall, with its cooler weather, colorful leaves, and pumpkin flavored monstrosities. Other, more intelligent people realize the end of the summer is horrible. The sun sets a bit earlier every day. Instead of shorts, we must wear sweaters and long pants. Gross. And worst of all, Labor Day signals the start of fantasy football season.

“Wait a minute,” you ask yourself, likely holding a Pumpkin Spiced Latte while snacking on a pumpkin spiced Bacon Egg and Cheese. “Didn’t you write multiple fantasy football previews and cover it for years”.

Yes, yes I did. I was kind of hoping people didn’t remember that since I haven’t attempted it in multiple years. Look, calling fantasy football the worst part of the Fall is an exaggeration. Some poor adults will spend their Sundays as a pumpkin patch, refreshing their phones for scores, only to be hit with a “No Service” pop up. That my friends, is true terror. Still, the older I get, the more I realize the Fantasy Football is not what it once was.

I still play, of course. This year, I drafted three leagues over the past ten days, after a month of research. I listened to hours of podcasts, charted out depth charts, and made some rudimentary ranks. Immediately after each draft, I despised my roster. Minutes later, I realized I drafted a 16-0 juggernaut who’ll never lose a game. These two opinions continue to play ping pong in my mind, at least until after the deflating week 1 of every NFL season. If I’m still an active participant, how can I possible say that fantasy football is awful?

I mean, have you frigging played any fantasy sports? It’s the God damn worst.

I know many of you are excited to sit down and watch hours of football this fall. A few of you may have clicked on to Bloggin Hood hoping for last minute advice before week 1* ¹. A smaller subset are trapped in a corn maze begging for any sports related content. Well, you’re not getting a celebration of fantasy today. Oh no my friend. For every person excited about the hopes of winning a fantasy title, there’s a hater looking at the downside of the whole league. This year, I’ll serve as the world’s biggest hater.

Did you know 50% of fantasy football players start their season off 0-1? If you didn’t, well, maybe a game revolving around counting stats isn’t for you. After Monday Night Football concluded, half of the player base is pissed off and will swear off the game entirely, only to make 13 waivers claims Tuesday morning. My goal today is to make you hate this hobby whether you win or lose.

To celebrate surviving the first full slate of football, I’m going to explain the agonizing, humiliating fantasy football experience we sign of for annually. And before you ask, no, this is not a top 10 list. There’s 11 reasons… mostly because I couldn’t narrow it down to 10. I mean, because I wanted to show you how awful this game truly is.

And that comes from somebody in three leagues who’s frantically checking injuries statuses as we speak. Remember, I’m only a hypocrite if I don’t admit it.

Fantasy is Everywhere

For some reason, people believe fantasy sports are cool. That’s extremely untrue. It’s not like the fantasy managers are playing the sport. The only difference because fantasy football and Dungeons and Dragons is the setting. If for any reason you don’t think fantasy sports isn’t nerd culture, you’re delusional. Look in the mirror pal and accept your nerdom.

Back when I started playing fantasy football, the internet was still dial up. I remember my first league, I split a team with my dad. We had to submit on lineups and waiver wire requests via paper (!) and each transaction off the wire cost a full dollar (!!). The winner of that league made 4 roster moves all season, a record amount of activity at the time.

Obviously, things are a lot different today. It’s incredibly easy to find a league online, make transactions and tinker with your lineup. In fact, 95% of all players handle their team business while their doing their own business on the porcelain throne each morning.** ²

This is a good thing for the game. In essence, fantasy football is a fun pastime that brings friends and family today. At least until there’s a bad beat.

However, things have gotten out of control. In the early 2000s, Fantasy was borderline underground. Sure, people knew about it, but it wasn’t mainstream yet. It was a weird thing a bunch of fake jocks liked doing. Again, it was Dungeons and Dragons for people who liked sports. When Yahoo and ESPN began to push it, that’s when it exploded into a phenomenon. Everyone began to play, and it was no longer a weird little game people played in secret. It became a weird little game nobody shut up about.

Over the past few years, the game became too popular. You can’t escape it. Fantasy discussions occur on NFL pregame shows, instead of just fantasy shows.*** ³ Every year, there’s a 100 new fantasy podcasts and YouTube channels. Hell, if you go to an actual NFL game, the scoreboard spends nearly half the time showing fantasy leader boards instead of, you know, the game itself. Look Metlife Stadium, I know the Jets are bad, but can we show the 3^rd down replay instead of another Gabriel Davis touchdown?

