Be patient or be a patient!

In week 4, Denver's loss to winless Kansas City dealt a serious wound to several players. In week 6, Washington's loss to the winless St. Louis Rams had a similar effect. In fact, our defending champion lost both of those weeks and, as a consequence, is now eliminated from the contest. This serves as a valuable lesson to be learned about Risky Football.

The National Football League is a volatile league. No kidding, you say! The physicality of the sport leads to injuries on a weekly basis. Injuries at critical times to critical players can result in unpredictable results. Moreover, the emotionality (if that's a word) of the sport leads to injuries to the psyche of teams and individual players. Even though these are professional players, we can expect uneven performances from week to week.

I think that most of us would agree that if Kansas City played Denver ten times, Denver would win at least eight of those games. We would probably have a similar agreement with St. Louis losing to Washington. We may even be correct to say nine out of ten or nineteen out of twenty.

But we would probably be wrong to say twenty out of twenty. And there's the lesson. Even a broken clock is right twice a day (once if it's digital with an AM/PM setting!). You're playing really risky Risky Football to put all of your points on ANY National Football League game.

I know that there may be a temptation after a big loss like the Chiefs' upset of the Broncos to load up to catch up. Be careful! Remember that Risky Football is a seventeen-week contest. There is plenty of time to make up ground. If you are steady and deliberate in your risks, the chances are good that the field will come back to you later in the contest when the next big upset occurs. Be patient and hold back some of your points until you get to the point when you are truly on the verge of mathematical elimination.

That point certainly does not occur in Week 6.