Humbled by the fantasy gods

In a word: defeated! I blame this weekend’s fantasy football loss to the Legion of Doom squarely on the St. Louis Cardinals, who evidently sucked up all of the sporting karma in the Bi-State area. The Rams lost this weekend. So did the Missouri Tigers. And the Fighting Illini. And, uh, my heretofore unbeaten Purple Stallions. Though I now find myself tied for wins and losses at 6-1 with the surging luniz scoring machine, I’m bumped to second place because his team has more overall points than mine (1058.67 to 976.85). Oh, the stinging shame of it!

My quarterback situation remains a glaring weakness: The Dallas Cowboys’ demotion of Drew Bledsoe left me scrambling for an alternative, and I settled on Andrew Walter of the Raiders. Bad idea. Walter earned me negative points, as did Chad Pennington of the Jets who picked this weekend to have his worst performance of the year. But it was a QB I don’t even own who unexpectedly did me in at wide receiver: Matt Leinart’s woeful outing for the Arizona Cardinals doomed the usually reliable Anquan Boldin. I also made unfortunate choices in kickers (Wilkins over Gould) and defenses (Carolina over San Diego). These were decisions that looked sound on paper…but then, so did the charge of the Light Brigade.

Well, better to lose now than during the playoffs, I say. The first order of business is to win against D’BrickHOUSE next week. Though we are both hobbled by bye week absences, I’ve worked up some decent replacements for most positions (and am once more rolling the dice on substandard QBs…having no choice). D’BrickHOUSE, on the other hand, seems to have few options for replacements. And his star RB, the dangerous Shaun Alexander, won’t be back from his foot injury this weekend. Woo-hoo!…though I hope he gets better in a week or two.

The dream of an undefeated season is gone. I guess I’ll have to settle for winning the championship.

Addendum: There’s a funny NFL commercial in which a fantasy owner is watching a pre-game show with his buddies. The announcer says, “Julius Jones is useless against the 3-4 defense! Take my advice and bench him!” The owner’s buddies all prod him to make Jones inactive, which he does. Two hours later, the TV displays scenes of Jones making touchdown after touchdown. “Hope you started him!” exclaims the announcer. The owner is reduced to lying on his couch and chewing on the corner of a pillow.

No, I didn’t do that this weekend.

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