Last year, a friend of ours was visiting in December.  I was telling this friend that he should consider playing fantasy football with my husband and me this year.  He laughed, declined and explained why.  He said that everyone he knows who plays fantasy football spends most of their time being mad.  I told him that wasn’t true, but now that I think about it. . . it really is true!

Here are just a few of the reasons why one can start to hate fantasy football:

• You go from 5^th to 2^nd to 7^th place in just three weeks.
• The wide receiver who was supposed to play (Joe Horn) sits out of the game unexpectedly, giving you a big fat goose egg when you really needed those points.
• Your star WR (Torry Holt) decides to take it easy for the past few weeks giving you only eight points over the last two weeks when the week before he gave you over 40. 
• Hector and Victor who write up the predictions on ESPN, project your running back (Willie Parker) to do next to nothing against Denver, and he ends up with 25 points anyway. . . on your bench.
• You pick the wrong D/ST, the wrong WR, and the wrong RB to start all in the same week. 
• Every team has their absolute hands down best week when they’re playing you, despite the fact that your team has tallied up more points than any other team. 
• The players you dropped start coming alive (Hines Ward, Roy Williams, and too many others to list). 

 
Fantasy football has truly become an exercise in futility.  No matter whom we play or what we decide, the decision is wrong, wrong, wrong.  Without a win this week, the rest of the season is looking dismal and our season very well may end up circling the toilet bowl instead of the Super Bowl.

Most karate Mom's just do the commute, this one is working towards her black belt. This karate
Mom, a 3rd kyu brown belt in Okinawan Kenpo and Kobudo, writes about raising her two young daughters, her pursuit of a black belt, and just about anything that gets her gi in a bunch.  She can be found online at Black Belt Mama . 

Total amount of fantasy points Hines Ward had during the weeks he was on my team (Weeks 1-5):  18

Amount of fantasy points Hines Ward has since I dropped him (Weeks 6 & 7):  53

Amount of fantasy points Hines Ward had when his new owners played us this week: 42

Ward’s new team just happens to be our arch rivals from 2005’s season of dismal outcomes in which we went from top scorer to last place during the playoffs.  They beat us this week 102-97.  Yeah, that’s right.  Without Ward, we would have KILLED them. 

Everyone we drop turns to gold, and everyone we pick up goes from great to horrible.  Take Greg Jennings for example.  Apparently, our team has cursed him right into an ankle injury (Hurts twice as much since we dropped Ward to pick him up).  And how about Amani Toomer who has become Eli’s forgotten man?  We picked him up the week AFTER he was hot.  Now. . . not so hot. 

Do I sound a little bitter?  Yeah, I’m bitter.  That’s what fantasy football does to you.  You start out feeling all confident, like this is such a fun hobby right?  And then Grossman gives you -7 when you were 10 points ahead to begin with and you lose.  Hines Ward has his best performance of the season AGAINST YOU, and well, it’s a slippery slope into a fantasy football funk. 

This week, I encouraged another one of the teams to hurry up and pick up Jason Witten and Joseph Addai.  We dropped them.  They are sure to catapult themselves into super-stardom this week. 

And what about a usually consistent running back who decides to take it easy for a week?  Willie Parker earned us a whole two points this week.  On our bench?  Yep, Chester Taylor who scored 30 fantasy points this week.  Will he do it again next week?  Doubtful. . . but now that I said it here. . . count on it.   Don’t worry though; he’ll be on my bench.

It's really mind boggling how far off the mark Flags of our Fathers is. The failure comes on three levels.

If you are looking for a war movie, you will be sadly disappointed. There is plenty of sepia-toned beach landing/gun fire/machine gun/grenade/flame throwing/body splitting stuff here. These battle sequences are episodic and uninspiring. It's almost like they went through books and found all the cool ways people died and placed them end to end. For about 20 minutes, it seems like we are watching a poor man's Saving Private Ryan.

But unlike Private Ryan's opening sequence, the idea behind the landing is not really about the fury of the assault, which creates a power in the relentlessness. Nor do we have the established relationships with any of the actors going in - though there is a pre-fight training and traveling sequence here - so we don't get the sporadic jolt of "Is Tom Hanks still alive?" that we got there. We have no emotional connection to any of these deaths, outside of basic human decency.

The dummy?  Yeah, that’s me. . . well, actually my husband too.  You see, back when I started writing here, I wrote up a fantasy football draft plan and poked a bit of fun at Rex Grossman.  I needed a QB scapegoat and my husband happily provided Grossman’s name and dismal stats for my post. 

Last week?  We dropped Delhomme and added Grossman.  Yep, we did it.  With an average of 21.6 points per week and a number two overall ranking as far as fantasy QB’s go, we have been served a big old platter of crow and will gladly eat it. 

Since the first week, we’ve also made some other changes.  We ditched the Colts D/ST in favor of the Ravens who were just floating around out there on the waiver wire (patting self on back as I write this).  I’m also patting myself on the back about my kicker pick-up.  Although Shayne Graham is a great kicker, no one can top Robbie Gould this year, Chicago’s favorite foot right now.   With Gould currently outscoring all of my WR’s and some of my RB’s, I couldn’t be happier with his performance. 

