Third Year's the Charm.

"The trend of wide receivers breaking out in their third pro season continues to prove valid. Javon Walker, Deion Branch, David Givens and Donté Stallworth have all made impacts for their respective teams, and Reche Caldwell, Ashley Lelie, Antonio Bryant and Tim Carter have also experienced an increased level of production. Owners who need a receiver but can't sell the farm should target one of these eight options."
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Week Two: Huge Win.

a huge victory against hated rival chunky monkeys is making this season look up. heading into the sunday night game, i was up by a good twenty points and with only chris "i have no QB" chambers playing, i thought the game was a wrap. a few hours later, i return and see miami making desperate drive after desperate drive. this is the worst situation for a fantasy football owner. up by a few points, hoping to god that a player on the losing side won't catch a long touchdown. defenses go into prevent, QBs air it out. it's not unheard of for a WR to suddenly get a double digit game from late game drives. this was exactly the situation. miami kept on throwing it and throwing it and i knew eventually chambers had to catch something. so bam. right there at the end of the game, chambers catches a touchdown. so the game is tied. impending overtime. i'm only up by six. that's one long catch for chambers. oh my goodness. how can i lose?

i was already gloating to the monkeys about how a young upstart team like mine could knock off a team with peyton and ladainian. sure shaun alexander was hurt and underperformed but it wasn't like the monkeys were having a crap day. as for me, my team played out of it's mind. aaron brooks got 31 pts off a fabulous game. deshaun foster got 23 and roy williams got 21. sure rudi, j mccareins and fitzgerald played like crap but anything can be overlooked for a victory. but if i'd lost on a last minute miami drive. i was gonna be pissed. but no, i won, and now i'm in fourth place in my division -- the lowest scoring .500 team in the league. i don't care. i got a victory man. actually i should be 2-0 because last week i could of won if not for a lineup error.

but due to that lineup error, i have deshaun foster instead of tiki barber. i would of dropped deshaun last week but due to the lineup mishap, i ended up holding on to him. for week two i dropped tiki and started deshaun and was rewarded with a career high rushing game from foster (which will be carried over to the next week too!). awesome. and now with stephen davis out for a few weeks, deshaun might have a chance to capture the starting job. i'm getting pretty excited for my young team. i might be able to be a competitive team even while sitting on a few prospect. every other team in the league is getting decimated by injuries but all the broken bones and pulled hammies are only helping me. charles rogers goes down, i got roy williams. stephen davis goes down, i got deshuan. marshall faulk gets dinged up, i got steven jackson. i'm only praying every week that travis henry goes down.

ashley lelie has been a huge disappointment. it's hard to gauge if he'll ever be good. he should be donte stallworth, catching deep bombs and running for TDs. but he's not. time to drop him? justin mccareins has been a bit of a disappointment too. it seems like chad just never looks his direction. but roy is about to be a huge star this year and larry will have his day. i LOVE my team. love it. getting aaron brooks off the waiver wire was key too. he's gonna have a huge season, write that up.

so yeah, the dirty birds may not be a championship contender quite yet but we're not anyone's bitch either.

Week One: Disqualified.

what an inglorious way to start off the season, despite beating my opponent on the scoreboard, i lost the game before we even played. why? i forgot to pick up a K or a D before the games started so took a lineup DQ. i asked my league if it would be okay to not play a K or a D this week but we decided against it. the reasoning for me was that seeing who might have promise on my roster was more important that having a K this week. i was going to release donald driver and deshaun foster (or tiki barber) but really didn't want to do it because i would inevitably lose at least one to the waiver wire.

so in a move that was totally unplanned, i forgot to get a K before sunday's game. so now i have a loss, no points, and i gave up my right to pickup waiver wire people this week. the good news is that my team did okay this week, much better than i expected. my young receivers look okay, and with charles rogers getting injured, roy williams should move a slot up. and even ashely lelie (who had bust written all over him) did okay.

my highest scorer this week was tiki barber, which was a bit of a fluke because all his points came from one huge touchdown run. but between him and rudi johnson, i should be okay. it looks like my young backs won't be getting off the bench soon. stephen jackson, willis mcgahee, lee suggs and deshaun foster will probably be using sparingly by their teams. leaving me with a very thin RB corps despite six of them on my roster. i'll have to ride rudi to the top!

week one was incredible. having the NFL back in my life is just too awesome to put into words. we spent all of sunday sitting around the tv, checking stats and scores on the internet. it's amazing that for a sport that's around for five months of every year, how much anticipation you can have in the intervening few months. and how about those old fogies? curtis martin, vinny t, jerome bettis, keyshawn, isaac bruce, even emmitt smith a bit. all those old veterans had huge days. and it looks like donovan and daunte will be the cream of this year's QB crop. four and five touchdowns respectively, incredible. i think i'm gonna regret not picking up david terrell.

i feel like i can be competitive this season, even as i rebuild, especially with my young WR corps looking fine as candy. let's hope suggs gets healed and returns to the field though, otherwise i could be in for a world of hurt in the running game.