Time To Feel Bad For Those Stuck With The First Overall Pick – Fantasy Games Won (FGW) Week 7 Update

What is FGW? Go back to the shadows, I mean Week 1.

I had an experience this past week that, I believe, gives me special insight into the life of a Jonathan Taylor owner in fantasy.

Not that I needed the insight – I do have Taylor in two leagues – but sometimes, things happen to you that perfectly encapsulate the the feelings of a greater community.

Last Friday night (I think it was Friday, I can barely keep track at this point), we put our 3 kids to bed, each snuggled up with their own shiny new strain of RSV.

For those not familiar with RSV, it’s a virus that hits you by far the hardest the first time you catch it. Adults barely show symptoms, until they catch it again in old age. Likely because of things like a pandemic, yadda yadda yadda, our kids aged 5, 2, and 5 months all were seeing their friend RSV for the first time, together. And if RSV is Sean Taylor, our older two have been doing their best Brian Moorman impressions.

Our 2 year old starts the night by refusing to lie down for an hour, because lying down would trigger a coughing spree. Repeatedly dozing off sitting up, he showed more willpower than I could likely muster to avoid lying on a bed of nails.

Once he was down, he began a 6 hour run of waking himself up every 20-30 minutes with something along the lines of: “…(sleep talking) but I don’t want peanut butteCOUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH!” At least half the time, Mommy gets called in.

Our 5 year old wakes up at least 3 separate times, two of which involve vomiting from post-nasal drip on an empty stomach. I should mention that the appetites of our older two kids was so reduced that they would have been content to split a Ritz cracker as their weekend rations.

Surprisingly, our 5-month old was the least of the challenge. Likely armed with breastmilk antibodies, all he did was wake up twice, though one of which did require some mucus suction from a tool that looks like it was deigned to harvest brains. Parents know what I’m referring to.

But it was on our infant’s second wakeup – my 4th of the night, at least – that I woke up to a bizarre sensation. After dealing with sore back muscles and the occasional tingle on my left hand for the last 6 months, and now 3 days past my last beer league softball game of 2022, my lingering symptoms came to a crescendo.

I couldn’t feel my left index finger.

My wife, on wakeup number 14 or something like that, wanted me to suck it up. At that point she would have been content with me pulling a Ronnie Lott and cutting the finger off. This was the Dad version of gameday, after all.

For the next 72 hours I almost had to pick between finger and my sleep-deprived, feverish, mucus-drenched family. Shirk my fatherly duties and take care of my injury, or shoulder a load and risk nerve damage.

It was in that conundrum that I fully understood the lesson of drafting Jonathan Taylor with the first pick in 2022. If you had the first pick, you had to draft Jonathan Taylor. And you know what?

Sometimes, life deals you a…bad hand.

Who Won The Week?

• Congrats to those of you that traded Joe Burrow before Ja’Marr Chase was declared out.
• Congrats to those that had Josh Jacobs at +500 to be the leading Alabama alum in rushing yards this year. I’m still holding out hope that Eddy Lacy gets back in shape (+50,000).
• Congrats to those of you that make the objectively incorrect (at the time) pick of Austin Ekeler first overall.
• Signs of life from George Kittle and that weird-ass helmet.
• The Legion of Last Names shows up on the green list this week! There ya go, JuJu! Though clearly the Chiefs thought they needed a weapon with two first names in Kadarius Toney. Not a great sign for the legion.
• Jared Goff would have scored almost as many points if he just spent the day as Jack Goff.
• Kenyan Drake at +1200 for Alabama Rushing King not looking as great.
• Tom Brady only with 78% custody of starting lineups. He’d be lucky to get 50% next week.
• Jackson and Andrews paying their stack owners back after a great start.

Leaderboards

• Buy low on Josh Allen?
• Ek takes the RB belt, at least temporarily, from Chubb. Over the last 4 weeks he’s at 1.23, next highest from all positions is Josh Jacobs at 0.80.
• Mark Andrews would be giving Kelce a run for his money if not for Week 4 and Week 7.
• Taysom Hill – very interesting how low his score is, especially from Week 6.
• In case you’re wondering, my finger has gone from useless last week to 20% better this week. Like Aaron Rodgers.
• I actually got spine x-rays, which were all negative. Like every Kyle Pitts week.
• Meanwhile, the kids are still feeling it a bit, but they’re basically done. Just like Gisele Bundchen.

• How nice to see Jefferson and Chase side-by-side again.
• Still waiting for Cam Akers to get traded. Kinda surprised he wasn’t the Jets’ target over James Robinson.

Meanwhile, as a Jets fan with the team 5-2 but just lost Breece Hall and stud OL Alijah Vera-Tucker…

All-Time Leaderboard Update

The Full List

• Just going to add that Mr. K9 himself (Kenneth Walker is apparently K9, presumably as jersey number 9) is doing so well he might throw the dFGW equation!

Whelp, gotta go, I have some children’s tylenol and honey spoons to refill. If you ever feel like your team is doing nothing but vomiting mucus, just remember that we’re all going down with this ship together. It’s been a privilege and an honor.

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