Monday Night Football sets up Tuesday morning fantasy disappointment

Written by TiVo on November 02, 2004

I think Monday Night Football exists just to torture me.

Okay, not really. But just as it makes fantasy football more exciting, it can turn Sunday evening joy into Tuesday morning heartbreak.

Take for example, week four between Kansas City and Baltimore. I held a 14-point lead going into Monday night against a loudmouth friend of mine, the kind of guy who always proposes sucker bets not knowing he’s the sucker. He put his all-rookie squad up against my league juggernaut (he was thrilled to draft Roy Williams, Larry Fitzgerald and Willis McGahee), and bet the pizza for next week’s poker game that he would win.

Sure, I said. Fantasy football is unpredictable, but this action should have been at least half as solid as the time he bet me the Redskins would go 16-0 (the year they signed Deion, Bruce Smith and Jeff George. This really happened). Or at least as good as our current $20 bet, where he has the Eagles running backs totalling fewer than 1,000 yards this season (Brian Westbrook has missed a game and a half with a bruised sternum, and I still have only 357 yards to go with nine games to play).

After Sunday’s night game, things were going well enough that I posted a little friendly smack on my league message board. I laughed at my friend for only having Randy Hymes -- Randy frickin’ Hymes -- going on Monday Night.

I was working late on Monday when my cell phone rang.

“You aren’t watching the game, are you?” my friend cackled.

“No. Why?” I asked nervously.

“Turn on the TV,” he said, uncoiling a knowing laugh.

I made it to the television in time to see replays of Hymes hauling in a 57-yard TD pass from Kyle Boller.

“God damn Chiefs defense!” I thought to myself. “Kyle Boller hasn’t thrown a 57-yard TD pass since he was at Cal!”

Since our league awards eight points per receiving touchdown to help make up the difference in value between running backs and receivers, not to mention a 5-point bonus for scoring plays longer than 50 yards, my precious lead had evaporated in a single play. The Boller-to-Hymes strike counted five points for the 57 yards, eight for the TD and five more for the bonus; 18 points in all.

Hymes hauled in just one more pass all evening, but that was plenty to keep my friend rubbing it in right until I paid the pizza man the following Thursday.

Fortunately, that team got Deuce McAllister back healthy and I was lucky enough to snag Reuben Droughns as a free agent, so it hadn’t lost again until this week, when another Monday night miscue doomed me.

Actually, it was my miscue. I started a hot Byron Leftwich against Houston over a cold Chad Pennington against a good Miami defense. I was playing the matchups.

That Leftwich laid a 4-point egg in a 20-6 loss to Houston was bad enough. My whole team was so pathetic that the other guy only had one player, Chargers tight end Antonio Gates, in double figures, and he beat me by 20 points.

But what made things worse was that Pennington shredded the Miami defense for 27 points in a 41-14 Monday Night Football shellacking. If I had started him instead of Leftwich, I’d have won by three while getting virtually nothing from Droughns, Andre Johnson, McAllister (on bye), and Fred Taylor (left early in Sunday’s game with an injury).

I’m in six fantasy football leagues, so I’m bound to have some stinkers each week. I went 6-0 in week two, but other than that, it’s been mostly 4-2, 3-3 and 2-4 weeks. Fantasy football has a lot to do with playing the right players at the right times. If Marvin Harrison, Tiki Barber and Jake Plummer all go off in the same week, it’s better to have them on your team than to be playing against them.

But Monday nights have been particularly rough on me this year. I stormed back from way down a few weeks ago with Tennessee's Chris Brown, proclaimed a game a 99-all tie on the message board, then found out on Tuesday morning that Yahoo! StatTracker had done me wrong. I lost 99-98.

Two weeks ago, I led by four with Denver tight end Jeb Putzier going against kicker Jason Elam for my opposition. Denver could score 42 for all I care, as long as my man Jeb catches a TD or a couple of 10-yard passes and Elam kicks only extra points. Field goals, however, would be trouble.

Elam kicked himself a single field goal and PAT in the 23-10 loss to Cincinnati, but Putzier couldn’t muster a catch, much less a point. Nate Jackson, graduate of Division III Menlo College, had four catches for the Broncos, but not Putzier.

Never depend on guys named Jeb. I tied.

And while I have been rescued a few times on Monday night -- by Javon Walker’s mostly-garbage-time 160 yards and a TD in that blowout loss to Tennessee, or Marc Bulger’s TD passes against Tampa Bay -- the I-think-I-got-it-won letdown is the worst.

Then again, it’s just the nature of the beast.

