Fantasy Football: How to turn around an 0-5 team, plus more of your mailbag questions
Now is the time to retool your roster

Off to a bad start to your Fantasy season? It's going to be tough to pull out of an 0-5 hole, but if there was ever a season for it, this is the one -- we have an extra week of the regular season to play with! Your season isn't over, even if your chances have, obviously, dimmed.
And hey, I'm with you. In my longest running league, I'm sitting at 0-5, which is especially frustrating coming off a championship. I'm 36-29 overall in my 13 leagues, in the interest of full disclosure, with five teams under .500, but that team is weighing on me. How did I get here?
Diagnosing what's wrong with your team is the first step toward turning your season around, and on Tuesday, I took to Twitter asking my followers to share their worst teams to see if I could help them turn it around, and that's what this column is all about. But first, I'm going to try to figure out what, if anything, I can do about my own 0-5 team.
And, it's not hard to see why this squad is 0-5. It's a 10-team 0.5PPR league with two RB, two WR, one TE (1 PPR for TE), and two flexes, and I'm currently starting:
- QB - Taylor Heinicke
- RB - James Robinson
- RB - Myles Gaskin
- WR - Stefon Diggs
- WR - Marvin Jones
- TE - Tyler Higbee
- FLEX - Damien Williams
- FLEX - Mike Williams
Now, things have obviously gone sideways since the draft, it goes without saying. I currently have David Montgomery and George Kittle on IR, with Alvin Kamara on bye for Week 6, and I also invested heavily in Allen Robinson and Julio Jones in the draft. So … yeah, things are bad, and there's no obvious solution when early-round picks like Montgomery, Robinson, Kittle, Gaskin and Jones aren't giving you much.
But overcoming that would be easier if I felt confident I could pull off a trade to turn things around. However, as anyone who has been in a long-running league knows by now, trading is always tough when everyone knows everyone's tendencies -- and that's compounded by it being a 10-team league. Because what this team really needs is to consolidate -- to package multiple players for one clear upgrade. I've got too many players in the same tier at both wide receiver and running back, so even when everyone was healthy, I was routinely making the wrong decisions, starting Gaskin in his off weeks, sitting Mike Williams for the first two weeks for Jones and Robinson, and so on. If you're facing a situation like that, your best bet is to try to remove the headache of those decisions, because depth isn't going to matter if you fall to 0-6 anyway.
The diagnosis is clear here, but unfortunately, there really isn't much I can do about it. I need Diggs to play better -- and he will -- but I also need Robinson and Julio Jones to turn their seasons around immediately, and I can't be particularly confident in either. However, if Julio is healthy, I'll probably start him over Marvin Jones and hope his upside hits. I'm at the point where I need to shoot for upside and nothing else, because if I don't win in Week 6, the season probably is over for all intents and purposes.
The thing about being 0-5 is, if you're in this spot, your chances are pretty slim to begin with. There are no good options, and you're facing tough odds no matter what. You might look at some of these suggestions and think they aren't tenable, but you have to remember that, in order to turn around an 0-5 team, you're going to need some unlikely things to happen. You're going to have to flip heads multiple times in a row.
Hopefully, I can provide some of your teams find a roadmap.
Brutally 0-5 - though here's what happens when you sort by points scored against. Made lots of moves (been #1 waivers all season) but can't get a W - help pic.twitter.com/sAyn0URMs5
— Ryan Light (@ry0n) October 13, 2021
Diagnosis: Plain old bad luck.
This team has a lot more to be optimistic about than mine, that's for sure, so this is the easier kind of 0-5 team to help out. Because you don't really have any kind of obvious hole on your roster, even with Montgomery and Jeudy sidelined. And the presence of both of them bodes well for your chances of making a push in a few weeks if you can start to turn things around now.
I think the most obvious thing I would try to do is move Thielen for an upgrade at either WR or FLEX. I have him as a sell-low candidate in Wednesday's edition of the Fantasy Football Today Newsletter, and I think we're seeing him in what can only be described as a steep decline. However, the four touchdowns in five games are helping to cover up for that, so I would see if you could move him for someone like Robert Woods on the lower end or even A.J. Brown on the higher end at WR -- the latter is unlikely, but not impossible. You should also inquire about someone like Chase Edmonds and see if you can get another piece thrown in -- he's RB16 without scoring a touchdown, and I think he'll be more valuable than Thielen moving forward.
It's going to be tough to find the right trade, but it always is. If you can't, it's not like you've got a bad roster. You have a decent chance to win in Week 6, and that's without Kyle Pitts, Montgomery, or Jeudy. If you can string together a few wins, by the time those guys return, this could be a juggernaut.
Thanks Chris! The Pottstown Firebirds (0-5) need some help... pic.twitter.com/RjgU0cO3kt
— john s (@spacefoodsticks) October 13, 2021
Diagnosis: Too weak at WR/FLEX.
