It came to the attention of one of the editors in our sports department Monday, during our daily morning meeting, that he was trailing in his fantasy football game by 0.4 points heading into the Steelers-Bengals game that night.
He had no players left, while his opponent still had one to play: Steelers WR JuJu Smith-Schuster.
Game over, it seemed. But on the site that tallies scores, it only showed his opponent with a 99.6% chance of winning. How as that possible, we wondered — until figuring it out: If somehow Smith-Schuster put up a negative point total, via a comically low output and at least one fumble, it was conceivable that our editor's team could still win.
Folks ... it almost happened.
At halftime, Smith-Schuster had 2 catches for minus-6 yards and ... a fumble. That meant he had minus-1 points, and our editor was suddenly ahead by 0.6 points.
It stayed that way INTO THE FOURTH QUARTER, as the Steelers — who are attempting to be both the 1972 Dolphins and 1976 Buccaneers in the same season — stumbled toward their third consecutive loss after 11 straight wins to start the year.
But Smith-Schuster caught a 21-yard pass with 10:14 left in the game, putting his total — in this league's scoring system — all the way up to minus-0.25.
That was all he did the rest of the game. But it was just enough to stave off what would have been one of the all-time bad beats in fantasy football history. His team owner won by 0.15 points.