Do you remember when FanDuel and DraftKings began? At least in the New York market, there was an ad for one of these two services every 15 seconds. I swear, DraftKings ads used to interrupt active DraftKings ads. The ads were so annoying, I never set a single daily lineup in protest, and doubt I ever will. At least with season long fantasy, I don’t have to care by week 5 when I’m eliminated, and my roster has three working ligaments.

I remember some fantasy pundit, likely Matthew Berry, once said the most boring thing is in world is hearing about another person’s fantasy team. By that same logic, just hearing everyone talking about fantasy is yawn inducing. I thought Fantasy Football was super cool in 2000 when I was 13 and nobody else did it. Today, I saw Kevin Hart try to get me to log into Draft Kings for a week two promo. I’ll pass Mr. Hart, but thanks for the offer.

Did I just admit I was a fantasy football hipster?

There’s no Secrets Anymore

Ok, if I didn’t admit I was a fantasy football Hipster before, this is it.

Before the fantasy boom of the late 2010s, research really mattered. In the early 2000s, drafts were the Wild West, where even a basic understanding of fantasy principles would guaranteed a playoff berth. Smart drafters grabbed running backs first, waited on quarterbacks, and used their bench for high upside players they could easily cut if they didn’t reach their potential. In 2008, this was still somewhat of a secret. In 2022, there are no secrets.

Now that fantasy football is everywhere, so is the information. All of those new podcasts and YouTube channels that pop up every year? Each one of them have takes on every single player. You can get detailed information on every player in the league in a moment’s notice. This is the part I think I hate the most.

When I made rankings, I would go through each team’s depth charts and start roughly ranking each position. I would highlight certain players that had paths to key offensive roles either out of necessity, or because the players in front of them were flawed. I’d always noted off a few players that were my irrational love players. Drafting them year in and year out was always one of my favorite parts.

Let’s not worry about how successful this process was. We’re here to talk about why fantasy football sucks, not why my rankings suck. You can read any past year’s rankings and see those results for yourself.

Going into this season, I had three players highlighted using this method– Courtland Sutton, Tony Pollard and Jerrick McKinnon. Each player was in different draft levels. Sutton went in the first 4 or 5 rounds, Pollard was a mid-round pick, and McKinnon was a last round shot in the dark.

The only problem with likely Sutton and Pollard is that EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE ENTIRE COUNTRY ALSO LIKED THEM. Going through ranking players in my specific way gave me no advantage as everyone had them high. I’m not here trying to pretend only I would have guessed people liked Pollard or Sutton but preparing for fantasy is basically hoping people have players you like 2 or 3 spots lower on their lists. It’s all homogenized.

At least McKinnon wasn’t drafted very high at all, arguably because he’s the fourth best running back on Kansas City. I still know how to pick players.

With all the massive amounts of information, there’s no such thing as a value pick or a sleeper. Everyone is a known commodity, and fantasy rankings are much better than ever before. With minimal effort, anyone can draft a decent team. Honestly, just going down Yahoo rankings gives you a decent roster. If you tried this four or five years ago, you were donating your entry fee.

Does this make for more competitive leagues? Sure. The point of fantasy is to have fun. More information increases accessibility and prevents huge knowledge gaps from determining the league. It makes the process way more casual. This is great for fantasy’s business.

But does it help me win any more championships? No. Therefore it’s bullshit.

Draft slots are Depressing

After weeks of preparation, the draft is finally upon you. Without question, drafting is the best part of the fantasy season. It’s the only time the entire league has unfounded optimism that they could win. And then, the draft lottery happens and all that naïve optimism pops like a balloon in a needle factory.

Obviously, finding out you pick eighth in a 12 team is depressing, but I’d argue every draft spot can lead to misery. That’s right, even you, with your all coveted first pick. There’s a good chance it’ll suck to be you too. At least when you pick eight, you expect things to go south. When you pick early, you have a perceived advantage where you either win (like you should have) or choke that head start away.

Let me give a quick run down on why every draft position sucks.

Top 3 – When you have an early pick, you have the advantage of getting one of the premier players in the league. You also must wait around 20 picks before you add the next player on your roster. Every pick you make goes against ADP, as you must anticipate positional runs and get players you like when you can. This means your draft relies on how well you really know your players, and heavily leans on your first pick. If your first pick gets hurt, well, maybe you’ll compete in the consolation bracket.

