My Wife Lost Her Job, We Might Lose Our House, yet I’m Still Not as Salty about It as You Are about Losing Aaron Rodgers

Aaron Rodgers

Aaron Rodgers is a Packer. My wife is a saint. Wait, is there a saint that is really nice but also curses like a sailor and loves cheap whiskey?

But really, she has gone far above and beyond what is required for most marriages. She supported me through grad school in a particularly risky degree (television and new media). Then she dropped everything and moved to Los Angeles so I could pursue a writing career, a move referred to by everyone as, “insane. Wait, how hot is your husband? Let me see a picture… yeah moving to Los Angeles is insane.”

My point is, once I had solidified my writing career in Los Angeles, and was doing almost everything online, I jumped at the chance to pay my wife back by moving to wherever she wanted. She chose to be closer to her hometown of Olympia, WA, so we moved to the Pacific Northwest and started house hunting while high on particularly hoppy beer.

Mold house
Then we revisited a house we had bid on, realized it reeked of mold, and decided to do our house hunting sober from then on

This area might be the hottest housing market in the country, so we had to scramble to find something before the prices went up. After getting the winning bid on two different places, then rejecting them after an inspection, we were thrilled to find a charming house near her work which was within our budget and had no red flags. The asking price was affordable, but we knew there would be other bidders. This is where fantasy football auction training really came into play. I sized up similar houses that recently sold in the area, estimated how many bidders would be vying for the house, and told my realtor to up our offer by $14,000 over asking price. The second-highest bid was $13,500 over asking price, so I guess you could say my fantasy football auction experience landed me a dream home. In the month since we closed, the value has already gone up a few thousand.

We moved in, and less than a month later my wife lost her job. When you commit to a career as a comedy writer, the Universe gets fully on board by making everything in your life hilariously, painfully ironic. My comedy writing salary can keep us afloat for a few months, but it rarely matched what my wife brought home as a lawyer. Feel free to print this paragraph out and make your children memorize it.

Staying above water like a week-old corpse isn’t hard, it’s just extraordinarily difficult. You have to constantly keep feelers out and take the best odd-jobs you can. It’s incredibly arduous, but not impossible.

And that makes me think about Aaron Rodgers.

Aaron rodgers
Living in Washington is great. The constant cold rain showers help with all those times I think about Aaron Rodgers

Losing a tier-1 guy like Aaron Rodgers or David Johnson is like your fantasy team losing its primary breadwinner. To keep up, you’ve got to work the waiver wire every week to score enough points that your kids don’t even notice anything’s wrong. In this scenario, the kids are your kickers, tight ends, and defenses. I guess, I don’t know man, stop questioning my extended metaphors.

The fallacy I see a lot of people falling for is looking on the waiver wire for a full-time replacement. Just like a full-time job isn’t going to land on your lap the next Wednesday, you have to piece together side jobs week by week.

So, to quote a particularly broken quarterback, “relax.” It’s actually pretty easy to stream quarterbacks in the middle of the season. Blake Bortles is playing Indianapolis. Sam Bradford plays Cleveland next week. Eli’s got the Rams in week 9. There’s a reason why you should never, ever, ever spend a high draft pick on a QB.

Of course, streaming RBs is not quite as easy. There’s a reason why most of my fantasy auctions leave me with a starting lineup and 5-6 bench RBs. It’s tough! But you know what? So is doing overnight construction with a hangover and the only thing you could afford to eat in the past three days is ramen and whatever you lick off of discarded candy bar packaging on the side of the highway.

Aaron Rodgers
I’m not bitter. The month-old chocolate I scraped off that Mars bar wrapper sure was, though

I’m in a hyper-competitive 14-man league with 7 person benches, so I’ve had to get particularly thrifty over the years when it comes to finding RBs. The first tip, when you lose someone big like Aaron Rodgers, is to think a week in advance. Stop fighting over the flavor of the week and just find the back with the best matchup next week. Also, figure out who the best backup RBs are, and stash one or two. The key is to find those high production JAGs, people who get a lot of touches but have no exceptional ability. Devontae Booker is back on the waiver wire, and CJ Anderson/Jamaal Charles are JAGs. If you’re in a PPR there is always a pass-catching back getting 5+ targets a game. Billions of people dropped Jonathan Stewart this week, and rightfully so, but he plays a Tampa Bay team that made Adrian Peterson look like, well, young Adrian Peterson.

The point is, while an every-week starter is ideal when you suffer a crippling fantasy injury, it is rare. Meanwhile, streaming with an eye for the future will almost always be a viable way to stay in the mix.

So, make like Aaron Rodgers on no-doubt tons of painkillers, and relax. If you’re really worried, have me move in with you. You’re okay with hyperactive, screaming children and a skinny, blonde wife who will own you at the bar, right? See, everything in life happens for a reason, especially to those who are only loosely familiar with the definition of the word, “reason.”

I call master bedroom.

 

For more painfully emotional ramblings shoehorned into fantasy football, check out these:

Having Trouble at Relationships? It’s Probably Because You Suck at Fantasy Football

I Lived My Biggest Fear for Five Straight Months (and It Changed How I Play Fantasy Football)

So My Wife Died Last Night: A Week 5 NFL Injury Report

 

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