Hitting the Panic Button

First of all, I know I haven't been doing such a great job with keeping up. I had some great things to post about too like my boy Victor winning by .02 points, my thoughts on the Trent Richardson trade, and this 8 team league I'm in that started a week late. I know, but my scheduled is more complicated than I can grasp. I'm looking for a new job, I'm trying to finalize things between me and that chick from high school, I'm on the bus, my friends keep me busy, I'm blindly looking for property, plus all the regular fuckery that's involved with being Mr. Nickerson. In fact, I'm so busy that keeping up with my 15 teams is crazy. Not too mention that me resources are limited due to circumstances and situations, so probably about 7 times out of 10 I'm probably adjusting my roster from my phone.

Regardless of how busy I've been, most of my teams have winning records. Unfortunately I do have two teams that are 0-3 which is pretty good considering that I have 15 teams. Also, the team in that 8 team league is 0-2. That's not too bad considering that I'm barely managing 15 teams, but then I start to wonder why. When I look at these three teams, I think all three rosters are good enough to at least be average. For some reason though, none have been able to pick up the W. At this time, I can only point to two main reasons: player inconsistencies and bad management on my behalf.

When I look at these three teams, I noticed that there are a couple of similarities with these teams. First, but not that important, all three of them are Yahoo leagues. Second, and most important, these three teams have a few players in common. These players, Ed Lacy, Tavon Austin, Sam Bradford, Rashard Mendenhall, Tom Brady and Andrew Luck are on two two of the three teams.

Brady and Luck displays both inconsistency and bad team management. Over three weeks Brady has under produced averaging about 16 points a game, but he was projected to average 19 points a game. This makes me think that I probably should've started Luck instead of Brady. Luck has scored more fantasy points than he was projected to in every week except for last week where he 15 points and he was projected to have 16, which still isn't bad. The question though, how do you bench Tom Brady for Andrew Luck? Especially now that the Colts picked up Trent Richardson.

Ed Lacy has been busy in Green Bay, but in week two he suffered a concussion on the first play. That week, he had one carry for 10 yards, which got us 1 point. He didn't pass the NFL's concussion protocol so he didn't play last week. So in the two leagues that I have Lacy, I replaced him with Rashard Mendenhall. Going into week 3, Mendenhall had exceeded expectations in weeks 1 and 2. In week 3 though, the week I needed him to fill in for Lacy, he disappeared... against the Saints. I need someone to fill in for Lacy this week too, but most likely it's not going to be Mendenhall.

I can't really say much about Tavon Austin and Sam Bradford. Austin had one good game in week two, but for the most part he's been on my bench. I have him on many of my teams that are not win less, but with Austin, unfortunately he's been on my bench because I have better receivers on the teams that he is on. Weird part is I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Same thing goes with Bradford. He's been on my bench waiting for my starting quarterback to go on a bye. Coincidentally, I have him starting in a two quarterback league, and that team is 2-1.

There are probably more reasons why these teams are win less, or it could be simply a matter of bad luck. Whichever reason it is, my competitive nature will not stand around and let these team tank out the season. I can probably spend more time with these teams during the week, but I don't want to neglect my other teams just to get a W. I could propose a trade or something, but that could come back to bite me in the ass like the Andre Johnson-Danny Amendola trade has done in a different league. Something has to be done because 0-3, or 0-2, is not a good look.

Stop Roughing With Me

Last week I lost in both in both of my main leagues, Roughing the Picker and Coast2Coast Ballers. While my lost in Coast2Coast Ballers was bearable, the loss in Roughing the Picker has been playing tricks with my mind all week. Out of all of my leagues, this is the main one. We drafted together, in person, not online. There's money and bragging rights on the line. I drafted well, with the exception of my bench. And I still lost. After thinking about it, I realized that even though I drafted well, I made a crucial mistake. You see kids, this is the importance of going over the rules of your league before you draft. Even though we all read over the rules together before we drafted, I totally disregarded two important aspects points wise in this league.

First brain fart is the very first thing listed on the point sheet that we all received at the draft. For every completion, you get a point. Not too much of a big deal, but it should have a major impact on who you draft at quarterback, especially since this is a two quarterback league. My quarterbacks in this league is Matthew Stafford and Cam Newton. There really isn't a problem with Matthews, I think he'll come through with plenty of completions. Newton however is a different story. Now don't get me wrong, I expect Newton to produce plentifully for me in this league, but when it comes to completions I have to question the whole situation. The Carolina Panthers don't have enough quality receivers for Newton to throw to. Steve Smith will get his, but outside of that Cam really doesn't have too many options other than to run the ball. So while Cam is doing his thing, other teams with more reliable receivers are racking up more points because of completions, thus dramatically impacting the scores in this league.

