How To Have a Zero-Win Fantasy Football Team

Fantasy football is regarded by most as the most enjoyable fantasy sports experience available. Football, with its short season and single-game playoffs, is the epitome of the "big leagues" in fantasy sports. Everyone has their own methods of drafting and playing each year, but there is no way to guarantee success.

There are, however, some sure-fire ways to make sure that you never win another fantasy football league, or even game, ever again. In case that is your goal (and apparently it is my goal with one of my teams this year), this is your path to success (failure). 

So here goes nothing.

The rules of engagement:

1. You must have all positions filled with starting players, so as not to tip off your league that you intend to lose. This type of catastrophic losing will probably not go over well with your league-mates.

2. Perform your draft with enthusiasm and make sure appropriate trash-talking (whatever is your norm) is carried out. This will lead your league to believe you are really doing what it takes to win and that you have confidence in your team.

3. You do not talk about your intent to lose.

4. You do not talk about your intent to lose.

Now that these basic rules have been laid out, here is what you must do to make sure your team is the laughing stock of your league.

First, when trying to assemble the worst fantasy football team in your league without making anyone else aware of it, you have to set some guidelines:

1. You must draft players in a way that does not indicate that you intend to lose. In other words, make sure you are getting players that are starters or viable second-teamers. 

The trick is to make sure you are going for injury prone has-beens who are overrated or injury prone rookies who already have starting jobs. Sometimes, your intent here can be covered up with a simple, "I think this will be his comeback/breakout year."

2. You must rotate your players so that you are covering injuries and off weeks so as not to tip off your competitors of your genius plan to lose. Also, look for bad matchups while you rotate your players in and out. 

Again, excuses can be something like, "Oh, I think the Giants/Vikings/Bears/Bucs defense is overrated, and Jerry Porter/Justin Gage/Robert Meachem/Jabar Gaffney will expose their weak pass protection."

3. You must make sure you are patrolling the free agency and the waiver wire for those "one-hit wonders" (which is actually the name of every one of my yahoo fantasy teams) that had one big game and will soon fade away (Donnie Avery, anyone).

4. Fumble, fumble, fumble. The best way to hurt your stats every week is to have tons of turnovers. Get the stone-hands receivers and running backs that are practically known for letting go of the ball. Draft the quarterback with the knack to find a DB with 25 percent of his passes but with a great "upside." Turnovers can really stomp a mudhole in your games.

5.  Get yourself the kicker who was on fire last season, but had an injured leg (quad, groin, hamstring) during the offseason. If you are lucky he will shank a few to start the season off, while adjusting to the new hitch in his step.

6. Always go for the next DB-turned-receiver. They never have the hands to be great; that's why they're on defense you idiot.

7. Be the first in your league to draft a kicker. No one has any idea which kickers are going to have good years, so jump out there and grab a big handful of mediocrity early. It gives you an extra round to stall.

These are your simple rules to follow to make sure your team is everything (nothing) you want it to (never) ever be.  So what, you ask, is a great example of a loser team?

Thanks for asking. This is a current (not draft time) example.

QB Gus Frerotte

QB Trent Edwards

RB Larry Johnson

RB Julius Jones

RB Darren McFadden

WR Justin Gage

WR Robert Meachem

WR Steve Breaston

WR Donnie Avery

TE Billy Miller or Heath Miller or Zach Miller (any Miller will do)

K Janikowski

Def Miami

As you can see from the sample team above, pretty much all the players have been heard of. They are all starters with their teams, too. But at this point, that team could only beat another "one-hit wonders" team of rejects.

Nearly every player on there had a strong point to them or some kind of pre-season or during-season upside to make them seem like a believable pick-up.

If you have any ideas on how to make the rules of this better or more effective, please comment it to me here. I may include it in my next edition of "How to Have a Zero-Win Fantasy Team."