Commiseration Corner: Opening Night(s)

Welcome to the Commiseration Corner. As the excitement and anticipation of a new season takes over our lives, it’s easy for us to forget that fantasy football is a soul-sucking game that destroys all joy in its path and leaves us as starved husks of our former selves. It’s so fun, and we love it so much. As we let this behemoth roll over us in pain and agony, you can come here for a recurring blog created for the purpose of commiseration. We all feel the pain, so we might as well feel it together.

TreVeyon Henderson

For those who drafted Henderson, there was already a feeling that no matter what happened, Mike Vrabel was somehow going to mismanage his running back stable. Last year, we saw Henderson outperform Rhamondre Stevenson every time he got the chance, and still be denied opportunities to strive for greatness. TreVeyon never even got the chance this year as he was prevented from playing in week one with a random ankle injury. Knowing Vrabes, this probably ruins any chance of Henderson returning on his draft capital investment, and we are seeing one more poor unfortunate soul be led into darkness by the Evil Empire. At least he didn’t have to get manhandled by the Seahawks like all of the other Patriots did.

Sam Darnold

The victory tour for the GEQBUS ended early as a freak hip muscle strain took the reigning Super Bowl champion out of opening night after the first drive. It seems like he’s going to be fine, but there was a scary moment or two there. The pain of this one is made easier by the fact that you probably didn’t draft The Darnold to be a starting QB. Everyone else who cares about him are just Seahawks fans, and they were treated to a perfectly fine game by Drew Lock in relief which led to a win over the Evil Empire. Ultimately, Sam Darnold looks like he’ll be back relatively quickly, and JSN is in good enough hands while we wait for him to return.

AJ Brown

If you invest in the Evil Empire, you invest in evil itself. Drafting Patriots players leads to the ruin of mortal souls, and you should have known better. AJ Brown’s high ankle sprain should keep him out for four to six weeks, and we have no one to blame for ourselves. There are plenty of divas out there who can catch footballs, why did you have to draft this one? That duck that Drake Maye underthrew on a deep ball in the first half of opening night probably should have told us all we needed to know about AJ Brown this season: it’s going to be painful. Pain, pain, pain. I hope AJ Brown comes back soon and comes back better, because the Patriots were cheeks without him.

Drake Maye

It’s a terrible day to be an AJ Brown fantasy owner (which I am), a terrible day to be a Drake Maye fantasy believer (which I am not), but a great day to be a Patriots hater (which I am). Obviously, you never want to see anybody get hurt, but I’m guessing that Drake Maye would have liked to get hurt in that game so he could have had an easier time explaining to the media why he looked like he’s never seen a football in his life. I understand the Seahawks have a suffocating defense, but if you throw three interceptions in the fourth quarter and your excuse is “I got impatient”, I think you would probably be better off faking a hamstring or something like that. I have no sympathy for Patriots fans, your team looked like bums (other than the defense, they played well), but your quarterback has literally never beaten a team with a winning record. That’s hilarious. I know this blog is about commiseration where all agony is equal, but seeing a fanbase think that their guy is elite and then constantly be shown that he isn’t is one of my favorite pastimes. I’ve been doing it with Jordan Love for years. It’s great. Wait, is Drake Maye the Jordan Love of the AFC? People are asking.

Matthew Stafford

We knew that Australia was probably not going to produce the best football we’ve ever seen, but I can’t remember a moment when a reigning MVP looked that bad. Nineteen hours on a plane can’t possibly make one of the NFL’s best passers look like he’s playing for the other team…actually now that I’m thinking about it, it probably could. The longest flight I’ve ever taken has only been like eight hours, and it took me the better part of a week to feel like a human being again. There were moments during the Thursday Night Football game (not to be confused with Thursday Night Footie where Hawthorn defeated Fremantle in the first qualifying final. Go Hawks!) where I literally started asking people if Matt Stafford was playing super conservative or if he physically couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn. (Fun fact, there aren’t a lot of barns in Australia, despite the fact that there are a lot of farms and cattle ranches) Staffy’s no good very bad game also led to Puka Nacua looking meh, and Davante Adams looking utterly replaceable.

Christian McCaffrey

For most players, going up against a “super team” defense and coming away with 13 fantasy points would be a decent result. Unfortunately, The 49ers demolished that super team, Brock Purdy played like a maniac, every other 49er had a really good game, and Christian McCaffrey looked like an afterthought. The best running back of the last decade was left with only 10 carries on the night, and made most of his scoring through the air. That would be fine if it was a negative game script situation where they had to throw a lot and he got his work on checkdowns, but that’s not what happened. Kaelon Black, the rookie out of IU, had 14 carries and outworked CMC. The amount of times I drafted Christian McCaffrey this season was concerning because of injury risk, and I made peace with that risk. I did not anticipate Christian McCaffrey being REPLACED while HEALTHY. For my own copium I need to believe that they just weren’t going to give him a massive workload in Australia on opening night where weird stuff was always going to happen.

The season is only two days old, and it already feels like we’ve had a full week of pain. May the rest of week one treat you all better than the opening nights did. If I know one thing, we’ll be back here in the Commiseration Corner before you know it.