Ian Hartitz presents the Sheeshies Awards for the most heartbreaking, tough-to-swallow plays from the 2024-25 fantasy football season.

Every NFL season presents all kinds of memorable moments. From clutch touchdowns, to incredible catches, and electric runs: Football fans of all shapes and sizes should have plenty of happy memories from the 2024-25 season.

And that's good—because today we're going to take more of a glass-half-empty look on things and remember all of the tilting, near-miss moments that *could* have changed our reality as we know it.

Presenting: The 2024-25 Sheeshies, where we honor the players who were oh so close to achieving so much more, but, you know, didn't.

So close, yet so far away

Getting all the way to the 1-yard line but failing to score a TD is objectively a sheeshy feeling—particularly when fantasy managers are forced to watch someone else vulture away the score that was SO CLOSE to belonging to them.

The following players managed to get the football within three feet of the goal line, but ultimately didn’t score later on the same drive, on at least five separate occasions last season:

Winner: Eagles RB Saquon Barkley

This has truly become an Eagles RB category (Swift was the runner-up last year as well). It's amazing to think that Barkley actually left a LOT of meat on the bone during a season that featured him rack up 2,283 total yards and 15 TDs. While these are total numbers, Barkley's 11 just-short touches came across the course of *nine* separate drives. Sheesh.

Also note Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown and Justin Jefferson tied for the WR lead with three such sheeshes, while Jayden Daniels (3) was also the only QB to have this happen more than twice.

Unrealized air yards are a helluva drug

We can help quantify sheeshy missed downfield opportunities using "unrealized air yards," which are derived by subtracting yards after the catch from every player’s receiving yards total before taking the difference with total air yards to pinpoint exactly how much opportunity through the air (not including potential YAC) a player failed to come down with for one reason or another.

We're essentially measuring the total distance of everyone's incomplete targets. A high number indicates a player had lots of fantasy-friendly opportunities, but didn't capitalize on them for one reason or another. Cool? Cool.

The season's final leaderboard …

  1. Titans WR Calvin Ridley (1,096)
  2. Bears WR Rome Odunze (917)
  3. Broncos WR Courtland Sutton (885)
  4. Giants WR Malik Nabers (866)
  5. Cardinals WR Marvin Harrison Jr. (829)
  6. Jaguars WR BrIan Thomas Jr. (821)

Winner: Titans WR Calvin Ridley

There were PLENTY of occasions of Ridley creating all kinds of downfield separation, only for Will Levis or Mason Rudolph to not manage to get him the ball. The former Falcon and Jaguars WR also actually finished fourth in this category last season. Let's get Ridley an accurate QB and see what happens.

A similar sentiment is true for Odunze, whose struggles are especially noteworthy considering the high uncatchable rate associated with those air yards. Sheeshy stuff indeed for the 2024 NFL Draft's No. 9 overall pick. 

Would have been a lot cooler if they caught that

Three quick notes on QBs who were forced to deal with the most sheesh in the form of dropped passes:

Winner: Broncos QB Bo Nix

This one isn't too clear cut, but in a close call I'll lean to the rookie who popped up in two of the three categories and also wasn't exactly dealing with the world's best supporting cast to begin with.

What if defensive pass interference yards counted for fantasy points?

Defensive pass interferences can be finicky and don’t always occur in instances when the targeted receiver would have FOR SURE made the catch.

That said: They are very annoying for fantasy managers to deal with when the result could’ve, should’ve, would’ve been a chunk gain—and maybe even a TD.

Here's the leaderboard from this regular season:

  1. Vikings WR Justin Jefferson (171)
  2. Commanders WR Noah Brown (158)
  3. Colts WR Alec Pierce (140)
  4. Falcons WR Darnell Mooney (123)
  5. Vikings WR Jordan Addison (113)

Winner: Vikings WR Justin Jefferson

I love Noah Brown of all people being in second, but yeah: Nobody racked up more DPI yardage than the Vikings throughout 2024 and it wasn't particularly close.


Top-five most sheeshy moments of the season

5. Chiefs WR Xavier Worthy vs. the deep ball

Whether it was the inability to stay in bounds, a case of the butterfingers, or a bad pass from No. 15: The Chiefs' rookie speedster just never quite managed to get on the same page with Patrick Mahomes when it came to downfield heaves. Overall, the duo hooked up on just *one* of 10 targets thrown at least 30 yards downfield.

Say it with me everyone: Sheesh.

4. Xavier Legette blows it

The Panthers had a string of sheeshy near-miss victories during Bryce Young's sneaky-solid second half of the season, but none were more tilting than their loss to the Eagles considering just how close they were to taking the lead with just 44 seconds remaining.

Certainly a moment to forget for the rookie WR, but hey, at least Young managed to end the season on a high note.

3. DK Metcalf's sheeshy Week 6

This was arguably the season's best example of a boxscore simply lying.

Honorable mention goes to Steelers WR George Pickens for his Week 2 performance against Pat Surtain and the Broncos.

Side note: Wouldn't Metcalf and Pickens be a fun WR duo for better or (let's face it) mostly worse?

2. HOLD ONTO THE BALL Jonathan Taylor

Nothing grinds the gears of fantasy managers and anytime TD bettors more than a player having a walk-in TD … only to simply drop the football before crossing the goal line. Taylor's sheeshy mishap was made all the worse by coming in Week 15—AKA the first round of the fantasy playoffs.

The longtime stud twisted the knife even deeper by ripping off electric 29-218-3 and 32-125-2 performances in Weeks 16 and 17, undoubtedly after many of his fantasy managers were already eliminated from contention. Sheesh.

1. Chase Brown goes down at the 1-yard line on purpose

This one hit the triple entendre of sheesh:

  1. Brown slid down short of the goal line instead of scoring a late TD in an effort to help the Bengals wind more clock to secure the victory. Cool move and everything … until Joe Burrow decided to sneak the ball into the end zone on the very next play anyways.
  2. The Bengals' speedy RB accidentally injured himself on the play and wasn't able to return for overtime.
  3. This happened in Week 17—AKA the fantasy championship.

Also note that Brown was tackled at the 2-yard line on two additional drives on the day. For those counting at home, the Bengals' RB1 was essentially five yards away from scoring *three* TDs. Surely those wouldn't have come in handy for any fantasy managers out there.

Remember kids: Be like De'Von Achane.

I think I speak for all of us when I say for one last time: Sheesh.

Thanks for stopping by. We're … on to the 2025 season! Thanks for following along this year, see ya again after Week 1!