When the Arizona Cardinals listed speedy wide receiver John Brown as "questionable" for Week 8 with a hamstring injury, the team's official website ran a Friday headline that read:
Although Brown was active in an emergency capacity Sunday, he didn't play a snap in the Cardinals' 34-20 victory over the Cleveland Browns.
Bruce Arians explained Sunday night that Brown was "probably in the 85-to-90 percent range."
"At times when we were down, I thought he was going to call me," Brown said, via the team's official website. "I was prepared. I was riding that bike because I thought he was going to give me that call."
With a bye week to rest the hamstring and "get back to the old Smokey," everything is copacetic, right?
Wrong.
Brown caught flak in the fantasy football community for not lighting up the scoreboard, leaving a donut in many losing lineups this past weekend.
Rather than accepting their fate as the natural byproduct of a hobby based on a full-contact sport played by super-hero sized humans hurling themselves against each other for 60 minutes every week, a legion of immature fantasy heads have lashed out via Twitter, blaming Brown for their own lack of prudence.
When asked about upset fantasy owners on Monday, the notoriously blunt Arians responded, via the Arizona Republic: "Tough sh--."
Tasked with running the on-field component of a corporation valued at $1.54 billion, Arians has no skin in your fantasy game.
Nor does Brown, who has fielded a slew of tweets related to his absence:
This is a good time to review a few basic tenets for the well-adjusted fantasy head:
- Nobody cares about your fantasy football team. That includes football players doing everything in their power to shake an aggravating injury and rejoin their teammates for a playoff run. By all means, go win your league. Just don't harass the office's night janitor with details of every signing and trade that built your fairy-tale juggernaut.
- You signed up for fantasy football as a hobby that will enhance your enjoyment of the sport. You didn't sign up to ask other grown men or women how to run your imaginary football team for you. NFL.com's weekly fantasy rankings are freely available. A google search will turn up dozens of free "expert" rankings. Make your own educated decisions; don't pass the responsibility on to others.
- If you have begun to casually refer to other human beings as "shares" in your fake football portfolio, please cease and desist. Refer to point No. 1.