I was suffering from some serious FOMO Sunday.
And then, the FOMO turned to GOMO: Gambling Obsessively, Missing Opportunities.
Luckily, it didn’t completely devolve into BROMO: Broke, Regretful, and Out of Money, Oy.
FOMO, GOMO, BROMO: The Three Stages of Fantasy Football Grief
First up, the FOMO: I wanted to be in Nashville competing in the DraftKings Fantasy Football live final for a top prize of $2.25 million.
Unbelievable setup here in Nashville for the @DraftKings Fantasy Football World Championship!!!! Somebody’s about to walk away with 2.5 milly pic.twitter.com/ORCZLbE94T
— Dana Beers (@danabeers) December 15, 2024
Of course, in order to compete for the top prize, I needed to be one of the 200 people to have won a ticket to the event via satellites throughout the season.
And there’s the issue right there, as I never once even tried to win a ticket. Reminds me – kind of exactly – of the old joke …
A man prays to God every single day, “Please God, let me win the lottery! I’ve been such a faithful servant, please just let me win the lottery!”
This goes on for weeks and weeks until finally, the clouds part and a booming voice from heaven says: “My son… meet me halfway here… BUY A TICKET!”
Anyway, there was serious FOMO on this score, especially since Cal Spears – the guy whose name is on the paperwork for this site and, basically, my boss’s boss – had multiple entries in the final and it was dominating our Slack chat for a minute on Sunday morning.
Cal didn’t win, but a familiar name in the world of DFS sure did – ChipotleAddict took it down by less than a point with 227.26 points, led by a five-man Jets-Jaguars game stack.
Oh well. Maybe I’ll enter a satellite next year.
Next up was GOMO, as I vowed to sit out the Sunday night Showdown slate between the Packers and Seahawks. I put one lineup together that I kind of liked, but every time I went back to the well, I couldn’t piece anything together that looked good. I normally max enter the $3 20-max Play-Action and throw in a few $5 single entries, but really: Nothing was attracting me.
That is, until Brett Smiley (my boss) posted in Slack – {expletive}ing Slack, amirite? – that he won a Showdown slate in the Ravens-Giants game. I was happy for him, but I’m pretty sure that was his 7,462th Showdown takedown this year. I may be off by one or two, but I’m telling you: He’s been on a Showdown heater.
As a result of his victory, I went full GOMO, and ended up putting 12 entries into that night’s Showdown slate.
Results? All-too predictable.
But all was not lost on this December Sunday, for I – yes, I, your humble scribe – was about to win a tournament.
My normal NFL main slate play is to enter a crap-ton of contests and hope for the best after spending the better part of the entire week thinking about the slate. I like playing the small dollar, big money contests, will always waste $100 or so in the Milly Maker, and, this year, finally smartened up and decided to play around in smaller tournaments with (mostly) highly-correlated lineups.
And that’s how I found myself in the $3 Mini Play-Action, sitting in first place with 221.16 points with my own five-man Jets-Jaguars stack, backed up with James Conner, the failed chalk in Chuba Hubbard, plus Courtland Sutton and the Broncos defense.
Not only was I in first place there for $500, but this same lineup was in the big Play-Action, and I was 71st place, winning another $375.
All was right with the world.
And then the Lions, down 10 points with 2:03 left in the game – and with every other game in the books – decided to march down the field. Every freaking Jared Goff completion knocked me down a peg.
By the time the two minutes had elapsed, my winnings had gone down to $200 in total. Not bad, obviously, but not $875 either.
Now I know the games aren’t over until they’re over, but come on. After the -OMO day I was having, I could’ve used a good WOMO – Winning Outrageously, Money’s Overflowing – but alas, it was not to be. The bright side, of course, is that I wasn’t BROMO.
Well, I wasn’t BROMO until I checked my Underdog playoff Best Ball scores and … yeah, see ya next year on that. What a disaster.
Well, actually, I’m not done with Underdog for the year. I’ve got some POMO to take care of – you know, Postseason Obviously, Moving On!
