With the end of Monday Night Football on ABC also comes the end of my Yahoo! Fantasy Football league for the season.
My team (The Wombats) went 11-3-0 for the regular season, and while that was a tie with one other team, I went into the playoffs seeded number one due to the fact that I had scored 34 more fantasy points than they did. It seems a bit odd that they would leave it to points as the first tie breaker, but I’m glad they did since the second place team beat me twice during the season.
The first round of the playoffs gave me a mild heart attack. The Giants played on Saturday that week and Tiki Barber not only had a career day, but he also set a Giants record for rushing yards in a game. That gave him, and my opponent, 24 fantasy points. I started Sunday 24 points in the hole, and I was projected to win the matchup 75-61. He just blew the projections out of the water. Lucky for me, almost all of my players went over their projections as well, and I wound up winning the match up 96-82.
The championship game presented a different set of challenges for me. My two top producing running backs all year were Edgerrin James (Colts) and Ronnie Brown (Dolphins). The problem is that Brown was probably not going to play at all because of an injury, and James was going to see limited carries because the Colts are basically taking it easy to get ready for the playoffs. I decided to play Willie Parker (Steelers) and I picked up Ricky Williams (Dolphins) who was about the only good running back available that I knew would get some carries. Parker was projected to get five fantasy points and Williams four. They scored 12 and 14 respectively. Boy was Williams a good pick up!
All of my players were playing on Saturday the 24th. As I was watching the Giants get beaten by the Redskins, I saw some horrible news. Steve Smith, the wide receiver for the Panthers, and one of my brighter spots, got ejected from his game because he touched a ref. And he got ejected before scoring any fantasy points! He was supposed to get 10. Ugh. By the end of the day, my players had amassed 76 fantasy points for me, 12 more than the projection. Not bad. My opponent had only gotten 25, but he had a few players playing on Sunday, and two playing on Monday night. On Sunday, he added 11 points to his total, but that meant that his two players from the Patriots would have to score 40 fantasy points. Not unheard of, but not likely, especially since one of them was the kicker.
I kept my eye on the game and on the web site tonight as Corey Dillon rushed for two touchdowns, but only 77 yards; total points 15. Vinatieri put up 7 points on kicks. And thus the Fantasy Football season came to a close with yours truly winning the Championship 76-58.
I looked at the optimal scoring players and he would have won 86-78 if he had only played a few different players. Whew!
You can check out the stats at Yahoo! Public league #658537.
