Nobody warned me that fanstasy football would have flashbacks. The PTSD stands for Post-Trade Stress Disorder. Graphic by Justin Shaw
Attention, ladies and gentlemen. I hear that many of you would love to learn to play fantasy football. It’s a fun little game that you can play with your friends and family, and is the closest many of us will ever get to being like John Madden, Don Shula or any other coaching legend. It also feeds into the NFL’s campaign for sports betting. But, as a now eight-year veteran of the game, I need to deliver my tales from the trenches, and boy, oh boy, they aren’t pretty. Not one bit.
Denial
Don’t get me wrong when I say that fantasy football sucks. It can be fun to play, but when you have the worst luck in the world, it becomes way harder to justify going on with it. I have been in a league with several of my family members for about eight years, and in that time, I have only made the playoffs once.
That one appearance was the inaugural year, meaning I have not been back for six years, even though we are only five weeks into my eighth season. I’m likely heading to league hell for my seventh straight season. That does things to men like me who treat this like war.
Anger
I have an overall record of 37-58. Last season, I won a single game. Fourteen games, that I tried as hard as possible in, and I won ONCE! This year looks like it will be more or less the same. I wanted to do it differently this year, because that is what you do when you’re on a bad streak.
I even bought a draft insight program, and had what I’d consider to be a flawless draft. Then the season started. Joe Burrow went down halfway through game two, Nick Bosa tore his ACL in week three and my defense hasn’t been the same since. Mike Evans has been dealing with the old all year long, then I lost my first two picks, Malik Naebers and Tyreek Hill, in a single week.
Those jerks broke more than their legs — they broke my fantasy team! In case it wasn’t bad enough, the two beams of hope for my relentless team, Omarion Hampton and Spencer Shrader, are out as I write this. It angers me even more when I talk about it with other league members, and the response is, “We are only playing for fun.”
Fun? FUN!? This game is not a joke to me. Six years of losing, followed by the steaming pile of crap I am cooking up right now, is that what you would consider FUN? No, it isn’t. No further explanation needed.
Bargaining
I would like to personally ask whichever demon is ruining my life at the current moment if they’d get this torment over with and move on to the next person. I know it’s funny to keep kicking myself when I am already down and struggling to breathe, but I can’t do this all day. You are going to be the first thing I write about in my journal when I wake up, and that isn’t a good thing.
Depression
Fantasy football just sucks so much when you aren’t winning. Sometimes, I find it reflecting my experience with life: trying so hard to live a great, honest and happy life, enjoying a spot at the top of my career field, but getting nothing but the previously mentioned pile of crap for my efforts. I probably should just give up on trying as hard as I do, but I can’t. Not yet, because my hope is still hanging on by a single finger.
Acceptance
So, we’ve been through the lows, and the pure hatred that I have developed towards the word “fun.” I think it may just be my time to admit that I can’t do it anymore. We grow up, we watch our favorite players grow old and we eventually see the season that we all know is their last. I feel it’s my time. I will not be playing fantasy football next year, as it has had a genuine impact on my mental state, and every time I log on to ESPN fantasy football, I feel like Paul Bäumer from “All Quiet On The Western Front” after he discovered the reality of war. I am Paul Bäumer, and fantasy football is my great war.