Every Fantasy Football Commish Owes It To Their League To Write A Midseason Report. Here's How It's Done
A fantasy Commish has two jobs:
1) Collect everyone's buy-in as a six month interest free loan to leverage on parlays for football season
2) Be as absolutely insufferable as humanly possible
That's it. #1 is self explanatory and writing a Midseason Report is the key for achieving objective #2. This important document is a dossier that highlights each team's ups and downs with some words of encouragement for the rest of the year. It's the Commish's job to keep the party going and make sure no one is checked out. And there's no better way to do this than write a Midseason Report as a guise to roast your dipshit friends all to hell.
Let's see how I'm doing with #2 as the decade long Commish in my home league "Chicago Bros and Penn Douche" from my preseason survey I sent to my league to fish for content:
Still got it!
You see, while others dressed up as Jeffrey Dahmer this past week, I took to the keyboard to cosplay as a character much more vile and reprehensible - Roger Goodell. So while I'm quite aware none of you give any sort of a sideways fuck about my fantasy league, everyone loves a good roast and in true Goodell spirit, I'll make sure you are entertained at the full expense of the other team managers while side stepping any single fleck of blame for myself.
As is tradition - we go in order of standings.
#1 Commish (Me)
* slight modification to the "order of standings" clause
Sure, I might not have the best record at this current moment in current time, but there's simply no way an unbiased judge (such as myself) could leave my team off the #1 rank in good conscience. Jonathan Taylor is my flex for God sakes. Sure, he's struggled but now that Matt Ryan has been officially Old Yellered, I think good days are ahead for Taylor and (unrelated) I have no interest in looking at this week's injury report for dissenting opinions. And the beauty of this fantasy league being a keeper/auction draft format is that I was able to assemble a team of studs with CMC, Saquon Barkley, and DeAndre Hopkins to get my team in gear for the postseason rush. You see, as the current champion, I know how to manage the marathon of the regular season unlike my idiot moron friends. I've won this league twice and came in second three years in a row in a dark period of my life when my team name was the "Jeffalo Bills".
So yeah, if there's any wonder if I should have the #1 rank on this list remember that to earn a Diamond badge you must be a top 99-percentile level player on Yahoo. Does this all mean I'm unanimously the best until proven otherwise?
#2 Silent Luke
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Luke would probably make a good argument for being #1 on the list for being undefeated or whatever but the guy never speaks up about anything so I don't plan on hearing any rebuttal. Every league has that one guy who ain't never write back on the group text but reads everything. That Geno Smith energy flows deep. I have no idea if Luke is even real. I might have to take a play from Elon and charge him $8 every month for his platinum level badge just to make sure he's not a bot. Anyway, pretty hard to dog a guy with Josh Allen, Travis Kelce, and Nick Chubb, but there's just got to be something this guy sucks at besides holding a conversation. We'll just move on and I'll think of something as we go.
#3 Miller
Miller's the saddest team of this league bar none. Not sad as in Detroit Lions or Houston Texans sad. Sad as in getting your hopes up every year sad. The best part is he's the superstitious guy that never talks shit for fear of it backfiring and yet he's the one that made the championship game two years ago and was leading by almost 30 going into Monday night with his opponent left with one little Stefon Diggs to rip Miller's pent up hope to pieces. Miller is an original league member and has never won a championship while my loud mouth ass has won twice. Every year is the same story with Miller. He builds a strong team that sustains more injuries than the Civil War. Luckily for him he's been able to avoid the injury bug for the most part this year as he's only lost Ja'Marr Chase, Breece Hall, Mike Williams, Cordarrelle Patterson, and Cam Akers. Honestly, he's had worse years. May as well change your name to "The Nursing Home" Miller, because that's where fantasy players go to die. Can't spell Miller without IR and multiple L's I guess.
But Miller does have one thing going for him though: he's a new dad this year. Double time too as he has twin boys! And in the last three years, everyone in our league that became a new dad has won the following year. Adam in 2019 and me last year. For the father's of none wondering why this would matter, that's only because you have no experience holding a bottle with one hand while an infant lays in your arms at 1:42am and then again at 3:37am and you have nothing better to do than use the other hand to scroll for bye-week tight end contingency plans five weeks in advance. Only us new dads know when the baby starts crying as we take the bottle out of their mouth to type in our FAAB bids, the baby's cries are only because they think we are overpaying even though they clearly have no idea how to evaluate the market of our specific league settings. Seriously, what do they know? They're asleep by the second quarter of every game.
