You Think Your Fantasy Squad Stinks?

Yeah, it probably does. But you haven't suffered a performance like THIS

Like millions of Americans and folks around the world, I’m a fantasy football addict. I play in three leagues (a redraft - I commissioner that one, a keeper auction league and a dynasty league). With the exception of the dynasty league - which I’ve been historically pretty bad, and in that format it is MUCH harder to dig your way out of it - I’ve been pretty solid in my other two leagues over the years.

This year … not so much. I literally have four wins in my three leagues as I write this (prior to Week 7 games). The reasons are definitely NOT interesting enough to share here, but a random text thread yesterday brought me to this realization - what was the worst fantasy performance by a single player, ever?

The answer is, it turns out, Ryan Leaf. For those of you young enough to not remember Leaf, he was in contention for the first overall pick with Peyton Manning. There was legitimate debate over whether Leaf would be better than Manning, though logic prevailed and Leaf went instead to the Chargers. And over his first two games, he was pretty good, going 2-0. If memory serves he looked really solid in the preseason, too.

But then, Week 3 happened:

If that table doesn’t speak to you, here’s DJ Gallo from ESPN writing about this:

In Week 3 of the 1998 season, Leaf put up minus-9.74 fantasy points in a 23-7 road loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. His stat line: 1-of-15 passing for just 4 yards, no touchdowns, two interceptions, three lost fumbles and only a single yard rushing on four attempts.

Leaf completed his first pass for a meager four yards. He then threw fourteen consecutive incomplete passes (two of which were intercepted), fumbled FOUR times (three of which were recovered by the Chiefs) and rushed for a single yard.

Now, I’m not here to truly kick Leaf when he’s down - he’s a recovering addict who went to prison and has since rehabilitated in a way that I believe is helping others. He didn’t even make it to a second contract in the league, plagued by his personal issues as well as the pressure he felt to be a franchise saving QB.

But good god, I can’t imagine that performance will ever be repeated.

For instance, I would have guessed that Nathan Peterman’s apocalyptic performance a few years ago would have been the worst performance. Peterman threw five interceptions in the first half of the game, and only had 66 yards passing, along with 4 yards rushing. But those yards are helpful - they get him three points, that are negated down to -7.0 points when you add in the five picks (-2 points apiece).

Worst yet, this was Peterman’s DEBUT as a starter. (Things were so bad for the 49ers at this point that in the offseason prior to this, I was bummed that the 49ers didn’t draft Peterman.)

Somewhere, I think Nathan Peterman has Ryan Leaf on his holiday card list.