Dec 19
So as you all apparently read, this past weekend I began the championship round of my fantasy football league against Lukas and his team of superhuman juggernauts. As Sunday’s events unfolded I received a surprising number of phone calls from people wishing to express their congratulations for what they all reasonably assumed to be my overwhelming victory. For those of you who didn’t follow this week’s football games I will briefly explain why just about everyone in the world would assume that I had won.
Quarterback statistics for Week 15
Tom Brady: 140 yards passing, 0 touchdowns, 1 interception
Tony Romo: 214 yards passing, 0 touchdowns, 3 interceptions, 2 fumbles
Heading into this past Sunday’s game Brady averaged about 28 fantasy points per week while Tony Romo averaged 23. This week Brady and Romo earned 6 points. Combined. It was simultaneously the absolute worst game (by A LOT) of the entire year for both of the two best quarterbacks in the entire league.
Remember that X-factor that I mentioned earlier? I wasn’t making it up. This kind of thing has been happening to my opponents all season. But even beyond the problems of Brady and Romo, my skills extended even further. For reasons defying all human understanding, my championship opponent, Lukas, included in his starting lineup a tight end who did not even play. It wasn’t some huge unavoidable surprise either. About an hour before kickoff I noticed that Benjamin Watson, the normal starting tight end for the Patriots, was listed as inactive for the game – meaning he would not dress and would not play. I waited and waited, refreshing my web browser every ten minutes to see if Lukas was going to sub him out. As kickoff approached with his lineup unchanged I typed in a text message to Lukas and held my thumb softly hovering above the Send button. As the clock ticked past 10am (PST) and the Patriots game officially started – locking out all further changes for that position – I sadistically pressed my thumb down.
MESSAGE SUCCESSFULLY SENT!
About one minute later I received the expected phone call.
“What do you mean?!! Is he not playing?!!”
“Nope.”
“For sure?”
“He’s inactive. I saw it about an hour ago.”
“WHAT?!! And you didn’t tell me?!!”
“Of course not. Why would I…”
Lukas hung up on me. I couldn’t help but laugh. I had even warned him multiple times last week that he should be careful because I might try to hack his mind and make him “start somebody who wasn’t playing.” It was simply amazing that my prophecy came true.
So anyways, let’s recap. Lukas began the day by starting a player who wasn’t playing, and thus guaranteeing a zero in that slot. Then two of his best players each had what are surely among the worst games of their entire careers, combining for only 6 points when they were expected to combine for about 50. There is no way in the world that I should have finished this week with less than a forty point lead.
And yet, I finished Week 15 more than 40 points behind.
The reasons are many, but really, let’s be honest, it all comes down to luck. And despite what I just wrote, this week I was somehow unluckier than Lukas.
While both of his quarterbacks were completely horrible, Lukas’s running backs more than picked up the slack.
LaDainian Tomlinson: 116 yards rushing, 2 touchdowns, 27 fantasy points
Adrian Peterson: 78 yards rushing, 2 touchdowns, 21 fantasy points
Aaron Stecker: 95 yards rushing, 2 touchdowns, 29 fantasy points
Seriously? Aaron Stecker? The third string running back of the Saints scored two touchdowns. And Adrian Peterson had about 15 yards total (and 0 touchdowns) at the beginning of the fourth quarter. LT… was just LT.
Lukas’s three running backs very nearly outscored my entire team combined. Oh, but let’s get into that shall we…
My point production in Week 15 matched my all-time low, and would have actually been my worst ever had it not been for a Minnesota interception with less than one minute left in Monday night’s game. Lukas’s running backs put up 77 points. My whole team managed only 86.
Due to a horrible convergence of injuries, scheduling, and bad matchups I was pretty much forced to start Darius Walker on Thursday night. He was the starting running back for Houston as they played the worst run defense in the entire NFL, the Denver Broncos. Expectedly, Houston scored three rushing touchdowns in that game. Unexpectedly, none of the three were scored by Walker, the team’s starting running back. The quarterback ran one in, then the backup running back ran one in, and then the fullback (who had never scored before… ever) scored the final touchdown. Darius Walker, the starting running back of a run-first team against the worst run defense in the whole league, did jack shit.
So then we turn to my real weapons: my wide receiver corps. As I mentioned before my roster holds three of the top thirteen wide receivers in the NFL, two of them in the top ten. So how did they do this week?
Larry Fitzgerald: 2 catches for 27 yards, 1 touchdown, 10 fantasy points
Plaxico Burress: 3 catches for 35 yards, 0 touchdowns, 6 fantasy points
Joey Galloway: 1 catch for 7 yards, 0 touchdowns, 1 fantasy point
Oh, I also have one of the best tight ends in the NFL, a guaranteed Hall of Famer.
Tony Gonzalez: 3 catches for 17 yards, 0 touchdowns, 4 fantasy points
Awesome. Simultaneous season lows for all four of my best players. Thanks guys!!
Even Peyton Manning had a fairly crappy game, producing 30% below his season average. Eli Manning performed as expected. I expected him to suck and he did.
The best player on my team was Mason Crosby, my kicker. My kicker scored more points than Peyton Manning.
So yeah, I finished the week tied with my season and all-time low of 86 points. Lukas finished with a still respectable 127. I am down 41 points going into Week 16, and that is a deficit that will be all but impossible to overcome. I probably needed a double-digit lead going into the final week to even have a shot. The fates aligned this week to give me a chance, and then, being the cruel bitches they are, threw that unexpected hope right into my face. It really makes it worse. Had I simply been outscored I could have thrown my hands in the air and said, “Well there was nothing that I could do.” Instead, the heavens opened up to tease me with grand illusions of victory. Then, at the very moment that I felt Hope, they cut me down at my knees and doused me with a double helping of defeat.
Good game, Lukas. I hope this victory feels as corrupt and undeserved as we both know it to be. I’ll see you, my friend, on draft day of 2008.