The Replacements

The last time I mentioned fantasy football on here was October 26th. A snapshot of that point in time had me at 2-5 overall and on a 2 game losing streak (good enough for 9th place in a 12 team league). Michael Vick had a bye week that particular week, and even when he was on the field he was playing like garbage. Fast forward 5 weeks later, and lamenting picking Vick as my #1 overall draft pick is the only thing that has remained the same. After not playing in the last 2 games and already being ruled-out of this Thursday’s game in Seattle, I decided to drop Vick from my roster. It’s a stunning turnabout for a guy that I thought could potentially win the league for me by myself. Looking back now, it was a horrendous pick. I could’ve gone with a safe choice at running back like Adrian Peterson or Arian Foster. Even though those guys have suffered through injuries during different parts of the year, they have both been solid. I could’ve gone with Aaron Rodgers, who was actually my 2nd choice. Even though running backs are generally safer picks, I felt that the top-tier QBs had the most potential for having ridiculous fantasy years. Even Rodgers would have been a safer pick than Vick though. I decided to gamble on Vick because while he had the biggest propensity to do exactly what he has done so far this year (namely, keep getting hurt and playing lousy for the most part), he also could have had the greatest season in fantasy football history if he played his best and stayed healthy. Unfortunately for me, he has done neither. Meanwhile, Rodgers is the top rated player in all of fantasy this year…while Vick is currently a free agent in our league along with the likes of QBs on IR like Matt Schaub and busts like Tavaris Jackson (I actually picked Jackson up for 1 week for an emergency start).

A familiar sight this season.

To top it off, my team has been devastated at RB. Tim Hightower had already been lost for the year with a torn ACL by my last fantasy post, but my only fantasy stud, Fred Jackson, has since been placed on IR with a broken leg also. If you factor in that I dropped Felix Jones several weeks back in favor of his backup, DeMarco Murray, when he was out a couple of weeks with a shoulder injury, only 2 of my top 7 picks are even still on my roster…and those 2 guys have been shaky at best for me lately. Mike Wallace’s pace has slowed dramatically since the beginning of the year when he looked like he might challenge the single season record books for receivers, and Jermichael Finley could have 3 TDs 1 game and then go weeks without sniffing the end zone again. In fact, if you look at my draft results the only players still on my roster that I originally drafted are Wallace, Finley, James Starks, Julio Jones, and Ben Tate. Jones has had a couple of big weeks, but seems to miss every other game with a bad hamstring. Tate and Starks have been good spot starters, but 1 is a backup to the best back in the league, and the other splits carries with Ryan Grant in a predominantly passing offense…not a good combination if consistent production is what you’re after.

Oh, Mike Wallace...wherever have you gone?

With all that info, you would probably guess that I went from 2-5 to 2-10 by now…and yet I’ve managed to win 4 out of 5 to move to 6-6 overall. Even stranger, there is a logjam in the middle of the league standings right now (5 teams at either 6-6 or 5-6-1), and with last week’s win I moved from 9th place all the way to 5th due to tiebreakers. How is this possible? Well, the 1st thing is that as bad as I drafted, I probably have been that good at picking free agents up. Murray, Plaxico Burress, and Laurent Robinson (who knew?) have all saved my ass in various weeks. The other (and more important factor) has been that I’ve been very lucky, which ironically is something I didn’t have in the beginning of the year at all. Back on October 26th, I had scored more points than almost every other team in the league, but had the most points scored against my team as well. I was in 1 of those stretches where if I had the 2nd highest point total of any team in a particular week, I just so happened to play the guy who had the most points that week. Since then, those numbers have kind of evened out, as I’m more in the middle of the pack in terms of total points scored and points scored against. Which means even though I had my share of 119-108 losses earlier in the year, I’ve had a few 77-67 matchups go may favor since then as well.

Now, if only I can avert any other disasters for 2 more weeks, I should at least make the playoffs, and getting a chance to make a playoff run is really all you can ask for in fantasy sports. So, even if Starks or Tate might be slightly better plays, I felt it was only right to roll the dice and go with the backups of the guys I used to have this week (Murray, CJ Spiller, and Roy Helu). I also couldn’t resist changing my team name to “Injured Reserve.” I know they say you shouldn’t tempt fate, but nothing about this fantasy season has been conventional for me thus far…why should it stop now?

A heavy dose of Roy Helu against the Jets would be just what the doctor ordered.