Off the bat I have a confession on this blog. You may see that I am publishing a fantasy football punishment blog after the season has begun and punishments have been decided. Well, that’s on me completely forgetting about the ideas I’d come up with. On a routine trip through my Notes app, past the grocery lists and ideas (including the “it came to me in a dream” ideas), I stumbled upon the notes for fantasy football punishments I had come up with this summer. This blog was slated, in my mind, to be released a few weeks ago.
But, as we’ve learned through all those who drafted Christian McCaffrey at one in their leagues, the best-laid plans can be wiped out by injury/forgetfulness.
There has been an uptick in fantasy punishments online. While I have seen a few actually enjoyable ones, most are just pretty bland – eating pancakes, entering a bodybuilding competition, etc. These are punishments created by and for people who have no idea what a punishment actually should be. “You have to spend all day in a bar.” Cool, I now get to watch college football all day while the bartenders get something to laugh at, so my drinks are poured extra heavily. The humanity.
The point of a punishment is you want to avoid it. Why do people not speed? They want to avoid the ticket and the hassle with a cop. The law is in place to keep order. That’s the same with a punishment. It’s there to coax players to try and win.
There was an SNL skit years ago with Dwayne Johnson about a supervillain convention. In that skit, all the other supervillains created dumb, harmless inventions: a freeze ray, a shrinking gun, etc. The Rock’s character created a child-molesting robot and made it clear that no one else was actually evil. This is how I feel about fantasy punishments; they’re not actually punishments. So I created my own to satiate my bloodlust.
A Convoluted Trip
For a few of these, I’m going to need there to be payment and punishment. Usually, the payment is the punishment, as it is unlikely you’ll get your $50 back. Here, you have to pay to not finish first, but you get to see your friend in creative pain. And, isn’t that the biggest joy of all?
I am an enjoyer of RometoRio.com. There’s something fun about finding out the cheapest and fastest routes to anywhere. But there’s a third option – which route is the most convoluted. Have you ever wanted to get to England? Well, how about a route that’s just as expensive, but for some reason you stop in Turkey and Germany?
Like a personal GeoGuesser, I love figuring out the worst possible way to get somewhere. On multiple occasions, I have found a route from Houston to Dallas that takes over 12 hours, including a bus trip from Houston to College Station, an Uber to the airport, and then surviving a bumfuck plane to Dallas. It’s beautiful.
So this punishment involves an extra step. If someone loses they must set aside 36 hours (for monetary purposes, staying in the continental United States), and players create the worst possible way to leave and get back home. Set a money limit, and then book Megabuses, weird airport trams run by sketchy figures (it’s happened to me), flights with 10-hour layovers, and for the hell of it, a train ride.
The point of the punishment is to create so much confusion that there’s a legitimate reason no one wants to lose. There is no sleeping in hotels; only in airports and on transportation. It’s an endurance punishment.
Year-Long Car Wrap
This is another monetary one. I actually have no clue how much this punishment would cost, but I imagine ten people chipping in somewhere between $20-$50 can get it done.
We’ve all seen cars wrapped in something we consider embarrassing. Outside of the normal business promotion, or matte finish, there’s always one car dressed up and down in the weirdest anime. I’m talking those girls with their open (you know the one; I don’t know the name and don’t want to search it up). Something that genuinely makes you feel embarrassed to be on the same road with the driver.
The punishment: if you lose, the car you drive must be wrapped in something embarrassing for a year. Obviously, the players can fully decide what the car should be wrapped in. Whether it be anime, or pictures of an ex, or even a Mac Jones car wrap, it’s up to the players.
Then, the loser must have their car wrapped until the beginning of the next football season (i.e., the first regular season Thursday game). This must be the car they drive, so there’s no selling the car halfway through the year, or driving another car. This must be the road-driven vehicle.
Anyway, Here’s Wonderwall
I came up with this before Oasis announced their comeback. It wouldn’t surprise me if Noel Gallagher found this blog and threatened to fight me. But, here in America, Oasis is better known as the Wonderwall cringe band. And Wonderwall, known better for being an incredibly easy song to play that douchebags pull out to impress unimpressed women. Its ease to learn is part of the reason I picked it for this punishment.
