I really love playing Fantasy Football as much as I love playing Fantasy Baseball. It is not really much of a secret that I like games, in fact. I am down with Words With Friends and was a card and board game player as long as I can remember (I was around five when Rudy, my father, taught me to play Cribbage and Canasta).
Furthermore, I have acknowledged in this very virtual space before that I have a tough time making my football moves, not that I am blaming the rules of my league, the cheese industry, Obama, or any other easy targets. They are my teams, and I drafted and attempt to run them.
As it is I try to draft my football squads with an eye on the Bye weeks such that at least going in there isn’t a lot of free agent work required should the heavy off-weeks, like we are “enjoying” now, occur. Conversely, things like injuries (ouch Julian Edelman, David Johnson, and Cameron Meredith!), ineffectiveness (howdy Paul Perkins, Wendell Smallwood, and Mike Gillislee!) has wrought her (or his) vicious head.
Now, I realize the ghost of Roger Goodell is not haunting me. Well, ok, I am pretty outspoken about my feelings for the nincompoop, and maybe he does have more power than I would like to admit.
Thus I have come try to understand why I can succeed more readily in one–football– as the other, baseball?
To start, one thing that sticks out is that though baseball and football seasons each run about six months, respectively, as we know, football just plays one-tenth the number of games. For some reason this always gives me the illusion that I have plenty of time.
That is because in baseball, I know to give a guy a couple of months, or 60 games to think about dumping the player, while in football eight weeks is half the season but only shows a max of eight contests, and for those with early Byes just seven.
So, it is hard for me to dump a guy like Smallwood, whom I thought would slowly work his way into #1 back, showed increased play, and suddenly fell off the map. Or of Gillislee, who had such an awesome first week and then fumbled first series Week 2 and has not been heard fromsince?
After 60 games I can see dumping, but after four just seems hasty even though historically and statistically doing just that was the prudent path. For somehow I found myself in ten leagues this season plus as many as four DFS opportunities, weekly.
Worse, even though my season-long management seems derelict at worst and passive at best, I have been doing well in DFS formats, and had pretty good success finding the Robby Andersons and Sterling Shepards at the right time, and even writing about it. But, that does not mean I got around to picking either up before it was too late.
This problem is borne out by the fact that all my season long teams won Week 1, and more than half did Week 2, but since for the most part wins have been few and far in between again suggesting my short-term management skills are not meshing with any kind of long-term success.
The thing is, change is not only hard, but time stretches differently in football than it does baseball. Plus, an itchy trigger finger can mean as much the kiss of death as it can the tasty lips of victory, and that just adds to my turmoil. Or paralysis? Or whatever it is that makes me cling hopefully to Taylor Gabriel thinking maybe he will turn in to Robert Woods after?
Maybe it is just the nature of football: to confound.
For, I have often asked myself why a 100-yard hole on the golf links is a simple chip with my pitching wedge, whereas in the NFL each and every single foot of turf between the tee, and by definition me, and the pin is a hard fought piece of real estate?
Remember to tune into the Tout Wars Hour on the FNTSY network, hosted by me, with Justin Mason and featuring Lord Z every Thursday night at 9 PM ET.
Follow me @lawrmichaels.
