I joined my first-ever fantasy football league a month ago, teaming up with my dad. Our team, the Hellboys, had the eleventh pick in a snake draft (so we also had the fourteenth pick). Somehow we ended up with both Carson Palmer and Chad Johnson, the quarterback and wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals, respectively.
I’m a late bloomer in terms of football fandom (heck, sports fandom in general), but I read over all the stats in the magazines my dad gave me and kept him from making any unwise moves during the draft. Last week, in the first week of the season, we didn’t do all that well; our reserves did far better than the guys we activated.
This week, though–we had Carson Palmer and Chad Johnson. In a league where the average weekly highest score by any team is around 90-100, we ended up with 146 points thanks to Palmer’s six touchdowns (two of them caught by Johnson) in the Bengals’ 51-45 loss to the Browns. We outscored our opponent by more than 2x their own score. It was, to use the technical term, a drubbing.
Obviously this was a major fluke–it’s unlikely we’ll see another shootout like that this season from any teams, much less the Bengals again. But it felt pretty good for the second matchup of my fantasy football league career.
So it was an interesting Sunday…good for the Pats, good for my fantasy team, not so good for the Red Sox, who also just lost to the Blue Jays while the Yankees beat up on the Orioles, meaning the Sox’s lead in the AL East will soon be 3 1/2 games. If you’re not gritting your teeth and checking your pulse, it’s not the Red Sox.
Meanwhile, did you see what the Pats did to the Chargers? LaDainian Tomlinson currently has the lowest yards-per-carry (1.9) of any quarterback with more than twenty carries. That won’t last, but the people who patted themselves on the back for getting the #1 pick in their fantasy league draft have to be bit annoyed at losing 1/16 of that payoff (in the regular season, anyway).
One last thing…I think the “LT sucks” chant by the fans at Gillette was in poor taste. Frankly, so is “Yankees suck.” It’s not biting or amusing, it’s just mean and smacks of sore winners/losers.
Chanting “Roger” is funny, especially when he’s in trouble. If the Gillette crowd had chanted something like “MVP” after LDT got stopped for a 1-yard loss–now that would have been funny.
Oh dear… where do I begin on this one?
I should be going to bed, but I can’t leave this until tomorrow night to comment on, so let’s start with the easy one. I too have Palmer as my QB and he definitely put me over-the-top on my win this week. Of course, the Pats D really got me the final points to secure victory, but Palmer doing me right this week made up for him doing me wrong last week. Last week, I played the guy who had Chad Johnson, so they almost evened each other out, or rather, Palmer didn’t get enough over Johnson to get me many more points, never mind that the other guy had Romo, who put up this week’s Palmer numbers. Point being, fantasy football is all luck each and every week. You can draft a good team, but given there is only one day (pretty much) of games, it is a crap shoot on who gets points and who doesn’t. Anyway, good luck with having both Palmer and Johnson; this is something you generally don’t want to do.
As for the Sox, I’m creeping close to the ledge. They should have swept the weekend. I’m going to be posting on this soon…
…and also on last night’s Pats game. I went to the game and I can tell you that LT got what he had coming to him and probably not enough. The guy is an amazing talent — probably the best football player in the league right now — but he is a little beeyotch. Last year, he’s crying about getting bounced by the Pats in the playoffs and them celebrating in his house. This year, he’s jumping right on them as soon as the video scandal hits. You know what? He got stuffed by a great D this week. I didn’t read anything today or see any TV on it, but do you think he gave them their due? Doubtful. There were tons of signs and taunts I’m sure you didn’t see on TV. He deserved them all and I’m sure he expected it too, just like Jeter and A-Rod do when they come to Fenway. They get pumped on it. In addition to it being negative, it is also a sign of respect and I don’t think it is sour grapes or sore winning. However, I will throw you the one bone that “Yankees Suck” is tired. I’m just sick of hearing it now, although it hasn’t been as bad since 2004.
Mumma needs to get that watch cranking!!! I don’t want to lose the division to the Yankees!
Yeah, I know. That was some dice we consciously rolled because we had such a low draft position. We have decent backup WRs (Joey Galloway had a good week too). It’s our RBs who suck.
But you’re right, it’s a crapshoot–just like the real NFL. Just ask the Browns.
As for the Sox–I don’t blame them so much as the Yankees just being so ridiculously good. As the Globe noted before the weekend series, this is Joe Torre’s best second-half since he started coaching the team twelve years ago. The fact that the Sox are even putting up a fight proves this is a different team than it has been in the past.
Still, I hate seeing that creeping number on the AL standings.