Fantasy Ass Kicking

No, the title of this post does not have to do with something you would pay extra for with Vietnamese prostitute. Instead, it refers to my weekend.

Straight away, I would suggest that any of my female readers just back away slowly now and not read this… for one simple reason. I’m going to bitch and moan about my fantasy football team and I fully expect that you will not only not understand, but will actually think less of me for my whining about something you find to be so ultimately stupid. Thank you.

To those of you left, I’m going to assume that you have at least some semblance of understanding of what fantasy football is really all about. In a nutshell, you get together with 9 other dweebs then you ‘draft’ your team from real life players in the NFL, who earn you points for how they preform (yards, touchdowns, turnovers, etc). Each week, your team faces off with another team and he who’s team scores the most points wins. Pretty simple.

Anyway, I’ve had a terrific fantasy season this year. Number one seed going into the playoffs which started last weekend. My team was 10-3, the only team to win 10 games this year. The main reason for this? Simple… one Tom Brady. He has earned more points than any other player in the league this year, which is strange because usually running backs dominate the top of the point earner charts.

Being the #1 seed, I earned a bye last week, so I got to relax and wait to see who I would play this past weekend. Had my team played last weekend, we would have scored 144.76 points, which virtually guarantees a win. Shame I had a bye… Anyway, heading into this weekend, I felt fairly confident that I could win again and end up playing in the championship game next weekend. I’ve never won a fantasy season, and this is my 9th year playing. I did win the regular season back in 2003, but lost in the first round of the playoffs. It was as close as I’ve gotten.

Until this season. All year I’ve been a juggernaut. Mainly thanks to Mr. Brady who has been throwing touchdowns like they’re going out of style. Some of his weekly point totals were as follows: 30.28, 34.64, 41.64, 44.02, 48.82 and 50.12. (my league is 1 point for 20 yards passing and 6 for a TD). Needless to say, when one player is getting you so many points, it is easy to win. In my league, 100 total points is a very solid score. So, you can see why I was doing so well. He’s averaged over 31 points a weekend for me. Plus, this weekend was the big one. The rematch with the much hated New York Jets. Coaching rivalries. Spygate. Payback. This game was supposed to be huge. The Patriots were favored by 23.5 points, which is a HUGE spread. Everyone expected the Pats to completely light it up. You can see why I felt good.

Well, mother nature intervened. The nor’easter that dumped snow, blew wind and dropped temps screwed me. Brady ended the game, the first one of the entire season, with NO touchdowns. Not one. He earned me a paltry 4.5 points. That’s it! 4.5! We were out and about shopping for Christmas, and stopped for lunch and saw some of the game. When I saw the score was 10-7 in the 2nd quarter and the TD was an interception return by the defense, I had a sinking feeling.

That feeling was confirmed later when I got home and checked the actual stats. I knew I was especially sunk when nobody else on my team had stepped up. Through all of the day games yesterday, my leading point getter had 10.50 total points and was the only one of my guys in double figures. I had one player remaining in the Sunday night game, Clinton Portis. If he scored 40 points (difficult, but not impossible) I could still pull it out. Alas, that was not to be. He ended with 18.6 and it was all over. Final score 70.5 to 93.32.

Of course, being able to do simple math told me one thing. I lost by 22.82 points. Brady, who only got 4.5 points, scored over 26 points below his average, and probably a good 35 points behind what he should have done in any other circumstance. If he preforms up to what he has done all season, I’m in the championship game. But, the weather and Brady combined picked this weekend to throw up the mother of all stinkers.

If any of you women are still reading, I don’t know if I can help you understand why that sucks so bad. Some guys don’t even get it. It’s competition. It’s a desire to win. Yes, there is even financial gain to be had as winners get paid. I just want to win a championship. I don’t play in the NFL. Hell, I haven’t played an organized sport since 10th grade B’s basketball. I, personally, have never been on a “championship” team of any sort. Sure, winning a fantasy championship may seem stupid to you. You don’t get the camaraderie. You don’t get a ring or a trophy, or to spray champagne on your fellow teammates. But, you do get to call yourself a champion. Bragging rights are a powerful thing.

Just not this year.

But, like the old saying goes… there is always next year.

As a side note, the only thing that helps alleviate the pain in any way is this… I am also in a NFL pick-’em league with the same bunch of guys (that is where you pick the winners for all of the NFL games for the year. I have been leading that for most of the season. Right now, I’m 154-70 picking NFL winners, although not against the spread. (That would be leading all of these ‘experts‘) Yes, I had a chance at a exceptionally rare fantasy league sweep. Anyway, I’ve been leading by 4 games for the past few weeks. This week, I made my picks and was the only one in our league to correctly predict the Miami upset of Baltimore. Going out on a limb and picking that game correctly gave me the win for this weekend (which also has a cash payout) and gives me a 5 game lead heading into the final 2 weeks of the season (overall season winner gets paid as well). I’m not going to jinx myself by predicting anything, but I’m in a good position.

Once the NFL playoffs and college bowls are over, life goes back to being much less fun until August finally rolls around.