Fantasy Football Rookie (Week 11)

Monday Night - 

I had a pretty bad week. I won't officially know how bad until tomorrow, but I'm already bumped down to 3rd place and I don't have anyone playing tonight... though 4th place is pretty far back so I don't think I have to worry about anyone else passing me up this week.

Both my starting quarterbacks were terrible. My receivers were actually pretty good, as was my tight end (I did end up going with Julius Thomas, trusting the "probable" status as of the early kickoff). But neither of my running backs met their projections, my kicker had a really slow game, and my defense - team and individual players - did fairly well but just not enough to make up for the low numbers in other areas. My final score was 141.06, my lowest all year. With a few starter switches, I could have had 158, which still would have been my lowest all year. And if I hadn't taken my other kicker off my roster, I could have had 165... which STILL would have been my lowest score all year.

So, yeah, this clearly wasn't going to be a good week for me.

And on top of that, the Bears lost an extremely winnable game because Cutler got injured AT THE END OF THE FIRST HALF and the coaches didn't put in his backup until the final drive of the game.

Nope, not a good week...

Thursday Morning - 

Remember how last week I was nervous about the three-hour difference between my backup and starting tight ends? And how I was like, well, at least it's only three hours, it could be worse? Yeah... this week it's worse -- Thursday night vs Sunday night. But Julius Thomas doesn't look nearly as iffy this week as he did last week, so hopefully it won't be an issue.

I'm pretty frustrated with my quarterbacks right now. The NFL fantasy guys are still putting Eli above Joe Flacco, but at this point I think I have more faith in Flacco. I don't know what happened to Cam last week, but I'm going to go ahead and start Cam Newton and Joe Flacco.

I'm solid at the running back position, like I mentioned last week. My guys are projected at #5, 6, 7, & 9 on the NFL rankings. With that in mind, there's always a chance that one of my benched players is going to have a breakout game, but I'm going with Reggie Bush and Knowshon Moreno this week.

In the wide receiver position, I picked up Riley Cooper in free agency this week. He's been hot the last couple weeks, and while it might not continue, he seems worth a shot considering neither Steve Smith nor Denarius Moore have had double-digit games in weeks. Calvin Johnson and Pierre Garcon are my other two starters, as usual.

Tight end, Julius Thomas, unless he doesn't play... in which case hopefully I know about it early enough to pick up someone to replace him.

Kicker, David Akers.

For my defensive players, NaVorro Bowman and Nick Roach.

As for my team defense/special teams, neither San Francisco nor Baltimore looks all that promising... I may change my mind before Sunday, but right now I'm leaning 49ers if only to avoid the conflict of interests that comes with the Ravens playing the Bears this week. (On the other hand, getting fantasy points out of the Ravens could be a silver lining if we end up losing the real game.)