Fantasy Football Week 5 Recap

Fantasy Football Week 5 Recap: The Scipio AfricANUS vs. The Renegade Angels

As I noted in an earlier post, my week 5 game was a grudge match.  It was a textbook example of good vs. evil.  I was playing our league commissioner Michael.  He had just come off a record breaking win against his brother Matt and was basking in his undefeated glory.  On the other end of the spectrum, I had come off an embarrassing loss to the Arizona Braddlesnakes and had slipped to 3-1 in the league.  I needed a win in week 5 in order to maintain my place as a forerunner in the league and to keep Michael in check.  The last thing this league needs is an undefeated Michael.  If he remained undefeated the rest of the league managers would constantly be reminded how terrible and worthless they were. 

Going into Sunday’s matchup I was met with some unfortunate news:

-My starting running back Alfred Morris had a bye week so I couldn’t play him.
-My starting wide receiver Calvin Johnson was injured and would not be playing.
-My other starting running back Darren McFadden was also injured and would sit out.

It just so happened that when I received this news Michael was with me, so as I was trying to enjoy lunch I was being mocked and laughed at.  It was going to be a long day.  Fortunately, I didn’t have to watch the games on television because Michael and I were busy brewing beer with our buddy Blake owner of the 1-4 Casual Dogs.  Throughout the afternoon we would check for updates on our iPhones and it looked dreadful at first.  My players were simply not producing.  However, as the afternoon progressed I started to notice something; while my players were not producing numbers, it seemed that Michael’s were not producing numbers either.  I felt a ping of hope, but I suppressed it. Never trust a hope, it has forsaken these lands.   We had to make a trip to Home Depot and upon returning I was still in the lead, my team was terrible but there it was; me in the lead by 10 and it was nearing five in the afternoon.  It looked as though my late acquisition of Ravens RB Ray Rice (ßfour R’s in a row? How often does that happen?)  was paying off nicely as he went on to earn a season high of 20 points.  When eight o’clock came and the last seconds rolled off of the Broncos vs. Cowboys game my roster had been spent.  I was sitting at 114.8 points and Michael was at 83 with three players left to play. 

The players left in Michael’s arsenal were Arian Foster (RB), Tony Gonzalez (TE), and Matt Bryant (K).  Foster played in the Sunday night game scoring 11.5 points narrowing the gap.  On Monday there was radio silence between Michael and I we were waiting for the Monday night game to finish this fight.  I opted out of staying up til three in the morning to watch the game and called it a night early. When I woke the next morning, I shut the alarm off on my phone and saw that I had 2 unread messages.  One was from Matt saying, “YOU DID IT!!”  And the other from Michael said, “Enjoy you day in the sun my friend, it won’t last long.”  Confused, because I was still half asleep, it took me a moment to piece together what they were talking about, but when I did I smiled, picked up my phone and began typing: “Hey Michael, remember that time when you were undefeated in fantasy and then lost to me?” I hit send.  Resting my head back on my pillow I exhaled a long breath and with it escaped a hardy chuckle. I had done it.  I slayed the Renegade Angel.  All was right with the world once again.