Cowards die many times before their deaths…………
My fantasy team is the Breesettes. But is my namesake worthy? Against the undefeated Giants no less? Perhaps not. Then again, maybe so.
For the first two weeks of the season, Drew Brees delivered me on a winged chariot to the 2-0 Promised Land. Lately, however, Brees has struck out. He sputtered versus the lost and drifting Bills o’ Buffalo laying me an egg of five yolky fantasy points and making Lawrence Tynes a more valuable contributor. On Week 4 he played the Rex Ryan blitz-happy Jets. More of the same. Mr. Brees, where is your work pail? Go to work young man and bring me back more than 8 measly points! In fact, Drew, don’t come back until you’ve got double digits.
And “don’t come back” he did, leaving me week five with a bye. Oh no!
But wait, I have a brilliant back up, the legendary, the Hall of FAME, the gunslinger Brett Favre!!!!! I had Brett Favre, who had shredded the Packers just a week before his needed services on the Breesettes. He virtually had his own scoreboard on my bench as he threw for 29 porcelain shiny new fantasy points in week 4. Surely Favre would bring his lunch pail and his wranglers to week 5. Surely the legend wouldn’t leave me with another lackluster QB performance. I have Favre! He’s my sub. He was forty (well, almost forty)… shouldn’t that be worth at least twenty points right there? FAVRE, he who would certainly make mince meat of the ramshackle, debacle, can’t even tackle, Rams. Right? Right? Wrong. Yes, WRONG.
Wrong because I was following “Fantasy Logic”. That’s right. Say it three times aloud. Fantasy logic. Fantasy logic! Fantasy logic? Ah ha. There it is. A conundrum. Fantasy is both illogical and fanciful. Logic is neither fanciful nor illogical. You may be tempted to trust logic in fantasy, but what you should trust most is something closer to lady luck. That’s why you have me. I may not be the most skilled at selecting your bye week tight-end replacement or solving your Brian Westbrook injury problems, but you have me to comfort you after all of your guffaws, blunders and losses. You have me when you are cut and scraped and all your logic has been scooped out of your head like a melon ball. You have me to tell you that it’s not your fault. I will put a band-aid on it, kiss it, and make it better. I will tell you that you are not stupid but rather just unlucky, the victim of believing in fantasy logic.
You are not stupid, just unlucky that Rashard Mendenhall had a career day on your bench. You are not stupid, just unlucky that some guy named Ryan picked up Austin Collie when the only Collie you knew was Lassie. You are not stupid, just unlucky that the 49er’s defense was picked up on the waiver wire to play your bullet proof army of Drew Brees loving fantasy football Rockettes on a week where the St. Louis Rams thought they were on bye. I, fantasy maverick, will pick you up as you lie face down in the mud and tell you that fantasy logic is neither. Fantasy logic is a paradox, or is it an oxymoron, or are you the oxy moron?
Ever week we fantasy players are faced with a problem of monumental proportions, will we bite, will we believe, will we bow to fantasy logic? Will we let it hurt us, reducing us to pagans of the fantasy faith, smiting down our statistical truths? Or will we fight back with such strange things as Tony Romo’s not so anomalous anomaly of a 4th quarter against the Chiefs, showing once again, that Tony Romo is who we thought he was… or wasn’t.I thought he was Jessie’s guy. But what do I know about Romo other than he was better when we was playing for nookie. Which brings me back to why my guy, Drew Brees may, or may not, be amazing this week against a well rested Giants squad.
I have to trust that Sean Peyton will let the Saints go marching and also trust that the Giants fierce D will not be stingier than the Bills or the Jets. I have to trust that the BIGGEST offense, in the BIG EASY, will give me Big Numbers and not that they will hand off to Thomas and Bush, play field position, and let the defense win in a low scoring affair. I have to hope that Eli Manning is toasting Hurricanes with Mathias Kiwanuka and that Osi Umenyiora forgets his five hour energy on the bus or in New York. Are these things logical possibilities? Maybe. Looking back on The Breesettes (now 3-2) I see it was my fault that I didn’t change my team’s name out of deference to my legend from “The Breesettes” to The “Favrettes”. I cost my team game 5 by altering Favre’s play with my clear disrespect. He has since been dropped, even if it was my fault. So for you Rick Reilly I am changing my team this week, or weak, to my most courageous contributor’s namesake, THE NEW YORK TYNES.
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