Andy Richardson

One of the crazier week 15s in memory, both on the field and in the fantasy realm. I realize no one cares about my personal leagues so I'll try not to talk too much about them, but my goodness, what a nutty bunch of games. And kind of a crazy day around the house, too, so let's get right to it....

6:00 a.m. Kids woke us up, which is pretty much when they always do (unless it's earlier), which explains why I didn't know how the Cowboys-Saints game ended -- turned it off at 24-10 in the fourth quarter. Turned on the TV to see that the final was 24-17, so I knew that neither Tony Romo nor Drew Brees threw more than 1 TD against me in the leagues I was facing them in. Briefly on that game, just goes to show you that Romo is pretty good, even with Roy Williams dropping big passes week after week, and the Saints have now gone a month without a convincing win -- and now their first loss. Guess they can go for 18-1 now.

7:00 a.m. I've had coffee and the kids have watched The Grinch on TiVo for about the 35th time. I'm not sure a dog standing atop a huge pile of bags throwing presents with his mouth is really going to get them into the hands of their rightful owners. I map out my plan of the games I need to pay closest attention to, both for work purposes and because my fantasy hopes are riding on them.

8:00 a.m. Breakfast is eggs, bacon, English muffins. It's the one meal I can credibly prepare. I know, day seems pretty easy so far. I'll spare you the hour of snow shoveling, showering, and reading "Miss Spider's Sunnypatch" books to my 2-year-old, and get right to when things started getting interesting....

11:00 a.m. Pregame starts, but it's also now warm and light enough to go out in the snow (which you've probably heard we got a lot of on the East Coast over the weekend). So we go out and make snow angels and go sledding and have a "snowball fight" where I'm the only one who gets hit. We come back in to find that weather shouldn't be much of a factor in the football games, and I adjust a few lineups accordingly. I had, however, dropped Jay Feely in one league in favor of Matt Prater a day earlier, worried about weather affecting Feely at the Meadowlands, This will prove a fortuitous bit of paranoia on my part, even if for the wrong reasons.

12 noon. Emily's aunt is flying in from Minnesota for the holidays, and it's been a two-day trip thanks to various flight cancellations. She and Emily's Dad converge on the house shortly before kickoff, at which point I've set myself up with multiple TV tuners recording and the laptop at hand. I exchange pleasantries and the games begin.

1:00 p.m. Jets-Falcons: I watch way too much of this ugly game that makes me feel sorry for Jets fans. For the second time in a month the Falcons brought Michael Turner back from his ankle injury only to have him sidelined again with an ankle injury, this time after just one carry. Maybe they should consider playing it safer with these injuries. Matt Ryan plays but as expected, he and Roddy White get nothing going in the passing game; Atlanta's offense does nothing. But the Jets get a long touchdown from Mark Sanchez to Braylon Edwards, who impressively doesn't drop it, and then? Bad snap or hold on an extra-point length field goal. Hooked field goal from 37 yards. And another field goal blocked. It's 7-3 in the final minutes, and if you've seen the Jets at all this year you know what's coming. Atlanta drives the field with just enough plays to win. It's easy to lay this loss on the field goal unit, or Mark Sanchez's 3 more interceptions, but once again the Jets simply make mistakes at crucial times in all three phases of the game, a different one each week. They could easily have won most of the games they've lost, but the fact that they haven't doesn't mean they're much better than their record or anything. It means they're not good enough.

Cardinals at Lions: Will the real Cardinals team stand up? Or is this just what the NFL has come to: none of the "good" teams are good enough to look good week after week. Even the undefeated Colts had a string of games they were fortunate to win (which is why Peyton Manning's pretty much a mortal lock for another MVP). Mostly I want to talk about Beanie Wells, who is pretty enjoyable to watch out there. Bouncing off tackles, spinning through defenders. The Cardinals have got him going now, and he gets a pretty appealing matchup with the Rams next week. If you started Kurt Warner, like I did, you're probably a little disappointed with his output. But it could have been much worse; even his touchdowns required amazing individual plays by Larry Fitzgerald (tipping it to himself) and Anquan Boldin (running through a couple of tackles near the goal line). Choice matchup with the Rams next week, but the guy isn't playing well right now. For the Lions, Maurice Morris had a big game. Full-time guy, so grab him if he's still out there for next week.

Browns at Kansas City: At this point I think Eric Mangini is just deliberately messing with fantasy owners. One week Jerome Harrison, the next week Chris Jennings, this week Harrison again. Who you might have heard had just one of the best rushing games in NFL history at Kansas City, while being started by basically nobody. Why would you? The previous week he carried 7 times for 9 yards and was clearly outperformed by Jennings. Anyway, there was also another outstanding game by Jamaal Charles, who is making a real case for being Kansas City's starter next year. Chris Chambers outperformed Dwayne Bowe (though Bowe got more looks and was probably rusty). Joshua Cribbs returned two kicks for touchdowns, one of which was simply amazing. And Jerome Harrison will be the hot waiver pickup by those still alive in the playoffs this week, which means of course that Mangini is already considering leading with Chris Jennings next week.

