Fantasy Football FUBAR: Bad Beats

"I been gamblin’ hereabouts for 10 good solid years,
If I told you all that went down, it would burn off both of your ears."

So sang Jerry Garcia, an avid San Francisco 49er fan. Or at least a fan.

My ultimate bad beat in fantasy football occurred in a 49er game way back in September 1997, the very first contest of the season, when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers squeezed out an ugly 13-6 win.

One very large obnoxious man finished my season and the 49ers in one fat fell swoop. Well, at least my team.

I was flying high feeling like a sure season long winner because I had played the premier quarterback wide receiver exacta by landing the astonishing running/passing threat of former league MVP Steve Young and the aging but still deadly great Jerry Rice.

I imagined double scoring on each Young to Rice TD pass. The Niner offense rolling, firing on all cylinders, and routing sad eyed foes.

Landing a quarterback and a pass catcher from the same team has long been a strategy of mine.  But it does place a lot of your pigskin eggs in one proverbial basket if that team disintegrates so does your season.

So I sat in a smoky bar watching the first weekend action and then BOOM Mike Tyson short right uppercut to my teams head.

Jerry Rice, the bay area iron man with 188 consecutive games played in, runs a badly organized and poorly blocked reverse.

The reverse blows up almost instantly, Rice stumbles, tries to make something of nothing, and as he makes a move 280 pounds of Warren Sapp catches him from behind, by the face mask, and drags him down awkwardly.

Ugly actually as Rice's cleats sticks in the turf, his leg twists, bends strange, and like the cereal goes, snap, crackle, pop.

The Rice is burnt.

He ain't getting up again this year.

Why run old Rice? Ask George Seifert.

But I still have Young the key element. A player who can beat entire fantasy teams single handed. In Mormon leaps and bounds.

But Young is being pressured by Tony Dungy's swarming defense.

The Bucs can score on offense, but they can sure beat the crap out of Young and his offense.

Young is scrambling again for his life, rolling left’s topping to throw, and SMASH Warren Sapp from the blind side helmet to helmet.

Young's head, bleeding Niner red rolls 15 yards down field like it shot off a cheap champagne bottle.

Great Hugh McElhenny Ghost they killed Steve!

Even the referees paled for a moment trying to comprehend the medieval horror of presiding over the beheading of Brigham Young's GGGgrandson.

Ah the PR problem for poor Paul Tagliabue!

But wait, it was just Young's helmet popped liked a cork not his head. And Hugh McElhenny ain't even dead.

The quarterback's head bounced hard off the turf and then connected cleanly with the unforgiving knee of Buc linebacker Hardy Nickerson.

Down goes Young! Down goes Young!

Young's injury would actually only make him miss an entire game but the effect of one player, Warren Sapp, on my team in one week would remain etched in my mind.

Especially since a drunken owner, and Buc fan, in my fantasy league would taunt me with chants of Warren! Warren! Warren! for the rest of the year.

Still, I like the quarterback wide receiver combo in fantasy league. At least pair your quarterback with his team’s tight end to maximize that poor scoring position.

Two more bad beats

Two years later, with the top draft pick, I grabbed Terrell Davis, off an MVP season and expected to run even more with John Elway.

The Broncos had a great but dirty cut blocking offensive line and had just won the big Bowl back to back.

Four games in the always struggling Brian Griese throws a terrible pass, his specialty, which is intercepted.

Terrell Davis decides he really is Tom Jackson and while making the tackle tears an ACL.

Thus ends TD's season, the Broncos, and mine.

The next year, my high first round pick is the Dirty Bird Jamal Anderson and two games into the year the bird is done.

ACL pop bang doodle

Call me the career ender.

Call me jinx.

Call me Fantasy FUBAR.