Fantasy Football Failure: Week 7

As has been made evident by this blog, I'm terrible at predicting the outcome of my fantasy football league. I thought last week's match up against Sons of Paul would be a close one because my guys hadn't been playing well recently and a lot of his guys were in favorable match ups. As it turned out, I won in a blowout 100-59 (my three top scorers Marion Barber, Reggie Wayne, and Vincent Jackson put up 58 on their own). Simply put, my guys found the end zone and Paulson's guys didn't (well, Marvin Harrison did, but Paulson had him on the bench... not that those 20 points would have helped him anyway).

So I'm now 4-2 and in a 5-way tie for second (4th overall by points scored). But previously undefeated Down The Drain lost, so I'm only 1 game back in the standings. This week, I'm playing my buddy E's team, Kwijybo's Killer Clowns (2-4).

QB: J.T. O'Sullivan vs. Brett Favre
RB: Marion Barber vs. Jamal Lewis
RB: Earnest Graham vs. T.J. Duckett
RB/WR: Chris Johnson vs. Brandon Stokely
WR: Reggie Wayne vs. Calvin Johnson
WR: Vincent Jackson vs. DeSean Jackson
TE: Zach Miller vs. Chris Cooley
D/ST: Patriots vs. Giants
K: Matt Prater vs. Nick Folk

QB: With Garrard on a bye and Palmer injured (he's got a roster spot why?), it's back to Mr. Regional-Family-Style-Sit-Down-Restaurant-Chain to QB my team. Not that it matters too much, since E's got Favre and Favre's playing the Raiders. I expect big numbers from Favre (which makes me think I should put Coles back into my lineup...). With O'Sullivan playing the Giants (E's D/ST), I just need him to not throw interceptions so he doesn't simultaneously take points from me and give points to E.

RB: With Romo out and Brad Johnson it, I tend to think that the Cowboys will run the ball a bit more. And with Felix Jones out, that means plenty of carries for Marion Barber. His rushing numbers have been down recently (last week's huge play was a 70-yard TD pass), but I expect that to improve. Chris Johnson is coming off a bye vs. hapless Kansas City, so I expect a good game from him. And while Earnest Graham is still splitting carries (and now potentially playing a little fullback), he got a goalline carry and a TD last week. And if that's all I get out of him, I'll take it. E's got Jamal Lewis (who's decent) and T.J. Duckett (who's had 1 good game) at RB, so I feel confident I can overcome whatever point difference I have at QB with my RB's.

WR/TE: As I stated before, Reggie Wayne and Vincent Jackson had monster games last week. I expect that out of Wayne; not so much with Jackson. His getting a fair amount of looks from Rivers, and piled up way more yards than I had expected him to. I just want Rivers to look his way in the red zone. E's got DeSean Jackson in his lineup right now, but he's on a bye, so I expect E to make the appropriate roster move (he'll probably move Stokely to the WR spot and put RB Fred Jackson in the flex spot; which still doesn't worry me at the RB position). Stokely's a solid WR choice, but the guy can't even recall how may concussions he's had, which can't be a good thing- he might not even play this week. Calvin Johnson's also coming off a concussion (man, E, what's with your WR's?), but its looking like he's going to play. And his problem isn't his head; its his QB. He can't have a lot of confidence in Dan Orlovsky after watching him run out of bounds for a safety in last week's game. I should be up at WR, which is good because E's got one of the few playmaker TE's in Chris Cooley. Cooley's had a bit of a slow start, but he can bust loose at any time, especially with Clinton Portis running the ball better now.

DEF/K: The Pats are playing Denver and the Giants are playing the 49ers. I expect better numbers from the Giants here. Best case scenario? The Rams give up a lot of TD's to the Cowboys (specifically Barber) and Nick Folk is stuck kicking extra points all day and the Pats D stuffs the Denver offense and the Broncos have to rely on Matt Prater field goals for points. But that's probably not going to happen.

I'm seeing a fairly easy win this week. I'm on a little roll right now and E's back on his heels a bit. If I get the same type of performances I got last week, I should be fine.