The 10 Best Ways to Win Your Fantasy Football Matchup

The sheer number of things that give us happiness in life is immense. Having trouble thinking of some? I’ve got a list for you:

Finding $20 in an old pair of jeans.
Pulling into the Target parking lot just as a car in the front row is pulling out.
Knocking a six-iron from 180 yards to within four inches of the hole.
Puppies. Literally all puppies.

The innumerable nature of these joy-bringers extends to the fantasy football world, where a win might just be a win in the standings, but those Ws come in so very many forms.

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Here’s my list of the 10 best ways to win your fantasy football matchup, ranked from least to most satisfying:

10. The “Your Opponent Really Wasn’t Trying” Win
Most commissioners try to keep their leagues competitive, but it seems like most setups have one or two managers who simply can’t be bothered to show up. You know the ones. They usually pull a Matt Millen at the draft, winding up with three quarterbacks, three tight ends, two receivers, a linebacker (this isn’t even an IDP league, man!), one player who definitely isn’t going to play a single snap of professional football and a score of F– (-23 out of 100) in the post-draft analysis.

By Week 4, this manager’s “team” resembles what an NFL expansion roster would look like if every team got to protect 50 players each. And guess who he or she faces in Week 5! There is no way you lose this matchup, so maybe you have a little fun with it. Start Tim Tebow. Leave your quarterback(s) on the bench. Only start players with a Z in their name. It doesn’t matter – you’re cruising to that W in the least satisfying way possible.

9. The “1990s Heat-Knicks” Win
If you’re unfamiliar with the Heat-Knicks NBA rivalry of the 1990s, here’s a TikTok-length summary for you:

Both teams hated each other more than you have hated anything in your life.
In the midst of all the hatred, nobody cared about scoring actual points.

Seriously, these teams played a handful of games where neither side scored more than 80 points. And these were playoff games! Imagine paying $2.5 million for a courtside seat at Madison Square Garden, only to have to sit through a 77-73 snoozer. Spike Lee deserved so much better than that.

All this is to say, low-scoring matchups are just no fun. Sure, you’re happy to get the dub, but can you really enjoy it?

8. The “Last-Minute Scoring Change” Win
These wins are rare, but they do happen. And while being on the right end of a stat correction victory is certainly satisfying, I can’t rank it any higher than this, because let’s face it: You spent the previous three days chewing glass at having lost because the league didn’t immediately credit your Alvin Kamara eight-yard rush or your Aaron Donald sack.

It’s kind of like ordering a kick-ass Sodastream off Amazon, only to have it delayed by three weeks. Okay, so eventually, you’ll be able to make delicious carbonated beverages for a fraction of the price of the store-bought version with little compromise in the overall flavor, but you’re a lot less happy than you should be when it finally arrives.

Still, it’s better than being on the other end of a scoring change decision. Oof.

7. The “Could Have Been a LOT Better” Win
Let’s be honest: You don’t just want to prevail in your fantasy football matchups. You want to win so decisively; your opponent is telling his disinterested grandchildren about it 50 years from now. So whenever you leave massive performances on your bench, it stings (whether you win or lose).

That must be how the Harlem Globetrotters felt whenever they eked out a win over the Washington Generals. “Man,” I imagine Meadowlark Lemon would say to Hubert “Geese” Ausbie, “we got the victory, but I really should have made more cartwheel layups and 50-footers while standing on the ref’s shoulders. No way that game should have been so close.”

6. The “Lead by a Lot, Win by a Little” Win
How many of us have been in this position before?

Sunday
1:45 pm ET: Matt Ryan’s second TD pass to Calvin Ridley gives you a 45-7 lead. NICE.
2:30 pm ET: A Dalvin Cook TD extends your advantage to 79-20. You’re already looking ahead to your next matchup.
4 pm ET: Justin Tucker’s game-winning field goal puts you up 101-35. The taunting begins!
5:30 pm ET: Tom Brady finds Mike Evans, and your lead is down to 114-64. Merely a flesh wound.
7:15 pm ET: Jerkface Keenan Allen scores AGAIN, and that edge is now just 120-91. Queasy.
9:30 pm ET: “HOW in the WORLD was Tyreek THAT wide open???” you ask. You think about quitting fantasy altogether.

Monday
8:15 pm ET: You need George Kittle to score fewer than 17 points. You tweet at him to PLEASE score fewer than 17 points. No response.
9 pm ET: Kittle already has 11 points because the Seahawks defense hates you.
10 pm ET: “THAT WAS NOT A CATCH,” you shout, emphatically waking your children. You throw a half-eaten plate of nachos at the wall.
11 pm ET: Kittle drops a pass in the end zone, Seattle runs out the clock, and you win by 0.3 points. You celebrate by vomiting.

