That's Just Sick

STD have long been thorn in the side of our collective existence. AIDS could be considered a pandemic, herpes is gross and disgusting and gonorrhea just plain burns. But there is an even more insidious form of infection making its way through the fantasy football world, working over team after team affecting millions. What is this infection you ask? It is what we thought it was, GTD or Game Time Decisions.

Those of you who have been infected by this debilitating disease know the frustration and sense of helplessness that are its primary symptoms. In rare cases where the infection attacks all fassets of a team, a losing week is almost a certainty. And in the most extreme cases can even lead to the death of a season. Unfortunately, although rarely permanent, there is no fast cure and many times the illness must be left to run its course.

So what can we do?

The best way to fight is to never get it in the first place. And that happens by getting vaccinated in the form of depth during the draft process. Depth is so important. The chances of a manager making through the entire season without a significant injury are slim to none. If you fancy yourself lucky enough to not need depth on your team then maybe you should go play on the WPT and win some real money. For the rest of us pedestrians, I say get some decent backups.

But all that's hindsight at this point, right? The draft's over and were in the fifth week of the season, the second week since the byes started dropping. So what now? Waiver wire work is mandatory, finding and securing the backups of players who have went down or soon may is essential and a lot of prayer to a nameless, faceless God, who if he really cared would have never given you this affliction in the first place, couldn't hurt.

This entire diatribe has but one point. Check your lineups on Sunday to make sure the assholes you hate with a passion from the day you drafted them are actually going to step on the field of play. Don't get laid up with a GTD.