Welcome to my Fantasy: Week 1.

  So, it’s Tuesday night, I sit here victorious listening to my soundboard of cheering fans on my phone. T.I.T. failed to topple the mighty Quakes, their time will come but this week belonged to me. You may think it was never in doubt, you may think a seasoned coach like myself had all the bases covered, you would be wrong, very wrong.

 I’ll take you back a couple of weeks so you can enter my brain space, come on in and take a seat, there is plenty of room for everyone. We drafted a week earlier than normal, that may have been an error and will be redressed next season, but for now we were all in the same boat. After last years performance I had landed pick 9, in player rankings etc at that time it was Jimmy Graham, Montee Ball and Arian Foster territory. Ball went at 5, Graham at 8. First dilemma, Lynch was still on the table, who was ranked 6th in my research, and so was Foster. Word of advise, if you believe in your plan then stick to it, believe in yourself. Foster was the no2 pick last year, now that didn’t go according to plan for him but he finished the season strongly, and there is now doubt he is a very talented player it’s just he’s a little injury prone. I was willing to use the high risk/high reward strategy, but Lynch still being there was throwing me. He is definitely a stud but here is my problem with him, he has been worked excessively over the last few seasons and is due to break down sooner rather than later. So, I have 2 dudes(both with similar issues) and 2 minutes to decide. My head became stuck on this thought, “Lynch shouldn’t be here, Ball should be here, that’s my options, Ball or Foster, Ball is gone, they know something about Lynch, I’m right he’s going to break down, they are trying to trick me into picking him, he’ll be a Trent Richardson donkey, you can’t fool me”, it was quite a long thought granted. “FOSTER!” Job done, I didn’t fall into your trap, I just left it so Jimmy could fall right into it, that’ll teach him. The following fortnight after the draft was really quite disturbing, my podcast intake was now up to 3 a day and looking for more and everyone and everywhere was telling me Foster was no longer a first round pick but low end second/early third, it was dawning on me I know nothing! Tuesday before the opening weekend something started to happen, Foster was being talked up in articles, podcasts and TV shows, he became a must start and if you had picked him up you were being hailed as some kind of psychic wonder, they never said that but I can read between the lines. I am now officially a fantasy messiah!

 Thursday night comes along, Lynch was in full beast mode. He was majestic, sharp, determined and unstoppable with a fantasy score of 24.40. Eat that Jimmy, sucka………hang on, dammit! He will fail, mark my words, he will fail. T.I.T ran with the Seahawks D who put up a respectable 8 points, not worried at all.

 Sunday was a busy day, the community day in Earlston was a success with loads of folk turning up and the mighty Earlston Fantasy Farmers defeating all comers in the tug-o-war competition but it left little time to tweak the team, for me this is a good thing. I settled in front of the Vikings game while watching the graphs steadily moving for both fantasy teams. When I shuffled off to bed at 11.30, I was knackered from all the fresh air, I was comfortably in the lead against T.I.T. fair enough Foster didn’t do exceptional numbers but he hit double digits, looked really fresh and left the game fully fit. My bench running backs had brilliant numbers, but that’s besides the point, we will move on. I’m in bed, I’m fairly happy, I’m up 20ish points.

 I rise early Monday to see that ,hey-ho, Peyton has had a stormer(again) and I’m now trailing by 14pts. I still feel OK as I have my rb2, wr2 and te to play and T.I.T. was done. Staying up late was a bad choice because when my eyes finally gave out the Giants were behind with Jennings on 5pts and Eli was starting to throw everything, badly, I wasn’t going to win this with Jennings. Still I have Allen and Green still to play and with Gates questionable my fantasy genius will yet again be on display as Green comes home with a cool 20pt game.

 I beat the alarm on Tuesday morning by a good hour to find I have won, aaaaahhhhh, that’s nice. Jennings had done it for me, Allen got very little with Green getting less than that(Gates managed to hobble on and have a ripper). I am not the fantasy genius I once believed I was. Still a win is a win and as Forrest Gump said “That’s all I have to say about that”.

 My waivers are now in, they will come through tomorrow and I will either rejoice that I have once again pulled a flanker and picked up the people that everyone else was too dumb to pick up(Ryan Fitzpatrick anyone?) or I will spiral into depression because all you mugs have mugged me off and picked up the guys I require to destroy the Boo-hoo-me-anns!

 Now get out my head space and close the door on the way out.

 Behind the Purple door.