I won again and I DID score more points than the previous 2 weeks, but not that many. Remember last week I was desperate for scoring and was tired of waiting for my stud players to produce? I went out and shook up my lineup and picked up some hot players. Believe it or not, even that didn't work. What won the weekend for me was a pick up I made less than 30 minutes prior to the late Sunday games: Kenton Keith. Not a name you might have easily recognized prior to Sunday but he was my hero. I am still competing in the Salary Cap Fantasy Football League and thanks to Keith, I vaulted from 5th place to 3rd in the points standings for that league and then won my match in the Sports Journey league. Keith was the replacement for the injured Joseph Addai on the Indy Colts and had been spoken about all week as the guy who would get the start if Addai wasn't well enough.

This week's lesson is that if you are paying attention during the week to the injury news and are serious about winning in fantasy, you better be prepared to pull the trigger on a back up for one of your stars. Sergio had played Addai each week this season and he is one of his vault full of winners that has allowed Serg to have the most fantasy points in the league so far this season. But for some reason, he didn't go out and get Keith. Knowing Sergio, one of two things happened: he was too busy with his coaching and fatherly duties to make the move or he was cocky/confident and believed that with Tony Romo, TO, Braylon Edwards and others, he could win the week and not need Addai's points. Wrong! To make it worse for Serg, he played the ever motivated Lake Lewis who was salivating to beat him. Lake had made a slew of moves like me and he, Serg and I were the only 3 in the league that were still undefeated at 3-0 prior to Sunday; now it's just Lake and me. The term used in fantasy-speak for making sure the back up to your stud is on your team, ready to come off the bench in the event of injury or suspension is "hand cuffing". I know it smells like S&M but it is only used to conjure up an image of your star and his back up being cuffed to each other and you having the key to unlock them.

So here is what patience and determination to win takes: Not leaving the TV, radio or computer prior to the early games, during the early games and immediately before the late games to keep checking the status of the injured star. In the case of injury you've got 3 definitions you need to understand; "doubtful (he'll never play), "probable" (he'll play barring a set back on game day) and "game time decision" (just shoot yourself and pray). Obviously you manage your starting lineup based on injuries and who is out on his team's bye week. So those of us who can micro manage and pay attention during the 5 hours on Sunday prior to the later games have an edge on those who can't. Addai was listed as a Game Time Decision...yikes! I was in a chat room on espn.com monitoring the announcements from the host and the moment I saw the Addai news I cruised over to Yahoo and our league, saw that Serg hadn't pulled the trigger and bingo, I picked up Keith by dropping someone that I might need in the future. But, this is a week to week business folks; you should plan ahead but not at the cost of losing a game that can keep you in the mix to make the playoffs. With Serg and Lake's teams rolling along with points totals more than mine and being undefeated as well, I needed to maintain the momentum. By adding Keith, the measly points scored by most of my regulars and replacements (except for a good day from kicker Matt Stover and a day on which Antonio Gates FINALLY got into the end zone)was supplemented by Keith's astounding 2 touchdowns and more than 100 yards running.

Oh and BTW, Serg lost to Lake and now I play an angry and motivated Serg this weekend with 6 players on bye week and me patching a team together from almost the ground up. Ah yes, the joys of fantasy football. Here's the official total, my game and the league's standings: I won the week 63-57 (told you that Keith won the day for me) and stayed undefeated. Lake and I are the last teams standing undefeated with Serg in with a record of 3-1 and Rich (The Mad Crazies) creeping up at 2-2. The rest of the league is in the witness protection program. With my team this week,consisting of free agent pick ups and only 5 regulars, I am looking at either a crushing defeat or another miracle win if I can just figure out who this week's Kenton Keith will be; cause the real Keith, sadly, is on bye as well. How'd you guys do?

Here's the good news: I won again this weekend. I played a team that by rights should have beaten me but unlike my previous two opponents this guy actually played the right guys and had arranged his lineup just prior to game time; so he knew who was injured, on bye week, etc. He had players capable of and actually handicapped by Yahoo fantasy football's computer to beat me. All of a sudden, my lineup that was balanced and capable of scoring each week (remember my smug assessment from my first week's match?) has not scored more than 3 touchdowns among all players for the second week in a row. One week of poor scoring is bound to happen in the course of a season; but 2 in a row, with the score going down the second weekend, has got to stop.

There are reasons for each of my players not scoring of course; there always are. But that doesn't matter when I am now facing the tougher teams in the league. No offense to my previous 3 opponents, but they don't achieve huge scoring each week the way our esteemed host and co-host Mr. Lake Lewis and Mr. Sergio Rodriguez do. I don't play either of them this coming week but they are getting teed up to whup my butt after that. So I had to look at what has happened in just 3 weeks in football and face up to the fact that my drafted players aren't achieving what they should. This has been the weirdest season I can remember with the pre-season team and individual rankings and expectations being thrown out the window with a few exceptions. And even in the case of individual guys who are running or passing for good yardage, they don't seem to be getting into the end zone as much as they should. As I've said before, this is a "touchdown heavy" league. When you only get one point for every 50 yards a QB throws, one point for every 20 yards a running back achieves or a wide receiver runs til he catches a pass, you know that only TD's are going to run up your score.

