Lessons Learned from My Very Own Fantasy Football Teams, 2024

While I write about fantasy football — or at least have to some extent — for most of the last decade, I actually play in an extremely small number of leagues. This is partially me being a curmudgeon time-guarder and partially me knowing that I love to dive in to stuff like this and making sure that the process of doing waivers and offering trades is something that takes up an hour here or there instead of one three-hour session of a Monday.

These are some ruminations after looking out on a fantasy season that finished championshipless and, often, in disappointing ways. I try to be curious instead of bitter.

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1) I’m going to advocate for more bench spots or more starting spots in a few leagues I play in.

It is not unusual for me to drop players too early. If there was one lesson I had last year as a heavy De’Von Achane investor that had some regret on adjusting to the Week 1 Lay Of The Land, it was to be more careful with letting said snapshot in time alter my priors so heavily.

But as I tried to implement this plan, I hit some snags in my short-bench leagues. The injury report and churn have gotten worse than they’ve ever been. Perhaps some of that is because when I am living the NFL blurb life it impacts me on a less superficial level, and perhaps some of that is just the increased scrutiny that gambling has created and better reporting of injuries by some media members. But it is unreal how many times I was faced this year with some version of “Do I need D’Andre Swift’s backup on this roster, or do I need this receiver I am reasonably sure will have more value next week?”

And frankly, I’m just tired of feeling bad about my decisions. The roster churn is more tedious than hard, I don’t mind that part of things on Tuesday night. But I want to be rewarded for my beliefs rather than having to pit them against needs every week. It’s a delicate balance, as I had one league where the add/drop process barely seemed to have an impact on the now and I was instead trying to forecast one guy a week who might be super valuable next week. But I’m definitely leaning towards something like 5-6 bench spots for standard leagues and 6-7 for keeper leagues.

This isn’t going to stop me from making bad decisions, but it at least will stop me from making bad decisions about players I actually believe in.

2) I need to be even more focused on quarterback in superflex leagues than I already was.

Last season in the one superflex league I play in, Multi-League, I lost Aaron Rodgers for the season in Week 1 and Justin Herbert after Week 14. I had drafted C.J. Stroud, which helped, but I was limping to the finish with Tyrod Taylor and the lot. This year, I kept Stroud — I don’t fault myself for this one because it was unavoidable, there may have been people relatively down on Stroud in 2024 but nobody was predicting this — and I reinforced him with … Dak Prescott. Who went down for the season in Week 9.

I had my choice between Prescott and Joe Burrow. I finished 200 points clear of first place, in fourth in that league, while Burrow outproduced Prescott by nearly 300 fantasy points. Stroud finished as QB18 and was the highest finisher on my roster. I don’t necessarily hate my pick there looking at it through what we knew at the time — Burrow had the best season of his career, after all. He and Prescott were right next to each other in most sets of rankings. Even a few weeks into the season, Dallas’ defense was so bad that visions of Prescott dropping back to throw 50 times a game had me mostly optimistic. The situation just deteriorated into a checkdown clinic as Prescott’s new offensive linemen (mostly rookies) couldn’t hold up to extra pressure or scrutiny.

So simply draft the quarterback who finishes good instead of the quarterback who finishes hurt, easy, right? But the regret I actually have is not reinforcing those two with a better backup quarterback. I let the idea that J.J. McCarthy’s season-ending injury would let me keep him as a backup and potential keeper from last year keep me from spending a higher pick on a third solid quarterback. Had I simply double-dipped and wound up with Sam Darnold, who I absolutely would have been starting by Week 3 or 4, I probably would have won the league.

Just gonna drill it in my head for next season right now: Don’t leave the superflex draft without three quarterbacks you think can start. That might make me miss out on a good receiver season or something. Oh well. I can always trade for a decent third wideout or play matchups with that spot. I can crush the draft everywhere else. What I can’t do is win a superflex league without a QB1 ceiling. And between injuries and surprising derailments, I’ve found a way to avoid that two years running.

3) Take injuries more seriously.

I had the good fortune of having Jordan Mason for the first eight weeks of the season in Multi-League. I hadn’t drafted Christian McCaffrey, but watched the comeback anxiously. I reluctantly agreed to terms to send McCarthy off in a trade for McCaffrey hoping to get the best of both worlds. I even sent off Mason in a separate trade because — short bench problems — I was going to win or lose on McCaffrey.

Reader, I didn’t win.

If it was one thing to pivot on a dime like that hoping I was right, it’s another to landlock yourself to Jordan Love after his Week 1 injury in a different league. I played some Geno Smith along the way, of course, I had Baker Mayfield for a moment and moved on because I was stuck on my priors. The problem is that the priors don’t matter when a player gets hurt, and thus the priors needed to be thrown out the door. Did Tyreek Hill have some nice games after hurting his wrist? Sure. Was he a dominant WR1 playing through a torn wrist ligament? Not really.

I loved to bash on Trent Baalke for many years for doing the thing where he drafted injured players and expected them to come back. At this point I’m done trying to pretend that I know better than Trent Baalke. I’m going to let the injured players surprise me. (Sometimes they do, by the way! I faded Breece Hall in 2023 coming off the ACL tear. I just don’t think you’re going to win many of those bets in the long-term.)

4) The Chiefs aren’t like anybody else (derogatory)

The Patrick Mahomes trend continued in a bad way. Mahomes was rocketed up to either the second or third quarterback off the board in ADP because the Chiefs signed Hollywood Brown and drafted Xavier Worthy. Surely the guy who had led the league in passing yards and touchdown throws in 2022 would simply bounce back.

The thing is: Do the Chiefs actually care? They don’t. I’m not saying that Patrick Mahomes will never be a good fantasy quarterback again, I’m sure a switch will flip at some point, and every dynasty eventually ends or starts trying to prove things beyond the rings. (See: 2007 Patriots.) But I think they treat many regular season games like scrimmages to test their weaknesses. This isn’t to downplay what I actually watched from Mahomes in the regular season, which was an inconsistent chemistry with his main targets and a guy who was running for his life in quite a few games. But it often felt like the Chiefs were toying with you, trying to unlock just the right things they needed to win in the playoffs.

Since they laid off the Kelce OPOY usage and let Eric Bieniemy walk, the Chiefs just don’t approach games trying to light up the scoreboard. I don’t consider that a black mark on their soul or anything, we just have to be aware of it. Next year we’re probably going to have both Rashee Rice and Worthy pumped into WR2-3 range and I don’t know that I believe the volume is going to be there for both to hit that. One of my injury-related tortured decisions was dropping Worthy in a few keeper leagues before he jumped off the screen the final six weeks of the season. The good news? I don’t know that I would have kept him anyway.

I don’t know how I’m going to feel about anything in this passing game in 2025 — we have a long ways to go — but my gut instinct is I’ll be lower on the Chiefs than most.

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