The Art of Losing

Let's just get this out of the way: fantasy football is not just about winning.

It's also about rubbing the loser's nose in their own filthy embarrassing mess when you ARE winning.

But assuredly, throughout the long season, all of us will experience our fair share of bad beats, and bone head start/sit choices that end in goose eggs. AND wacky garbage time defeats at the hands of bad quarterbacks on bad teams, that put together one final drive to add meaningless points on the real world scoreboard (and meaningful points on your opponent's fantasy scoreboard).

That's just the nature of a game that is at its heart an edifice built around a live sport. No amount of strategy and skill will insulate us from the variance, or randomness, or bad luck that is built into the game. Nor should we want it too. The fun is baked into the unpredictability; the chance that one big 80 yard bomb can swing your whole week.

Alas, we're just as likely to be on the feces end of that proverbial twig.

And to that end, we must acknowledge that being a fantasy football aficionado means we must be willing to accept our comeuppance, and do so with relative frequency.

So, what are we meant to do should we find ourselves in the inevitable and unenviable position of taking an "L" and then getting kicked in the teeth?!

I submit for your approval, the following loser's etiquette:

1. Be a good sport. Writhe, and whine. Wear misery like a threadbare bathrobe musty from never drying on the hook behind the door. Be the agony of defeat. Fall to your knees and cry. Let the melodrama flow through you like an early 90's Jim Carey performance.

2. But DO NOT complain. Do not push back with actual real world insults. Don't BE THAT GUY (or girl) that can't tell the difference between harmless ribbing and real vitriol. Accept the sting that is your open wound being squirted with Frank's Red Hot by your opponent.

3. And remember, you will have your day in the sun. Plot your revenge, whether it be via trade or waiver wire, or whatever legal means you have at your disposal. Go get even. There is no more righteous joy than to stand above the smote remains of your rival and rain down a torrent of slander that would make an evangelical shrink in horror. It is your fantasy gods given right!

With all that said, let's be good losers this year. Nay, let's be great losers. Nay, the best effing losers that the fantasy world has ever seen! After all, if you're destined to spend so much of your time losing this year (and make no mistake, save one glorious victor, we all will), then you might as well be winning at it!

See you on the fake gridiron. . .

Losers.