Imagine you had a few lineup decisions to make in a playoff game. You did your research, checked the stats, checked the weather, checked every cheat sheet you could find and even consulted friends and family about it. After careful consideration, you made your decisions, put them in your lineup and hoped for the best.
And somehow they all came through. You made the right call on each one of them, and maximized your lineup potential. You scored a perfect 100 percent on potential points for the week. Amazing!
It all came together for you, except for one thing: You still lost by 40. If your team had a good week and you got blown out anyway, welcome to week 16.
There are plenty of scenarios we could choose to illustrate what might have happened: You woke up Friday morning down a ton of points thanks to Matt Stafford and Puka Nacua. You watched Jaylen Warren provide an unexpected boost to your opponent. You had a lead going into Monday night and all they had left was Brock Purdy. Or a mix-and-match formula of Henry, Goff, Burrow, Chase Brown or Olave. Maybe they started Fairbairn at kicker and you started whoever because who cares about kickers? Maybe they picked up the Saints defense at the last minute. Or maybe a few of those and the match was essentially over before you had a chance to settle in to watch some games.
There are standout performances every week, but many of these seemed unusually heroic. And if you were on the wrong side of them, it can be especially frustrating. You might have scored far and above what would normally constitute a comfortable win, and the game still wasn’t close. Sometimes you can do everything right, and it still turns out wrong. So what can you do when you make good decisions but get a bad result? You do what the best poker players do: Shake it off and get ready for the next hand. I realize that the “next hand” won’t be until the back half of 2026, but that’s the burden of having a great year and losing in the playoffs.
All you can do is acknowledge that you did things right, and that’s not a small thing. The worst thing you can do is change a solid strategy because you happened to run into a high-scoring juggernaut at the wrong time. What you did will pay off most of the time. Just not this time. Promise yourself you won’t change what got you there, congratulate your opponent and move on. And know that you’re definitely not alone. It happened to a lot of teams this past week.
And if you were on the winning side, congratulations! Just remember that you didn’t map out these record-setting performances. It was just one of those weeks where everything worked out. You should try to move on as well, because next week is what really matters and you have zero points so far in that contest. And you don’t have much time to enjoy this victory, anyway: Ten teams will have played by the time the early Sunday games kick off. Dallas, Detroit and Denver all play Thursday, so there’s a good chance your championship game will have early returns before Friday. There’s no time to gloat. Focus on the last game of the season.
Finally, while we usually look at these results with our manager’s cap on, try to look at them just as a football fan. There were some really great performances, amazing catches, heartbreaking interceptions, and early eliminations by teams who had playoff aspirations just a few weeks ago. It’s not part of our game, but it’s part of the game, and we’re football fans, too. But if you give Nacua and Purdy the side-eye for a little while, nobody will blame you. And if you’re still in the hunt for a title, good luck this week.
Did you face an insurmountable avalanche of points this week? How did you handle it? Did you somehow overcome some heroic performances, maybe with some of your own? Share your thoughts below.