Middle Pick – This draft section means you miss out on the true elite talent, but also must draft within Average Draft Position guidelines. Sure, you can reach to get the players you like, but it makes more sense to grab players around where they go. Now, you must balance between talent, needs, and personal preferences. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll make all the right decisions, especially after players you’ve had queued up for 13 picks go right before your turn.

Bottom 3 – This combines the worst of both worlds. Not only do you miss out on the top players, but you also have to reach on most of your picks as you also wait 20 or so picks after your rapid fire two. Some people enjoy picking at the end of drafts and having two close together picks. Then again, some people enjoy ranch dressing and think they understand Bitcoin.

If you’re an optimist, the above isn’t bad news. It means you can win from any position in the draft. I suppose that’s true, but you sure won’t have fun when all your picks are sniped, and you only have one running back in round eight.

Oh, and before somebody tries to hype up auctions in the comments, let me shoot down that idea too. Sure, an auction draft eliminates the order advantages of a snake draft, but they also take, on average, 17 hours. A snake draft might suck, but at least in ends in 90 minutes. Unless you have a really dedicate group of players, auctions linger on forever. Enjoy the $1 trolling bets before the bidding time runs out, and constant shitty nominations intended to trick people into wasting their budget.

If you aren’t playing with a group of people who know the deal with auctions, you get lopsided teams, and broke players 20 nominations in. I’m all for giving myself a huge advantage and winning the league, but not if it’s going to take me a full day.

Besides, if I have a bad auction draft, I can’t blame draft position. I need some built in excuses.

Everyone is Immediately Hurt After the Draft

As soon as the draft ends, you’ll most likely feel defeated. Your draft server of choice will give you a horrific grade, no matter who you draft, and project you to finish 1-13. The auto drafter will get an A. Remember, this is the best part of the season.

If, somehow, you still have hope for the season, give it three days after the draft. Then, log back in and check your roster. It’ll look like a medical ward. Two weeks before the season starts, 75% of players are questionable, dealing with soft tissue injuries that potentially derail seasons. Some of these injuries are extremely serious. Others are excuses to avoid practices in lieu of the season. Injuries will be downplayed as well as overhyped. How can anyone tell the difference?

The answer is simple – you can’t. In fact, trying to find information is nearly impossible. Since teams are tightlipped about the true nature of injuries, you’ll be forced to find the only available source online- twitter. Marktheyark93, who failed high school anatomy, swears the star running back torn his ACL, MCL, and BBL. Meanwhile, XXLoneranger69, a self employed NFT artist, says that there’s no noticeable limp in practice, so he’s fine. This is the best information we have.

But don’t worry, things will only get worse as the season goes on. Players will be knocked out for the whole season, while others will carry a questionable tag through Friday evening. Do you play a star who has a “minor” hamstring issue or bench him or a mediocre reserve option. Whatever you choose will be the wrong answer. You’ll love it when it cost you a matchup. Better see what XXLoneranger69 thinks first.

Even if your league offers a handy IR spot, it’s often meaningless. Unless a player is ruled out (due to injury… Sorry Josh Gordon), they must remain on your bench. Most players aren’t ruled out until just before kickoff, which gives you plenty of time to place them on IR and pick up absolutely nobody of value.  The NFL injury system is the worst in sports and it’s the fantasy players who suffer.

And you know, the injured players.

Lineup Decisions

As the season rolls along, you’ll have plenty of start or sit questions that go beyond injuries. When do you decide to bench a high draft pick who’s not producing? How confident are you in starting a player you just added from the waiver wire? Do you trust a decent player in an easy matchup more than a good player in a difficult one? If these questions give you anxiety, boy do I have a fun pastime for you.

All the experts who produced tons of preseason draft content also offer rankings each week on who they recommend that you start. These recommendations vastly differ from their pre-draft advice. Of course, no one will expect blame for their wrong opinions. In fact, they won’t even reference them at all. Instead, they will tell you that WR X is destined for a huge game in week 2, despite being on the Do Not Draft list a mere 15 days prior.