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#4 My Dad
My dad is a high-level computer software trainer who contracts for Red Hat and other top-level companies yet just about every year I get some version of the following text response right before the draft. This is what he sent me this year on the day keepers were due:
Simply incredible. I actually thought he turned a new leaf because I don't recall this occurring last year but pretty much every year before that it's been a similarly comparable complete catastrophe. Things don't get much better when he gets in the draft either. We do auction drafting on Yahoo and the platform is pretty top notch. Still my dad can't ever find the "nominate a player" button the size of a brick flashing on his screen so his turn always just times out and defaults to auto. It's a miracle he's able to manage procuring any players whatsoever, so the fact that he has a winning record is pretty impressive here. To be honest, I'm not even sure what the point of me writing this section is because there's no way he'll be able to find it anyway.
#5 Coleman
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The best thing about having your landlord be in your fantasy league is literally nothing at all. It's the absolute worst. The only thing is it will send you down a google rabbit hole that ends with you jotting down a few squatter rights attorney numbers who offer free consultations. Got an appliance that breaks down on you? Better have a juicy trade offer in that message or he'll leave you left to rot in his slum. It's no coincidence too that Coleman took a chance on a couple rookies like Kenneth Walker and Skyy Moore this year. He used to be an upscale diamond salesman, so he knows how to utilize young talent to enrich himself. And his .405 lifetime win percentage is putting him well on track to becoming the next Donald Sterling of fantasy football in every facet imaginable.
Five years in the league and his best finish (Bronze) is literally the lowest level possible. But hey, here's your blue ribbon. I'd love to see what advanced deep learning algorithm Yahoo has to employ for his weekly team reports in a desperate attempt to keep him engaged: "Great job…..(spinning wheel….spinning wheel…)….remembering to put players in most of your starting roster spots this week. Have you considered picking up a coloring book and letting Yahoo pick your starters for you?".
Go ahead and up my rent after reading this, Coleman. See if I care. I've got a dozen Better Call Saul like strip-mall lawyers ready to sleaze me into my Cali-given squatter rights. And I'll be sure that when you get your ass handed to you in court the judge still gives you a bronze medal.
#6 Arvin
Meet the Penn douche. Every league has it's Taco from The League who sends 27 messages after a win and goes dark for an entire year when his team sucks. Arvin and I are arch rivals in this league as you can tell from the similar team name flexes. He's ended two seasons as Diamond status and won one championship. Arvin lost his diamond status this year but like I always say, "diamonds are forever" and he and I are the only ones elite enough to earn that badge. I mean, given the level of ineptitude from the other jackasses we're pretty much like the Chiefs and Bills looking around at the rest of the AFC.
The problem with Arvin is that his team is washed. He was able to thrive with Alvin Kamara for years due to keeper rules but his dumbass accidently messaged me that he wanted to keep Najee Harris instead. Tough mistake. Davante Adams getting traded did him no favors either. Looks like one and done is all Arvin had in him. Sad story really. Just kidding, he's the league douche and it's been nice not hearing from him every 14 seconds on the group thread this year.
#7 Bhupen
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Bhupen is the best. I want him in all my leagues. 153-191 lifetime record means each and every year he's donating to the cause. He's the guy that always goes to arms on the group thread retorting to my shit talking by saying one of the following three totally original responses: "you're an asshole!", "you're a douchebag" or "go fuck yourself". I love these responses because they let me know how good my dig was as they clearly progress from slightly angry to full "5'3'' tall Hulk Bhupen".
This will shock you to hear that Bhupen has never won the league. Even with Derrick Henry and Jalen Hurts this year, he has only managed a .500 record. And each and every week he's the guy that swoops in two minutes after a Shefty injury tweet to get whatever bum backup is left to take over because every week that's better than the trash he has in his lineup. No surprise really given that - as indicated above - his top Yahoo rating finish ever is Silver which Yahoo gives out so long as your team has a pulse or isn't a scum bag landlord. The one exception is Miller who has a Gold rating but his team, as we discussed, doesn't have a pulse.
Anyway, looking forward to a "go fuck yourself" text from Bhupen after this posts. Hopefully I earned that level of rage. If not, than at least a "you're a douchebag".
