Fantasy Football Failure: Week 5

GiantAsianMan vs. Week 4 Opponent (Down The Drain) - 74-82; another loss (though not as bad as I'd predicted)

GiantAsianMan vs. GiantAsianMan's Week 4 bench - 74-63

I left 63 points on the bench (all from 3 guys- David Garrard's 23, Michael Bush's 12, and Laveranues Coles's 26); that would've beaten four teams in my league and tied a fifth this week. And while that's incredibly frustrating, you can't play using hindsight. Garrard had been averaging about 6 points a week as compared to J.T. O'Sullivan's 13; you knew Garrard was going to break out at some point, but until then I'm going to start the guy that's been performing. No one could have predicted that Brett Favre would throw for 6 touchdowns and that 3 of them (along with 105 yards) would go to Laveranues "I miss Chad Pennington, oh wait, not anymore" Coles. Who would've thought that Marion Barber would only get 8 carries and manage a mere 3 points? No one.

So after a fast start to the season, I'm now 2-2 and sitting in 7th place (by total points) in the league. Week 5 has me up against another 2-2 team, Team Rekant (creative name there, Eh!Steve), league commissioner and last year's champion.

QB: J.T. O'Sullivan vs. Drew Brees
RB: Marion Barber vs. Clinton Portis
RB: Earnest Graham vs. Jonathan Stewart
RB/WR: Chris Johnson vs. Jerious Norwood
WR: Reggie Wayne vs. Santonio Holmes
WR: Robert Meachem vs. Josh Reed
TE: John Carlson vs. L.J. Smith
D/ST: Patriots vs. Packers
K: Matt Prater vs. Josh Scobee

QB: No contest here, Brees should crush O'Sullivan this week. Brees should pick apart Minnesota (one reason that I picked up Robert Meachem at WR this week) and O'Sullivan is up against the Patriots (which puts my fantasy team into slight conflict of interest). Brees is a better QB with more weapons around him, playing against a lesser opponent. If O'Sullivan can get a TD and not throw any picks, I'll be happy.

RB: I really feel that in any given week, I have an edge in the RB department (of course, that's assuming Marion Barber gets more than 8 carries). Eh!Steve's got some decent backs in Portis, Stewart, and Norwood, but I still feel like I should out score them. Norwood's got a favorable matchup against the Pack, but Stewart is still splitting carries for Carolina and Portis has a tough game against the Eagles D. On my side, its Barber vs. the Bengals and Graham vs. the Broncos- both guys should have huge games because those teams can't stop anyone (and it should offset what I expect to be a tough week for Johnson vs. the Ravens).

WR/TE: As I mentioned above, I picked up Robert Meachem of the Saints to replace Dwayne Bowe in my lineup this week. Bowe's a solid receiver, but he plays for a crappy team that limits his fantasy chances. So I decided to take some advice directly from the Talanted Mr. Roto (ESPN's fantasy expert Matthew Berry) and pick up Meachem because the Vikings are susceptible to the deep ball, which is exactly how the Saints are using Meachem in their offense. So we'll see how Mr. Berry's advice turn out this week. I'm not real scared of Eh!Steve's receivers, though I expect Holmes to get a lot of looks this week because the Steelers are on their 19th RB for the year and they'll probably be throwing a lot. As usual, the TE position doesn't matter.

DEF/K: As long as the 49ers don't put Frank Gore into the read-option formation, I expect the Patriots D to score in the positive points this week (just as long as the points don't come from J.T. O'Sullivan interceptions). Eh!Steve's got the Pack, which is one of the higher scoring D's. I also picked up a new K in Matt Prater simply because he's currently the highest scoring fantasy K thus far (and I'm up against Josh Scobee, the second highest scoring fantasy kicker).

In the end, I think I'm cautiously optimistic for a win this week. Solid games from my RB's, no mistakes from my QB, and non-negative points from my D/ST and I should move to 3-2.