Ironically, the deeper your roster is, the harder setting lineups become. The better options you have, the harder the decisions become. Sure, it’s great to have talent, but it’s not great pulling your hair out when your 4^th running back scored his 3^rd Touchdown of the game, on your bench. At least the suck ass teams don’t have to make decisions. They start the same awful garbage each week and hope to get a few lucky touchdowns. Most likely, they’ll come against you.

My least favorite of all lineup decisions? Choosing between two quarterbacks. I despite having multiple Quarterbacks on my roster, and I’d rather drop a starter to pick up a new one than debate who to start each week. I think my bad QB calls has cost me 1,000 points in my lifetime. Could this be why I’m writing an anti-fantasy football article?

After debating back and forwarded throughout the week, every fantasy player ultimately decides their lineup in the same way – projected points on their platform. Admit it, you’ve done it. We’ve all done it. It’s simple math. It has to be right!

Waiver Wire Struggles

While the draft is the most “fun” part of the Fantasy Football season, the waiver wire is how championships are won. This is the weekly game where every team in the league will try to pick up the breakout free agents of each week.

In ancient times, the waiver wire was determined by a set order. Typically, this was the reverse of the draft order, meaning the least pick got the first claim. This was an incredibly powerful position, and often determined Fantasy finishes based on random chance. Gee, that sounds fun.

Today, most leagues use an auction system, where you’re given $100 to bid on players each week. This, like an auction draft, is fairer, but also leads to more heartbreak. How much do you bid on the top free agent? Do you try to empty the budget on one player who might be the missing piece?

Here’s the issue with the waiver wire. Just like with the draft, there’s far too much information each day. While even a complete dunce could figure out the top add each week, articles list everyone relevant free agent and how much to bid for him. Just like the draft, there’s no secrets anymore. Every team in the league can spend three minutes making their claims for players, even copying the dollar amount bids. It couldn’t be easier.

Naturally, the skill is in figuring out how much money to bid to outmaneuver the league, which can be disastrous. Sometimes, you’ll come up a dollar short, and miss out on the breakout waiver wire add for trying to save a buck. Other times, you’ll go $20 over the next team, and overpay for a player that isn’t that good. It’s a cruel, cruel system. At least the priority system avoids the delusion of fairness.

Trading is a Nightmare

In a handful of leagues, the waiver wire isn’t the only way to add players. Some leagues have a peculiar rule where managers agree to give up players on their roster in exchange for players on the other. This archaic practice, known as trading, was thought to be extinct. Typically, it appears as an option on fantasy platforms as a nod to the past.

There’s an art to trading in Fantasy league. Unfortunately, I’m no artist. In my experience, most trades are extremely one sided. Nobody wants to lose a trade, so most managers ask for the moon. If they make an offer, they are clearly selling high on somebody who lucked their way into a big game. If you’re offered a trade, there’s next to no reason to ever accept it, unless somebody misclicked a reasonable offer.

The opposite is unfortunately true. If you try to offer a deal, everyone assumes it’s a bad offer. No matter the deal, you’ll receive a counteroffer that will include your top three players, first born child, and the lock combination of Scrooge McDuck’s money vault. It’s rarely even trying to trade as it’s either constant offers that lead to nothing, or a bad deal that’s only completed out of frustration.

It’s a lot like Tinder dating but with even more rejection.

Rooting for Stats, not Teams

Years ago, before Draft Kings offered betting promos during every commercial break, sports revolved around teams.***** ⁴ Each week, millions of people who watch games rooted for their favorite teams to win. Sounds crazy right?  Now, most people still care of their team of choice, but the final stat lines of everyone, including the opponent, matters nearly as much.

Fantasy brought in an entire new group of fans. It gives people a rooting interest in games without liquidating their bank account (at least not as fast as betting). Even the most casual sports fan can draft a team, and thanks to the never end stream of information, be competitive. All sports want to expand the fan base, and fantasy is a godsend to the sports world.

The downside is that is totally changes how we look and watch games. Instead of paying attention to the score, naturally, we want to have the statistic run down. I just complained about how the constant Fantasy updates hurt the game, but I’m extremely guilty looking at them. I went to the Jets game on Sunday and caught myself looking at the kicker updates while the Jets had the ball. Kicker updates!

In my defense, did you see the Jets offense?

The quest for fantasy dominance changes how we watch games. Instead of viewing the play in it’s entirety, we focus on our individual wide receivers and running backs on our fake rosters. High scoring affairs are celebrated, as long as our players are the benefactors. Defensive struggles, a football staple, are vilified as it caps fantasy upside. I get the fun of fantasy, but when you really think about it, how frigging lame is this? I looked at kicker updates!

