Why Fantasy Football is So Frustrating

The best you can hope for in fantasy football is to make it into the playoffs with a bye. Once you get in the playoffs, you have to know that even a dominant team is vulnerable. But why is this the case?

The fantasy football playoffs take place late in the season and even more variables that are completely out of your control come into play. These variables include resting players, teams giving up, teams giving backups a chance to showcase their stuff, tiring players, injuries and the list goes on. The bottom line is you must keep adjusting but even with well calculated starts and a star studded lineup, your team can still fall by the way side.

If you fell short this season, take solace in the fact there are some things you just can't control. You cannot directly tie your fantasy team's success to your own because there are so many things left to chance. For example, you may not have known Colts coach, Jim Caldwell, would bench his starters so soon against the Jets. The week before against the Jags, Caldwell played his starters the whole game and that game was meaningless in terms of playoff position as well.

Another situation showcasing the hit or miss nature of fantasy football was Arian Foster's 0 points against the easy St. Louis Rams and then his solid effort against Miami with double digit points. Dealing with Foster was basically the same as playing roulette - it was all chance.

So if you're down and out about fantasy football, just remember that it's a game in which chance plays a large role. Most of the time the better team will win, but you can never count out an underdog. There's luck involved and it's weighted even more heavily during the playoffs.

Skill comes into play over the course of the season, however. If your team happens to meander it's way to the top 1/3 of the league every year, that's no coincidence. Take solace in the fact you drafted a team that was strong enough to make the playoffs where anything can happen. Sometimes anything takes you to the finals and sometimes it doesn't.

If you did make it to the finals and that Adrian Peterson fumble cost you the game, yes it's frustrating, but it wasn't your fault.