Fantasy Football Frustrations: Week 14

Fantasy football once again proved to be the bane of many people’s existence with Week 14 offering, almost exclusively, frustration.

It was horrifying, chilling and frightening. No, I’m not describing the one horror movie that gave you nightmares for years growing up (Stephen King’s IT). I’m talking about your fantasy football team’s performance this week.

There was a certain degree of ugliness in Week 14 and many owners were devoured by a perfect storm of misfortunes. In fantasy football, it happens from time to time. However, when it happens in the playoffs, it elevates the anger and heartbreak.

Here are some of the biggest and most frustrating misfortunes of Week 14 for fantasy owners.

Quarterback Catastrophe

More often than not, the quarterback position in fantasy football (like in real life) is the leader of your squad. The position dominates the league in total points scored and the quarterback is typically the scoring leader on every team. This week was not an example of that.

Many surefire QB’s totally and utterly let owners down in a big way this week. As a result, a lot of owners seasons are done. Here are the most notable:

Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott – 6 points
New Orleans Saints QB Drew Brees – 4 points
Seattle Seahawks QB Russell Wilson – 4 points
Oakland Raiders QB Derek Carr – 4 points
Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger – 2 points

Other than Wilson, all of these quarterbacks were top-10 at the position going into Week 14. Some had better matchups than others but regardless, this was disastrous. You know it’s bad when a majority of owners would have been better off starting Bryce Petty and Matt Barkley.

Dez Caught It (and Fumbled It)

If you own Dez Bryant, you are playing him. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Since returning from injury in Week 8, he’d averaged nearly 13 fantasy points per week and managed five touchdowns in those six games. Week 14 was a worst-case scenario type of situation, though.

Bryant finished with one reception, 10 yards and one fumble lost. As a result, he finished with -1 fantasy points. An owner could have literally started anybody else on her/his roster and would have received superior results. She/he could have left the position slot empty or with an inactive Julio Jones and been better off.

Eliminated by Le’Veon

Playing against Le’Veon Bell any week in fantasy football isn’t an ideal situation. Yet, this week he single-handedly ended owners’ fantasy season. Bell finished the day with 298 total yards and three touchdowns. That comes out to 47 standard league fantasy points. It was the best fantasy performance of any player at any position in 2016.

Key Injuries

Anytime one of your fantasy starters is slow to get up, you hold your breath. An injury to a player during a game is honestly the worst thing that can happen to an owner in fantasy football. If a player is inactive before the game, at least there’s an opportunity to replace him. However, if a player goes down in the first quarter, you can’t replace him and you have to live with stats he produced up to that point.

There’s no need for me to describe the situation to owners who had Melvin Gordon and/or Matt Forte because they know it all too well.

Both of these running backs left the game in the first quarter with an injury in Week 14 and both running backs did not return to the game. Up to that point, neither running back scored a single point in standard leagues. Yes, both of these running backs left owners with zero fantasy points.

Next: 5 Head Coach Replacements for Jeff Fisher

Sounds awful right? Well, just in case you thought you had it bad this week, check out this owners fantasy lineup:

@Dan_Thomas28 can you say worst luck ever? pic.twitter.com/b80PRnd7A5
— Lucas (@luke40tiller) December 12, 2016

Just horrible and unfortunate luck for this, The Office fanatic. However, a wise and misunderstood man once said:

‘A real man makes his own luck.’ – Billy Zane, ‘Titanic'” – Dwight Schrute

I wish I could say it will all get better in fantasy football. But the truth is, this week probably ended your season if you experienced any of these frustrations. What a cruel practice this game is.

Home/Fantasy Football