Root for the Underdog of the Season!

For the last nine years, I've been playing Yahoo! Fantasy Football with the same group of college and high school buddies. In this time span, I've only been to the playoffs in four times and have yet to win a single playoff game. I fielded my best team in 2002, destroying the opposition to go 10-3 and finish regular season number one. Then, in the flameout of all flameouts, I lost each of my three playoff games and finished in 6th place.

Basically, as the "owner" of my team, I would fire myself as GM and Coach. I might as well set up the team and outsource all the decision making to someone who knows better.

Anyway, this season, with two games left in the regular season, I am sitting in second place at 8-3, having scored more points that each of the teams below me, and just five points off the pace of the first place squad. I've clinched a playoff spot, and I am hoping to win it all.

I think you should root for my team this year, especially because since my squad is the kind of underdog everyone would want to root for. Here is why:

1) I've overcome adversity at multiple points this season - I lost Ronnie Brown, who was an early season fantasy hoss, for the year, Jevon Walker for most of the season, and David Gerrard for a crucial four game stretch. Despite this, I keep winning. I attribute this to my unusually good waiver wire strategies (see 3).

2) My squad is made up of a lot of cast-offs and feel good stories - For example, my starting QBs are Jeff Garcia, a journeyman, elderly statesman, and David Gerrard, who wasn't even supposed to start when I drafted him. My backup QB is Vinny Testerverde, a guy my father remembers seeing play when he was in grad school. My second starting RB is Jesse Chatman, Ronnie Brown's replacement in Miami who kept getting kicked off of his past teams for being overweight. My defense was drawn entirely off the waiver wire (I missed the live draft when I was in South Africa). Finally, even my lovable uber-star, the incomparable LaDanian Tomlinson, is having an off year (by his standards, anyway).

3) The owner really needs this win - My college roommate, a three or four time champion, keeps pointing out how I've historically sucked at fantasy. In the past, other owners have criticized admittedly stupid roster moves I've made (for every mid season trade for Larry Johnson, I've drafted rookie WRs in the fourth round). I need to win both to earn respect and to offset what has been a ridiculously dry semester of research.

Also, did I mention that I haven't won a playoff game in nine years? There is only one way to describe that: hapless.

4) Finally, my team is named Hufflepuff's Cup, in honor of the kind but ultimately unremarkable Hogwarts House. Its funny how my team has turned out to be just like them: no stars, just solid performers who put their hearts and bodies on the line for me every week. How can you root against a team like that!?

So, for the next five weeks, root for Hufflepuff's Cup. It's like cheering for Rocky or those Chak De India girls: its a tough ride but, in the end, I think you'll be glad you stuck with 'em.