Fantasy Football: It Messes With Your Head

I'll keep this brief, because I realize that there is possibly nothing more boring than reading about someone's fantasy football exploits. I'm not into FF very deep this season - I'm only playing in one league. And I doubt I've spent more than 30 minutes a week on it this year, which is probably too much. Like the Denver Broncos, I started out hot, winning my first three. But I've been in a bit of a slide since then and currently stand at 5-5.

I lost this last week by some ridiculously small margin - 2.8 points or something. And I should have won - if I had not thought about it too hard. You see, part of my strategy this year was to go heavy on receivers - I picked Reggie Wayne, Andre Johnson, and Brandon Marshall with three of my first four picks. And then I added Calvin Johnson later on. You play three receivers in my league - so having four recievers works out good if one of them has a bye - but otherwise I'm always worried about sitting the wrong guy on the bench.

Brandon Marshall started out the year strong but has slowed down a bit since. So with three other receivers playing well, I decided to sit him on the bench this past week. So he goes out and has a big game, outscoring the two Johnsons for the week. If I would have played him, I would have won! So frustrating.

But more frustrating was my own reaction when watching the Broncos-Browns game on Thursday night. Marshall caught the winning TD pass to complete a dramatic fourth-quarter comeback for the Broncos. And I remember being a little ticked off that it was Marshall who was the recipient of the TD pass. He made my decision to sit him on the bench look bad! How dare he! Wait a minute. . . the Broncos are my team - why am I not way more excited that they just took the lead with a minute to go?

Similarly, the Broncos fell behind in this game 17-7. I should have been really mad that the Broncos were playing poorly yet again. Yet this bad news was softened a bit by the fact that both Cleveland touchdowns had been scored by Kellen Winslow. You guessed it - Winslow is the TE on my fantasy team.

In conclusion, don't play this game - it really screws up your rooting interests.

I'll probably keep playing, though, because everyone is doing it.