Fantasy Football's biggest pet peeves | FFSK

Matt Harmon asks you, the people, what has been your biggest pet peeve so far this fantasy football season.

Video Transcript

MATT HARMON: We're doing pet peeves today, right? Yeah? Yeah? OK. Well, how about my pet peeves? You know, I got a lot of problems with these people. At some point in this episode, I'm probably going to [INAUDIBLE] on my soapbox.

Bring it in. It is week six with the Fantasy Football Survival Kit. We're at a point in the season where you kind of know what your destiny is. You're either one of these teams that's just riding high, all things are good, or you're one of these ones that are kind of towards the bottom, and you're not giving up, of course. We never give up here, but you're frustrated.

So I think now is a good time to take a little break from the whole player evaluation thing and let you people, the people, my people, get a few frustrations off your chest, so we asked you what is your biggest pet peeve in fantasy football. Let's get right into it because it is time to just let some of these emotions out.

Our first response here comes in from Mark. And I'm going to assume here what you mean is you hate it when all those starters, those high flying guys that you drafted, they do nothing and your bench, meanwhile, explodes. It erupts with fantasy goodness. But Mark, let me actually spin this positively here because I'm trying to have, you know, some good vibes at the end of this. Yeah, we're getting things off our chest, but it's also about moving forward here. You know, if your bench is lighting it up like old captain-- or not captain, whatever, whatever. Whoever this guy is. I don't care.

You know, that means that you actually drafted a really good, well-rounded team. You're backups are performing really well. That means you've got depth. You could make trades. You could replace guys in your lineup. Depth is a good thing. Actually, I think-- you know what, this shouldn't be a pet peeve. Even if it's frustrating in the moment, let's take the bigger picture view and look at this as an actually great news for your fantasy football team going forward.

Now this one. I got a little bit of a problem with this one, OK? Yeah, you know, it is a pet peeve if you think you're the only one that's getting screwed by players underperforming or, you know, just bad luck in general. Hey, let me break it to you. As somebody who drafted Allen Robinson everywhere this year, it is frustrating when you had a thought about a player that he was going to crush it with this new rookie quarterback and then the whole coaching staff just decides, nope, we're going to pull it back. We're going to be the most conservative team in the league.

You know what, we're all going through this, OK? I know that we're all competing with each other. I know that we're all like trying to beat each other and win the league and get all the money at the end of the season and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, we're all going through this. We are all victims of underperforming players, of bad luck. Luck is a big part of this game, folks. It's just unavoidable. So you might think that you're in this box, in this silo, on this island all alone, but you're not. We're all going through this together. Don't get too frustrated. It's fine. It's a communal experience after all. I don't know if that helped, but it's something.

This one. Scott, you nailed it. You gave my favorite response to this one so far. It's injuries. Yes, injuries are, in fact, my biggest pet peeve of fantasy football. It's an unavoidable reality of the game, but it doesn't mean it's not frustrating. I mean, first of all, we have to remember, it's about the players, OK? Without players, we don't have a game. Without a game, we're just left to whatever our miserable lives would have been like without fantasy football. I mean, hell, I wouldn't even have a job if it wasn't for the players, so I'm definitely grateful to them. So when they get hurt, when they suffer, it hurts me too. I hate it. It's frustrating.

Secondly, on a more selfish note, nothing feels worse than going into a season, you absolutely nailed a player evaluation. That favorite sleeper of yours, he gets the starting spot. He ends up running all the routes with the first team in the first couple of weeks. You know you nailed that breakout guy and then boom, injury. He's done, out for the year. Or even worse, you started a guy aggressively in your flex spot, and it looks like it's all going to work out in this great match-up. Two plays into the game, boom, injury, done. It is extremely frustrating. But again, it is an unavoidable reality of this game we play, so it's best to just fortitude yourself and have a great bench, have some backup plans. Insurance is always good.

OK, I lied. Actually, I said that Scott sent in my favorite response. John, you actually sent in my favorite spot. And I'm not just saying this because I had Tyler Lockett on every single team, every daily fantasy lineup. Last Thursday night, man-- and I mean, how frustrating is it? We should get some points for offensive or defensive pass interference on our favorite wide receivers.

I mean, give me a break. Tyler Lockett runs a perfect route, puts the defender in the turn cycle. He's going down the field. He's going to easily score a touchdown and the defender just decides, you know what, I'll just push him over. It's a smart play by the defender, but Tyler Lockett did the work to earn those yards, to move the ball down the field for his team. And how many times do we see this on a given Sunday, Monday, Thursday, Saturday when they do those weirdo games?

Oh, it's so irritating. Like, the wide receiver did his job. He got them to that point, right? Like we should get some kind of fractional reward for that or something. You know, I don't get on my soapbox often on this show, but if I could, yeah, we got to change something about this in fantasy football. I mean, give me a break. Something's got to change. We need-- we get participation trophies out for everything else. Why can't we have one for offensive players getting past interfered with?

And now it's time for the worst tweet of the week that we got in response. And usually, I try to pretend I don't enjoy this. I'm going to enjoy this one. OK. [CHUCKLES] What? This Is your biggest pet peeve about fantasy football? Let me explain something to you, buddy. If you think that just as soon as Adam Schefter, Ian Rapoport sends out a little tweet like saying, oh, this player is going to miss a few weeks or they're going to be out this Sunday, that all of a sudden like I have to go-- oh, by the way, not even me, OK?

Nothing is more annoying than when people send me tweets like hey, can you go ahead and flip Clyde Edwards-Helaire? Can you go ahead and flip his status to out? I don't do anything. I just do this. This is what I do. I'm not there working on the game. I'm not there pulling levers or whatever. But you think the fine men and women of Yahoo! Fantasy, any platform out there, they're working off tweets? You think that's how it works? No, they're beholden to what the team is.

So if you've got a problem with this [BLEEP], it's up. Walk to Kansas City, knock on Andy Reid's door and say, hey, can you go ahead and put Clyde Edwards-Helaire? Yeah, you let me know how that works out for you.

We go off what the team says, not just random reports and tweets. I mean, my god, this is so frustrating. Hey, [? Jes, ?] when do I get to do my pet peeves with these people? OK, when do we do an episode about that with me? When what do I-- hey, wait, wait. Come back here. I'm not done yet. Get back here. I got a lot more to say to these people.