In this week's P.O. Box:

RikkiDee—former professional gambler, recurring guest on LOLZ, and Gardner Minshew look-alike—had a post on X earlier this week that caught my attention.

I recommend reading the whole thing, but the gist is that two years ago he quit gambling/playing DFS, got offline, built some good habits, and found a more fulfilling path for his life.

I don’t think Rikki was intentionally trying to sync up his post with the end of the NFL season, but it coincidentally comes at the perfect time for fantasy gamers.

As I’ve written about before, this is a particularly cruel time of year for those of us who invest significant time and money into these best ball teams only to watch them get wiped out before the finish line and the big payouts.

I’ve seen plenty of tilting and woe-is-me energy across X posts, Discord messages, and YouTube chats this week.

And like I said in that post from a couple years ago…

That post ended up being more about sour grapes and people having unrealistic expectations for ROI in top-heavy tournaments, but Rikki’s post reminded me of another element to all of this ‘ship chasing.

When you enter these tournaments with life-changing money, it’s extremely easy to fall into the trap where you lapse into a “ticket out of this town” mentality and start daydreaming about how great your life would be if you simply binked a contest for a six—or better yet—seven-figure score.

I’m not saying your life wouldn’t change (it certainly would in some ways; Kerrane moved to the beach and bought an electric vehicle!), but I think Rikki’s post serves as a cautionary tale for anyone who has ever romanticized gambling, err, making predictions for a living or winning a massive amount of money playing fantasy sports.

Rikki made it to the top of that mountain. He turned a hobby into a lucrative profession, won millions speculating on sports, and enjoyed total freedom with how he spent his time. And guess what? It still left him entirely unfulfilled.

Let that sink in.

Similar to last week’s note—the chase is the thing and the thing is the chase—there is no ticket out of this town. There’s only a new town with new problems and a different flavor of malaise.

As you sweat your teams this weekend (or my personal strategy—not sweating at all), try to keep Rikki’s story in mind and enjoy it for what it’s worth. For me, it’s the process, the fun from drafting, the content, the community (yes, quite literally the friends made along the way), etc., but your mileage will vary.

All I know is that a bink isn’t a guaranteed ticket to happiness. As Rikki outlines, you’ll need to solve for that in other arenas.

Good luck this weekend…

I know I mentioned having some year-end stuff for this edition, but I’m going to push it all to next week’s newsletter. I’ll have my music list, 2025 highlights, year-end video, etc.

💎 Week 17 Gems: My favorite sleepers on Underdog. Oof, this is a yucky one. YouTube members can grab it here and Masterclass subs go here.

⏰ OFF & ON THE CLOCK: Top Plays & Best Scrolls In Week 17 Drafts. We had to dig deep for gems this week.

🤯 BLOCK PARTY & BULLY THE SIMS: Week 17 DFS Strategy: Top Plays & GPP Angles. JMToWin and Youdacao both share some contrarian angles for tournaments.

🔮 FANTASY LIFE: Roundtable - Title Game Shenanigans, Raiders Quagmires, and More! For some odd reason I’m craving another home league…

🤓 FANTASY LIFE: Newsletter Roundup. This week in the newsletter we marveled at Taysom Hill being a thing again and outlined a cheat sheet for six tricky backfields.

I regularly write the Fantasy Life Newsletter. Get it in your inbox free every morning:

💪 THE SWOLECAST: Week 17 NFL DFS Picks. Controversial jokes in this one!

☕ POURTFOLIO REVIEW: The Best Ball Finals Are Here. Spoiler alert: I didn’t advance a team to the BBM finals.

After Dark is back tonight (8pm ET). I’m going to run back what we did last weekend and draft some teams while watching Ravens/Packers…

For After Dark shows, you can become a YT member for access or subscribe on Spotify for a private RSS feed (I post the video/audio there directly after the show).

Then we’ve got the Week 17 DFS Cram at 10:30 am ET on Sunday:

Finally, we’ll have the ShipCast at 1pm ET (yes, we are moving to early window so there are more games to enjoy):

🏃 Book #10 for December (70%): Born To Run by Christopher McDougall

Nick warned me about all the barefoot running propaganda, but I still wasn’t quite prepared for it lol. I think McDougall felt the need to force it as a way to support the “Barefoot Ted” character when the Tarahumara plot started running dry.

I did a little research and it does seem overblown relative to new research. It is pretty funny how hard it is hammered when the Tarahumara themselves still run in sandals and Caballo outlines how dangerous running barefoot in the Copper Canyons could be.

⛪ Book #9 for November (ABANDONED): The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson.
🏃 Book #8 for September (COMPLETED): Endure by Alex Hutchinson.
🤼 Book #7 for August (COMPLETED): Playworld: A Novel by Adam Ross.
🚶 Book #6 for July (COMPLETED): Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir by Craig Mod.
☁ Book #5 for June (COMPLETED): Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
🐊 Book #4 for May (COMPLETED): Gator Country: Deception, Danger, and Alligators in the Everglades by Rebecca Renner
🍌 Book #3 for April (COMPLETED): The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King by Rich Cohen
💉 Book #2 for March (FINISHED): Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe.
🐃 Book #1 for February (FINISHED): The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry

Got a question for me? Reply to this e-mail and I’ll get back to you…