October 23, 2007

The Quarterback Jinx

I have the ability to single-handedly ruin your fantasy football season. I can also ruin your opponent’s season. Want to know how? All I need to know is which Quarterback you (or your opponent) are planning on starting. Once I know this, I will obtain this QB off the waiver wires (if available) and start him myself. Within the first half of the game, I can, with almost 100% certainty, guarantee that said QB will be removed from the game due to an injury. I am a QB jinx like no other.

Let’s start with the draft. Because I was feeling super confident about my first two round RB choices in the draft (Tomlinson and Adrian Peterson of Min.), I went with a QB in Round three. I chose Marc Bulger. Within the first few games, it was very clear I had made a serious mistake. St. Louis can’t do anything right this year and they are ALL considerably banged up. Sunday was Bulger’s big come back game. He managed to throw three interceptions. He was also sacked seven times. He got a whopping -1 fantasy point. I’m just thanking my lucky stars he was on my bench.

I was fortunate enough to pick up Ben Roethlisberger in that league as well. He has been mostly fabulous. However, his bye week brought a pick up of Kurt Warner, Arizona’s now injured QB. (I also picked him up in my other league too-I should have known right there that I was doomed). He banged up his left elbow, had a miserable game, and I started wondering what was going on with the elbows!

In my other league, I drafted Vince Young. Young was supposed to be a major stud this year, and instead he’s left much to be desired. I didn’t mind though, because I had drafted Jake Delhomme as well. Jake Delhomme got a season-ending elbow injury and that was that. Delhomme had surgery on that elbow last week. I think I’ll do him a favor and not draft him next year so he can have a healthy season.

I also had Trent Green. Not only is Green out for the season with yet another severe concussion; he very well may call it quits entirely since the last thing he wants to do is be permanently brain damaged by taking another blow to the head.

With Delhomme and Green out for the season, and Warner out after playing on my team for only one miserable game, I had to pick up someone else. I was also hurting in my other league with Big Ben on a bye week since I was unwilling to let Young back at the helm. Because I am thoroughly convinced that I am jinxing these guys, I decided to pick up two different QB’s: one for each team.

I went with Jeff Garcia in my one league who ended up with 25 points on my bench (o.k. since Big Ben got me over 30 as my starter). I chose David Garrard for my other team. Guess what happened? Garrard, who needed to have a Manning/Brady-esque like game for me to even be close to winning this week, went out of the game with a knee injury about half way through the game, after getting me exactly two fantasy points. Two.

Now I’m in need of another QB, so I thought I should give all fantasy players fair warning that if you have the same QB I’ll be picking up, you might want to have a back-up plan.

And since you’re probably wondering. . . I’m in 8th out of 10 teams in one league and 7th out of 8 teams in the other league. Yes, my season has just been fabulous.

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