The NFL season is right around the corner which means mock drafts are in full swing and your fantasy draft is probably coming up within a week or two. Personally, I love this time of year. I mean, who doesn’t love the music that plays when you join a draft lobby? Or how about that feeling of snagging a sleeper you’ve had your eye on all off-season? Then to top it all off, you draft Tony Romo or Johnny Football in the last round and call it a day. Another season is ready to go.
Of course, no league is without their headaches. Odds are your league has at least one of the guys on this list, probably multiple. Here are the six most annoying types of people you get in your fantasy league.
The Guy Who Doesn’t Set His Lineup
There is absolutely nothing worse than this guy. Having someone who doesn’t set their lineup absolutely ruins the balance of the league. For starters, the guy who doesn’t check was most likely someone you picked up last-minute to fill the league. You probably barely know him and his fantasy knowledge doesn’t exist, so odds are he drafts a terrible team to begin with. In week one, whoever is playing him will get shafted since his team is healthy. But by week 8, half his lineup is hurt and the guys he actually has playing ended up sucking. Last year he was the one who had Terrence West and Andrew Luck starting all season. When it gets to that point, you can basically mark this one down as a bye week – until it isn’t.
The person who doesn’t set their lineup will always manage to pull off a victory at mid-season thanks to an act of god. This is the week where your elite
running back leaves the game after the first series, your defense lets up 30 points, your tight end spontaneously bursts into flames. If these things are going to happen, you can bank on them happening when you play the guy who doesn’t check.
Thankfully, the odds of having this guy are low if your league is 10 people or less. However, the deeper the league, the greater chance you have of ending up with one of these.
The Guy Who Doesn’t Pay
Every league has the guy who acts like 15 bucks is a rent payment. He won’t have it on draft day, but he’ll assure you that he’ll have it to you in no time. As the weeks go on, his team continues to suck.
Week 7 comes around and he still doesn’t have the money but by this point it really isn’t on anyone’s mind. Eventually, the league ends and the winner needs their money. This is typically where you get hit by some sob story about how he can’t afford the 15 bucks.
Look man, maybe some will find this offensive, but who doesn’t have fifteen dollars for a fantasy league? If 15 bucks really is more than you can afford right now, why did you even join the league in the first place? Personally, I just don’t understand how you can’t scrape together 15 dollars over the course of an entire fantasy season and playoffs. Even the biggest bum in existence can handle 15 dollars in installments.
If you’re unfortunate enough to end up with someone like this, just make sure you take note of it and don’t let them join your march madness pool.
The Guy Who Analyze’s Everyone Else’s Team
“Eh, I don’t really know about Cam Newton this year” says the guy who drafted Dak in the sixth round. This is the one individual who I’m willing to bet is in every single league. You can bank on getting feedback when you didn’t ask, getting told who you reached for, and all the passive aggressive comments you could possibly desire. I’m getting pissed just thinking about this dude. He looks at his team and sees a Madden franchise where everything is going to go right for him and wrong for you.
Of course, nobody truly knows how a season is going to play out. That’s why Adam Thielen and Alvin Kamara were drafted in the last few rounds last year while Amari Cooper went in the first three. They play the game for a reason, so tell your resident armchair GM to pound sand.
The Guy Who Puts Too Much Stock In Rookies
This is one of the more tolerable people on this list but they could still upset the balance of the league. Typically, this guy knows football pretty well but he might be new to fantasy. Like all pro sports, there are loads of different variables that make a player successful. Just because they put up numbers in college does not at all mean they will replicate in the NFL. They very well could, but rarely do they do it in their rookie season.
Of course there are exceptions to this rule – especially with running backs. Plenty of rookies were viable options last year and there are sure to be some this year as well (Saquon, Sony Michel, D.J. Moore). However, this guy is sure to do some reaching in the draft. He’ll get a guy he could have easily picked up off the waiver wire thus letting everyone else get a leg up. They typically just want to show off their knowledge of the game that you peasants just don’t see.
Expect him to take Josh Rosen in the sixth round this year. Eighth place is what you can expect out of this dude.
The Guy Who Complains About The Rules When He Loses
So you’re in a PPR league where you still get a point even if the catch was for negative yardage, or maybe you don’t give decimal points for yards and the only way to get a point is by getting ten yards. Your buddy is 4-1 by the time you play him but you just edge out a narrow victory. This is where he starts to complain about the lack of decimals and points for negative receptions. He was fine with it all year until this point – perhaps he was even benefiting from it himself. That all changes as soon as he loses. Once that happens, you can expect him to complain to your commissioner mid-season and ask for a rule change.
Don’t be this guy. Nobody likes a sore loser and if you know the scoring preseason then there was nothing stopping you from taking advantage of certain things yourself. Whoever drafted Jarvis Landry did it because they knew he was going to get lots of receptions. It isn’t cool to complain about the rules past week two but this type of person unfortunately seems to be in most leagues.
The Guy Who Repeats What Experts Say As Gospel
Looking to pick up that breakout running-back from week one? Not so fast, Matthew Berry said not to do that.
Far too often you run into the individual who acts like fantasy experts have some crystal ball. This guy is annoying for the same reasons as the guy who over analyzes your team. Ultimately, nobody truly knows how the season will play out. You can infer, but at the end of the day, things are going to happen that weren’t expected. Fantasy “experts” are wrong lots of the time and there are more who claim that label now more than ever. A good chunk of them are going to be dead wrong on any given week. This is especially true in the “hot take” era of sports media. Radical opinions can be found every day and you can be certain that most of them will be dead wrong.
For the record, I’m not hating on professional fantasy analysts. Its their craft and they put lots of time and effort into it. But at the end of the day, they can’t tell the future and the guy in your league who has to constantly let you know what ESPN said doesn’t understand that.
So there you have it, the six most annoying types of people you can get in your fantasy league. Hopefully you won’t have to deal with any of these, but if you do, just hope and pray that the one you get isn’t the guy who doesn’t check.