2022 Champions Profile - John Rundle

[Tom Kessenich]

It’s safe to say most fantasy players are a confident bunch. We leave Draft Day feeling extra exuberant about our team’s chances for the upcoming season.

Shy we often are not. Ask us how we are about to fare and we’ll shout from the mountain top that the team we drafted is ready to take on all comers and thrash them within an inch of their lives, making them all the stuff champions are made of.

John Rundle has been around the block plenty in both the NFBC and NFFC so he’s seen all kinds of teams come and go in both of these esteemed high-stakes contests. He’s a Charter Member of the NFBC and has been playing in the NFFC for nearly as long, having joined that contest in 2007 and winning the Online Championship in 2011.

Boisterous, though, he is not.

When it came to his Townies team in the RotoWire Online Championship last season entering the Championship Round he knew it was good, but he wasn’t about to sit back and boldly proclaim it was going to achieve greatness.

“I liked my team (but) I was not sure how well it would perform in the playoffs,” he said.

As it turned out, that measured approach served Rundle well. His team didn’t just perform well, it outperformed the entire playoff field, cruising to the RotoWire title in rather historic fashion and earning John the 2022 championship and the $250,000 grand prize, becoming the first two-time champion in the contest.

“It was a wild ride during those three playoff weeks for sure,” he said.

Rundle qualified for the playoffs after finishing second in his league during the regular season. His team marched toward that success led by Christian McCaffrey, who he had selected third overall in his late August draft.

“I wanted a McCaffrey build and got him,” Rundle said. “From there, it was going to be a Running Back Hero strategy. I also liked the San Francisco playoff schedule so if I had a chance, I was going to stack some Niners.

“I got Deebo (Samuel), (George) Kittle, (Trey) Lance and the (49ers) defense and of course McCaffrey got traded to them later in the season. Little did I know that Lance getting hurt helped me because I picked up an injured Dak Prescott and Jared Goff and both of them came up big in the championship round.”

Prescott and Goff weren’t Rundle’s only big FAAB pickups, however. His final week addition of Jerick McKinnon for $223 proved to be massive as McKinnon was one of the most pivotal players in fantasy in the final weeks of the 2022 season.

“He came up huge for me,” Rundle said.

The end of the season was fraught with plenty of anxiety, of course, due to the tragic situation involving Damar Hamlin in the Week 16 Monday night game between Buffalo and Cincinnati. Rundle did not have any players involved in that game while two other teams were within 21 points of the lead with one player each on their respective teams.

All Rundle could do was wait while the NFL made its decision that week.

“The waiting was brutal,” Rundle said. “I’m glad things turned out well for Hamlin and I thought the NFFC made the right call. When the game was officially cancelled I couldn’t wait to tell my family.

“When I won the OC overall in 2011 the grand prize was only $60,000, so when I told my wife I won $250,000 she didn’t believe me.”

It’s no lie and the six-figure grand prize also made John’s decision to retire late last year a much easier one as well. Not that he plans to take it easy on anyone in the NFFC. He’ll be back to defend his title in the RotoWire Online Championship this season as well as playing in plenty of other contests this year.

Not that you’ll hear him bragging about any of his teams along the way. That’s just not his style.