Tempering Our Highest of Expectations for 2011

I've been commissioner of my football fantasy league for 14 years. We were one of the first leagues to use Commissioner.com long before it was bought out by CBSSportsline (a fact I remind them of every year I negotiate my league fee). After all that time, I've come to a conclusion. You see, I've won my league three times in that time period, and in each of those championship seasons not once did I actually win my division crown. Yep, in all three championships, I was a wild card who just happened to be the team to win both games in the playoff weeks. Teams that had dominated, gone the whole season with perhaps just one loss, often fell apart in the final weeks as their players were rested for the playoffs, or suffered injuries late in the season. Thus, my conclusion: winning a championship is all about who's hottest, lastest. At least in fantasy football: the real game is obviously a far more complicated animal not driven purely by statistical number-jumping...