Fantasy Football Bad Beats
Bad beats. We’ve all experienced them in one way or another. They’re also the only fantasy stories anyone wants to hear. Misery loves company, after all, and the only good part of a bad beat is getting to complain about it to your friends.
We at SI.com thought we’d increase your social network a little bit. We put out a call for your best bad-beat stories at the start of the season, giving you the opportunity to complain to not only your friends about your heartbreaking losses, but to us and the entire internet, as well. We’ll publish the ones once a month throughout the season, so keep sending them in to sibadbeats@gmail.com.
What began as a trick this season slowly built to a solid flow over Weeks 2 and 3. Little could we anticipate the gusher that would come our way after Monday Night Football in Week 4.
Week 1
Get it together, Keenan Allen (submitted by Joseph Malfa)
Keenan Allen cost me my matchup, and neither I nor my opponent had him on our roster.
How?
After he scored his fourth quarter touchdown, he took a bad penalty by throwing the ball at the Bronco who was covering him. The ensuing kickoff came from the Chargers' own 20 instead of the 35. Instead of the kickoff ending up in the first row, you know out there in the altitude in Denver, it landed around the goal line.
In this league, defenses get 0.1 points per return yard. The Broncos return man returned this kick 36 yards. 3.6 points. I lost by 3.5.
If Allen doesn't take that penalty, the ensuing kick is a touchback and I would have won by 0.1.
Fantasy Football Week 5 Rankings
Can we please make rules changes on time, commish? (submitted by Alex Fried)
I was down big in Week 1 heading into Monday night. But thanks to big games from Dalvin Cook and Melvin Gordon, I was able to eke out a two-point win, also overcoming 0 points from Hunter Henry.
Fast forward to Week 2 about 5:00 PM ET on Sunday, when the league manager informs us that the switch from standard scoring to PPR that we decided to make over the summer was never reflected in the system. He made the change, but in so doing, the outcome for my Week 1 game became an eight-point loss! Mine was the only game whose winner shifted as a result of the change.
So I had a bad beat...six days after play for the week had ended!!!
Week 2
The doink heard ‘round at least one fantasy league (submitted by Nick Brown)
Remember that Matt Prater 56-yard field goal on Monday Night Football that hit the crossbar and somehow bounced through the goalposts? Nick Brown sure does.
The Prater kick that hit the cross bar and in from 56 yards ended up beating my fantasy team by 1.
Less than a F***ing point (submitted by River McWilliams)
We didn’t even need to change the heading for this one. Nice job, River!
Detroit running out the clock, Abdullah breaks off big run and tweaks his knee, giving Theo Riddick 3 last touches, in which he pick up 10 yards and I get beat by less than a point...
Fantasy Football Week 5: Rams Have Morphed Into a Possible Offensive Juggernaut
When technology goes wrong (submitted by Scott Johnston)
Sunday morning I have my lineup set. The games have already started. Pats I think had already scored a TD when I go to NFL.com to check the lineup. I see this function called “optimize your lineup” and thinking the games have already started, it won’t change them. But it does, and in doing so, it switches out Mark Ingram and puts in Larry Fitzgerald. It’s not a huge deal, but I try to make the switch back and it’s locked. It won’t let me because it’s like 1:10pm.
Ingram gets 7.60 points.
Fitzgerald gets 2.10 points.
Going into Monday night, I’m down by 4.60 points, with my opponent having Golladay of the Lions. So I’m thinking, just get 1 point and I won’t torture myself for having hit the “optimize” button. Nope. he gets 0.8 points.
I lose 96.04 to 90.64. If I stay with Ingram, I win 96.14 to 96.04.
Week 3
Can’t stop Blake Bortles, huh Ravens? (submitted by Bryce Boever)
The Ravens defense seemed like a good play against the Jaguars in Week 3. No one can fault Bryce for making that move. I’ll let him take it from here.
I had the Ravens defense who got me -1 point. That cost me the game where I lost 123.5 to 123.7.
The Ravens strike again, with help from Larry Fitzgerald and Jason Witten (submitted by Michael Licitra)
Going into MNF I was up by about 29 points. Jordan Reed got hurt (again smh), but luckily I snagged Jason Witten off the waivers after a hot start. I had Witten. My opponent had Larry Fitzgerald. As long as Larry didn’t outscore Witten by 30 the W was mine. Well guess what happened? Oh ya lemme add in that if I just DIDNT PLAY A DEFENSE, I woulda won but the Ravens (#1 fantasy D coming in) get 44 scored on them by the Jags and garner -6 for me to lose by 5. Unbelievable. Never seen anything like it.
Week 5 Fantasy Football Streaming Options
A garbage time tie (submitted by Tyler Krist)
Going into a matchup with my buddy tonight, Zeke needed 17.8 for him to beat me while I had Cowboys kicker Bailey and Cardinals D/st going. Zeke scores that td in the 4th and then when they got the ball back later Dak's handing it off to Zeke in garbage time just to kill the clock. At this point he's up .8 on me and things aren't looking in my favor.... On third n five with 3:52 left on the clock Dak hands the ball to Elliot who rushes for an 8-yard LOSS. That took .8 off his scoreboard so it was all tied up at 125.5 a team. Zeke never got the ball back and we ended up tying. Never thought I'd be so excited for an 8-yard loss in garbage time to give me a tie instead of a loss.... Best part is the guy fell asleep around half time so he won't know how he almost beat me and ended up tying until tomorrow morning when he opens up the group chat.
Week 4
A bad beat for the ages (submissions from Tarek Tabbara, James Barr, Sohaib Naim and Andrew Amodeo)
We got so many emails about the end of the Redskins/Chiefs game on Monday night and Tuesday morning, that it’s impossible to pick which one is the best. From people who lost because of the Thompson fumble, to those who lost because they were playing the Chiefs defense, to IDP leagues, there were just so many incredible bad beat stories from this one. Just try to pick out your favorite.
Week 5 Fantasy Football Injury Report
Tarek Tabbara was on the good side of the bad beat, and got to witness the bad side in person:
Watching match with friend/opponent. Just watched his face turn white.
James Barr is not a fan of Washington’s lateral-play execution:
Winning by 6.1 until MNF and in an IDP league. He had KC’s Houston. Lost by 1.9 on that last second fumble recovery returned for a TD. Great individual play by Houston, pathetic team effort by Washington. It was like they don’t know what they were even trying to do on that last play.
Sohaib Naim watched his win expectancy go from 99% to 0%:
Possibly the most unbelievable thing which could have happened ended up happening. The guy I was playing against was down by 1 pt before the fumble recovery touchdown. I had Kirk Cousins (who thankfully wasn’t listed as the player who fumbled the ball) as well. My chances of winning were at 99% before the Chiefs defense got those extra points. There was no way I could have lost unless something absolutely ridiculous would have changed the score. Safe to say neither I nor anyone else in a similar predicament would’ve ever expected to lose this way. Very disheartening loss.
Andrew Amodeo is still hoping for a stat correction:
I lost because of that "fumble" from Chris Thompson! There's no way he had possession to commit the fumble. This needs to be changed by the NFL to a Jordan Reed fumble.
What a stupid way to lose. On a play with 0 seconds left down by 9!!!! The Redskins had a 0% chance of coming back and winning that game.