The second thing I missed is a very crucial aspect for this league. This league is a PPR league. I think the reason why I overlooked this is because nowhere on the point/rule sheet does it say anything about PPR. While I was drafting I obviously did not keep this in consideration. Even though I have high quality receivers, I stocked my team with running backs, and not the pass-catching type of running backs. What I should've been doing was stocking my bench with mid-range wide receivers.  Instead I drafted Mark Ingram and Vick Ballard. I've already dropped Ingram.

I'm going to have to resolve this problem immediately if I'm to make it to the playoffs. Bad news is the free agency market in this league sucks. That means I'm going to have to put together a pretty attractive trade package. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of including Alfred Morris in this package, but that's just a thought. Bad thing about trading in this league is the owners are greedy. So I'm going to have to make it an offer that can't be refused...

Get Shorty!

I'm a Don's Don, a man's man, and most importantly, a fantasy football player's fantasy football player. I know when I'm defeated and in this case, even though it's only Monday and there's two more games to go, I got beat this week in Coast2Coast Ballers by Mr. Hindsman. Kudos, Mr. Hindsman. But most of the mistakes I made were a matter of bad management on my behalf and coincidental occurrences. One of these occurrences was none other than Peyton ROCKET LASER ARM Manning!

As we all know by now, Rocket Laser Arm had a career night last Thursday against the Baltimore Ravens. Were you one of the many victims who went up against a team that has Manning? I was. Manning is Mr. Hindsman's starting quarterback. Rocket Laser Arm had 462 yards and 7 touchdowns in a Madden-like game. He scored a whopping 60 points for Mr. Hindsman. How many of your players are you expecting to score 60 points for you? Better yet, how do you come back from a 60 point deficit put up by one player? In Roughing the Picker, Rocket Laser Arm got my boy Victor 105 points. How is Chilli supposed to come back from that?

Besides Rocket Laser Arm proving that he's Rocket Laser Arm, I made a few crucial mistakes trying to outsmart Mr. Hindsman. Mr. Hindsman likes to play quarterbacks at the Offensive Player position. Basically he had three quarterbacks playing against me. I tried to counter this by starting Brandon Weeden, and now that the disaster is done, I'm kicking myself. Somewhere during the draft season, I was convinced that Weeden would get his rep up this year with Norv Turner being the new Offensive Coordinator. Weeden got me an embarrassing -5 points. Meanwhile on my bench, Sam Bradford, a quarterback that I traded for before the season started, had 299 yards with two touchdowns and scored 25 points. My dumb ass had him on the bench, instead of in the second Offensive Player position where I had Eric Decker. Decker was probably the only receiver who didn't take advantage of Rocket Laser Arm. He had only two catches for 39 yards with a few drops, including a drop for a touchdown. I could've started Jordy Nelson instead of Decker, who score 22 points on the bench.

There were some bright spots on my team. Adrian Peterson proved himself worthy of the number one pick racking up 93 rushing yards, 2 rushing touchdowns, 18 receiving yards and 1 receiving touchdown scoring 34 points. A.J. Green also chipped in with 162 receiving yards and two touchdowns scoring 35 points. Clearly, Green is coming for the number one spot when it comes to wide receivers.

Unfortunately, AP and Green's efforts were not enough to take out Mr. Hindsman as there were some not so bright spots on my squad. I wasn't comfortable with starting Ahmad Bradshaw because he's been injured the whole offseason. Bradshaw proved me right having 7 carries for 26 yards. He only got 2 points. I really don't have a viable option at running back on my bench, so this week I'm going to see what I can do through free agency or trades to fix that problem. I'm pretty sure Bradshaw is going to be cool once he is 100%, but right now I can't afford to have him holding down my team. Cam Newton also under performed throwing for 125 yards and one touchdown. Newton also rushed for 157 yards and two touchdowns which made up the difference, but he could've been very much more productive.

Lastly, I screwed up my TE position. I ended up benching Martellus Bennett for Zach Sudfield. That was a huge mistake as Sudfield only had the ball thrown to him once. They're saying now that he pulled a hammy, but I don't care about that. Meanwhile, Bennett was a good fantasy tight end scoring 10 points. But I had him on my bench. Now I have to decide if I'm going ride with Bennett and drop Sudfield, or do I have enough confidence in Bill Belichick to straighten out Sudfield.

To be honest, its always difficult to predict who's going to do what on Week 1. But I wanted this one bad. I talked a lot of shit to Mr. Hindsman and I lost. I might end up getting rewarded the Shittah, which is a league trophy handed out to players who lose by 100 points or more. Right now I'm down by 65 with no players left while Mr. Hindsman has Santana Moss and Michael Vick playing tonight. Well played Mr. Hindsman, but don't go popping bottles just yet. This is only the beginning. You may have won the battle, but the war is far from over... #DonStatus