Faiella determined to avoid wrong side of TTFFL history

CHICAGO, Ill. — Stefano Faiella knows he’s preparing for the most important fantasy football season of his career.

That’s because he’ll be trying to do something he hasn’t been able to accomplish since 2011: Qualify for the postseason. Indeed, Faiella’s recent run of disappointment has left him on the brink of Tiger Township Fantasy Football League history. His 10th-place finish in the final league standings a year ago represented the fifth straight season he’s missed the playoffs — tying the all-time league low-water mark (Louie Thomas, 2010-14) in the process.

Certainly that’s enough to bring along Faiella’s fair share of pressure entering the new campaign. But to him, the sense of urgency to turn things around isn’t anything new.

“There’s always pressure,” Faiella said in an exclusive interview with Chibby’s Corner. “Five years (missing the playoffs) is going to become six if I don’t make a change this year. But I’m looking forward to the draft; I think I had a good strategy last year before I (screwed) it up at the end and finished with too much money.”

Faiella, who owns the league’s worst points-per-game figure in modern-day history (127.1), finished just 5-8 last fall. However, he was actually 5-4 at one point following a Week 9 win over Ryan Shaheen.

Then, like so many times before, things began to crumble. The Ohio State University graduate dropped his final four games of the regular season, resulting in yet another bitter end.

In hindsight, Faiella says several big moments within his locker room proved to pave the way toward another disappointing year. First and foremost, he traded away running back Devonta Freeman in the preseason, a move that didn’t really result in any major gains for his club to use throughout the season.

The biggest blow, though, was star receiver AJ Green’s midseason injury. That setback was something Faiella’s group was never truly able to recover from, leading to the team’s quarterbacks — Eli Manning and Tyrod Taylor — failing to meet expectations, as well as the point production the team desperately needed, down the stretch when things mattered most.

Faiella, however, has decided to focus on some of the positives he was able to experience in 2016, such as configuring a respectable team in the draft and his productive start to the season, rather than how things actually finished up. To him, those serve as reminders for how close he is to a breakthrough.

“It’s about building on what you thought you did well last year,” Faiella said. “Hopefully it all comes together enough that after 13 weeks, I’ll be in the top six. That’s the goal.”

Off the field, the seven-year veteran continues to shine with his luxurious, big-city lifestyle. While he remains busy with work, often traveling around the country on business, his “made it” personal life is envious.

But Faiella’s overall legacy in the TTFFL leaves a little more to be desired. The buzz around his playoff drought has intensified each season, resulting in lots of bulletin board material at his disposal for the coming months.

That, of course, comes with the territory, which is why Faiella is determined to do what he can to help erase his current status in the league and help bring more legitimacy to his fantasy abilities.

“You do your best just to ignore it,” Faiella said in regards to negative comments that come his way. “It sucks, but you can’t let it bother you. That’s when you do something really stupid.”

Faiella is just 40-51 in the past seven seasons, tied with 2015 champion Pat Teynor for the second-fewest number of wins out of qualified participants in that time frame. What’s more, he owns the worst possible win percentage in league history, a figure that further cements his struggles in the past half-decade.

What Faiella does have entering the 2017 season, though, is optimism. Whether anyone else around the TTFFL joins his corner or not, the league’s physically fittest member has no plans to experience missing another postseason this fall.

“It’s an emotional ride you don’t want to be on,” Faiella said. “I was definitely angry with myself (last year), I was embarrassed to have another losing season. You think about how much it takes out of you mentally from the draft to the end of the season and that definitely adds some disappointment.”

Should those emotions return to Faiella this season, a new league record will join with them.