The Fantasy Reality: Beware the bad beat

This 16-team Strib fantasy league, mangled by footloose expansion over the years and dominated by transaction junkies, makes for some very interesting waiver wire moves. I had to pick up a tight end this week, and when 15 other owners have at least one tight end you know before you get your line wet that you're going to be fishing for carp. I ended up plucking the world-famous Daniel Fells, tight end, St. Louis Rams. They were playing the Lions; that was my reasoning. Then on Sunday morning I had a serious overcoaching moment, panicked about starting a guy named Daniel Fells, picked up some other joker and shoved him into my starting lineup. Guess who scored a touchdown for the Rams? On a fake field-goal reception nonetheless. Guess who lost this week by the margin of a random tight end touchdown? This game will make you crazy if you let it.

Michael Rand: Ah yes, the bad beat. Gamblers love to tell their stories (lousy field goal cost me the cover ... lousy six on the river gave that lucky son of a gun his straight ...) and really, what are fantasy football players but long-term gamblers. But yes, losing like that in fantasy football does leave a pretty bad sting -- though not as bad as the guy who wrote in and said someone in his league lost a couple weeks back because a review DAYS AFTER THE GAME ENDED changed a Ben Roethlisberger 1-yard rushing loss to a sack for the Vikings. I was sure I was headed for a bad beat Monday night in another league. I was down 1 and desperately needed a late Drew Brees TD pass. When he threw to Devery Henderson, and he was tackled ... AT THE STUPID 1-YARD LINE #@!@#, I was sure Pierre Thomas was going to run it in and ruin my night. Instead, Brees threw it to Thomas for a TD, my night was saved, and my opponent was left to lament. Never mind, of course, that any reasonable local fan should have been rooting for a turnover and a Saints loss, since that would have helped the Vikings. Fantasy will make you crazy if you let it, and will make you stupid 100 percent of the time.

Chris Carr: After more than our share of churns through the bad-beat grinder, you start to look for it, don't you? I watch the last two minutes of "Monday Night Football" even if the game stinks. You know somebody somewhere is winning or losing on the last play of the week, every week. This past Monday you know some poor sap lost by a point when his or her QB, Matt Ryan, was penalized for throwing that Hail Mary INT in the final seconds against the Saints. And that surely isn't the most meaningless play ever to turn a fantasy victory into a loss. An opposing running back with 78 yards falls forward into the line for 3 to run out the clock and -- bingo -- the 80-yard bonus point kicks in. Nobody on the field cares. Nobody in the TV booth or pressbox cares. But some Joe the Plumber in Richfield or Richmond or Rio just spiked his DirecTV remote into his living room carpet.

Rand: Indeed. It kind of makes me glad I'm not in any of those decimal-point leagues that give out a tenth of a point for every yard and other such nonsense. At least it reduces the chances of a bad beat. As one long-standing member of my longest-standing league (the Funk Funk Fantasy Football Federation) always says: We reward performance, not participation.