Fantasy Football Rookie (Week 5)

Tuesday Morning - 

I'm in 2nd... by less than three points.

The first bye week of the season went alright. I could be nine points farther ahead had I made a couple different choices. Probably the biggest disappointment is that Calvin Johnson didn't have a better game, but he usually doesn't do great against the Bears. Their kicker, on the other hand, was the highest scoring kicker this week... small silver lining to the Bears' loss, but I guess it's something.

Looking ahead to next week, my bye week players are my backup tight end and one of my receivers, so those starter positions are locked. I do wonder if I want to pick up another wide receiver for more options while my guys are rotating through bye weeks, but I don't know if there's anyone I could get right now that would be better than the options I have (assuming no injuries... which is a dangerous assumption to make, but I can always pick up another player if that happens).

Friday Morning - 

(Huh, and now I'm back in third... again, by less than three points. I wonder if they were late factoring in Monday night players, or there was some stat correction later in the week. Oh, well...)

(ETA: Or because Week 5's already started and the guy who passed me up probably had someone playing last night. *facepalm*)

Most of my picks this week are fairly straightforward. Like I said, my wide receivers and tight end are set. I'm sticking with my usual starters for most everyone else.

My defensive players are where the trouble is. It's not really trouble, per se; even when I make the "wrong" choices, my players are all within a few points of each other, so it's not a big deal. It's just frustrating. On the one site that I've found that ranks defensive players, either the analysts are extremely biased against Lance Briggs for some reason, or they're using a points system that's vastly different than the one my league uses... because he's consistently ranked far, far below my other two players - NaVorro Bowman and Bobby Wagner - yet he's outperformed both of them three out of the four weeks so far, and in two of those three weeks he had the least promising match up (based on how many points the opposing offense usually gives up to linebackers, which all three of my players are).

So, I'm done listening to the "experts" for this category, and unless someone has an injury, I'll be sticking with Bowman and Briggs from now on.

For the record, then, my starters this week are:

QB - Cam Newton, Eli Manning
RB - Matt Forte, Reggie Bush
WR - Calvin Johnson, Marques Colston, Steve Smith, Denarius Moore
TE - Julius Thomas
K - David Akers
D/ST - 49ers
D - Lance Briggs, NaVorro Bowman

And in "conflicts of interest," Colston is playing against the Bears. We'll see how that game goes.

ETA: Sunday Morning (an hour before kickoff) - 

Well, crap. Calvin Johnson is inactive, and my backup WR is on bye. This is just what I was afraid of. Time to scramble...