It was a horrible weekend in football.
Well, for some of us it was. I realize that some of you, named Kami, had a damned good time, and I'm glad for that because I have orange in my blood on My Father's side. In fact, I have his degree from UT Austin hanging on my wall. But beyond this one glimmer of football goodness, this was a horrible nightmare of a weekend for me. Oh wait, the Gators won, too, which is nice for me and nice for you, too. But other than that .... sucky sucky sucky.
OK, let me give some background before I go into detail. First, I have been a Dallas Cowboys fan since I was a tiny little kid. How tiny, you ask? Since Roger Staubach was quarterback and Tom Landry was coach. Yes, that's a DAMN long time.
So let's start with Saturday. OK, how the hell does a number 2 ranked Auburn Tiger team lose to an unranked Arkansas Razorback team? Were they drunk? Did they forget to show up, like some pro players I'll discuss in a minute? What the hell?
OK, the Gators won and that's awesome. And the Longhorns won and we all know there was much rejoicing, including some spray paint in someone's yard that was blogged complete with photos of Kami in the act. That's all good. And I can cope with Auburn losing if everything else goes well, but it didn't. No, because Sunday came and the sky fell like seagulls pooping on the beach.
At my new job I am in a hallway with a bunch of young, male, geeks who like to make everyone play Fantasy Football. That's all well and good, except that I have never played Fantasy Football and know nothing about it. I also haven't been trying to keep up with the pro teams and their players since the early days of salary caps and teams completely swapping out all their players every single season. I just got tired of asking "who is that guy in the Dallas backfield" season after season. You can only learn so many names and stats before, and I know this may shock some of you, but before you just get sick of it.
Yes, I am a Dallas fan, but I can't remember Drew Bledsoe's name to save my life. All I know about him is that he's 6'5" and throws some shitty, inaccurate ducks. Especially when he's playing against Philly. Or pretty much any other pro team. Apparently we imported him from New England after they decided that wounded ducks weren't so awesome or something. And our running back? His name is J-something Jones. I don't remember how you pronounce it, but his last name is Jones so you know we must be related. Anyway, he's just OK. His backup, Marion Barber, is pretty good. As for the rest of the team, I have no clue.
Oh, but I know Vanderjagt's name, because I drafted him on my Fantasy Football team. Yeeha. He's got a groin injury problem. Also, Dallas apparently has a habit of ruining good kickers. Yeah, sure as hell the moment a kicker arrives in Dallas his confidence goes to hell and his concentration is shot. I don't know what they're doing to their kickers in Dallas, but it's clearly unhealthy and they should stop it right now.
So, my point is that I don't know who the stars in pro football are anymore. And I don't know Vanderjagt about fantasy football. But I'm learning.
So, back to my lousy weekend in Football. Saturday Auburn lost, but Texas and Florida won, which is a wash to me. Yes, I live in Memphis and I really don't care what UT Knoxville or Memphis does. Seriously. Don't care.
In pro games I needed to watch several because I have a lot of offensive players scattered around the league. For example, my Wide Receiver is a Washington Redskin. His name is Santana Moss. Last week he scored 3 or 4 touchdowns for me and was my hero. He was especially heroic to me because my starting Quarterback, Cincinatti's Palmer, got his ass handed to him by a big mean New England Patriot team minus Drew Bledsoewhat. Palmer has been my star, but last week he got his ass rammed. But back to Palmer in a moment. This week, my hero, Santana Moss, scored a grand total of zero touchdowns. He hardly did anything at all. I got 1.95 points out of him for simply running 39 whopping yards in a pounding at the hands of the New York Giants.
Getting back to my Quarterback, Palmer. He had a bye this week, which means his team didn't play. So I had to go with my still-struggling backup, Pittsburgh's Ben Roethlisberger. Ben rides motorcycles without a helmet on and then crashes them. When the season started he had a headache and an appendicitis, so he started the season on the bench sucking painkillers. Now he's back on the field and good for negative points. Yes, negative points. He throws interceptions faster than Drew Bledsoe, and that's pretty damn fast. This week I had no choice but to play him as my QB. So I watched his game against San Diego and I focused on him. He's accurate, I'll give him that. He's a better Quarterback than Drew Bledsoe, who isn't on my Fantasy Football team. But when you hit him he shits his pants and reflexively throws the football as hard as he can straight up into the air. This is a bad habit for a quarterback to have. Doctors say it will pass as his post-traumatic stress disorder slowly subsides. But in the meantime, he wrecks good scoring drives with massive interceptions. He scored no points and was only worth 0.40 points in Fantasy Football this week, which is a huge step forward from the -1.89 he scored when he last played.
For running backs I have 2. One is Dallas's J. Jones, whose first name I can't recall. He's usually just OK. Last week he was a star. This week he scored nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch. For running over 100 yards he gained me 6.10 points in Fantasy Football, which isn't much. My other running back is New England's Dillon. He didn't score either. Holy Mother of God.
My other Wide Receiver, my last hope, is the New York Jet's L. Coles. He got his ass handed to him along with the rest of his team by Jacksonville. The entire team scored no points, so obviously he was worthless to me as well.
My Tight End is Washington's Cooley. Cooley didn't score, making it unanimous for me. My ENTIRE OFFENSE scored not a single touchdown. Nothing. Zero.
Dammit.
In Fantasy Football, apparently you can also get points from your defense. My Defense is Indianapolis. They played Tennessee. You'd think Indianapolis would have handed Tennessee's ass to them with no trouble, but in this weekend from Football Hell it was not to be. No, they had to come from behind and barely won 14-13. My Defense gained me 7 points.
So, that's almost nothing from my offense. 7 points from my Defense. All that's left is my Kicker.
Oh, thank God above for my Kicker! I have Chicago's R. Gould. Chicago beat the living shit out of Buffalo this weekend by a score of 40-7. And Gould was responsible for a reasonable amount of this. He gained me nearly 20 points.
So my Kicker scored more points for me than my entire offense and my entire defense. He's my whole team. Yes, what a man.
In Fantasy Football you have to play in a league. My League is all guys from my work. Each week your team is matched up against someone else's team. I was 3 and 1 up to now. Needless to say, this weekend I lost bad. Not only that, but my opponent, who pounded me, still has players yet to play in tonight's Monday Night Femmeball matchup. So he's likely going to score even more points than he already has. Right now he has beaten me 44 to 75 or something like that. He could probably go over 100 after tonight, but it doesn't matter. I won't be watching.
I'm just hoping next week, when my regular Quarterback is playing again, and I'm forced to swap to my backup defense, which is the Jets, because Indianapolis has a bye, that I get some offense again. This was a painful weekend. Mighty painful.
I can't believe my Kicker was my only actual scorer of the entire team. Oh my God.
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