Nothing sucks the wind out of a fantasy football season like losing hope for your team by the end of September.

While climbing out of a 1-3 or 0-4 hole can be rewarding, it's not easy. Every trade you offer to turn your fortunes around feels desperate. Every insult your league members lob feels poignant. The recriminations of what you could have done better begin way too early.

Fortunately, you don't have to start off the season from a position of weakness. A good way to avoid the pit of fantasy football despair is by analyzing early-season strength of schedule for key players before you sit down to draft. This also gives you a good look at players who may be solid buy-low opportunities in the middle of the year if they do indeed start the season slowly.

Last week, we covered how utilizing our signature team and player performance metric, Net Expected Points (NEP), can help you find players with easy early-season schedules. This week, we'll cover some players with tough early-season schedules using the same criteria.

So if you're looking to avoid that dreadful last place standing heading into October, or if you're already planning your strategy to buy low on players who may disappoint in September, these are the guys who stand a good chance to struggle due to tough early-season matchups.