There's probably plenty of bad luck involved in this team being 0-5 too, but WR has been an obvious trouble spot. Allen Robinson was supposed to be the WR1, but that hasn't worked out, and there just isn't much talent on the roster aside from that. Antonio Brown and Chase Claypool should both be in the WR2 conversation moving forward, so that's not a bad thing -- a lucky break with JuJu Smith-Schuster going on IR -- but Javonte Williams (or Elijah Mitchell) is a pretty weak FLEX play most weeks.
Robinson turning his season around would be a huge help, but for some actionable advice, the first thing this person should do is drop Sam Darnold for a high-upside WR. Kadarius Toney would have been the ideal add and still is if he's available (somehow only 54% rostered in CBS Fantasy leagues). Sterling Shepard could also help you out in Week 6 if he's out there (64%). But you should see if Rondale Moore is out there in your league -- he's a tough player to start right now because he's still running fourth in snaps for the Cardinals, but he's obviously a difference maker with the ball in his hands despite being so early into his career, and you want to bet on a player like that growing into a bigger role. He's a must-stash on your bench.
You want someone who can help you out in Week 6, of course, however, I would say this team has a pretty good chance of winning in Week 6 as constructed, so you probably don't have to do anything drastic.
Mahomes/Hurts/Saquon/Booker/Gaskin/Gibson/Malcolm Brown/Mike Williams/Jeudy/Godwin/Emmanuel Sanders/Waller/Bass/Broncos. Have number two scoring team in 12 team league and have played number one scoring team each week for five weeks. PA are over 125 more than next closest.
— James Short (@Short_James) October 13, 2021
Diagnosis: Suddenly weak at RB.
Being No. 2 in scoring should make you feel pretty good about your chances of turning things around, but I would caution that is no sure thing, given your roster. The loss of Saquon Barkley is going to be tough to overcome, even with Devontae Booker on your roster. That leaves you with Antonio Gibson as your lead RB and then a choice of either Booker or Myles Gaskin as your RB2, and that's not a choice you want to have to make, especially since Gibson is pretty game script-dependent and has a potential shootout on the way against the Chiefs.
The Barkley injury is just rotten luck, and it surely played a role in your dropping to 0-5 last week. I wish you had one more reliable wide receiver so you could trade one for an upgrade at RB, but rolling with Emmanuel Sanders as your WR2 might end up being a robbing Peter to pay Paul situation. Your best choice might be to try to move Waller for someone like T.J. Hockenson plus either an RB or WR who you feel comfortable starting. Hockenson is a clear downgrade on Waller, so you probably need a top-15 guy at either RB or WR to justify it, but if you could pull it off, that might work out -- I do think Hockenson will be better than he has been over the past three games.
A Superflex team with Rodgers, Kelce, and Dalvin Cook (handcuffed with Mattison) that is 0-5. Montgomery and Gallup on IR, and Aiyuk…well, just sitting there. pic.twitter.com/PspTSigYT8
— Kenny Davidsen (@KennyDavidsen) October 13, 2021
Diagnosis: Too many holes.
Ah, a SuperFlex team with a bad QB2 situation, I can definitely relate to that. I wish I could have confidence in either Justin Fields or Tua Tagovailoa to fix that issue for you, but I just don't have much faith in the situation either player has to work with right now, so that's a tough spot to be in.
But the bigger issue here is probably the receiving corps. Michael Pittman seems to have made a nice leap, but with Tyler Boyd as your WR2 and Hunter Renfrow as your FLEX, I just don't think that's good enough. Aiyuk being a complete bust so far definitely hurts, and it's compounded by Montgomery's injury forcing Javonte Williams into your lineup -- I like Williams for the future, but the fact that he may take over as the lead back doesn't matter much when you are 0-5.
I think you might actually want to consider trading one of your stars for multiple starters. That's usually not a strategy I advocate for in Fantasy Football -- rosters are generally shallow enough where upside is what you should be chasing. However, in this instance, because you don't have just one position that needs upgrading but three, you probably need to turn one starter into at least two. And I would consider moving Dalvin Cook and Alexander Mattison. The person acquiring them will likely view this as a hugely valuable haul, and I don't disagree that it is, but it's worth keeping in the mind that there is a downside scenario where Cook never really gets over this ankle issue but continues to try to play through it, making him less valuable on his own while also pushing Mattison back to a pure handcuff role.
The problem, of course, is that if Mattison does start in Week 6, he'd be a top-five RB in my rankings, so you could be putting yourself in a huge hole for a must-win game. If you were going to move Cook/Mattison, you would probably need two top-12 players at either QB, RB, or WR. If you could pull that off, it's worth considering.
















