Fantasy Football Update

Well, we're about a third of the way through the Fantasy season, and my teams are starting to show their true colors. Sadly, these all seem to be shades of yellow or brown.

I've been updating the rankings/results to the left. As you can see, I'm still in the running for a title in three out of four leagues, though I'm in drastic need of help in the fourth. I could be doing better than I am, but I've been plagued by three things:

1. Inconsistent play.
   
2. Injuries.
   
3. Crappy QBs

I can't do much about the first one. That's either a symptom of early-season rust and jitters on behalf of the players, or of bad draft choices by me. I'm not sure which is worse, though, inconsistent play or bad play. At least with bad play, you know it's safe to drop the guy and find a replacement. One problem I'm having in my leagues is players who post record-high scores one week, then totally disappear the next. Do I drop these guys, with the possibility that they may produce for my opponents? Do I keep them and watch them suck every now and then and cost me wins?

As for the injuries, it's hurt all of my skill players. I've lost Sean Alexander on one team, Trent Green on another, Brian Westbrook a few weeks ago, and now Larry Fitzgerald. And early in the season, I was repeatedly hurt by the absence of Clinton Portis and Ben Roethlisberger. The sad thing about injuries is that they can happen at any time and are an instant handicap. And being smart is no protection against them, since you can't predict freak accidents, no matter how smart you are. You just have to roll with the flow when the injuries happen. In a way, I'm lucky mine seem to be happening early in the year. As long as most of them are gone come playoff time, I should be okay.

The final monkey wrench--poor quarterbacking--is really my achilles heel this season. I drafted Kurt Warner, Ben Roethlisberger, Daunte Culpepper, Steve McNair, Trent Green and Drew Brees on different teams this year. I could maybe justify plugging McNair or Brees in as a bye-week remedy depending on their matchups, but I don't have a single active starter in that group. Over the first five weeks, that's cost me big. The QB should be the highest-scoring player on the team (well, depending on the scoring rules). And when yours is shooting negative points--as has happened REPEATEDLY to me--it makes it nearly impossible to win.

Recently, though, I've made a variety of trades/additions/etc. to fix my QB situation. On two teams, I picked up Rex Grossman. On another, I'm subbing in Alex Smith until Green returns. And on the final team, my Yahoo! team, I somehow managed to pull off a miracle trade that may have saved my whole season.

On that team, I've been playing Steve McNair, as my intended starter, Ben Roethlisberger, has either been out or ineffective. But McNair wasn't really piling up points, and I knew he wouldn't be a great long-term solution. So, I looked around the league to see who had the best QB on their bench. I noticed that one player had Carson Palmer and Michael Vick as his QBs, and, strangely, had started Vick over Palmer EVERY WEEK! Not only that, but I noticed that the upcoming weekend was bye week for both QBs. The situation was perfect. This guy was obviously undervaluing a top-five QB, and needed to find a quick fill-in for the weekend. I looked at the rest of his roster, and saw that he had some other glaring holes. In fact, his running game was so bad that he had picked up Fred McRary, the worthless fullback for Atlanta.

Knowing this guy needed a quick fix at QB, and could also use some RB help, I made him an offer. I packaged McNair with Carolina RB Deshaun Foster and asked for Joseph Addai from the Colts and Carson Palmer in return. Foster and McNair were both coming off of good games, so the numbers were even, but I thought the trade was still imbalanced in my favor. In fact, I really only offered the trade to give this guy something to shoot down. I was bidding low to start negotiations. I thought the manager would shoot down the first trade, but then maybe accept my second offer, when I threw Corey Dillon or Willis McGahee at him.

Boy was I surprised when the guy accepted my trade! So were some other coaches, apparently, as I got a few emails and phone calls accusing me of cheating. In my defense, not only did I not expect the dude to take the trade, but the people involved can't kill the trade once it's been accepted, even if they want to. Also, this manager was a three-year veteran of this league, so it's not like I was hitting up a rookie.

Anyway, to add a touch of irony to this story, it turned out that this past weekend was not only when the results of the trade came through, but it was also the matchup between my team and this other manager's. In a way, I almost wanted him to win on the backs of his new players, so the rest of the league would have to stop complaining about me robbing him blind. The game was a close one, and I was four points ahead going into Monday Night Football. All of my players had played by that time, but he had one guy left...the QB I gave him. If Steve McNair scored five or more points against the Broncos on Monday night, my opponent would win. (And remember, a TD is six points!)

So what happened? McNair laid an egg, resulting in NEGATIVE TWO POINTS! I won the matchup by six, with my former player looking like he threw the game! I felt sort of bad, as I knew I'd get even MORE slack from the other managers over that ending. But no trade comes with guarantees of performance, even the fair ones.

Incidentally, that coach dropped McNair to waivers yesterday. So the trade was really Palmer/Addai for Foster, I guess. Again, I feel bad about this, but what could I do? :)

I feel okay about where I am in my leagues right now. I think I could have a contending team in each league, even the AOL one in which I've only won one game. That's the team that has injured Shaun Alexander and Larry Fitzgerald, so I can blame some of the ineptitude on those guys. And it really is a strong team, with a deep group of receivers and backs. So who knows, I may be able to get a run going and then package some trades to make that team a superbowl contender!

Anyway, I know this fantasy football talk is geeky and uninteresting to a lot of you, but I love the stuff and like to talk about it. Consider yourself lucky--I could be a fantasy GOLF fan. How exciting would those posts be?

Well, that's it for the fake gridiron update. Keep checking the table on the left if you ever wonder how I'm doing. And if you're already in one of my leagues and managed to stumble onto this post, know that I'll consider any trade offer. So keep 'em coming!