Ryan Cull relates his DraftKings fantasy experience as a regular player.
WEEK 8 – Go With Your Gut 2 – Gut Rot!
Do you ever have one of those days when you think to yourself “This is a bad day to be a sports fan?” It all started when Wales, once again, couldn’t get over the hump and lost to South Africa in the Rugby World Cup Semi-Finals. After the final whistle blew, a chill came through my body, as if all my fantasy hopes and dreams for this week immediately left my body.
I did my usual prep work, checking websites and watching YouTube videos of DFS advice, felt good about some of the bargains I got and was ready to put the rugby behind me. Then came the most depressing six hours of my life. If I could describe it by the hour it would go like this
Hour 1 – Jump out to a few early touchdowns, feeling good. And I still have Rodgers to go. And with the Patriots D is like playing with a second quarterback, it’s money in the bank!
Hour 2 – Slowly watching me fall out of contention. A few of the Double Ups are in play, already a million points behind the first algorithm because it somehow knew every player that would score a TD. I wonder if the winner is actually from the future. One week in the future (Stop playing fantasy and go kill baby Hitler!).
Hour 3 – Starting to realise that having to depend on 2 Running Backs over 30, Frank Gore and LeSean McCoy, is not a winning strategy. Each one of them hasn’t even hit their age in points.
Hour 4 – I call this second bottle of wine time! None of my hot picks that I read online about have panned out. All the smart decisions are turning out to be dumb. This is where the five stages of grief kick in. However you experience them much faster.
Hour 5 – You’ve now accepted defeat. Not only have all my fantasy games gone to hell, I’m reading on twitter about how shit the Buffalo Bills are again. This train is never late and it almost always arrives around week 8.
Hour 6 – Fantasy football is stupid. At least I have a baby scan tomorrow so finally some good news! Or will it be, after this run of bad luck I’m starting to worry the Dr. is going to tell me my child is a Patriots fan. Imagine that! Time for my last tube. It was an absolute ass kicking but that’s what fantasy is right, a few moments of joy followed by weeks and weeks of terrible decisions and never ending regret.
You’re gonna have these weeks a few times a year. The good news is, that it’s usually followed by a great, hard earned victory. It’s Gut Check time!