What to do if you didn't make the fantasy football playoffs
Life’s not all lollipops and gold stars, pumpkin. Sometimes, good plans go to hell.
That Odell Beckham Jr./JuJu Smith-Schuster surefire receiver duo you took as “safe” picks in PPR ended up being complete trash.
Or, remember taking Saquon Barkley and celebrating when Adam Thielen and Antonio Brown fell to you at the 2-3 turn? Yeah, that was fun.
Or how about when T.J. Hockenson/John Ross/DeSean Jackson/Terry McLaurin/Jaylen Samuels/Chase Edmonds were supposed to save your season? NOPE.
As it turns out, nothing was going to save your season. You suck, and now you’re out of the playoffs.
[Play in Yahoo’s NFL $200K Baller. $10 entry fee and $20K to first place]
So here are some things you can do to attempt to fill that empty, bottomless void left behind by fantasy.
Remember how to live life
Drink.
Enjoy life without the overwhelming burden of knowing your fantasy team sucks.
Watch football like a normal person and not like a sicko fantasy fan who only cares about stats.
Actually talk to other humans instead of internally seething about how you got knocked out of the playoffs because Stefon Diggs had literally zero f(*#)({<}>#^& yards in the second half of the Monday Night game, LIKE HOW THE F&*%( DOES THIS HAPPEN?!?!? Or whatever, not like I care.
Definitely don’t obsess about how in that same league you lost one week by 0.1 points and then later by 0.08 points. Nope, definitely don’t care that ONE EXTRA YARD in either one of those weeks would have pushed me into the playoffs. Definitely don’t care.
Get out of the fantasy bubble
Read a book.
It’s been out for a while but have you seen Russian Doll yet? If you haven’t, I thought it was one of the best shows I’ve seen all year. And for those of you with short attention spans, each episode is like 30 minutes long.
I also highly recommend Mr. Inbetween. It’s like if you take The Sopranos, remove all the heavy stuff and just do a show on all the dark, funny bits — then give everyone Australian accents. Another show that’s 30 minutes a pop.
Listen to a couple of podcasts. My buddy Chris Long (Super Bowl-winning defensive end, former Ram/Patriot/Eagle, Howie’s kid) is retired now and does a podcast called Green Light. It’s pretty interesting in that he’s a former player that played at the highest level but is also really good as a media guy. I promise you it’s stuff you’ve never heard before but at the same time, it’s an easy, pleasant listen, if you’re the kind of person that loves sports but isn’t into loudmouth, brash jock talk. It’s on YouTube too if you’re more into that.
Speaking of YouTube, I’m old but the two NSFW channels I find myself constantly going down the rabbit hole with are videogamedunkey and RDCworld1. Yeah, yeah, I get it — you youngins out there going to clown me for boosting two accounts that are huge but whatever, they’re both really good.
... Drink.
James Koh is a fantasy football analyst and an award-winning journalist. He’s probably wrong, but you never know. Follow him on Twitter @JamesDKoh.
