First round of the playoffs and I’m ousted. My Fantasy Football team this year was much better than last and I still come up short. Granted I was a 2 point underdog to my opponent, and lo and behold, I lost by 2.5. But personally, I know the spread was wrong and that I should have been the favourite. I’d been scoring 90+ points the last couple of games. My team was finally injury free and was playing their potential as opposed to their woeful ways earlier in the season.
So I thought I was coming in hot. I ended up losing 78.7 – 76.5 Both scores are ‘decent’ but not spectacular. If I substitute Brandon Marhsall for Joey Galloway like I was oh so close to doing, I be sitting at 89 pts which would have easily covered. Hindsight, you are an evil temptress.
It turned out that the dagger was the Sunday Night game where Addai was up against the Ravens who had just played a great game against the Pats the week before and their defense was looking strong. Unfortunately Addai torched them for 2 2 RuTD and 1 ReTD totalling 20 pts and thus eliminating by 18 pt advantage. Considering how awful he’s played all season, you can qualify this as a miracle. I was beat by a miracle!
To salt the wound, the site made a correction this morning. I was losing 78.7 – 70.5 last night. This morning I had 6 pts tacked on due to a DTD by the Packers that was not factored in. Oh how that hurts.
I can go on saying “If only I had played x instead of y” but that will only turn my rash-plagued head even redder. Why do I have a rash you ask? Because I went to the Bills game yesterday (The torched the Dolphins 38-17 in a snowy debacle) while my fantasy team was building its soon to be negated lead.
Instead, it’s time to do some reflections while the sting of the iron is hot. Lessons learnt:
1) Pit your WR against the opponent’s complimentary QB. I had been doing this all season to great success. Why I didn’t play Marshall against his Cutler confounds me. I guess I bought into the hype that Galloway vs the Texans is a better matchup than Marshall against the 5th ranked pass defense of KC. If only I had pulled the last second trigger that I was agonizing over. If only the site had left the injury marker on him instead of removing it and giving him the OK from a decision standpoint. Arghh!
2) Continue to play the matchups. Even though I was victimized by my decision in #1, having a team that has capable players from top to bottom always means that a decision will need to be made that will leave points on the bench. Potentially more points on the bench than some other teams’ active players score in a week! So I have to play the matchups and as I saw this season, it usually works out in my favour. Unfortunately it wasn’t in the cards this time around. It is the most agonizing, yet the most alluring aspect of the game: The game time decisions. I think I’m very good at this and am quite grateful that I have such a well rounded team that I am forced to make these decisions week in and week out.
3) That being said in #2, I think I may be leaving too many points on the bench. That is, I think I’m ‘over’ balanced. I have 4 starting RBs. It is a great thing to have 4 top RBs in the league. But only great for insurance purposes. The past few weeks I’ve left 3 or 4 RuTDs and at least 400 yds on the bench. Meanwhile, I’m sitting with 2 very young, very talented, yet very unpredictable QBs in Schaub and (alas) Vince Young. This was a blaring hole in my output in my loss yesterday. With Schaub out due to injury I was left withough choices and forced to play Young vs. the Chargers. A wildcard situation in my mind. Feast or famine. Turned out to be famine with -0.5 pts on the board. Oh, ANY other QB would have gotten me about 4 points, ironically enough to win. So, although these QBs can (and most likely will) be very productive players, I need to go out and get some consistency/experience. Not an old guy who’s winding down, but a QB that is about 6-7 yrs on a passing offense (Carson Palmer? Hasselback?). Since I MUST drop 4 players to be able to hand over my 1st round draft pick (I made a trade for Brandon Marshall (does the irony get any thicker) for my #1 a few weeks ago), the obvious strategy is to do a bundle of sorts that will get me an upgrade. E.g. one of my RBs and WRs for a QB, or maybe a better fit: one of my RBs and Young/Schaub for a top tier QB. Hmm, that sounds more interesting.
The problem is that with my 1st pick next year being in the middle of the 2nd round, there won’t be any RBs to replace with. Not the end of the world. But when I think about what I’m going to have to drop: my kicker, my 3rd QB, my Eagles defense and ?? (likely Joey Galloway), I’m likely going to be trying to ‘regain’ some of these players back. I.e. recapture the Eagles as my 1st pick since they should be still around by then. Then recapture Galloway or upgrade depending.
The long and short is that I have a young strong RB staff, a very young and from the stats, the #1 receiving corp even though I don’t have any true #1 WRs. So, there is a chance for upgrade there. Trade Ward and Galloway or Ward and Young/Schaub for a #1 WR or #1 QB…..either way somethings got to happen before the draft so that I’m not just dumping Galloway for nothing. Plus, like I said, I’m overbalanced and would love to shift some of those bench points into the active lineup. I will assume more risk to injury if I can get more consistency into the lineup. I know that my deep bench was the only reason I was able to salvage a playoff spot, but I see that I’m always going to be dogfighting and never being the dominant team without adding another premium player to the roster at QB and/or WR. The draft is not going to be the solution here. I need the big off-season trade!!!
So, there’s the season. Over and done with ‘officially’. I’m going to torture myself this weekend by setting my line-up as if I were still alive and unofficially pitting it against the team I would have played had I not been robbed. It will be a tough outing (this is the textbook powerhouse team that I’m aspiring for) since that team averages about 95 points per outing. AVERAGING! I only topped 95 two times in my career! If I somehow win this game I am going to go ballistic and then retire. I simply could not handle the fact that by not playing Marshall was my downfall. A season should simply not come down to that minute of a decision! Come on! And if i ‘virtually’ go all the way and then win in the finals, I will be devastated.