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By NANDO DI FINO

Fantasy football playoffs are here, and this time of year always leads to gut-wrenching decisions that usually turn out to be the wrong ones. A bad decision here doesn’t just knock you out of the playoffs—it lives on within your league for years. (Remember when you started James Davis over Jerome Harrison last year? Have you stopped telling that story to everyone yet?) But here’s some news—no matter what choice you make, you’re probably going to lose your playoff game. Observe:

It’s Sunday. 12:21 p.m. You’ve just awakened from a long night out and your alarm, for whatever reason, was never set. You’re in a panic. Where’s your laptop? There it is. Next to you. The browser is open to Facebook and it looks like you’ve three sent messages to your sixth-grade girlfriend, whom you tracked down in a drunken stupor last night. But you’ll deal with that later. Right now, you have to set your fantasy lineup. It’s the first round of the playoffs. You finished at 7-6 but somehow made it in as the sixth seed thanks to a unique tie-breaker system in your league that rewards the player who took the shortest total amount of time to draft. You log on. You notice that you posted on the message board at 3:22 a.m., with the subject line “Arrelious Benn is a silly name … but I love it!” You can address that later. You take a deep breath and look at your lineup. You have some decisions to make.

You notice that Matt Cassel has a little red box next to him. What happened? Was he hurt? You don’t remember his getting hit last week, or even spraining anything. Emergency appendix surgery? You look at your roster. You don’t have a backup quarterback. You need to go to the waiver wire. Your top two choices are Sam Bradford of St. Louis and Miami’s Chad Henne.

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Sam Bradford vs. Chad Henne

You select Sam Bradford and go back to sleep. You wake up again at 5:30 p.m. to a phone with 17 missed calls from your sixth-grade girlfriend. Instead of calling back, you turn on the TV and discover that Mr. Bradford has thrown for 211 yards in the first half, but Steven Jackson has scored two Rams touchdowns and then some random safety had an interception return. Mr. Bradford goes on to lead the Rams to a 45-42 victory, throwing for 400 yards, but scoring zero of the team’s six touchdowns. Unfortunately, your league overvalues touchdowns. You are down five points.

You select Chad Henne, reasoning that a healthy Brandon Marshall and a motivated Ronnie Brown might combine to get Mr. Henne some numbers against a Jets defense that gave up 45 points last week. Maybe Jim Leonhard was the key to the defense’s success, you reason. You go back to sleep and wake up at 5:30 p.m. to your mother knocking on your bedroom door saying the police are here to talk to you about a cyber-bullying case. You ignore her and turn on the television to see that a very motivated Jets defense has held the Dolphins to three points. And then you notice that 32 points is kind of a weird number for a football game. You read the ticker across the bottom of the screen and it all starts to make sense: Henne: 3-11, 76 yards, 3 interceptions; tackled twice in the end zone for a safety. You are down five points.

Next, you need a running back. You have a pretty tough decision to make here. Tashard Choice seems to be getting more carries in the Dallas offense with Jason Garrett at the helm and rushed for 100 yards last week. But Felix Jones actually had more rushing attempts (21 vs. 18) and has been the go-to guy for much of the season. Your other choice here is Tampa Bay’s Cadillac Williams, but he hasn’t rushed more than eight times in a game since Week 6. You keep posting “Who should I start? F Jones or T Choice?” in the live chats held by every major fantasy site, but you get a different answer from each. It’s time to make a decision. Games start soon.

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Felix Jones vs. Tashard Choice

You have selected Tashard Choice, just because it was funny that you thought you had to make a choice and considered this a sign from above. Mr. Choice starts the game on a roll, rushing five times for 16 yards in the opening drive. Mr. Jones, meanwhile, has run the ball just twice for no gain. Then something weird happens. Marion Barber, thought to be left for dead in the Dallas running back rotation, comes into the game on third-and-one and breaks off a 48-yard touchdown run. The next offensive drive, Jon Kitna, under pressure, dumps a short pass off to Mr. Barber, who runs it 71 yards for another touchdown. At the end of the first half, Mr. Barber has 171 total yards and two touchdowns. By the end of the game—a huge Dallas upset of the Eagles—Mr. Barber will have amassed 250 total yards and scored three times. Mr. Choice finishes with 37 rushing yards on 10 attempts. Mr. Jones, in a silver lining for your decision, accumulates 11 yards on four rushes and left the game with an arm injury in the early third quarter. Luckily, your other running back, Chris Johnson, scored 25 points on Thursday night to somewhat make up for the debacle. You are down 7 points. But there’s still hope: the Monday night game.

