by Kevin Burton
For the briefest of moments, I thought, “Breece Hall.”
I had just been blessed with the first pick in my sixth and last fantasy football draft for 2024. The Yahoo draft mechanism at first flashed “8th” for my draft order, then inexplicably changed to “1st.”
Never seen that happen before, but I was thrilled.
Drafts four and five had me drafting 8th and in spite of myself I picked essentially the same team. Bor-ing!
McCaffrey was the consensus top pick, a player able to deliver a fantasy championship almost by himself, as long as you didn’t get too crazy with your other picks. But all fantasy players also know McCaffrey’s injury history, which is why I considered Hall, my number two rated running back. (Turns out he was not a great bargain either.)
My McCaffrey injury insurance on draft day was to pick, Jahmyr Gibbs and De’Von Achane 20th and 21st overall in my ten-team league. That should fix my RB room no matter what, I thought.
I then preceded to select a what looked to be (but wasn’t) a reasonably good group of wide receivers, led by DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle.
The Yahoo draft analyzer gushed that my team would go 12-3 and “dominate” the league.
But McCaffrey missed the first eight games with an achillies injury. The 49ers listed the injury as “calf” only later switching to “calf/achillies. I ignored the “calf” injury. Had I known the Achillies was involved I would have never drafted McCaffrey, no matter how talented.
McCaffrey missed a ninth fantasy week on the 49ers’ bye. Then he returned, but as a mere mortal, not the league-winning force I drafted him to be. He delivered my K&J Tornados team, 13, 12, 6 and 7 points respectively in just four appearances.
Sunday night he suffered yet another major season-ending injury. This one allegedly a knee injury. Now he is gone for the season
His parting gift to me?
He scored just enough points Sunday to get my K&J Vipers team beat, but not enough to deliver a win for the Tornados. That team is now 5-8 and mathematically eliminated from the fantasy playoffs.
It was in my mind last weekend to play Bucky Irving, the Tampa bay running back instead of McCaffrey. Had I done so I would have gotten 26 points instead of seven and would have won my week.
But who sits Christian McCaffrey, for Bucky Irving or for anybody else?
Andy Holloway from the Fantasy Footballers podcast talks about knowing yourself emotionally as you make start/sit decisions. Could you live with yourself if you lost because you sat McCaffrey?
No, not really. So I played him. The final injury came Monday night when Jerry Jeudy, who was also on my bench and could have been inserted into my flex spot, exploded for 36 fantasy points.
No wait, that wasn’t the last injury. Jordan Mason, McCaffrey’s replacement who did so well in his absence and who I kept on my roster after McCaffrey’s return, also suffered a season-ending injury Sunday.
Oh well, doesn’t matter now anyway. My Tornados team is left to play out the string, thinking of what might have been.
Today is Tuesday, the day for “waivers” in fantasy. Waivers is a weekly opportunity to clean up the wreckage of your best laid plans – injuries, under-performance, bad coaching –and compete with your peers.
In waivers you drop players you don’t think will be useful, and bid for other players you think can help. A big chunk of the fun of fantasy is making the most of the least, beating others to the punch on waivers and in trades.
But often it comes down to the dumb luck of it all.
Don’t cry for me though, even after my McCaffrey-inspired Tornados tragedy. Two of my other five teams have clinched playoff berths, and two others can win their way in this week.
One team, the K&J Vipers, is in second place now and will make the playoffs with two more wins, but plays the best two teams in the league in the last two weeks.
So for me, more thrill-of-victory than agony-of-defeat this year. But as I drop McCaffrey into the waiver pool later today, neither thrill nor agony, just a sigh.
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