Loyalty is usually a noble characteristic. You don't see a lot of it in professional sports, though. Teams pay as little as possible and players earn as much as possible. That's how it works in businesses where league value is measured in 11 figures.
It should also work that way in the three-figure stakes of your fantasy league.
If you're lucky enough to have survived this far, your league title game is probably this week (but not always. More on that next week). You have eight or nine positions to fill, and you'll match them up this week. The winner is the winner, and that's it. No more streaks, no patience, no starting the guys you drafted first and letting the chips fall where they may. Those are great sentiments in September. But it's December, and nothing matters except winning this week with whoever you have at your disposal.
You're going to have some decisions to make. Start your trusted player who's been with you the whole way, or some upstart guy who's been outplaying him for a month? If you play the new hot hand, you have a chance to capitalize on a player who's trending upward. But if you ditch the regular starter, you're risking watching them blow up on your bench. I hope Kareem Hunt owners didn't have that experience last week.
Then again, Marquise Goodwin outscored the likes of Dez Bryant, Demaryius Thomas, A.J. Green, Larry Fitzgerald, Doug Baldwin and Julio Jones. Can you start a guy you picked up on the waiver wire over one of your top draft picks? if you can't, you might be congratulating someone else next Sunday night.
So what do you do? I don't have an easy answer. But I can say that you should be willing to make bold moves to give yourself the best possible chance to win this one game. If a guy looks like he has better potential, start that guy. There are few things worse than losing because you didn't start a guy you knew you should have started, but just couldn't pull the trigger.
But you know what actually is worse? Benching a starter just because you felt you had to "do something" for the championship. Maybe the website spread (the dumbest thing in fantasy football) has you losing big. Maybe your opponent set the season high last week. So you make a move that makes you feel like you're taking control and giving yourself a fighting chance. But in reality, you're taking the fight out of your team.
So here's what I think you should do: Pretend you're playing a DFS game, and you can afford both players under the salary cap. Forget price, and forget that there was a draft in August. It's just two players, and you're trying to win a contest this week. Which one do you like best? If one stands out, and you can rationalize it, start that guy. If they both look unappealing, see if there's someone on the waver wire who would look better. And if you really can't decide, stick with the regular starter. Don't show unnecessary loyalty, but don't make a change just to make it.
And if you really need a final tie-breaker, ask yourself how you'd feel if making the wrong move cost you the title. If you stuck with the regular starter and they flopped, would it bug you to know that the answer to your problems was someone you recently picked up, but didn't have the guts to start? If you started the newer guy and they misfired, would it kill you to know that you had the right guy in all year, but pulled them when it mattered most? Whichever scenario you can live with might provide the peace of mind to make the best decision for you.
Whatever you decide, I'll leave you with some words of encouragement from Laurens de Graaf, possibly the greatest pirate in history (don't believe that Blackbeard or Captain Kidd stuff). Before an assault on pirate hunters, he told his out-gunned, out-matched crew the following:
You are too experienced to not understand the peril we are running, and too brave to fear it. It is necessary here to be cautious of all yet to risk all, to defend and attack at the same time. Valor, deception, fear and even despair must all be put to use on this occasion.
Not long after, he defeated the Armada and took one of their ships. He would terrorize the Spanish (and anyone with valuable cargo) for several more years. Your opponent might not surrender, but I hope you have similar success against them. Good luck this week.
Are you making any big changes for the last game? How do you decide between two players when everything is on the line? Share your thoughts below.