When I joined my first-ever fantasy league, years and years ago, I remember thinking I should call my team the Torn ACLs. Funny, right? Everyone looks at the name and smiles wryly, Yep, that's the NFL. You never know when that ACL injury is gonna wreck your season.

Yesterday it was the Green Bay Packers, Jordy Nelson, and whoever had already held their draft and selected him in the second round. I personally have an extra fondness for Nelson, who won me some money a year ago, but even setting that aside he seems like a good guy and a great player.

This comes just a week after Kelvin Benjamin went down with the same injury, arguably a bigger blow to the team and a guy just getting his NFL career started. Nobody is writing off Green Bay's season. Carolina, though, probably can't afford to lose its only top wideout.

Cue the round of stories about how the preseason should be shortened. The thing about these injuries, though, is that they don't seem to relate to players being worked too hard or beat up in meaningless contests. Both are non-contact injuries. I seriously doubt Mike McCarthy has been pushing Nelson aggressively in practices, making him run laps or whatever prior to exhibition games. It's not like he got tackled awkwardly or wrapped up in a pile. It just happened.

Next week is the third exhibition game for everyone, which has entered into the lexicon as the dress rehearsal game. Will the Nelson and Maurkice Pouncey injuries from yesterday have teams being overly cautious? Will starters be held out or yanked early in this round of games? Maybe.

But I tend to think that injuries like these, you can't do anything differently. If Nelson hadn't played in the exhibitions, maybe he steps wrong or pivots in the season opener and blows out his knee then. I mean, you have to think that, right? It's like those Final Destination movies; if you escape the injury with your name on it in mid-August, it will get you in mid-September. If you spend too much time thinking that if I had just done one thing differently on that one day, everything would be different (and better!) the rest of my life, you'll go insane.

Maybe there's some alternate reality where Jordy Nelson and Kelvin Benjamin didn't get hurt, and go on to have monster seasons for the Milwaukee Packers and the Jacksonville Panthers. But we're stuck with this one, where two of the league's better wide receivers won't play all season long, and they'll be missed.

From a fantasy standpoint, selfishly, we adapt. We move Davante Adams way up the rankings, we grab Jeff Janis and Ty Montgomery and Jerricho Cotchery, we try to -- if not profit -- at least deal with the consequences. And then we prepare to watch the next week of games and just hope against hope that Fate's bullet is done with the NFL preseason.

Nelson's had a great career and Super Bowl ring and is well paid, while Benjamin is young and will be able to bounce back from this. And us in fantasy leagues are reminded Do Not Draft in August, at least until that third preseason game has come and gone. It's not worth the risk.

Hopefully everyone has seen Unforgiven, where Clint Eastwood's aging gunfighter responds to a kid's comment, seeking reassurance after killing an outlaw. "He had it coming, right?" Eastwood says, "We all got it coming, kid."

It's not exactly true in the NFL, since some guys blow out their knees multiple times, while some skate through their careers without ever getting seriously hurt. Start to think about that too much if you're one of the unlucky ones, and again, you'll go insane.

I think what you do is realize that it could be you, even if it's not, so you appreciate the luck you do have, and the bad luck you don't. And then you move on to the next draft, the next game, and the next day. And hope that it's coming for you far, far in the future.