This week was closer than it should have been. I was winning by a slim margin coming into tonight’s game and had 3 players to his one.
Took a chance on my RB and the news was good that he was good to start and feature. Too late to do anything about it, I find out his hamstring hadn’t loosened up and did not play the game. So now down to only 2: a TE and my Eagles DST. Playing against each other.
Well, the score ended up being 59-28 for the Eagles. Considering he had the kicker for the Eagles that amounted to 8 xtra points after TD and 1 FG from 40+ which totals 12.
I was only up by 2.9 coming into this. The tricky part about DST is that they start off with 10 and then decrease as points are scored and yards are racked up against. With a blowout, and so early in the game, it’s inevitable that the defence will loosen up and allow the other team to rack up the yardage. And they did. Enough to elimate all 10 of my starting points PLUS one more to send into the negatives.
Fortunately my TE gave me 2 1/2 and my DST had 2 Sacks and 2 INTS late into the 3rd amounting to 8 1/2. Which kept me alive. But during that 3rd I went from leading to behind by one tenth of a point.
The saving grace, the reason I won, was because my DST intercepted and returned for a touchdown for a net of 8 points with a couple minutes left in the 3rd. Just to elaborate: this was pretty much the last opportunity for an interception to occur as the teams would soon shift into conservative kill the clock mode. So, the last opportunity and it also had to be a throw that if it were intercepted there was no way the offense could catch him before scoring. Basically, this was a cinderella, hail-mary kind of scenario for me. I won by 6.1 points. Without that TD I lose a heartbreaker. Instead, it is sweet, sweet victory against an opponent I have horrible luck against. And a team I loathe. One of those teams that are overloaded with players on the same team. So tough to play against if you hit them on a feast week….which this one was. I rest easy tonight knowing that he is stewing and fuming as I write this.
Now I’m virtually locked for a playoff berth. I need either 1 win in the next 3 or 1 loss by another team in his next 3.
Lesson learnt: I should have played my decent but predictable RB on Sunday instead of rolling the dice on an RB that was questionable with hamstring and the last game of the weekend. To my credit the news was all positive up the kickoff that he was good to go so it was a tough call to make.
A little kick in the pants: His replacement racked up 3 TDs and 140 all-purpose yds. Now I’m afraid my RB has lost his job and I may have to play the waiver and pray that I pick up this new youngster.