Fantasy Football Failure: Week 4

Sports Illustrated. Madden. Campbell's Chunky Soup. This blog.

No denying it, this blog is cursed. Its my blog, and I managed to jinx myself. No other proof is needed.

So after talking smack to Honester Ciphers last week, I lost 68-74. And when you break it down, its all Bill Belichick's fault (and the curse, but one could argue that the curse influenced the Pats D, which is clearly the case). The Patriots D put up a whopping -7 points for me last week. -7 points. I lost by 6 points. If the Pats could have managed 0 points, ZERO points, I would have won 75-74. But no, Belichick couldn't figure out how to stop the read-option. Ronnie Brown scored 5 TD's on the Pats D, 4 rushing, 1 throwing. He ran the read-option as well as Tim Tebow or Chase Daniels; who knew that the franchise QB Miami's been waiting for since the retirement of Dan Marino was Ronnie Brown? Of the 4 rushing TD's, 3 of them came out of the read-option set. In fact, they came off the same play. Direct snap to Brown, play fake to Ricky Williams, Williams runs out wide, Brown goes off tackle, Brown scores. Three times, same play, 3 TD's (and the passing touchdown also came off the read-option set). I thought college offenses weren't supposed to work in the NFL because NFL players were faster and coaches were better at making adjustments. That's apparently not the case in New England. Guess making defensive adjustments is tougher when you can't videotape your opponents signals.

Alright, enough about last week's debacle- onto Week 4, where I'm facing off against Down the Drain, who's currently in first place (he's the only 3-0 team in our league). I've got a lot of guys on the bye week, I'm not feeling good about this match up. When you see the lineups, you'll see why:

QB: J.T. O'Sullivan vs. Trent Edwards
RB: Marion Barber vs. Adrian Peterson
RB: Earnest Graham vs. Maurice Jones-Drew
RB/WR: Chris Johnson vs. Rashad Mendenhall*
WR: Dwayne Bowe vs. T.J. Houshmandzadeh
WR: Vincent Jackson vs. Greg Jennings
TE: Jerramy Stevens vs. Alge Crumpler
D/ST: Falcons vs. Bears
K: Jason Elam vs. Kris Brown
*He's got Kevin Faulk in his lineup right now, but the Pats are on a bye, so I suspect he'll sub in Mendenhall off the bench.

QB: Doesn't seem like sexy match up, O'Sullivan vs. Edwards, but these guys are both having pretty good years. Sullivan came through for me last week (one of the few guys that did), and going against New Orleans's D this week, I expect more of the same. Of course, Edwards has the Rams, so he should also put up big numbers. Probably a push here in points.

RB: I like to think I have an edge on most teams in the RB department, but not so much anymore. I mean, Barber's a beast and is going to put up numbers all year. I expect Graham and Johnson to give me good numbers as well, but that didn't really happen last week. Graham gave me nothing, but that's because the Bucs put it 67 times; I don't expect them to do that every week, but it does scare me a little. And Johnson- well, he's not getting the goal line carries. The Titans are going to LenDale White on the goal line, so if Johnson wants to score, he's going to have to do it at the end of a long run (which wouldn't be a bad thing). But I'd take 10 yards rushing and and 2 TD's over just 80 yards rushing anyday. Going up against Peterson, MJD, and Mendenhall (Parker's out, so Mendenhall's the starter this week), I think I'm behind here. Graham and Johnson need to find the endzone this week or I've got no chance.

WR/TE: The Colts are on the bye, so Vincent Jackson's in for Reggie Wayne. And while the Chiefs suck something awful, Dwayne Bowe is getting his, which is good since he's pretty much all they've got. I'm up against Housh and Greg Jennings, aka the favorite targets of Carson Palmer and Aaron Rogers. Sure, the Bengals offense is still struggling (though they had a good game last week), but they should be okay against Cleveland at home. If they do score, it'll either be Chris Perry on the ground of Housh through the air. He'll produce, as will Jennings against the Bucs. I'll need HUGE days from Bowe and Jackson to keep pace (and the TE points are negligible- neither of us has a big time TE, so those points are pretty meaningless).

DEF/K: As I said, the Pats are on the bye (hopefully spending time in the film room), so I picked up the Falcons D for the week. They had a big week last week, and I'm hoping for the same this week against Carolina. He's got the Bears against Philly, so I need McNabb and Co. to put up big numbers. I've gotten pretty good production (relatively speaking) from the K slot, but my regular (Hanson) is on the bye, so I picked up Jason Elam to fill in. I should be okay because I expect the Falcons (Elam) to score and have more chances to score than the Texans (Brown).

By my calculation, I've got the edge in D/ST and K- not exactly a formula for success. It'll be tough week, and if some of my guys continue to not find the endzone, it'll be even tougher. Its looking like 2-2 after Week 4.