By Nate Sullivan
Guest Columnist
Oct. 18, 2007

Make no mistake about it — there is such a thing as a bad fantasy football owner. All the people on the Jerious Norwood bandwagon? That guy in my 2005 league named “Giants Roolz” who took Tiki Barber, Eli Manning, and Plaxico Burress in the first three rounds? Those are bad owners. They make bad decisions, and those bad decisions have predictably bad results.

But anyone reading this knows that the vast majority of “bad results” in fantasy football actually come from eminently reasonable decisions. Everyone, for instance, generally feels good about their first round pick; on opening day, he’s clearly the best guy on your team. You’ve heard it every year — “I don’t know about the rest of the team, but at least I have…”

But think about every bad team you’ve ever managed — who let you down? Who did you curse? What was the worst decision you made all season?

Drafting that guy, of course.

Shock and disappointment comes in many forms in fantasy sports, some of them more defensible than others. If you’re a Brandon Jacobs owner like myself, yes, you are disappointed. He was my third running back in a keeper league, and I was ready to crown myself resident “league genius” when I was getting 1200 yards and 10 TDs from that spot. Looks like I may have to wait… um… a little longer for my coronation. Still, those guys on Yahoo predicting 1600 yards and 18 TDS back in July were crazy from day one — they get no sympathy from me for creating lofty expectations that had no business being met.

In fact, if you look back a few seasons, you’ll actually see that Jacobs’ gimpy knee pales in comparison to some of the more spectacularly inexplicable falls from fantasy grace. Remember Eddie George? I do – I also remember that he ran for 1,300 yards in each of his first five seasons, and scored 14 touchdowns the year before I drafted him, only to be sucked into a whirling vortex of crappiness that year, where he somehow played 16 games and ran for a miserable 900 yards five touchdowns. How do you run for 900 yards in 16 games? Did he spend half of the time running backwards? He looked awful all season – like instead of clicking “draft” next to his name, I had accidentally hit “destroy”. If that’s what happened, I’m sorry, Eddie.

How about Jeff Garcia? The guy threw/ran for SEVENTY touchdowns in two seasons; clearly, I wanted a piece of the action, so I drafted him at the height of his powers, in 2002, conveniently ignoring his weird lisp and the fact that his best receiver apparently hated him for no particular reason.

Reasonable decision – poor results. Garcia did okay, but he scored 13 fewer touchdowns and immediately began a decent so rapid that, before he knew it, he had signed to the Cleveland Browns. Again, I apologize, Jeff, for prematurely ending your career.

(What? Garcia’s still in the league??? How old is he? Do they mail his social security checks directly to the stadium?)

Sometimes, players have red flags before their careers implode. Remember when Jamal Lewis went to jail in the 2003 offseason? Everyone avoided him, thinking that a summer in the slammer would leave him unprepared for the season – well, everyone except me. I pictured him alone in a dimly lit cell, doing endless chin-ups, reciting the playbook over and over again, figuring out how to shank guys who tried to make him fumble. Apparently that wasn’t very realistic, and neither was another 2000 yard, 14 TD season, because in 2004, my first round draft pick stumbled around, confused and ineffective, playing in only 12 games and barely hitting the 1000 yard mark.

Still, you have to go back to 2001 for my favorite – the aborted Terrell Davis “I Swear, I Am Still Good” comeback that single-handedly destroyed the Mike Anderson express. Don’t forget for one second; Mike Anderson was absolutely awesome in 2000. The guy – who completely came out of left field and pretty much cemented the “I think Dad could run for 1,000 yards in Denver” theory – had fifteen touchdowns and averaged five yards a carry in 2000. Still, Davis was inexplicably convinced that the team needed him (“it’s not cut blocking – it’s me!! Ask Olandis Gary!), and mucked the whole thing up by stealing 167 carries. To make matters worse, he went on to become the insufferable sidekick in Madden 2006’s “Superstar Mode”, an abomination of nature that should have been taken out back and shot.

But I digress.

So remember: your first-round blunders – though they may not have looked like blunders at the time – are still worthy of sympathy, and yes, ridicule. At the same time, however, this kind of horrible luck isn’t unique to you; as you can see, reliable fantasy producers have been twisting the knife in the guts of the most prepared, logical owners for years.

Trust me. I drafted Steven Jackson.