After four seasons, I can confidently say that I love hate have extremely mixed feelings about fantasy football. It’s the most frustratingly entertaining experience I’ve taken part in. Sometimes, you make all the right pickups, put in all the right players, and win big. And other times, one of your favorite players retires mid-season. Part of me wants to stop playing and take back my Sundays, but I’m too hooked to do that. It’s chaotic. It’s disheartening. And it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

To get excited for 2017, here are some of my highlights and lowlights from the last four years.

Best week: 2014, week 13

Let’s start on a positive note. My score of 215.67 still stands as the highest single-week score in our league.

Yeah, we have some bonus points turned on… but even without those, I would have scored 208.67. It’s hard to have a bad week when your defense gets 5 turnovers, scores a TD, and shuts out the other team. And when your 5 RB/WR players combine for 10 TDs.

Interestingly, I failed to play my 2nd highest scoring player, DeAndre Hopkins.

With Hopkins in place of Golden Tate, I could have had 242.47 points. But I’m not complaining.

Worst week: 2016, week 3

And then there’s this. In a week where my bench outscored my lineup, I managed a lousy 49.88 points.

I don’t think I fielded THAT weak of a team. So what went wrong?

• Julio Jones had 1 catch on 7 targets
• The Steelers failed to score a TD (particularly bad when you’re counting on both Antonio Brown and Ben Roethlisberger)
• Out of CJ Anderson’s 14 carries, 8 went for 1 yard or less. The Broncos FB stole a goal-line carry, and Broncos QB Trevor Siemian threw for a season-high 4 TDs
• A lot of other things, probably

Hey, at least Devonta Freeman and Allen Robinson had great weeks. On my bench.

Not that they would have changed the outcome anyway, but they could have at least brought me into the 80 – 90 range.

At least Antonio Brown didn’t disappoint.

Most gratifying win: 2016, week 13

It’s always nice to break 100, regardless of how you score it, but that doesn’t mean the “how” isn’t important. Check out the numbers down my lineup in this week.

I loved this win because there wasn’t a single player who carried the whole team. Devonta Freeman, the highest scoring player, accounted for around 17% of the score. Not crazy considering he makes up 11% of the lineup. It was a team effort, if there is such a thing in fantasy football. All 7 offensive players scored over 11 points, and even Matt Prater turned in a great week with 5 FGs.

There were high and relatively balanced numbers on the bench too.

I actually made the wrong decisions at QB, RB, and DEF, but that was comforting in a way. It was good to know that the entire team, including the bench, was capable of putting up solid numbers.

Most crushing defeat: 2015, finals

Losing in the finals is sad. Losing in the finals after going 10-4 and averaging over 110 points per game is really sad. Losing in the finals by a score of 90.20 – 90.28 is crushing.

That’s a 0.08 point different. Not 0.8 points. 0.08 points. To put that into perspective, let’s look at some ways to score at least 0.08 points:

• Your RB, WR, or TE gains 1 more yard
• Your QB passes for 2 more yards
• Your kicker makes 1 more extra point
• Your defense gets 1 more sack

And the worst of all… your QB kneels one fewer time to end the game.

How dare he use a common football strategy to win the game without regard for my fantasy football season? I even named my team after him for the finals. And all he does is score 34.2 points.

It’s hard to blame the players too much, though, especially if you look at my bench.

TJ Yeldon was inactive. So if I had played ANY of my other 4 RBs/WRs instead of Martavis Bryant at flex, I would have won. Or if I had played ANY of my other 3 RBs instead of EITHER Denard Robinson or Charcandrick West. Wow.

Still waiting for the stat correction.