The 10 Worst Ways to Lose Your Fantasy Football Matchup

First, we celebrated all of the wild and wacky ways in which fantasy football managers can earn a W – and it was simply wonderful, wasn’t it?

Now, things get decidedly less fun. Fantasy football losses come in many shapes and sizes, and each one leaves you a little deader inside than the last. String enough of them together, and you’re liable to start doing crazy things, like trading star players for depth guys coming off two-touchdown games, or spending $95 of your FAAB on Todd “I’ll Stay Healthy This Time, Honest” Gurley.

Let’s take a look at all the ways in which you can lose a fantasy matchup, from least to most cramp-inducing.

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10. The “Bye, Bye, Bye” Loss

This homage to JC Chasez’s former band is probably the least offensive way to lose a fantasy showdown. After all, you can’t honestly be expected to win your worst bye-week matchup, can you?

This does, however, lead to an interesting question that some fantasy football managers grapple with every season: Should you purposely load up on players with the same bye week, tank your Week X matchup and have a full and awesome roster every other week? And the iron-clad answer to this is obviously: “Sure, I guess, if you want to, whatever.”

I don’t really give out the advice around here. But if I did, I would say, follow your heart. Go with what you know. Make the most of every opportunity. Snitches get stitches. Don’t trust a businessman in a wrinkled suit. A hot dog is a sandwich. And Boyz II Men > NKOTB > Backstreet Boys > N*SYNC. Sorry, JC.

9. The “Never Had a Chance” Loss

This kind of defeat can happen one of two ways: Either your entire roster performs so poorly that the commissioner is compelled to send you a DM to see if you’re doing okay, or your opponent puts up a 200-burger and instantly becomes The Insufferable One in your league of record, reminding you every week for the next five years while getting a dozen T-shirts made with a picture of your head on the side of a dumpster.

We don’t sweat these losses because there’s literally nothing we could have done to avoid them. All that time you spent on our insanely fun “Who Should I Start?” wheel? All those hours you put into roster management and waiver wire claims and NFL NextGenStats research? Doesn’t matter. You would have been better off spending that time on Sudoku, or Among Us, or crossbow practice. And at the end of the week, it’s just one loss (though I’d consider a shirt with your head on the side of a dumpster a pretty big L, too.)

8. The “One-Man Wrecking Crew” Loss

8. 11. 4. 9. 3. 4. 8. 10. 5. 7. 41. 10. 5. -2.

No, this isn’t Leonard Fournette‘s 2020 rushing log. It’s an example of the type of fantasy football scoring log that drives you crazy when you’re on the wrong end of it.

This scenario also makes for some pretty not-fun viewing on Sunday (though you could absolutely say the same about most of the other losses on this list). Imagine seeing the rest of your opponent’s team struggling – and then watching his or her quarterback duck, dodge, and maybe even complete a full cartwheel under duress before completing a right-on-the-numbers 89-yard touchdown pass (his sixth of the game, BTW) to a fourth-string wide receiver who didn’t even learn the playbook until that morning.

(On that note, it’s even worse when you manage a receiver on a team whose quarterback blows up, and that receiver posts a 2-15-0 line. Many curse words and profane emojis!)

7. The “Reserve All-Stars” Loss

Most weeks, you wind up having to make difficult roster decisions (and we can help with those!) And while you’ll often make 50-50 calls that ultimately win you a fantasy football matchup, there are weeks where your roster coin flips turn out quite badly – and it’s almost hilarious to see what it does to some fantasy owners:

Week 3: Start Robert Woods (9) over D.J. Moore (16)

Week 4: Start D.J. Moore (6) over Robert Woods (14)

Week 5: Recognize a pattern (it isn’t really a pattern), start D.J. Moore (-4) over Robert Woods (16)

Week 6: Start D.J. Moore (8) over Robert Woods (16)

Week 7: Decide that a new pattern has formed (it hasn’t), start Robert Woods (3) over D.J. Moore (18)

Week 8: Both players are on bye week, forcing you to start Michael Gallup (23)

Week 9: Take complete leave of your senses, start Michael Gallup (-1) over D.J. Moore (19) and Robert Woods (20)

Week 10: Cut all three players and start playing more DFS

Don’t laugh. You know this has actually happened to someone.

6. The “Upset in More Ways Than One” Loss

I spoke earlier about how a multi-bye-week loss isn’t that difficult to swallow in the grand scheme of things. Well, when it’s your opponent is on the bye-week ropes and still pulls out a victory, that’s a decidedly different feeling. Specifically: Eye-melting, blood-boiling rage.

It isn’t just bye weeks that can leave your foe short-handed to the point where you should absolutely win by 50+ points. Perhaps he or she is dealing with a litany of injuries. Maybe he or she forgot to set a proper lineup and has Week 7 bye recipient Christian McCaffrey on the Week 8 bench in favor of Week 7 emergency starter Mark Ingram. Or perhaps he or she is forced to start Salvon Ahmed and La’Mical Perine because, for whatever reason, he or she is terrible at fantasy football.