And with Indy-Minnesota, Philly-Dallas, New England-Kansas City and St. Louis-Green Bay making up the coming month’s schedule of MNF games, expect a whole bunch of fantasy games in your league’s playoff run to be decided while Al Michaels and John Madden are yammering away.

Hoop scoop

Eh, I wouldn’t really call it a scoop. Just some observations. My season tip-off thoughts on fantasy basketball are these: Get your hands on the up-and-comers quickly, and avoid lingering injuries.

Nothing will kill your team faster than if you’ve drafted Jermaine O’Neal, and he stays on the injured list long. Jason Kidd could be back by Christmas -- or St. Patrick’s Day. And whaddya know, Glenn Robinson won’t be coming off the bench for the 76ers after all. He’s already out for five games due to injury.

And yet Alonzo Mourning can go with a transplanted kidney.

If you can get your hands on a vintage Grant Hill, Antonio McDyess or Karl Malone -- or rather, one that stays healthy and is a shadow of his old self -- you just might be able to steal third- or fourth-round value late in the draft or off the waiver wire.

Also, read before you draft. Sounds basic, but I can’t stress it enough.

I made my picks by phone from a moving vehicle with the help of the Junky, not having read a word about the coming season. I forgot about mad players I would have wanted in the late rounds. I also forgot that Jason Terry is in Dallas, Nick the Quick is in Portland and Jalen Rose is in Toronto, where he'd been since midway through last season. Hey, at least I remembered where GP, Shaq, Kenyon Martin and Antawn Jamison are.

Okay, so baseball is interesting

I have to admit, postseason baseball is nowhere near as boring as the regular season variety. Maybe it’s that way in every sport when something is all of a sudden on the line. The Red Sox comeback against the Yankees ruled, and I’m not nearly a card-carrying member of the Nation. I just know a great sports moment when I see one.

Sure, the history’s been beaten into the ground. No need to rehash it. But I just thought I’d tip the cap to America’s pastime. It ain’t so bad after all.

Lightning round

Okay, so by the time you read this, you’ll probably know, but I’ll say Kerry needs Florida and Ohio to win this thing. Hopefully the young and disenfranchised get out this time and stop the madness that has been the Bush administration. And if not, life goes on. … Speaking of politics and baseball, Curt Schilling endorsed Crazy George the Cheerleading Service Side-stepper. Ah, Schill was great in a Phillies uni, and brought World Series titles to Arizona and Boston, the latter on a bleeding ankle. A guy can only be so perfect, right? … Even if you hate T.O., he has to amuse you. He one-ups himself every week, first by scoring, then celebrating. The sit-ups, pulling down the sign in Cleveland and doing the Ray Lewis dance against the Ravens? Come on. That’s hot! … Went to Neyland Stadium recently, home of the Tennessee Volunteers. It was a blast, with more than 107,000 in the house. But I’ve found Penn State, Miami, Virginia Tech and even Rutgers to be rowdier home venues. Plus, there were about 20,000 Alabama fans in UT’s orange-clad stadium. At least they got the crappy seats. … Is my NBA fantasy team bad when I have no Europeans in the lineup? Oh wait, Tony Parker is a Frenchie. Fuhgeddaboutit … Sign of the demise of Reality TV: Al Sharpton has a show. If he’s not on it berating white people for the silly shit they do, how good can this show be? … Stephen A. Smith is better in print than on TV, but I’ll take 100 doses of him or Jim Rome before Stu Scott. I just can’t take that guy anymore. Linda Cohn has a better mastery of black slang. No, no, there's not a hater in the house. I'm just being honest. I think it was Rotogod Ricky that said he jumped the shark in about 1998 … Colin Quinn’s Tough Crowd is the best show on TV right now … Not to be a homer, but if Pittsburgh doesn’t beat the 7-0 Eagles, there isn’t a whole lot to stop them from going 16-0. They play the Redskins and Dallas twice each, plus the Giants, who they’ve already routed. Then there are games against erratic Green Bay and super-erratic St. Louis, and they close with Cincinnati, who’ll have packed it in by then. Every NFL team stumbles sooner or later though, as the Patriots proved this weekend. And frankly, Philly can drop four or five of their last nine games as long as they get into the show with Westbrook healthy and go unbeaten in the postseason. Or at least make it to the Super Bowl. With all the titles coming to Boston these days, only Philly, Cleveland or Seattle could be more championship-starved.

Coming next

Seriously, I’ll do the “how to name your fantasy team” column then. Maybe. If nothing better comes up.

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-- Written by TiVo on November 02, 2004