This week I lost…again. And this week was a pretty close match-up, so I’ll take full responsibility for not going with my gut feeling on who to play. I over-thought things and it came back to bite me.

Y’see, I knew that Willis McGahee was scheduled to play against a fairly week Oakland run defense. The only problem was that he was coming back from an injured hand, which can definitely be a hindrance to a running back.  Jackie Battle is now the featured back in Kansas City, and even though he was going up against a decent Miami run defense, the team was winless and it really looked to be the better match-up.

Wow…did I play that wrong.

At one point on Sunday morning, I actually put McGahee in the starting line-up.  Then I thought about it…then I went to the message boards…then I went to the “expert” sites to see how they ranked each one. Against my own gut instinct, I put Battle back into my rotation…and that decision ended up costing me the win.

So now I see that Miles Austin is injured. Looks like I’ll be putting in Steve Breaston next weekend and hoping he can continue to be the primary receiver in Kansas City.

Why in the world have I got two Chiefs on my fantasy team anyway? What the heck am I thinking??

I rebounded last week with a pretty impressive win, bringing my record up to a 2nd-place-in-the-league 4-2.

Then came this past weekend…

I knew it was going to be tough. I had FIVE (count ‘em…FIVE) of my starters on a bye week, so I wasn’t expecting a ton of points from the back-ups.

I was disheartened by Jay Cutler, who I put in my line-up in place of Tom Brady. I mean…really? You couldn’t get more than 10 points for me? Then Willis McGahee got hurt. Then my Jets only got me six point. Then that Carolina tight end decided he didn’t want to play at all.

But the most disappointing for me was the BRUTAL performance by Miles Austin in a big-time Dallas win over the hapless Rams. Dude only caught two passes for sixteen yards. That’s it. 16. I was floored when I saw his stats. And the sad part was that I really needed him to perform well, too.

Yes, I realize that I could VERY easily claim that going up against Arian Foster’s 41.40 points would have been an insurmountable odd to overcome. The problem is that even if Foster didn’t play, I still would have lost the week…so there’s no point in crying about it.

I’ve got a couple of waiver requests in place for this week. The Jets defense is on a bye and I’m not sold on my current back-up, the Patriots, so I’m trying to pick up Detroit in a nice match-up (going up against a Denver team that allowed SEVEN sacks last weekend). I’m also going to try to get David Akers back (I had to drop him this week because he was on a bye).

Returning to the line-up next week will be Tom Brady, Jeremy Maclin, Ahmad Bradshaw, and Rob Gronkowski…so I really think my team is looking up if the waivers go through.

So wish me luck. I’m still doing okay at 4-3 but I’d be in pretty good shape for the playoffs with a two or three game winning streak.

This is going to be a new weekly post that’ll go up every Tuesday once my fantasy stats are finalized.  It’s obviously directed to the chosen few awesome people in the world who follow the NFL.

*****

My fantasy football team’s been gettin’ smoked over the past two weeks and I don’t know what to do about it.

I started off 3-0…dominating my opponents in a way not seen in a millenium (okay…that’s kind of a slight exaggeration).  Then I dropped one to another undefeated team.  No big deal, right? I’d bounce back this past weekend against the only 0-4 team in the league.

Right???

Yikes.

So here I stand at 3-2. I could claim that the bye weeks have hurt me, but this upcoming weekend the bye weeks strike again as I lose Washington (supposedly the #1 WR on the Titans now that Britt’s gone for the season) and Tolbert (who had such a great first two weeks but now seems to be placed on the back burner in San Diego).

And while my fantasy team would show otherwise, I really I dislike the Patriots (I’m a Jets fan). I benched the Jets defense because I thought Brady would “go to town” like he did in one of their match-ups last year (he didn’t). I thought that the Pats defense would accumulate more points than the Jets defense (they didn’t). I thought Gronkowski would (again) score way more points than my back-up TE, Greg Olsen (he didn’t).  Hell…after weeks of double-digit points I finally put Darren Sproles in my starting line-up and left Willis McGahee on my bench in the thought that he’d score more (he didn’t).

Would I have won my weekend anyway? No…so there’s no sense in complaining about my management skills (or lack thereof). I’m just wondering what in the world I need to do in order to get my team back on the winning track.

On paper, I’ve got a much better match-up this weekend with the return of Miles Austin from injury and also Peyton Hillis coming off of a bye week. On paper, this shouldn’t be too difficult of a battle.

Let’s hope I can get back into the win column. I’m still first place in my division, but I truly believe I’ve got a team that could run away with this thing. I just need them to start playing like they should.

Bah.