The punishment: from the end of the fantasy season to the beginning of the next NFL season, the loser must play Wonderwall at any function/get-together/event another player is back. The players’ appearance can be announced or unannounced, at which point the loser must find a way to play Wonderwall. Failure to do so will lead to an automatic release from the league. I’m not a monster, though, so I think places like work or church should be off-limits. But weddings, funerals, and other gatherings are fair game.
The song must be loud enough to be heard, and the song must be announced with the “Anyway, here’s Wonderwall”. For an extra kick, the players can decide if the announcement of the Wonderwall as a fantasy punishment will be known. The worse punishment, obviously, is not saying word and just letting people think that guy sucks.
Dance Recital
Sticking with the public humiliation segment, what’s worse than seeing someone with no athleticism or agility try to dance? Well, if you’re the loser in this league, you must find a way to enter or put on your own dance recital. While dance recitals as a whole are not incredibly interesting, here’s an easy way to spice things up.
Imagine you’re at a children’s dance recital. Music hits and a grown man enters the stage wearing a tutu, to much laughter and applause emanating from somewhere in the back of the room. You’re confused but heartily intrigued. You watch as this grown man fails miserably at doing plies and jetés and chassés.
The recital itself doesn’t have to be ballet; it can be hip-hop or other forms of dance (I’ve exhausted the two I know off the bat). There are really no parameters other than dancing in a dance recital. It can be a children’s recital or an adult recital (I imagine those exist). And, it’s a free way to humiliate a non-ball knower.
The Joey Chestnut
This is my favorite one. If there’s one thing I truly love it’s eating. Even more, I love watching superhumans slam processed meat down their gullet for my brutish amusement. The men and women who put their bodies and sodium levels on the line are braver than any hero you can think of. It’s an impossible task that’s a mix of brains, brawn, and the indomitable human spirit. That’s why I think it’d be very funny to watch a fantasy loser compete.
The punishment: the league’s loser must compete in a hot dog eating contest twice a month from the end of the fantasy season until they either win or the NFL begins again. The punishment doesn’t have to be hot dogs; it can be any eating contest in general. It just has to be an eating contest.
I also set it at two a month, because one felt too minimal of a punishment. I want the loser to be uncomfortable until they win, or time runs out. I’m even willing to put in a provision that failure equals league barring. The stakes and details are up to the league, but this will hurt the losers mentally, physically, and spiritually.
The first iteration of this punishment included an evergreen term until the person qualifies for Nathan’s. But after what they did to Joey, I can no longer support that celebration of sodium.
Cleansing the Loss
For the final punishment, I will continue with the food punishments. This will also include a payment need from players, but less so, because juice cleanses are about $100 at most.
The punishment: the loser must go on a juice cleanse for a week. Doesn’t seem that bad right? People do it all the time. Well here’s what I forgot to mention – this is also a humiliation punishment. Why do people hate bikers and vegans and Crossfitters? They’re annoying and must talk about their one defining trait. And people who go on a juice cleanse do the same exact thing.
So, as part of the punishment the loser must not only mention to everyone they are on a juice cleanse, the loser must also post regular social media updates (on all platforms) about how he’s feeling and why this is important to him. This includes updates on bowel movements, energy levels, and the support he’s receiving. And this must continue for an entire week.
The loser cannot create a new account for this; they must use their existing accounts. Also, they can’t mention it’s a fantasy punishment until the end. I’m even willing to allow there to be no mention of fantasy. The loser must also post at least three times a day on each account. I’ll let the players decide what counts as an account.
And all this just happens while actually being on a juice cleanse. If there is any impropriety involved, the person is kicked out of the league.
Obviously, it may be too late to actually implement any of these. But for my money, we need new punishments as a fantasy people. It is necessary to innovate.
Pay attention to next season, when I create the Moon Stamp Fantasy where a kicker scoring a touchdown is an automatic victory, and a QB gains points the more interceptions he throws.
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