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Viva Murillo!

Somewhere out there is a fantasy owner who decided to take a receiver early in his draft (Chad Johnson) and was surprised when a top quarterback fell to him in the next round (Carson Palmer). As a result, he had to settle for a lesser second back (Jamal Lewis). This guy might have endured some criticism and laughter and didn’t feel great about his team after week 1. Still, it’s early, so he set his lineup this past weekend and hoped for the best.

And somebody had to face him in week 2.

Yes, somewhere out there is an owner who got 424 combined yards and three touchdowns out of two guys. He got 401 yards and six passing touchdowns out of his quarterback…not to mention 10 extra rushing yards just for fun. With so many people playing fantasy football, there are definitely owners who had those guys in one lineup. And if it’s a head-to-head league, for every one of them there’s another owner who had to play them.

That other owner (the unfortunate opponent) didn’t do anything wrong, either. He’s a good guy, loves his family and works hard. He buys his dog treats, donates to charity and obeys traffic signals. Why should he have to go on his computer and see that his contest was over at 4 p.m. Sunday, no matter who he had playing? That’s not fair, is it? He spent his week making sure his lineup was healthy and ready to go, working the waiver wire and playing with his children-- and faces multiple eye-popping performances in one game. When you get blasted like that, what are you supposed to do?

You’re supposed to laugh; that’s what. What else can you do? Sometimes you have to just be a football fan and admire the great plays. In week 1, the second Monday night game was a snoozer between Arizona and San Francisco. I’m a night owl, and even I had trouble staying awake. But the Cincinnati/Cleveland game featured hard running, great passes and fantastic catches. Two division rivals gave it everything they had, and the lowly Browns got a great morale boost at home. They’re not going to the playoffs, but they have something special for their highlight video. As a fan, it was a great game to watch.

So if your fantasy team got buried underneath that avalanche of points, just shrug it off. Like everyone else, I’ve gotten destroyed and I’ve also lost the closest of games over the years. I think it’s actually better to get smashed early. A loss is a loss, and you just accept the fact that nothing you could have done would have changed the outcome. The last thing you need is to be second-guessing your decisions in week 2 after a heartbreaker.

Each week, the best you can do is try to assemble the best lineup you can. You don’t have any control over what your opponent’s team does (technically you don’t even control what your own team does). If the schedule wasn’t your friend this weekend, try to appreciate the fantastic efforts that went into your early destruction.

Before that game started, there was great video showing Chad Johnson hugging members of Cleveland’s Dawg Pound. During the game, he did jump into the stands and received a warm welcome (expect for one guy who tossed his drink on No. 85). Even the rabid fans in Cleveland -- who haven’t had much to cheer about for years -- appreciated Johnson’s enthusiasm enough to let him jump and say hello. There was something great about that event; it transcended that actual game and was a nice moment of appreciation between a great player and great fans. Sometimes you have to look beyond the surface results of one outcome and just appreciate it from a bigger perspective. If you took a loss this week due to that game, that’s probably all you can do. As a fantasy owner you might have been defeated, but as a football fan you saw something special.

Michael Murillo recommends that Chad Johnson refrain from making a similar jump if he ever scores in Oakland. Feel free to share your week 2 horror stories below, and you can reach Michael Murillo at vivamurillo@gmail.com.

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