Fantasy Football Forum - Week 16: Flags Fly Forever

As we enter the championship week, I just have to share a bad beat story. I’ve suffered from more than my fair share of random fantasy football variance this year, but here is a cautionary tale of self-inflicted wounds. After drafting Derrick Henry last year in a keeper league, I held onto the talented but underachieving back all season. Excited to have great value on the Titan, I rolled him out in the early weeks of the season. Despite his underwhelming performance, my team was holding up just fine, but Henry found his way to my bench, then the end of my bench. Finally, in mid-October I dropped him for... Tre’Quan Smith. Oh...

Henry sat on waivers for a few weeks and was snatched up for a fringe playoff team. At this point, my squad was cruising after some solid trades, en route to a first round bye. Well, the Henry bill came due last week and I was defeated by that fringe playoff team on the strength of Henry’s 36 points. What’s worse is that when I gave up on him, I also lost the keeper opportunity. Maybe this is another late season tease by Henry - I’ll give you that - but what if the Titans are finally figuring out who they are? I had Henry as my RB14 in the preseason and he’s currently sitting in 12th... even though pretty much all of those points came in the last two weeks. The point is that you never know where these explosions might come from and keeping a couple spots reserved for talented players with a path to touches is a good idea even if they’ve been disappointing for one reason or another.

WCG Tourney Update

We’re down to the last week and the final 10 fantasy football owners looking to win their divisions and the ultimate title of fantasy football champion. We have two writers that have made it to their respective championships (and for the record, my team exploded for 160+ last week, dominating the 5th place game...). Here are the combatants:

Halas Division - WhiskeyRanger (Midway Turf Monsters) vs Champaign Cubbies (Password is Taco)

Payton Division - Usmcbears (Miller High Lites) vs burrka (Bear Down!)

Sayers Division - nachoman45 (Hurricane Ditka) vs Griot28 (Punching Peanuts)

Ditka Division - Sam Householder (On a Winning Tarik) vs stellarpete22 (Hold My Ditka)

Butkus Division - H20HOF (Nathaniel’s Team) vs beardown4ever (Miller Time)

No offense to WhiskeyRanger, who we all know and love, but I’m cheering for anything other than him to win it. After all, this is his tourney and he’s got a special award he’s prepping and it just seems odd if he gifts himself the award. I’m putting my full support behind Punching Peanuts because it’s so close to my own Peanut Punchers.

Good luck everyone in this league or in your home leagues. Remember, flags fly forever and those virtual trophies stay in your profile in perpetuity.