I went into the 2008 fantasy football season thinking that I’d scored a hole-in-one with my draft:
- LaDainian Tomlinson
- Terrell Owens
- Earnest Graham
- Wes Welker
- Jason Witten
- Willie Parker
- Jake Delhomme
- Patrick Crayton
- Colts DST
- Matt Schaub
Eleven weeks into the season, these guys have been bad enough to land me 11 out of 12 in my league in overall fantasy point production. Let the bitchfest begin:
- LaDainian Tomlinson – leave it to me to break the best player in fantasy football. LT hasn’t even been a top ten back this year, and his lack of consistency has been a killer. After a 10-FP game in Week One and a 3-FP game in Week Two, I sat LT… he blew up for 20 FP on my bench in Week Three. I gritted my teeth and bore it when he put up 5 FP in Week Five, 11 FP in Week Six, and 6 FP in Week Seven. At that point I needed a win and just couldn’t run him out there for a game in London halfway around the world. He exploded for 22 FP on my bench. I picked up 10 FP from him against a terrible Kansas City rush defense, then benched him for a 15 FP performance against the Steelers. It’s bad when a player underperforms, worse when that player’s performance is so flaky that you have to make week-to-week decisions on him. That’s not why I drafted LT second overall.
- Terrell Owens – unlike LT, I’ve put TO in my lineup for each of the 10 games he’s played. Early on I had a chance to trade him for Philip Rivers, but no more. Here is TO’s FP production over his last five games: {3, 3, 3, 7, 3}. That’s terrible. That sort of production from a 2nd Round WR is a team-killer.
- Earnest Graham – I dropped Graham last week for Cadillac, and now it looks like Graham might be done for the year. Graham gave me #2 RB numbers, but I had been hoping for a lot more. At 737 all-purpose yards and 4 TDs this season, he’s fallen well short of the 1,222 all-purpose yards and 10 TDs from last season – even though he had the same number of starts in both seasons.
- Wes Welker – another Tom Brady casualty. The yardage has been there for Welker, but his lone TD will require some padding if he wants to hit the 8 touchdowns he had in 2007.
- Jason Witten – like TO, Witten produced as expected early on. Then there was the Romo injury along with Witten’s rib injury; his last five games: {5, 4, 0, 0, 3}.
- Willie Parker – a great deal in the sixth round… or he would have been if he hadn’t spent five games benched with injuries.
- Jake Delhomme – ugh. The first of my “upside” quarterbacks. You have good Jake with games like these: {15, 23, 19, 19, 19}; and bad Jake with games like these: {3, 3, 3, 0, 9}. I played the matchups well and didn’t get burned by Delhomme until these last two weeks. Against a 2-8 Oakland team and a 0-10 Detroit, Delhomme totaled 170 yards, 2 TDs, and 4 picks. If 9 FP is the best I can get out of Delhomme against the winless Lions at home, there is no way I can trust him down the stretch.
- Patrick Crayton – bust.
- Colts DST – bust.
- Matt Schaub – my second “upside” quarterback. When Schaub went through a mid-season stretch of {24, 20, 29}, I thought I had a QB whom I could ride for the rest of the season. But after a 1-FP Week Nine performance when he injured his MCL, Schaub is pretty much done for the rest of fantasy football in 2008.
So what looked like a phenomenal draft has turned into a bunch of scrubs. It’s not just that one or two players have underperformed… they all did.
Fortunately I did a decent job taking advantage of my high waiver priority to make a few key pickups:
- RB Steve Slaton – only one fantasy point less than LT’s total, Slaton has provided consistency even while Ahman Green eats into his carries.
- WR Bernard Berrian – has more total fantasy points than Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, Lee Evans, and Braylon Edwards.
- Baltimore DST – the #8 DST in total scoring, Baltimore’s 143 FP is a huge gain over the Colts’ miserable 85 FP.
Those free agents have kept me from sinking beneath the waves, putting me at 6-5 with an outside shot at making the wildcard. Every week I think, “this is the week we’re going to let loose with both barrels”, then Delhomme throws four picks, or TO gets 33 yards and no touchdowns, or LT rushes for only 41 yards.
Still… surely, this is the week when it all comes together.