Welcome to The Learning Curve. I don’t have all the answers…and that’s kind of the point.
“What the hell was I thinking?”
I asked myself that more than once on Sunday.
Week one is not even over, and the ghosts of fantasy decisions past are already knocking. One takes me back to draft night. Another points at my bench. The last one tries to convince me everything I believed was wrong.
Fantasy football has turned me into Ebenezer Scrooge, and Sunday is not even finished.
The Points Hurt. The Lesson Matters More.
Across eleven teams, I watched players I trusted disappear while others exploded on my bench.
Kyle Monangai and Devaughn Vele combined for more than 39 points on one bench. Kenneth Gainwell and Quentin Johnston barely combined for six in my lineup.
That hurt.
My first instinct was to blame myself. Then I went back to what I knew before kickoff. Johnston was ranked well ahead of Vele. Based on the information available, that decision made sense. Gainwell over Monangai deserves a harder look because I may have misunderstood their roles.
Both decisions failed. That does not mean they were equally bad.
On another team, Joe Burrow, Saquon Barkley, Ja’Marr Chase, A.J. Brown, and Myles Garrett all disappointed together. Meanwhile, Josh Allen, Ashton Jeanty, Jaxon Smith Njigba, and Aidan Hutchinson helped my opponent fly past 200 points.
What was I supposed to do with that?
Sometimes fantasy football just punches you in the mouth.
Control What You Can
Players get injured. Game scripts change. A team falls behind and abandons the run. A penalty erases a touchdown. A backup suddenly receives more work than anyone expected.
We can prepare for possibilities. We cannot control everything that happens once the game begins.
Before the late games, I decided to go all in on Malik Nabers across several teams. I understood the uncertainty, but my risk tolerance was high enough. I stuck to my guns.
His game is happening as I write this. I do not know how the decision will turn out, and that is exactly why I can evaluate it now. The final score should not rewrite what I knew or why I made the choice.
That was within my control.
His health, usage, and game script were not.
Visit Your Decisions
That is what these Learning Curves have been building toward.
ADP taught us about the market. Mock drafts gave us possibilities, not a script. Handcuffing showed us that every roster decision has a cost. Reviewing our drafts reminded us to understand why we built our teams.
Now the games are testing those decisions.
Before you panic, drop someone, or chase last week’s points, write down three things: something you did intentionally and still believe in, something you need to examine honestly, and something that happened outside your control.
Learn from the first two.
Let go of the third.
The scoreboard can tell you whether you won. It cannot always tell you whether you made the right decision.
Stick to your guns. Trust your process. Have some fun. And remember, we’re all somewhere on the curve.
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