At this point I'm freaking out about a couple of leagues because Chris Johnson didn't score and had his lowest rushing total in months. He's pretty much the key to a couple of my teams, as he is for anyone who owns him, and he's picked a lousy time not to show up. I guess everyone who started Drew Brees against Dallas knows what I'm talking about.

4:00 p.m. Bengals at Chargers: The game itself was sort of overshadowed by the emotions involving Chris Henry, but it was a heckuva game. Big plays by Carson Palmer and Chad Ochocinco, which have been few and far between in recent weeks. Big plays by Philip Rivers, Vincent Jackson and Antonio Gates -- Gates in particular has just looked awesome out there lately, and it's a nice bounce-back by Vincent Jackson, who helped a lot of fantasy owners win yesterday after a cool stretch. Clutch field goals, clutch 2-point conversions. And then the emotions. Ochcocinco caught a touchdown and knelt in the end zone in prayer; you've probably seen the highlight and I have nothing to add beyond, it was something to see as it happened. A game for the ages, and the best game the Bengals have played in a while -- even in defeat.

Bears at Ravens: For some idiotic reason I started Jay Cutler in a league this week. Basically I hadn't been particularly active on the waiver wire so I only had Cutler and Mark Sanchez (who remarkably had a better game). This despite the fact that I knew Cutler had no chance this week, and of course he didn't. Not much to say about this game except Ray Rice, like Chris Johnson, also disappointed, and whereas Johnson actually faced a good defense, Rice had rushed for 77 yards after only 6 carries, but suddenly the Bears started playing matador in the secondary and Joe Flacco threw with pinpoint accuracy to receivers who made spectacular catches. Two teams, the Titans and Ravens, who normally score on running plays throwing 3 and 4 TDs, respectively, while their star running backs don't score. Yeah, it was really pretty weird. I have nothing to add about the Bears except what was up with them trading a second-round pick for Gaines Adams, anyway? I realize no one thinks about it because Cutler has been so horrible, but they could really use that pick, especially since it will be fairly high in the round.

I'm really fretting about two important leagues at this point, one where I've got only Steve Smith left against Sidney Rice and the Vikings D, and another where I've got Brett Favre against DeAngelo Williams. I picked the Broncos in my suicide pool, which seemed fine earlier when my second choice, the Texans, nearly stumbled in St. Louis; how can you choose the Texans in a suicide pool? But as Broncos-Raiders goes back and forth, I'm wishing I had. And plus Emily's aunt is here and I've got to go out to pick up takeout. The kids need to get to bed at a reasonable hour, and it's all happening as the late games are ending. Everyone has a favorite scene in Goodfellas; mine is near the end when a hollow-eyed Ray Liotta is running around trying to do seven different things at once. I feel like that sometimes, except for the part about the drugs.

Vikings at Panthers: That's two straight primetime appearances that Brett Favre and the Vikings have looked awful in. You know, he's old. He needs to get to bed earlier. I bet HE didn't make it to the end of Cowboys-Saints, either. And they're in primetime AGAIN next week, at Chicago against the Bears in a game that they'll need to win to lock up that first-round bye (unless we assume the Rams knock off the Cardinals, which won't happen). And it was predictable: the Vikings have morphed into a passing team, and the Panthers are really good at stopping it. I started Favre a couple of places even knowing he'd probably struggle (my other options were Cutler and Matt Ryan, so clearly I wasn't going there). Next week they're at Chicago, and the Bears have a terrible defense and Joe Flacco just threw 4 TDs against them, but I've seen Favre in Chicago in week 16 before, and it hasn't always gone well. Adrian Peterson finished with nice numbers, but it was mostly due to a 63-yard catch and run late. But those count too.

But for me, that stuff paled next to the fact that despite disappointing outings by Kurt Warner, Ray Rice, Chris Johnson and Wes Welker, my matchups are saved by Matt Prater -- even though the Broncos lost, making the Raiders the most hated team in suicide pools nationwide yet again after earlier upsets of the Eagles and Bengals -- Steve Smith's huge game (he was even tackled inside the 5 on a play where he really should have scored a second touchdown), and DeAngelo Williams getting hurt. And so, despite a day where it looked like a lot of stuff wasn't going my way, I win. I'm one of the lucky ones, in a week where half of the world's fantasy coaches aren't.

Here's the thing. Fantasy football isn't fair. It doesn't claim to be, and it isn't. It's not fair that people got burned by DeAngelo Williams getting hurt, or by Drew Brees' worst game all season, or by facing Chris Johnson a week ago, or Ben Roethlisberger this week.

But if you're on the lucky side -- because even if you weren't yesterday, one day in the future, you will be -- that unfairness is a wonderful thing. On that day it will be your opponent who benches someone who goes off, or starts someone who gets hurt early. And maybe two or three of your players disappoint, but another one or two unexpectedly come through with their best games of the season.

And what can you do? You won't be shedding tears for the other guy. Just enjoy it when you can. That's fantasy football. Merry Christmas.

• Comments [9]

Readers' Comments

Add a Comment

Already a registered user? Please sign in to add comments.

To add comments, you must become a registered user of our site. To register, please click here.