Yeah, that’s probably not the most fun way to win a fantasy matchup.

The 10 Worst Ways to Lose Your Fantasy Football Matchup

5. The “Nail Every Coin Flip” Win
Trying to decide between two players with similar profiles or projections is like disarming a bomb if hundreds of bomb-disarmament movie scenes have taught us anything (one thing they have taught us: you should always carry around a pair of pliers, just in case). Make the right call, and you’re a hero. Pick the wrong guy, and fantasy football becomes thoroughly joyless like I imagine getting blown up into 400,000 tiny pieces might feel.

Every so often, fantasy managers will have a week where they’re faced with multiple coin flips and hit them all. And that, my friends, is a special feeling rivaled only by the four upcoming items on this list. It’s the fantasy equivalent of nailing a parlay consisting of -110 bets – only, instead of winning tens of thousands of dollars, you win your fantasy matchup! (Okay, not the best example.)

4. The “Bye Weeks Ain’t Got Nothin’ On Me” Win
Try as you might to spread out those bye weeks (and the majority of fantasy experts will tell you not to concern yourself with that); you’ll inevitably end up with one matchup where you’ll be shorthanded. It’s like buying a box of Celebrations chocolates: No matter how you ration everything, eventually, you’re going to be left with a whole lotta Bounty. And that’s not great, Bob.

So imagine how elated you are when you muscle through those hefty bye-week absences and still pull out a victory. Whether through your savvy waiver wire maneuvering, blow-up performances from your active players, or a major letdown on the part of your opponent, winning on your worst bye week is a huge joy-maker. Akin to chocolate bar other than Bounty.

3. The “Revenge is Sweet Like (Non-Bounty) Candy” Win
If you ever need a lesson on how to exact revenge, simply watch any Sylvester Stallone movie. Seriously, any of his 350 films will do. They all follow this general sequence: Somebody does something to harm Stallone, or his family, or friends, or pet(s). Stallone grunts and says several unintelligible things (thank goodness for subtitles!), there are montages with running or punching or shooting, and eventually, Stallone gets his revenge (and looks very, very tired by the end of it all.)

Fantasy revenge is kind of like that, except for pretty much all of it. It’s rare for managers to have the opportunity to avenge an earlier loss – but when that moment presents itself, there’s something sensationally satisfying (probably because the rematch has much higher stakes attached, being so much later in the season). The trash talk potential here is through the roof; just be sure your opponent doesn’t have a decent right hook because you’re probably going to come across as a lot more punchable than before the win.

2. The “Super Bowl LI” Win (aka “The ‘It Was 28-3’ Win”)
I talked previously about how nerve-wracking it can be to build a huge early fantasy lead, then watch your opponent take a blowtorch to it over the next 30 (mostly miserable) hours. This is the exact opposite of that – and the feeling couldn’t be more different, either, at least for most fantasy managers.

It’s like being in last place on the final lap of Mario Kart when the game starts giving you the really sweet stuff like exploding tracker shells or multiple super-speed mushrooms, and you start zipping past one sucker after another until you find yourself right behind the leader on the final stretch. (By the way, if you’ve never played Mario Kart, stop wasting your time and DO IT!) Getting that sweet Monday night scoring play to go out in front is like a green turtle shell to the leader’s tailpipe. Climb that podium, Baby Luigi. You did it.

1. The “Mortal Kombat Flawless Victory” Win
A royal flush.

A hole-in-one.

Flipping a bottle cap from 40 or more feet onto the very bottle from which it was removed.

What do these things have in common? They all illustrate perfection in their respective disciplines – and achieving such greatness is so rare, it needs to be savored through detailed and repeated tellings, even if your husband or wife laments that you’ve already shared this dumb story a thousand times.

The perfect fantasy football victory is the rarest of these achievements. You need to not only win your matchup but to do so in such convincing fashion that your league mates are only able to express their astonishment through acronyms (e.g., OMG, LOL, WTF). The perfect fantasy victory also requires the single-highest score in your league that season, preferably paired with a particularly weak showing by your opponent; if you’ve ever won by 100+ points (against a manager who’s actually trying, of course), you’ve pulled off a perfect fantasy victory.

Championships are obviously great, and Week 13 victories to get into the fantasy postseason come with their own level of satisfaction. But once you pull off the perfect fantasy football win, you become part of the rarest fraternity in the industry. So go celebrate! Have a steak and some Sodastream! Binge watch the “Rocky” franchise*! You’ve earned it.

*But for goodness sake, please stop after Rocky IV.

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