Fantasy Football Failure: Week 6

Where have you gone, Marion Barber? His fantasy totals thus far: 22-23-19-3-8. Just 11 points in the past two weeks and no touchdowns? How does he manage only 8 points against the mighty Bengals of Cincinnati? Inconceivable!

Needless to say, I need Marion Barber to be Marion Barber and put some damn points on the board. I did get the win last week against Team Rekant, 71-54, moving to 3-2 on the year and in a 6-way tie for second (though I'm 5th overall based on total points scored). And I won last week because the only players that showed up for Eh!Steve's team were named Clinton Portis. I got a decent day out of J.T. O'Sullivan (3 touchdowns- good, 3 interceptions- bad) and a good day out of Reggie Wayne (ie- the only non-QB to score a touchdown), and that was pretty much it. Oh, I also got a solid game from my kicker, Matt Prater, but as great as it is to get points from the K position, if you're relying on his points week to week, you've got problems.

On to Week 6. I'm up against Sons of Paul, who, despite being 1-4 and in last place in the league, is favored to win this week based on ESPN.com's projections (which have come to mean just slightly more than nothing in my book). That being said, I think Paulson (Sons of Paul... get it?) has a solid team that I should be worried about.

QB: J.T. O'Sullivan* vs. JaMarcus Russell
RB: Marion Barber vs. Ryan Grant
RB: Earnest Graham vs. Steve Slaton
RB/WR: Laveranues Coles vs. Antwaan Randle El
WR: Reggie Wayne vs. Terrell Owens
WR: Vincent Jackson vs. Wes Welker
TE: Zack Miller vs. Owen Daniels
D/ST: Falcons vs. Vikings
K: Matt Prater vs. Ryan Longwell

QB: Okay, the one position where I think I have a clear-cut advantage. Russell's been decent so far this year, but he plays for the Raiders, so that automatically downgrades his upside. O'Sullivan still managed a good week last week despite throwing 3 picks. I'm tempted to put Palmer back in the lineup (the last two games he's played he's posted 17 and 14 points), but he's elbow's still not 100%, so I don't trust him (nor the Bengals offense in general).

[*Edit (4:00 pm): I've decided that O'Sullivan against Philly's sack-happy defense isn't a real good idea. David Garrard versus Denver's "we can't stop anyone but that's okay because our offense can out score you" defense is a better matchup. So Garrard's in and O'Sullivan's on the bench.]

RB: Barber and Graham have had a hard time finding the end zone recently. This needs to change. I expect Barber to pick it up and get back on track (hopefully sooner rather than later). Graham, however, is a mystery. It hurts that he's splitting carries with Warrick Dunn, but he's still able to put up okay fantasy numbers. There's not much on the waiver wire in a 14 team league, so I'm kind of stuck with him. On the other side of the aisle, Paulson's got Ryan Grant and Steve Slaton. Slaton's a beast, easily the second best rookie RB this year (behind Matt Forte). And while Grant's struggled so far, he's got a favorable matchup against Seattle this week, which could help him get healthy.

WR/TE: I'm not excited about these matchups. I expect Wayne to get him numbers, even against Baltimore's D, and hopefully the Coles-Favre hookup didn't cool off over the bye week (and speaking of byes, that's the reason Jackson's in there- I'm not expecting much from him, just no negative points). But Paulson's got Owens (who should get plenty of balls his way, even if he does drop a lot of them), Randle El (who's got an easy matchup against the lowly Rams), and Welker (who should get a lot of looks because it appears the Pats are keeping Cassel to the short, underneath routes, which is where Welker lives). As for the TE's, they don't really matter unless you've got a superstar, which neither of our guys are, so anything I can get out of them is a bonus (though I think Daniels will get more looks from Schaub than Miller will from Russell). I think I'm behind in receivers, so I'll need Coles to go off for 105 and 3 TD like he did two weeks ago when I had him on the bench to have a chance.

DEF/K: I'm starting the Falcons over the Pats because I think Atlanta's got a better chance against the Kyle Orton-led Bears than New England's got against LT and the Chargers. Don't think it much anyway because I'm up against the Vikings versus the Lions, who are the saddest team in all of football (worse than the Bengals and Rams). Guess I'm going to need another big day from Prater kicking field goals and extra points.

I really don't know what's going to happen this week. It could be a blowout or a nail-biter for either team and I wouldn't be surprised. But "push" isn't how I roll, so I'll man up and make a prediction- despite good games from Slaton, Randle El, and Owens, I win in a close one behind huge games from Barber and Coles (and Wayne regular numbers). I go to 4-2 and hopefully move a step closer to 1st place with a loss by Down the Drain (who's currently 5-0).