So, now what? You’ve learned all of the coaching systems. You know which offensive lines are going to make an impact this year. You’ve mastered the arts of age, size, waiting on QBs, navigating ADP and handcuffing. Your draft was a lesson in mastery and everybody in your league knows that you are the team to beat. Even your kids, who are constantly embarrassed by your life choices, are proud of you.
This season is going to be one for the ages!
But then, it happens. Week 1 of the NFL regular season arrives and all of a sudden some of your choices don’t look as good as they did in the afterglow of your draft. The Saints are somehow running the ball 35-plus times per game. Ryan Mathews is injured. Odell Beckham Jr. got suspended for using an illegal chemical to color his hair.
What in the hell is going on, here?
Relax, Kemosabe. There is no such thing as a perfect season. Just ask the 2007 New England Patriots. Now, the one promise I can make you is that something will not work out the way we had planned. I mean, that is why they play the games. If fantasy football was just about building the best team possible to start the season, we wouldn’t spend each day for the next four months going over which players to pick up on waivers or who to start.
After the first week of the regular season there will be panic in the streets. Fantasy football players everywhere will wake up on Tuesday morning thinking their entire season is down the drain because of some player or situation not working out the way we had thought. After all, 50-percent of teams are going to be 0-1 after that week. People will flood to email, the message boards and to their cell phones to hit up other owners in their league for a trade. They will race to the waiver wire to pick up that random WR who caught two TD’s last week. They’ll cut bait on players they spent all summer singing the praises of. I see it every single year.
Every game of skill takes a certain degree of patience. Whether you are talking about chess, poker, horseshoes or fantasy sports. Hell, life takes an amazing amount of patience if you really think about it. Think about the first time you hooked up with your girlfriend. Or, if that bitch dumped you, then think about how you are going to nail her friend to get back at her. Did it magically work out the first time you met? Did you walk up to her, tell her that her eyes looked like an apple orchard and she just fell into your arms? No flipping way.
This fantasy football season is going to kick you in the balls (or ovaries for you ladies). You’re going to feel panic set in at some point, be it early on or later in the season. You’re going to start the wrong QB one week. Maybe two. You’re going to drop a RB who, incredibly, gets promoted to the starter a week or two later. You’re going to lose one of your matchups because either a kicker or DST or both ring up 25-plus points on you. As a result of any or all of these you will begin to freak out and think that you need to make some immediate changes. Meanwhile, I will sit back and relax. In fact, I could be the guy who winds up taking advantage of you without you even knowing it. I’ll swoop in and take that awful QB off of your hands in exchange for that breakout WR who found paydirt twice last week. I’ll snatch your handcuff up the minute he hits waivers and then sit on him for nine weeks until he eventually becomes useful and just so happens to help me defeat you in the playoffs.
Some people think that I am arrogant. I prefer the word “confident” instead. You see, I’ve seen it all. Like, really. I’ve seen all of the one or two week heroes. I’ve watched teams go undefeated for the first twelve weeks only to lose in the first round of the playoffs. I’ve seen people start selling off the players they tried so desperately to have before the season for pennies on the dollar. I’ve had teams start 0-4 and even 0-6 and win a championship. I’ve also had teams score the most points in the league by over 300 points and finish 4-9.
Since you are reading the 33rd entry of our 33 Fantasy Football Strategies series I am going to go ahead and assume you are a pretty dedicated player. Maybe you have won a bunch of championships and are just trying to stay on top. Or maybe you are a struggling player still in search of your first playoff appearance. Either way, we are all the exactly same in one way. We will never be as prepared during the season as we are before the season. We all do so much research and put so much time into designing our pre-draft rankings and strategies that we can never replicate this in the course of six days between matchups.
So, why do we spend all of this time and give all of this energy into preparing ourselves for the season if we are just going to freak out and panic after two or three bad weeks? Does all of your summer research mean nothing because Antonio Brown or Todd Gurley have under ten points? Absolutely not. To win at this game is to conquer the emotional side of your personality. Let your brain do the heavy lifting for your fantasy team while your heart sings out with praise or dismay while watching the games on Sunday.
The bottom line is that the weak rush to change while the strong stay and fight. I’m not telling you not to make any moves and just let your team rot while hoping for the best. Rather, trust in yourself. Trust in what you have learned in these pages of the draft guide. Trust in the players who you were so happy about just a couple of weeks ago and are now ready to push off of a cliff. If you’ve spent the kind of time and effort that I think most of you have then chances are you picked up some great ideas these last few weeks. But the season is a long struggle that sees us all out barbecuing after week one and inside with the fireplace lit before the regular season is even over.
Be patient with your player, with your team and with yourself. Make sure that a player is indeed an actual failure before you trade or cut him. The first few weeks are just that: a few weeks. You need nine wins in most leagues to make the playoffs. Many times, eight or sometimes even seven wins will get you in as well. It doesn’t matter when those wins happen. In fact, I really like when my team underperforms at the start of the season because I know the bigger, better weeks for these players are yet to come. In the last three seasons I’ve won seven championships out of a total of 28 leagues. In five of those seven championship teams my starting QB in the title games wasn’t on my roster before week six. Do you think that I am going to panic when my starting QB’s go down with an injury or are underperforming? Nah, bruh.
You all have the knowledge and trust me when I say that in fantasy football as in life, knowledge is power. Don’t let any set of early season circumstances allow you to lose trust in that power. You may not win the championship this season. You may get so incredibly unlucky that it causes you to punch your laptop. But don’t let bad luck force itself upon you. Stay true to what you know. Stay true to what you believe. Stay true to who you believe in. You’ve all done the hard part at this point. Now go out there and assert yourself on your league. When the going gets tough as it most certainly will, remember to stand firm in those beliefs.
If you start to feel the walls closing in on you at any point this season and you feel like you might want to make some changes, hit us up directly. You can email, Tweet, Facebook, Instagram, post on our forums or however else you can think of getting a hold of me and our team. We made a pledge to each of you to get you to the top of the mountain this season and believe me when I say that we are absolutely prepared to do that. You just have to know not to stop climbing the moment something gets in your way.
Be patient, have fun and let’s kick some ass this season.