The NFL season is heading into the homestretch and that means that season-long fantasy leagues are getting down to the nitty-gritty. It is week 11 and in most fantasy leagues that means there are 3 games left until the playoffs. For those who are new to fantasy football, the most common format is to have the regular season end with week 13 and then have weeks 14, 15, and 16 be your playoffs. Most leagues try to avoid having the championship game happen in week 17 because of the risk of important players being sat for rest before the real NFL playoffs begin. Last week I was matched up with the top team in our league who I was one game behind. Beating him would put me in 1st place in the league with 3 games remaining and I blew it!
It has been a hard fought season for my team and I will admit that I have had a little bit lucky on a few occasions. Such is the way with Fantasy football. At 7-2 going into the week I was in great position. Finishing first in the league is a big deal because it means getting your $100 entry fee back. There is also a $50 prize for winning your division which you obviously do if you finish 1st overall. More important than any of the money though is the bragging right that comes from winning.
The league leader has been putting up points like crazy this season. He was the owner that got lucky with the Patrick Mahomes coming out this year and he was also smart enough to take a flyer James Connor late in the draft. He has been blowing teams out most weeks and has scored 200 points more than any other team. Going into our game he was favoured to win 143 - 128. The odds were stacked against me. That was until Ben Roethlisberger went out and put up 50 points on Thursday night against the Panthers. All of a sudden I was favoured to win!
All I needed was an average game from Pat Mahomes and for my team to match expectations and I was on my way. That is until I decided to overmanage my team and cost myself a win. As it would turn out, Mahomes would only score 22 fantasy points against the sad sack Arizona Cardinals. Everything I had hoped for fell into place and I should have won the game except for the epic mistake I made in the final moments before game time. With 2 minutes left before lineups get locked, I made a switch that would prove to cost me the game and it only took 10 minutes into the games for me to know it would. At the last second, I put Leshon McCoy on my bench and started Duke Johnson Jr instead. Talk about regrets!!!
McCoy has been the bane of my fantasy existence all season long. He is a player who has been on my team for several years and someone who I have actively tried to trade for the past season and a half with no takers. He was still a solid point producer for me last season but this year has been an absolute nightmare. Through the first 9 weeks of the season he had averaged about 7-8 fantasy points per game and the Bills offense has been falling further in the crapper every week. I had continued starting him on name value and in hopes that he would turn it around but this game was super important and I felt that I needed to pull out all the stops.
Duke Johnson was on the upswing and with the new OC in Cleveland and playing the Falcons who struggle against pass-catching backs, I thought I was being a genius. 5 minutes into watching the games I knew I had outmanaged myself and that I might have made a huge mistake. The highlight came onto Redzone like a dagger through my chest. Shady had just scored his first TD of the season on a sweet 28-yard scamper. The only way to express how I felt at that moment is rage!
McCoy would go on to score another touchdown and put up his 1st 100 yard game of the season for a sweet 26 fantasy points. All sitting on me BENCH! Johnson scored a respectable 10 points but that was 16 points that I robbed myself of at the last second because I over analyzed these two players. The matchup remained close and I still had a chance to win going into Sunday night but that was erased when Zack Ertz went off for 144 yards and 2 TDs. I would lose the game 145.75 - 134.50. That 16 points ended up being HUGE!
The loss sent me to 3rd place at 7-3 instead of being tied for 1st at 8-2 with the tiebreaker advantage. The Fantasy gods mocked me last week. It wasn't the first time I had made that kind of mistake and you can be damn sure it won't be the last. The good thing is that I can't get fired for my mistakes like real NFL coaches and managers. This means that the next 3 games are huge for me if I want to secure one of the top two spots going into the playoffs. The lesson learned here is to stick to your instincts and don't second-guess yourself at the last minute. I had felt all week that Shady could put up decent numbers but I let myself get faked out by fantasy prognosticators and reports. Have you ever made a mistake like this in your fantasy leagues? I will update you all in a few weeks about how things shake out.
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