Welcome to Fantasy Land!

Good morning fantasy friends!

Today is Saturday September 26, 2009 so you have a little more than 24 hours to get your fantasy act together or you may end up with that crucial week 3 L.  

It has been a very interesting week in fantasy land for me.  Lots of wheeling and dealing, some unfortunate attempts at cheating and a hazy injury to Marion the Barbarian.  Let’s begin with this “cheating” situation:

So, I am in a random NFL.com fantasy football league. We’ll call it the “Bush League” which is a very appropriate title for so many reasons.  One great fantasy insight that I’ve picked up this year is setting up my fantasy alerts.  (In most leagues you can set up regular e-mail alerts that notify you of a player’s status, league transactions, starting line-ups, trades, etc).  These alerts are very useful because it allows me to check on important league activity without having to log into the site every five minutes.  My fantasy alerts proved to be very useful this week. 

You can imagine my surprise when I received notification of a pending trade involving “Bush team 1” and “Bush team 2”.  (Although I have aliased the names of these two teams for confidentiality and competitive purposes everyone should know that the real names of these two teams were very similar which raised a red flag in my head from the beginning, but I digress.)  My notification revealed to me that there was a pending trade that would send Chris Johnson and Andre Johnson from Bush team 1 to Bush team 2 for Joseph Addai and Michael Jenkins.  Now to the average person this is no big deal because the players play the same position and 2 equals 2.  But to “fantasy landers” this is sheer blasphemy.  Consider the fact that Chris Johnson scored 3 touchdowns last week of 50 yards or more and amassed 45 fantasy points!  Andre Johnson is the best receiver in the game right now and he scored a titanic 26 points last week!  Why the hell would you trade these guys off of your football team!  Especially when Joseph Addai and Michael Jenkins combined for 6 fantasy points!  Are you kidding me?! You are going to trade 71 points for 6 points!  

I was outraged by this transaction and immediately vetoed the trade (trades get a maximum of 3 vetoes before being reviewed by the commissioner). I saw that someone else had vetoed the trade bringing the total to 2 and I new that there was no way this thing was going down.  To make sure that this thing didn’t happen I wrote on the message board and e-mailed to every owner in the league that this trade was going to provide an unfair advantage and that everyone should review this trade and determine if it was fair.  At this point I started to cool down, but my blood began boiling again when I found out that not only did the two teams have very similar names, but the owners had the same last name.  What the…!  Either these guys are brothers or they may even be the same person. Are they trying to lend players to eachother for certain weeks?  And to make matters worse, the team that was receiving this generous offer is playing me this week!  I was incensed at this point and became even angrier when a full day passed and no one else vetoed the trade.  I thought the trade would go through the next morning, which would have resulted in me writing a serious protest, but to my surprise there was an extension of the voting process.  Still a full day passed and no one else voted to veto the trade.  This is what happens when you enter a league with half-assed owners.  The final result was that the trade for Chris Johnson and Joseph Addai went through, but not the trade for Andre Johnson and Michael Jenkins.  That is still pretty ridiculous but not as bad.  I will keep you posted on the comings and goings of the “Bush League”

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only fantasyland disaster of the week.  My man, Marion the Barbarian, injured his quad on a 35 yard run against the New York Giants Sunday night (It could have been a 42 yard touchdown run had he not pulled up lame which would have been bank in my fantasy leagues).  Barber is a bread-winner on 3 of my fantasy team so the injury was devastating.  Now, different news sources are going back and forth as to his status for Monday Night’s game against the Panthers.  First he is doubtful, then he is 50-50, then he says “I’m fine”, then the coach says “I’m not sure.”  This guy is sending more mixed signals than your high school prom date.  

I wasn’t sure what to do initially, but I took my friend Steve Bass’ advice and I made the right choice- Tashard Choice that is.  Choice (doesn’t that word look really funny spelled out?) Is a back-up running back in Dallas and I knew at the beginning of the season he wouldn’t see much time unless someone got hurt.  Last season he stepped in when the top two running backs were injured and performed very well.  That time has come again.  Although he will be sharing carries with the electric Felix Jones, they are playing a porous run defense in the Carolina Panthers and he should get some goal line carries. I look for him to score between 10 and 15 fantasy points this week.

I also made a trade this week in the Thunderk%#$^s league that wrenched at my heart a little bit.  Earlier in the week, my home boy Melvin Laguarta offered me Thomas Jones for Brandon Jacobs.  Being a Cowboys fan, I hate Brandon Jacobs and he’s been terrible at the beginning of the season, so this was a no-brainer for me.  A couple days later The Commish offered me Dwayne Bowe and Julius Jones for Thomas Jones.  This was a tough decision to make for so many reasons.  I not only love Thomas Jones as a player and a person (no homo), but he is from my alma mater UVa, and is a big reason why UVa was my number one school coming out of high school.  And besides that, the guy is dating Meagan Good!

But, I’ve learned over the years that you can’t play fantasy football with your heart.  Julius Jones isn’t a great option but I have several good running backs and he always has the potential for a big game.  What I don’t have is wide receivers and I needed on bad.  Dwayne Bowe is a really good option because he is the only option in Kansas City. He’s scored a touchdown in every game this season and I’m hoping he’ll continue that trend. So I made the deal!  Although I hate to see T.J. go, I had to do what was best for the team…

Hear are my line ups for this week for those who are curious. 

NFL.com Leagues

Cash Money League                                                  Bush League

I have Marion Barber in both of these leagues, so I still have to wait on his status before my line ups are set.  My teams are eerily similar so that should lead to a similar level of success.

ESPN.com Leagues

Thunderk%#$^s                                                       No Cry Football

I expect Romo to bounce back against Carolina.  Reggie Bush should have a big game against the worst past defense in the league, and the running backs that would be getting most of the goal line carries are injured.  Chris Well should be interesting to watch.  He fumbled twice last week so a lot of owners were down on him, but one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.  I know Arizona wants to get this guy the ball, so I look forward to him playing big this week.  And David Garrard may be the most underrated player in football, if there was one player I might consider replacing Tony Romo with as Cowboys QB it would be this guy…seriously.