Playing a DFS team composed solely of former Badgers, Part 2

Well. I lost.

Last week, I decided that I would play a daily fantasy sports (DFS) team composed solely of former Badgers. I did. And I lost.

This comes as a great surprise, I know. Judging by the commentariat on my last column, the B5Q readership was uniformly confident in predicting my defeat (as well as heavily questioning my general intelligence and life choices—words hurt, guys and gals, words hurt). I, on the other hand, in the face of nearly insurmountable odds and those dirty stinking haters completely rational readers out there, believed. I saw a narrow Wilson-Gordon-White-and-some-sheer-dumb-luck path to victory. A lot broke the way I needed it to. A few things did not. Such is life.

My grand experiment failed, though it failed beautifully. My all (former) Badger all-stars (plus Mason Crosby) kind of, sort of, well... I suppose not really nearly pulled off the upset, losing by a mere 21.78 points, 117.78-96.00. That outcome, truthfully, was significantly better than it had any right to be.

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My three lowest scorers—as expected, my bubble-gum-duct-tape-and-chicken-wire-based wide receiving corps of Tanner(Cat) McEvoy, Jared Abbrederis, and Alex Erickson—scored a grand total of 1.5 points. I chose not to sub Abby even though he was ruled out shortly before the game on Thursday. It was clearly DFS suicide, but it kinda felt like cheating and did not trust myself to not scrap the whole experiment to try and redeem my $1.00.

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1.5 points=not great (though McEvoy blocked a punt—I think that should’ve been like 18 points right there). But fantasy is funny. My esteemed opponent’s low three scored a total of 14.1, so at the end of the day, my beloved Island of Misfit Toys wideout group didn’t totally do me in.

Because Flash delivers.

Melvin Gordon nearly singlehandedly kept me in the game, scoring three touchdowns and dropping a total of 33.1 points on my actually quite full of hap hapless opponent. He now leads the league in touchdowns and is forever a DFS all-star in my heart.

Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

By mid-day, things actually looked promising. James White (10.2 points) scored a touchdown. Lance Kendricks (nine points!) scored nine points (!!), which was actually 7.25 more than I expected. Poor, dragooned Mason Crosby had already kicked in his nine points on Thursday. And Philly (sweet, blessed, rage-filled Philly), whose defense was chosen based on the presence of Beau Allen (three tackles and a fumble recovery) and Chris Maragos (zero tackles, two less than starting quarterback Carson Wentz), gave a dual boost, knocking off the hated Vikings and adding a whopping 24 points.

And then came the single worst football game that was ever played in the history of football games being played. Oh, Russell Wilson. With my $1.80 in winnings just an improbably large statistical game away, poor Russell Wilson ran into a buzzsaw composed of the Cardinals defense, bad luck and what appeared to all objective observers to be the wrath of a petty and vengeful god. It was a terrible, terrible 6-6 tie and Russell only added nine points to the kitty. And with that, all hope was lost.

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

So my esteemed opponent cruised to eeked out a victory.

It was fun, as fantasy should be (loss of hard-earned $1.00 aside). I generally gloss over the non-Packer NFL on Sundays, so it was nice to check in on the NFL Badgers. I am thrilled to see Melvin Gordon doing the things that we all knew he would when he was drafted in the first round last year. I was sorry to see Abby heading to IR this week, his Packer (and possibly pro) career very much in doubt. And I am glad to see Tanner McEvoy in Seattle, where his freak athleticism can be put to jack-of-all-trades good use by noted crazy person Pete Carroll. For one week, at least, I rooted for more than the laundry. It was nice.

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

RIP, Inglorious Badgers. It was just not to be.