Ranking the 10 Best Last-Place Fantasy Football Punishments

All summer long, fantasy football managers do their best to draft a team that will lead them to a championship. Then come months of trying to win matchups, playing the waiver wire, making trades and hoping to hit the stretch run in good shape.

Fall gives way to winter. The fantasy playoffs arrive. And then right around Christmas, one fortunate soul is crowned the champion. Glory follows. Fame. Perhaps a trophy of some sort.

But for every champion who finishes first, there's a team that must finish last. And in many fantasy football leagues, that last-place manager doesn't just suffer the indignity of the standings. They must be punished.

As fantasy football has exploded in popularity, so have last-place punishments. They have become increasingly varied and elaborate. Some are a little mean. Many more are abjectly hilarious. All are embarrassing to one degree or another.

If you're looking for a relatively tame and inexpensive punishment that still makes the last-place manager in your league feel like a doofus, then this might be the one for you.

There are several directions you can go here. With the explosion in fantasy football's popularity, numerous sites sell last-place trophies in all shapes and sizes. You can find all sorts of "I Suck at Fantasy Football" T-shirts, chains and other doodads. All send the same message.

"I had a rotten fantasy season. And the jerks I play with aren't about to let me forget it."

We do this in the King's Classic Dick Butkus Division draft that occurs every year at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. In fact, every team that doesn't win the championship gets something to remind them that they didn't win the championship.

If you want to take this one up a notch, stipulate that the trophy must me prominently displayed in the last-place manager's home, so he can spend a year answering questions about it from everyone who comes over.

By now, most of you have probably seen or at least heard of the Hot Ones podcast, where celebrities and athletes answer interview questions while eating chicken wings that vary in intensity from "that wasn't too bad" to "Da Bomb Beyond Insanity."

Well, this punishment borrows the premise for that podcast—and murders every taste bud your last-place manager has.

Just like the show, the last-place manager will take part in an "interview." But instead of softball questions about their favorite co-stars or acting techniques, they get to answer questions about their most embarrassing moments, fears or whatever else you can think of—all while eating wings that ramp up from "OK, that's a little hot" to "I think my face is melting."

Keep the questions from getting so personal that they land someone in divorce court. While these punishments may seem harsh, they are based on good-natured fun.

But outside of that, the only boundaries here are your own creativity—and the gastrointestinal fortitude of the poor last-place finisher who has to eat those wings.

Oh, and it must all be recorded for posterity , of course.

This is one of the better-known last-place punishments.

The rules are easy enough: The last-place manager has to go to Waffle House (or any other restaurant that's open all 24 hours) and stay there for a full day. However, they can eat their way home. Every waffle, order of hash browns and sausage link deducts a predetermined amount of time from their sentence.

As always, proper attire (The "I suck at fantasy football" shirt) is a must. Recording the event for posterity is recommended. Leaguemates showing up to heckle is encouraged.

This punishment isn't ranked higher because, frankly, it's not that bad. So long as the restaurant has Wi-Fi, I can show up early, get my grub on, and with any luck, be out by evening. Might have a bit of a tummyache, but them's the breaks.

But if you want to make this a true challenge, flip the restaurant from Waffle House to White Castle. Fourteen hours of pounding belly bombs and onion nuggets are bound to take their toll at some point.

There are a million variations to this theme, but they all share a few things in common.

The first is one of those "I suck at fantasy football" T-shirts we mentioned.

The second is making the last-place manager go somewhere very public wearing said shirt, and do something they'd really rather not.

As in the tweet above, you can have them attend a game or practice wearing a rival's gear, which will quickly make them all sorts of new friends.

You can make them go to the grocery store wearing a garish outfit and stop every person they meet to tell them, "I suck at fantasy football."

Make the last-place manager perform at a comedy club's "Open Mic Night." Or perform a song chosen by the rest of the league at karaoke.

One particularly popular variation is "date night." The last-place manager has to not only go to a restaurant wearing said garish outfit and making said proclamations, but they also must take a stuffed animal or blow-up doll along as a "date"—and talk to it.

Helpful hint—call ahead to the restaurant and give them a heads-up. No one needs the cops getting called.

Whatever the variation, the point is the same: public embarrassment. The more public, the better.

OK, now things are starting to get mean—in a good way.

This is another punishment with any number of variations. But at its core, they are all the same. It's a combination of public humiliation and fundraising, whether it's for charity or to help pay for draft-day festivities.

Do it for charity. It's good for the soul.

The most popular variation of this punishment is the lemonade stand. The last-place manager must open a lemonade stand just like when they were a kid. Then they either have to raise a predetermined amount of money or stay out there for a predetermined amount of time.