#8 Berry
Don't even try to figure out Berry's team name acronym. What happens in Vegas to other members of this league stays in Vegas and potentially that other league member's medical records. That's all I'll say. Berry works as a high level financial advisor at his 11 to 2 job before schmoozing clients the rest of the day and has a history of thinking the fantasy stars from five years ago are still valid today. Players like AJ Green or Rob Gronkowski light up his eyes. If you ever wonder why Jonathan Stewart is owned by .1 percent of Yahoo leagues, he's definitely suspect number 1.
Anyway, the running joke on Berry is that he's always been the most incredibly average team manager possible. This year is no exception at 4-4 as he once again has proven to headhunters out there that he's the definition of mid-level management material. Berry started Justin Fields for a good portion of the first few weeks (and left Tua on the bench vs the Ravens lol) and then finally cut bait on Fields for me to swoop in right before he started going HAM. It probably won't shock you to learn he was last year's last place winner which he took from his brother (Other Berry) who has yet to be introduced. Safe to say this family has no relation to Matthew.
#9 Adam
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I actually have the utmost respect for Adam. Here's what was going on in his life for the past several draft days of which I'll note he has yet to miss or even be tardy to any of:
2022: Family funeral
2021: Child about to be born
2019/2020: no obligation - won championship in 2020
2018: Wedding Anniversary Day
2017: On Honeymoon
This man is the king of drafting on his phone - in an auction format none the less. You'd think he'd just send me the dates he's unavailable for the draft ,but I think he actually likes the thrill of drafting when he's not supposed to. That's his kink. But he better be careful because if he's going to make a run for winning in 2023, he's going to need to keep the Mrs. happy come Valentine's day once again to reignite that new dad energy come September.
#10 Kuney
Meet Kuney. AKA "Yearly Donation". AKA "Dumpster Fire" (2021). AKA "WhyWasIinPlayoffs?" (2020). Keeping track of his kid's team names over the years is exhausting so I'm glad I wrote out a Kuney team name tree a few years ago to show the three different routes he takes when deciding on a team name. It's either about how bad his team is, how much he hates me, or that one year he actually had a good team:
I don't know what the hell goes on in this guy's head other than probably planning my assassination. As of the writing of this report, Bailey Zappe is rostered on his team so your guess is as good as mine. And looking back at the draft I see he spent $25 out of $200 on Robert Woods. This is concerning because it means some other league peasant was willing to pay $24. But alas, we still have two worse teams left.
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#11 Other Berry
Other Berry is brother to aforementioned Berry and was the back-to-back league loser in 2019 and 2020 before ceding to his older brother last year. Well looks who's back in the race!
The problem Other Berry faces each and every year is the opposite of his older brother. Instead of thinking about who was good when we landed on the moon, Other Berry does way too much preseason research on the deep sleepers that he ends up paying top dollar for. Combine that with being a Chicago Bears true homer and this is recipe for ultimate disaster. I think he's got a great chance to get that loser license plate back as a Christmas present from big brother, but he's going to have to earn it with steep competition from the final league member:
#12 Heetabh
A life long Packers fan, Heetabh has shown his frustration with off the field pandemic stances of his once favorite quarterback in his latest version of a QAarron Rodgers team name. But if there's one thing I'd prescribe to Heetabh, a literal medical doctor, to heal his wounded fantasy team it would be to ditch some of the consensus big name shots he's taken on names like Darren Waller, Tyler Lockett, AJ Dillon, and Joe Mixon. While many expert analysts recommended these guys before the season, it was really for emergency use anyway and it might be time to try some off label names like DeAndre Carter, Tyquan Thornton, or Caleb Huntley.
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There's no research saying these guys will pan out, but if you get them together you can really throw the kitchen sink at your team's problems. Luckily for you Heetabh, all the shots you took won't prevent you from spreading your team's shittiness to others and Other Berry is well within 6 feet of you in the standings.
Circling back - I still can't think of anything bad to say about Luke. But with all the cheating scams going around lately with poker, fishing, and chess, I imagine he is cheating too by using a computer to process all the data possible for his team.
That's a wrap for 2022. Given how clearly fair and balanced my takes were I trust I'll find nothing derogatory below in the Midseason Report commenter reports.
- Jeffro