Whatever the case, these are the kinds of matchups you need to dominate – and when you don’t, it’s a real frying pan to the temple.

5. The “Betrayed By My Studs” Loss

Fantasy managers have a special connection to their first-round picks (not quite as strong as the connection to their spouses and children, but definitely on par with their non-dog pets).

They’re the first players on your squeaky new 2021 re-draft teams, for which you’ve spent countless hours researching. You make that first pick expecting to get studly contributions all season long – and when they come through, you feel warm and happy, like when you unexpectedly find “Road House” (and it just started!) while flipping through the channels on a random Sunday afternoon during the offseason.

But when your fantasy first-born lays an egg, and that performance prevents you from picking up the W, it’s a truly dreadful feeling. It’s like when your beloved dog makes a mess on the carpet: it’s unsettling, upsetting, and just plain stinks.

4. The “Beaten Only By The Best” Loss

In honor of the Summer Games fast approaching, here’s an Olympic-themed comparison to this kind of loss:

Sprinter qualifies for the Olympics.
Sprinter wins her heat, advances to the 100-meter final.
Sprinter posts a new world record time – only it isn’t, really, because her chief competitor runs an even faster pace to win the race AND set the record.
Sprinter is relegated to a sad footnote in history, right there with everyone who finished second to Usain Bolt, or Michael Phelps, or Ricky Bobby.

Okay, so maybe this kind of fantasy defeat isn’t quite so psychologically crushing, but it doesn’t feel good! Some of the most prevalent Monday posts on our official Twitter account are from followers who want to share how they posted the second-highest score that week, only to lose to the highest scoring manager. In fact, the only message type we see more of is from the managers who win those matchups, with comments like “I AM DA GOD!” or strings of dominance-focused emojis, including trophies, crowns, biceps, bombs, and even the occasional funeral urn (that’s too much, I say.)

3. The “Monday Night Special” Loss

The Monday Night Football game is the best and worst part of your fantasy football matchup. If you’re trailing, your Monday night competitors often give you the chance to come out with the W. If you’re leading, and your opponent still has at least one player going, it’s likely you’re hoping for a cancellation due to weather, lightning or goalpost malfunction or hoards of biting insects.

The worst scenario is when you have a not-so-comfortable lead and your opponent has at least one player remaining on either team. Your entire Monday night is spent rooting against anything fun happening on offense on the off-chance it might involve a player whose 30-yard catch will knock you down three places in your league standings.

And let’s talk about the worst possible outcome: A meaningless play in the final two minutes of a one-sided Monday nighter lifts your opponent to victory. This has happened to all of us at least once in our fantasy careers, and let me tell you: I’d rather be hit in the face by a sack of marbles than go through that again.

2. The “Game of Inches (or Decimal Points)” Loss

We all know how this loss feels, so let’s get even dourer and talk about some of the worst ways to lose by 0.1 points (as if any one of these are actually better than the others):

The “Meaningless Carry for Negative Yards in the Final Minute”
The “Opponent’s Receiver Catches a 2-Yard Slant, Then Scrambles For Three More Yards With Five Defenders Draped All Over Him”
The “Missed 60-Yard Field Goal Attempt at the Buzzer In a League Where Missed Field Goals Count For Negative Points”
The “Missed but Meaningless Game-Ending Extra Point, Except That it Wasn’t at All Meaningless To My Fantasy Team”
The “Matchup-Winning Play Gets Overturned by Video Review, So I Think I’m Quitting Fantasy Altogether Now”
The “Play That Was Originally a Catch, But is Now a Run, So Wave that Half-Point Goodbye, Loser”

And I’ve saved the worst for last: The game-ending quarterback kneel. Oh, how it burns to see your fantasy team up by 0.2 points with your quarterback’s actual NFL team up by 10 and facing a first-and-10 with 58 seconds remaining and the opposing team out of timeouts. It’s like accidentally dropping your favorite coffee mug off the edge of your 30-story condo balcony, then watching helplessly as it shatters into 10,000 pieces. Just look away, friend. That mug (or W) isn’t coming back.

1. The “$@%&$@$# Late Scoring Change” Loss

Imagine, if you will, hitting up Uber Eats for a nice pepperoni and mushroom pizza from your favorite pie spot.

You wait with breathless anticipation as the driver picks up your order, heads to your house, and delivers your dinner. You rush to the counter, fling open the box – and instead of a pepperoni and mushroom pizza, you receive a box full of garbage, topped with garbage.

That’s the closest sensation I can imagine to what it feels like to lose via scoring change.

Every season, those extra T.J. Watt half-sacks and Alvin Kamara rush-not-pass corrections result in entire matchups being flipped. Sometimes it kills your four-game winning streak. Sometimes it drops you from 1-5 to 0-6. And sometimes, if you were particularly rude in a former life, those stat corrections literally knock you out of the fantasy playoffs.

If this ever happens to you, I suggest stepping away from your computer (and pretty much anything else expensive and fragile) and laying down with a cold compress on your head. Then, when you feel less homicidal, hop in the car and pick yourself up a therapy pizza.

(Just make sure you open the box before you leave the store. Obviously.)

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