You have selected Felix Jones, just because you met someone last night with a Felix the Cat tattoo and you considered this a sign from above. Things look bad from the start, as Mr. Jones runs just twice for no gain. Mr. Choice, meanwhile, has already rushed five times for 16 yards in the opening drive. Then something weird happens. Marion Barber, thought to be left for dead in the Dallas running back rotation, comes into the game on third-and-one and breaks off a 48-yard touchdown run. The next offensive drive, Jon Kitna, under pressure, dumps a short pass off to Mr. Barber, who runs it 71 yards for another touchdown. At the end of the first half, Mr. Barber has 171 total yards and two touchdowns. By the end of the game—a huge Dallas upset of the Eagles—Mr. Barber will have amassed 250 total yards and scored three times. Making matters worse? Mr. Jones gets a total of 11 yards on four rushes before leaving the game with an arm injury in the early third quarter. Mr. Choice finishes with just 37 rushing yards on 10 attempts, so the decision wasn’t a total kick in the gut. Luckily, your other running back, Tennessee’s Chris Johnson, scored 25 points on Thursday night to help mitigate this debacle. But you are still down 9 points. Thankfully, there’s still hope: Monday night game.

Monday’s game features the Ravens and Texans. While you don’t have the top receivers from both teams—Anquan Boldin and Andre Johnson, respectively—you do have a choice between second receivers. The question here is, do you start Houston’s Kevin Walter or Baltimore’s Derrick Mason? You’re going to need a big game from either of them—almost 10 points—and if you don’t get it, your season is over and you face a long three months until fantasy baseball starts. So you pore over the statistics and map out the pros and cons:

Walter

Pros: Baltimore, while a good defensive team, gives up 208 passing yards per game, enough, statistically, for two receivers to get 100 yards each. The last time Mr. Walter faced Baltimore (2008), he had 85 yards and a touchdown.

Cons: In his last six games, he’s only had one where he caught more than four passes. In that same span, he has just one game with over 50 yards receiving. Three of his four touchdowns have come in September.

Mason

Pros: Houston gives up more passing yards than any team in the NFL, at 287.4 per game. Three of his four touchdowns have come in the last four games.

Cons: In his last six games, he’s only had one where he caught more than four passes. In that same span, he has just one game with over 50 yards receiving. A healthy Todd Heap means another target who isn’t Mr. Mason for Joe Flacco.

You painstakingly wait until the last possible moment, then decide to go with…

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Derrick Mason vs. Kevin Walter

You have chosen Kevin Walter. And you immediately regret it. How could you go against the guy who scored three of his four touchdowns in the last four games? You watch helplessly as Mr. Mason goes off on the Houston secondary. Mr. Flacco finds him in the end zone in the second quarter for an eight-yard touchdown pass. At the end of the third, the referees miss a blatant offensive pass interference call on Mr. Mason’s part as he hauls in his second touchdown of the game, a bomb from Mr. Flacco for 61 yards. Your league awards bonuses for touchdowns over 50 yards. By the end of the night, Mr. Mason has caught 11 passes for 133 yards and two touchdowns. Mr. Walter has hauled in two catches for 31 yards. This is where your 2010 season ends, one bad decision from advancing to the semifinals. You have lost by 10 points. Your season is over.

You have chosen Derrick Mason. And you immediately regret it. On the third play of the game, Mr. Mason drops a wide-open pass and comes up holding his leg. He tries to hobble off the field but falls into a crumpled mess. “This does not look good,” Jon Gruden says, as the telecast goes to commercial and you turn to a stranger at the bar and ask if he knows what might be wrong. As the game comes back, you see a replay of Mr. Mason’s left ankle turning the wrong way. Moments later, you learn that Mr. Mason is out for the game. Zero points. Just as you look up to see if it’s really true, Kevin Walter catches a short pass from Matt Schaub at midfield, makes a juke, breaks free from a tackle, and runs 43 yards for a touchdown. Mr. Walter will score again later on an end-around. His total haul? 83 yards receiving, 42 yards rushing, two touchdowns. All on your bench. This is where your 2010 season ends, one stroke of bad luck from advancing to the semifinals. You have lost by 10 points. Your season is over.

Write to Nando Di Fino at nandodifino@yahoo.com