Issue #307: Matterhorn
By Derrick Ernst
September 28, 2026
Gratitude
I’m writing you from a balcony in Zermatt, Switzerland that faces the famous Matterhorn mountain. My wife and I have been traveling through Europe this week with our first stop being in Germany (for Oktoberfest). We’ll conclude our stay in Italy in the coming days. I don’t write this to brag. I write it as a way of expressing that there is more to life than being worked up about fantasy performances that you can’t control. This may sound counterintuitive coming from the fantasy guy himself, but it’s true. Bijan is going to rush for 200 yards whether you watch him do so or not. I tell you what, despite those 200 yards still equaling 20 points, they’ll feel like less of a blow not seeing them accumulate before your eyes.
I’m sure you’ve felt this before: not watching something because you think it will result in the outcome you’re hoping for. In other words, they/them/it does better when you’re not watching. This isn’t some sort of weird voodoo — you don’t have the ability to control that thing by not watching them. The blow just lessens if the outcome goes against what you were hoping would result.
We haven’t been able to get any NFL coverage while we’ve been away and the timing difference is enough to wreck havoc anyways, but I tell you what, I’ve felt less from the fantasy blows than I would have sitting at home in front of the TV. Not to say you shouldn’t watch football ever again (I never miss a Vikings game), but distancing yourself from the screen on a Sunday afternoon may do you more good than you realize.
Would you rather:
Be heated and throw obscenities around people who couldn’t care less, or
Do something you enjoy that gets you more in tune with life’s greater meaning
Throw in the fact that the outcome is the same no matter which option you choose and it’s pretty clear which comes out ahead.
To dumb it down further, it’s a choice between being happy and not. Some go through life wanting to be the latter. If that’s you, you’re probably not getting much out of this newsletter. Come back next week to see if something else hits.
Fantasy football is an escape from reality. We live a pretty good life to even have the opportunity to be a part of it to begin with. A lot of people on Earth don’t have that. Be glad that you do and remind yourself of it on Sunday by doing something in your reality that puts a smile on your face.
Mahomes is still going to do his thing whether you watch him do it or not. Go mow your lawn, have a beer, and watch the highlights later. You’ll be happier that your yard looks good and you didn’t have to torture yourself watching #15 light up your fantasy team. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.
On the Cheap
I could spend every regular season issue talking injuries. I saw a headline the other day from a news outlet that read, Injuries Are Ruining Football. I disagree, but with caveats.
For one, injuries are part of the game. We’ve touched on how football is a game of longevity. The best teams at the end of the season have probably had a bit of luck on the injury front, but also load managed well, had the schedule go their way, played in good conditions, etc. Secondly, we don’t know when an injury is coming. It could happen on the first drive of the first game of a season or the last. It could not happen at all. Any way you look at it, the timing of an injury could mean your team’s season is in trouble or there’s hope on the other end of a short- to medium-term recovery.
We’d all get rid of injuries if we could. While that’s not a possibility, it does feel like there are more and more of them as each season comes and goes. To make matters worse, they seem to be impacting the league’s most premier players. Not only does that make for bad football, but the storylines falter as well.
There’s a tactic when it comes to investing: purchase a stock on the cheap and you put yourself in a position to be exposed to its upside. Really, there’s only upside. All downside has been exhausted that the only way for it to go is up. This is an oversimplification, but you get the point. I’m beginning to think this way about fantasy football’s free agents.
Let me explain.
Injuries are happening everywhere across the league. Free agent pools are filled with RB2/3 and WR2/3 talent and many of our rosters have those one or two players sitting on our bench that will never see a starting lineup (there just there because our roster needs to be filled). What if you took these one, two, three, etc. bench spots and picked up an available backup to a susceptible starter? This isn’t a groundbreaking strategy. What may be is if you did this every other week or so. Rather than “buy and hold” you “day trade.”
This may not sound the most sane but like I said, you can’t predict an injury. Would you rather hold onto I. Pacheco all season long hoping J. Gibbs goes down, or would you rather drop him for B. Allen or K. Black or E. Johnson, holding each for a few weeks? Yes, this is more like spraying a roulette table, but it gives you the ability to buy multiple players on the cheap, rather than making a bet on just one and hoping they hit.
All I’m trying to say is that the unpredictability of injuries makes it difficult for you to make highly probable bets. Injury can happen to anyone at any given moment. Your league’s free agent pool isn’t meant for you to just stare at. It’s meant to be used to strengthen your team’s chances to win. If buying and holding is putting you at a disadvantage, increasing your odds may be just what you need to better your team’s chances at exposing itself to luck.
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