Now, some have taken the theme and ramped it up a notch or six. If there's an area near you where street performers gather, you can dress the last-place manager up in a ridiculous outfit and make them get their music on.

Flying to Vegas and dressing up like Elvis is admittedly taking this to extremes. But to be fair, the guy did finish last two years in a row.

For this writer, this might be the most abjectly terrifying punishment on this list. I would rather dress up like Pikachu and sing country music for six hours at a mall than ever take another test again.

But finish in last place in a league with this punishment, and it's back to school for you.

The premise is simple: The last-place manager has to take the SAT or ACT. Either works.

The humiliation here is threefold. First, you have to take several hours out of your day to re-take a test you haven't thought about (much less studied for) for years. You have to take that test in a room full of teenagers while wearing the ever-present "I suck at fantasy football" shirt, which is going to get you gawked at the entire time.

Lastly, once you get the results of your triumphant return to academia, you have to post them on social media for all to see—and ridicule.

For most of us dummies, those results aren't getting you into Yale.

What says friendship and camaraderie more than making someone parade around a neighborhood full of strangers making a complete fool of themselves?

One variation on the scavenger hunt theme that got a lot of traction on social media was a league where the last-place finisher had to go trick-or-treating. Except it was nowhere near Halloween, and he's a grown man.

Until he got 10 pieces of candy, he was knocking on doors and getting glared at.

It doesn't have to be candy, though. You can dress the last-place manager up any way you wish and send them on a quest for whatever. A very particular list of canned goods. A list of random items that are neither especially easy to track down nor too obscure.

The key here is taking the last-place manager to unfamiliar surroundings. Let them knock on doors near their own home, and their pesky neighbors could be motivated to help them.

This might be the most insidious punishment on this list. Or at least it would be with my friends—bunch of savages, I tell ya.

This punishment works best if the draft is held at someone's house, not the local watering hole. But if it's the latter, it can still be done. The last-place manager just has to pick up the tab—either in its entirety, just for the champion or up to a set amount. Whatever works.

However, since that is just expensive and not humiliating, every time someone orders something, the last-place manager must say something like, "Sure, Carl, I will gladly buy you an onion blossom because you are so much better at fantasy football than me"—loudly.

If the draft is at a private residence, it's so much worse. The last-place manager has to play gopher on draft day for the entire league.

If Carl wants a ginger ale, you have to get up and give him one. Someone wants Doritos? You have to get up again and get them. The draft becomes hours of your "friends" making you play fetch. Over and over and over.

If that's not diabolical enough, the last-place manager can be forced to prepare the draft-day food. Pay for it. Serve it dressed as a French maid.

As with most of these punishments, the variations on the theme are endless.

I would give a month's salary for the video of this punishment. But the guy I heard it from insisted that he and his leaguemates don't record it. It's just between the 12 of them...and all of the other people who see it, of course.

The last-place manager dresses in the omnipresent "I Suck" shirt, shorts and flip-flops. Nothing else. They also wear a sign so garish it can be seen from space.

The rest of the league dons long black robes—think Grim Reaper Halloween costumes with the hood and all that good stuff. They all have large bells.

Then, the whole group goes outside the last-place manager's home and walks up and down the street re-enacting the "Walk of Shame" from Game of Thrones —but with less nudity and vegetable throwing. Again, no one wants the cops called.

This punishment amuses me to no end. It has costumes. Props. And the humiliation is turned up to 11. This poor schlub isn't just being embarrassed in front of strangers. These are the last-place manager's neighbors. People he or she sees regularly.

And now those neighbors know the manager's darkest secret: He or she sucks at fantasy football.

First off, don't just copy this last-place punishment. To do so is to do this masterpiece of idiocy a disservice. It's completely ridiculous. It's obviously quite embarrassing. My guy is leaning into it with everything he has. And it is unique.

OK, there's a new one I'm most terrified by. NO ONE needs to see this writer with a speedo on.

We all have no shortage of seriousness in our lives. Fantasy football is supposed to be an escape from that. And while humiliation is most assuredly a part of any good last-place punishment, it's not mean-spirited. It's friends having fun at one another's expense, which is as old as friendship itself.

Last-place punishments are an extension of the personalities of the managers in a league. And in most leagues that have them, those managers know each other well. Make the last-place punishment yours as a group. And if that last-place punishment becomes yours in the way no one wants it to be, be like the Very Hungry Caterpillar and give it your all. Get the family involved.

You never know. You might go viral. Wind up on the Today show . Achieve fantasy football immortality.

Even if you have to finish last to do it.