We also ditched Roy Williams in favor of Amani Toomer who is getting plenty of looks from Eli.  And despite our love for the Steelers, it was time to break up with Hines Ward.  Yeah, I know, his schedule gets easier, but I can pick him up later.  Greg Jennings was looking way too good to leave him hanging out there all lonely on the waiver wire. 

Another great addition to the team has been Kellen Winslow, who is sadly on a bye week this week, leaving me to rely on a lackluster Witten to get us through. 

Our team looks very different from the beginning of the season, but we’ve had some great results.  Besides the week we lost 105-103 (yes, still growling about that one), we are 3-2 and are currently in second place in our eight team league.  With 534 points for our team, we are the highest scoring team overall.  Unfortunately, opposing teams tend to score their highest amount of points on the weeks they’re playing us  (We had the same problem last year.) 

It’s been a crazy season so far:  Alexander, Fitzgerald, and Westbrook are out with injuries.  Larry Johnson has suddenly become more of a WR than a RB (Thirty something rushing yards as opposed to his over 100 receiving yards last week).  TO has earned the nickname “OD” and is starting to display the very same antics he employed while in Philly, and the Chicago Bears are undefeated. 

Despite the numerous changes to our roster, my husband and I have made smart decisions so far.  We haven’t chased points (Baskett taking over Stallworth’s job in Philly for one) because performances like that are usually short lived.  We’ve done more research and done a better job looking at match-ups, and have learned to rely on our guts more so than the dismal predictions/projections that are floating around the web promising Roy Williams 30 points when 3 are hard to come by. 

As for the rest of the season. . . it’s looking bright for our team.  That is, as long as Ward, Williams, Colts D and Graham don’t catapult themselves into super-stardom and make me eat crow all over again. 

Most karate Mom's just do the commute, this one is working towards her black belt. This karate
Mom, a 3rd kyu brown belt in Okinawan Kenpo and Kobudo, writes about raising her two young daughters, her pursuit of a black belt, and just about anything that gets her gi in a bunch.  She can be found online at Black Belt Mama . 

My dad grew up loving hockey.  When he was in his 20’s he decided he loved it enough that he also wanted to play the sport.  He figured that skating looked easy enough and that where there was a will to learn, there would be instant success.  He stepped on the ice for the first time and fell on his butt.  He quickly learned that this ice skating/hockey business was going to take some serious work, and he worked at it. 

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I thought it was only appropriate to write some personal notes to my starting line-up for this past week’s fantasy football game.  We lost.  Yep, lost.  85-81.  The league commissioner is currently in 6^th place.  Ouch.    

Dear Jake (Delhomme),

I’m going to attribute your first week’s dismal performance to the fact that you are pining for Steve Smith to be back

For a 4^th kyu, I think I’m lousy at sparring.  We don’t spar a lot at our dojo and for that I’m thankful.  I've always been kind of unsure about what is allowed and what's not.  Karate and sparring seem like two very different things to me.  I have been in situations in my life where I’ve needed to defend myself and I did so effectively.  That was before karate.  Knowing what I know now, I’m pretty sure I’d be even better off than I was pre-karate.  But that doesn’t make it any easier on sparring nights when I'm at the dojo feeling like I’ve done a lousy job.

The Fantasy Football draft was Saturday.  Here’s how we did:

Starting Line-up:

Eli Manning NYG QB  Larry Johnson KC RB  Willie Parker Pit RB  Torry Holt Stl WR   Hines Ward Pit WR   Donald Driver GB WR   Jason Witten Dal TE   Colts D/ST Ind D/ST   Shayne Graham, Cin K

Bench:

Chester Taylor Min RB   Roy Williams Det WR   Jake Delhomme Car QB   Joseph Addai Ind RB   Alex Smith TB TE   Keyshawn Johnson Car WR

 Let me just say that participating in a live online draft was one of the most stressful things that I’ve ever done.  I know, I know, you’re all rolling your eyes and saying, “Your life must not be very stressful at all,” but let me elaborate a bit.  At one point, my internet connection died and I almost got an auto draft pick instead of Chester Taylor who is supposed to be a sleeper worthy of making his fantasy owners proud this year.  At another point during the draft, my husband was ON THE PHONE and I nearly had to beat him to get off the phone and help me strategize.  At the end of the draft, my 10-month old daughter “Lil C” grabbed all my papers and therefore my strategy and began shredding them and throwing them everywhere. 

Draft day is Saturday.  My husband and I have been compiling information on who to draft and when for weeks now.  We now have a strategy.  If you happen to play in our league, please DON'T read this. . .

Round 1- Draft a kicker on a bad team.  If they can't score touch downs, they'll be scoring field goals instead.

Round 2- Draft a back-up kicker.  Your first pick is going to have a bye at some point right?

Round 3- Draft a defense.  You know those top five ranked defenses?  Yeah, I read some stuff.  They're all SO overrated.  We want to choose someone at the bottom of that list.  Then we can brag about it when our underrated defense comes through. 

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