But the greatest sin in the fantasy era? Rooting for players to score points against your favorite team. That’s just not right, but something that happens way too often.

This is probably the biggest change fantasy sports brought to fandom. It’s great for getting more eyeballs to the screen, but detrimental to appreciating the sport. Is this a net positive for the NFL?

Yes of course. Have you seen the ratings? What kind of dumbass question is this?

Social Media Interactions

I take it back. This is the biggest sin of the fantasy era. Rooting for fantasy points against your favorite team is bad. But getting mad at players and tweeting at them for not helping your fantasy team? That’s one of the lowest, dumbest things you could possibly do.

Let’s say a player you drafted has a poor performance. What’s the appropriate way to respond.

A). Shrug and say “It’s just a game. Ah Well.”

B). Blame all of the other circumstances, and right a long-winded blog about it.

C). Tweet aggressive, and occasionally threatening messages to a professional athlete.

If you said B, get off my turf.

Now, I doubt anybody answered C, yet these things happen every single day. The worst part of the internet is everything is anonymous. Nobody would ever go up to a professional athlete and say “Hey dude, you suck!” unless they were a professional athlete, or had a death wish. The internet allows people to say whatever is on their tiny, inconsequential minds without the fear of true repercussions. The repercussions should include getting tackles at full speed without pads on.

It’s just sad, pathetic and stupid. Look, I hate losing anything, even fantasy games, but can we stop this trend. Let’s just go back to complain about our fantasy teams to anybody who will listen like God intended.

Fantasy is Extremely Luck Based

We’ve talked about all the issues with fantasy, but let’s say, somehow, you avoided all the pitfalls. Despite all the information out there, you drafted a team you love. None of your players get hurt before the season starts. You have your line up set for over a week and realize you’re a 20-point favorite. What could possibly go wrong?

Oh, that’s right. The games.

Fantasy is more or less, a luck-based game. Your team must get lucky to avoid injuries, but you also have to get lucky in game. A 59-yard rush is worth less points then a player who falls forward at the one inch line. A player who draws two long pass interference penalties scores a grand total of 0 points, while a running back catching meaningless dump offs down 35 points is a fantasy superstar.

The context of stat lines don’t matter. All that matters is that your players score more points than the other team. Unfortunately, no matter how much preparation you do before each game, it’s always a coin flip. That’s what makes the game fun, but it’s also makes it so incredibly frustration.

The Auto Drafter Wins

Of course it works out this way. The auto drafter has the best strategy 0 they don’t give an iota of a shit. Naturally, they deserve to win since they didn’t waste all their free game to win a quarter of a day’s pay.

In Conclusion

In the first fantasy league I ran with my college friends, the draft was chaos. Somebody drafted Jason Witten in the sixth round, purely as a spite pick toward a Cowboys fan in the league. The obscenities filled the dorm. With his next pick, the same player drafted a Cowboys running back who barely cracked yahoo’s top 500. Nobody in the league knew who the player even was. That player, Marion Barber III went on to score 16 Touchdowns and lead his manager to a fantasy championship. All that, from a pure spite pick that shouldn’t have worked out. It made Silky Johnson blush.

This story isn’t meant to glorify the old school fantasy drafts, or to highlight that any pick can win a league. It’s to confirm what I’ve said all along. Fantasy football is a masochistic, moronic hobby that creates monsters of us all. We stress over lineup decisions and injuries, only for an auto draft team to win the league by 700 points. It’s anxiety inducing, loser drivel, and we should all be ashamed of playing.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to spend 30 minutes refreshing for injury updates before a make 19 waiver claims in my three leagues.

Sure, I said fantasy football was awful, dumb, a waste of time, and pure luck. But if I can spend 100 hours to win my entry back for third place, you’re damn right I’m going to do it. Can’t wait to miss out on my top pick up by $1.

1. *The poor unfortunate souls. I hope you didn’t have any of the 300 guys who underperformed week 1. Don’t worry, I drafted them all.
2. **95% is conservative. It’s easily 100%, but people would lie about that on the poll.
3. ***Fantasy having their own shows on national TV is still kind of wild to me.
4. ****Gambling led to a lot of this, but what can you do.