Brees Slowdown, Your Killing My Fantasy Team!

Photo By: Icon SMI

Coming into our week seven clash with the highest-scoring team in the league, we walked in with a 4 and 2 record sitting in third place. Things started out poor as I was sure Frank Gore would have only marginal success against our Seahawks defense but he put up a 25 point day.

Bummed for sure but early-on Sunday we finally (for some reason, most of our scoring tends to come in the fourth quarter, during morning games this year) had a player on our team breakout out for a big play as Doug Martin went to the house from 36-yards out. While it was terrific to see Martin start well, both Reddog and I were concerned that Drew Brees would open up the passing game, down by 14 points.

Going against Marques Colston as well, we knew if Brees were to go off hopefully it wouldn’t include Colston for the combo points. On the very next drive Brees found Colston for a touchdown and put us behind the eight ball right away.

By the end of the first-half Brees had 50 points against us and the week was over. Tampa Bay, in the end, did exactly what we didn’t need them to do and that was put 21 points up on the board early in the game.

Outside of Martin’s efforts this was our worst game of the season and our 72 points (season low) is a reflection of how bad it was. Weeks like this happen, but after watching Matthew Stafford fail to throw for over 100 yards or find the end zone through the first three quarters again on Monday night, we knew a change needed to be made.

Dealing With the Devil

We decided to deal with the Devil (Dynasty Sharks, team that beat us last week) on Wednesday and were burned by Thursday as we received Peyton Manning but gave up Doug Martin in the process.

We offered either Martin, Willis McGahee or Stevan Ridley and the Sharks wisely choose the running back with the most upside.

As I wrote in my Monday running backs article, the Buccaneers matchup against the Vikings would be telling as to how Tampa Bay really felt about Martin going forward. If he only received another 16 carries, then they felt he needed to be on a pitch count.

If not, it probably meant Tampa Bay was keeping him on a pitch count against the Saints, knowing the team had an early matchup against the Vikings the next week. Obviously we now know how the Buccaneers felt about Martin as he touched the football over 30 times and had two touchdowns scores.

He even received goal line duties and LeGarrette Blount was basically held to mop up duties.

Do we feel like crap for giving away Martin? You bet.

If I had to do it over (a lesson to learn from our mistake) I wouldn’t have offered Martin in the deal because of what his ceiling is, if he should max out his potential. His performance against the Vikings will likely mark a breakout RB1 producing second half of the season, and we won’t enjoy the benefits of having him.

Let’s hope Manning can continue to produce at the level he did before the bye week and in all likeliness it will happen. Fingers crossed, and DARN YOU STAFFORD!!

I guess if there’s a silver lining in this sad story it’s that the Dynasty Sharks opted to start Reggie Bush over Martin this week so they didn’t get his monster performance in the lineup.

Other Week 7 Results

Budmen defeat Hooligans 120 to 98

Budmen had a slow start to the season but our all-time championship leader (four rings in the WTNY league) has bounced back in recent weeks. This past week he was matched up against Hooli, who is actually his brother in-law in real life.

Both men are Rams fans and because this is a league based in the Bay Area of Northern California, you can bet both take crap as we have many 49ers fans in the league.

Budmen or as we call him “Duds,” picked up the victory with big performances from Vincent Jackson and Randall Cobb.

In Hooli’s case, Adrian Peterson found the end zone for the first time since week one but his team struggled to get much else done, with about half of his normal starters on bye weeks.

Messengers defeat Manglers 114 to 65

After the Messengers lost to use week one, they’ve ripped off a six-game winning streak beating every other team in the league through the first half of the season. Victor Cruz, Rob Gronkowski and Tom Brady led the charge against a Manglers team that for the second week in a row, was the league low scorer in points.

Kudos to the Messengers and we are a little nervous about playing them this week. They’ve been in the league for two years now and while every game we’ve played against them has been close (three games) we’ve won each game. I’m sure they’re salivating for a victory this week, and Percy Harvin’s 15 points against us on Thursday night was a good start.

Not the mention the fact that we traded Martin and don’t have his 45 points in the lineup! :(

Big Daddy & The Legend defeat Canucks 131 to 95

My Uncle Mike’s team tried to rally for a win with 37 points from the Texans defense, and 25 points from Eli Manning but my Uncle Dave and cousin Brandon were too much.

Unfortunately for Mikey, this was the week Chris Johnson woke up for a monster performance with 40 points against him. Aaron Rodgers also stepped up for another 30 points as BDL have now won two in a row after losing the first five games on the year and suddenly look like a team you don’t want to face. Will be interesting to see how the do from this point and if they can get back to the playoffs after a very tough start.