Hey there, traveler. If you’re checking out this article, it probably means you are in a similar situation to mine. You’ve found yourself in what feels like an inescapable hole. Four weeks of disappointment. Four weeks of hopes and dreams, thoroughly crushed by the football gods. You look at the standings to see your percentage chance of making the playoffs, sitting comfortably in the single digits.
Things look grim. It’s hard to look at your roster. And there are times you may just want to throw in the towel.
Instead of deleting your app and sulking in the corner, sit with me for just a moment. Take a deep breath in – now a big breath out. Take one more breath in, but instead of letting the air out, just calmly and quietly utter your favorite expletive through the duration of the exhale.
Alright, hopefully that helps ease the tension just a tad. That’s all you can do at this moment anyway. Nothing will change the reality that is a 0-4 start.
Now here’s the deal: it’s time to stop feeling sorry about the unfortunate start to the year, and it’s time to lock in and right the ship. The journey will be long and filled with stressful decisions, but if it all goes right, it will be a season you’ll never forget. I offer you some small tidbits of advice to guide you through these tough times. These are a few steps you’ll need to take to start climbing out of that hole.
It’s time to initiate the “Miracle Run” protocol.
Step 1: Thoroughly Re-Evaluate Your Roster
To move forward, you need to look backward. If you want your roster to succeed, you need to review what happened over the past four weeks that led you to this moment today. I know it will sting to re-live each loss, but we need to drill down and figure out what was the main driver of those losses.
Was it as simple as a bad start/sit decision? Did a player underperform at the worst possible time? Were you a victim of Variance and your opponent hit the jackpot against you? Or do you have players that are failing to provide value and you have positions that need to be addressed? You need to ask these questions to give yourself a roadmap for the next steps.
The answers will be different for every roster. And to be frank, you’re not going to like some of the conclusions you come to.
Step 2: Make The Necessary and Difficult Moves to Improve Your Roster
Fantasy managers treat their rosters like their children. They tend to overvalue their players and devalue their opponents’ pieces. It happens all the time and people never learn. However, now is the time to be the change you want to see in the world. You need to re-adjust your expectations for some of these players, and ready yourself to move on from some of those favorites on your roster.
You may need to drop someone you thought would break out and be a league winner. It could be moving on from a veteran player who has brought you success in the past. Both of these types of players must be left behind in your journey back to relevance. You don’t have time to wait anymore – you need some results today.
Trading is always the quickest way to make necessary changes to your team. That, unfortunately, doesn’t change how hard it is to make trades that impact your season immediately. The easiest way to make something happen is to move on from your elite player to gain value spread across the team.
It sucks, but one player can’t (usually) drag your team across the finish line.
Step 3: Play Every Week Like It’s Double Elimination
I want to make sure you understand this point very clearly: being 0-4 does not mean your season is over. Equally, being 0-5 does not mean your season is over. The season is just getting started, and as we all know, the NFL season is a marathon, not a sprint.
The tricky part about starting on the back foot is how it makes every week a little more important. You aren’t allowed to think too far ahead into the season like some other managers can. You need to think about the current week and what’s coming up next. That’s really it from now until your team feels stable.
This week and next. We care about current start/sits today, and we care about the bye weeks and poor matchups next week. If we lose this week, it’s ok – there’s still time. But back-to-back losses can’t happen in the pursuit of the playoffs.
Step 4: Make a Deal with the Fantasy Higher Powers
The most important step is one that you may have already known. Do whatever you need to do to get the good energy on your side. Whether it be burning incense, changing your team name, shifting around who’s in the flex, just try something. We sometimes forget that this game ultimately comes down to a lot of luck, in terms of dodging injuries, funny bounces of the ball, and untimely penalties.
Just as we started this article, sometimes all you need to do is breathe. Fantasy football should be fun and a little stressful. Anything more than that takes away from the magic of our silly little game.
So one last time. Breathe in, breathe out. You got this.