My QB had one great week and 2 Ok weeks; my main running backs have run for good yardage but haven't been in the end zone much; of my wide receivers, only 1 has consistently scored; my kicker has had a mediocre season and my defenses are not getting turnovers the way they should. I needed a whole body transplant but I couldn't be stupid about it either. Here's how I did it:

I gave up Matt Schaub as a back up QB; he wasn't lighting up the scoreboard and actually had scored less than my #1 guy Big Ben. I cut Ron Dayne as a back up RB since he only got activated to play full time this past week and didn't rack up much yardage. I then jettisoned my extra defensive squad since I can always pick up a decent defense on any given week based on match ups. I had chosen each of those that I cut to help out on bye weeks when my regulars wouldn't play or in the event of injury to my main guys. I can't afford that strategy any more. So I picked up the hottest rookie WR in the league, the only scoring threat on the Chiefs with LJ not seeing the end zone yet (see what I mean about it being a strange season?), I picked up Jerry Porter who was Culpepper's favorite target on Sunday and I believe Daunte will have that job til he blows it or if the Raiders commit suicide and try and insert their #1 draft pick into the line up prior to him actually learing the whole play book. I also picked up RB Michael Pittman who stepped into a time sharing situation with another guy on Tampa Bay after Cadillac Williams went down to a season ending injury. Pittman got more carries and yardage than his tandem mate but the other guy got the scores. We'll see how this actually works as it progresses since I need the scoring!

So with that withering analysis of my own team, how did I pull off a win? I got lucky again; my opponent had Donovan McNabb on Sunday night with me only up by 5 points heading into that game. I only had 2 WR's still to play; one of McNabb's guys and then a Patriot WR for Monday night. McNabb had the worst night ever and got zero points. Since he had zero, his WR, the one on my team also got zero. My Patriot WR got me a couple of points since anyone not named Randy Moss on the Patriots rarely sees the end zone. As I always say, a W is a W and I'll take it but my luck is running out boys and girls. Let's see who else I feel compelled to pick up based on how I think he can help me run up some decent scoring. See you next week!

The lesson to learn from my weekend was that you can win but not be proud of it because you don’t feel like you deserved it. Get over that folks because a W is a W.

Remember last week’s team had everyone but my flex positions score? Well this week I got a total of only2 touchdowns from all players including my quarterback and 3 RB’s. That happens once in a while and I wasn’t prepared for it. After the early games I was convinced I was gonna lose. I wasn’t that far ahead of my opponent and I only had a few players left for the late games, none for Sunday or Monday night and my opponent had the bulk of his team playing during that time.

But what I had going for me is this: my opponent is a “Homer”. That is another type of fantasy player like my opponent from last week who didn’t pay attention to matchups for his players. A Homer has nothing to do with the Simpsons but has everything to do with a draft technique that isn’t good. When you draft or pick up players off waivers or free agency that play on your favorite team, be afraid; be very afraid.

My opponent, a Redskins fan, filled 4 positions of his 10 position line up with Washington Redskins; quarterback, 1 running back, 1 wide receiver and Washington’s defense. Now let me add one other thing: the running back and wide receiver are not the #1 options for their team. So you take the fact that the team is only middling to ordinary and you stir that in with the fact that you don’t have the team’s leaders and you’ve got losses; my opponent is 0-2.

Oh yeah, the other spicy ingredient to mix into the concoction is leaving in a running back that isn’t used by a team because he is the 3rd option on a team whose 2 runners share time….and aren’t injured or sucky. My opponent had the Titans’ runner, Chris Henry, on his roster and if you research him you won’t find a stat sheet because he hasn’t been used once in the first 3 games of the season. At first I read it wrong and got scared that he was using Chris Brown, not Chris Henry. Because of the slim lead I had going into Monday night that could have been disastrous for me. But no…..it was Chris Henry. What that means to me is that he, like my previous opponent, wasn’t paying attention to his lineup prior to the weekend. What are you thinking and why are you playing a game that you don’t want to win?

I thought my pre-game decision to leave in my whole roster from week 1 except the switch to the Minnesota defense (I picked them up from free agency and dropped the Denver D) was wise but I hesitated when I left Kevin Curtis on the bench. That man had the game of his life and may be the only time in his career that he’ll have the monster day he had with 3 TD’s and more than 200 yards receiving and I left him off my starting roster. Why? Because of McNabb’s problems from Week 2 and his inability to connect with Curtis. I knew it was only a matter of time before the two of them would hook up and Donovan would come back to life as an elite QB in the league. Who knew it would be this past weekend. That happens a lot in fantasy and there I was kicking myself as I was looking at a horrible score without many touchdowns among my guys as Curtis was in the zone and scored more fantasy points than most running backs and quarterbacks in Yahoo fantasy sports. Oh well, I have him for this week with Calvin Johnson being iffy for this Sunday with a back injury that took him out of the game after he had already compiled more than 50 yards in catches. I still think I might have to replace Big Ben after two crappy weeks of scoring. Matt Schaub, my back up has a decent matchup against Atlanta, especially if Hall is suspended after his penalties for bad behavior on the field against Carolina. The Steelers play the Cardinals without a serious defense so Ben might air it out in that hot and dry air of the desert. I’ll see how the week goes and check out the expert analysis and let you know. How did you all do?

Week 2 finally came and I had a regular and salary cap team going simultaneously. One of the things I learned from my mentor was that having 2 regular fantasy teams taxes you unnecessarily and it confuses you about who to start where and when. That may not be true for many of you but if you’re a beginner, make it one and done, OK? I learned the hard way that I couldn’t manage 2 teams and it was pitiful. My second team was doomed from the draft and I just couldn’t seem to manage to get the right free agents or guys off waivers to fill in the roster to make it a winning team. Oh well, lesson learned. You’ve seen my roster if you read last week’s edition but as good as it is I was playing the guy with LT, Andre Johnson and Carson Palmer; Palmer was playing the pitiful Cleveland Browns and I presumed a big game from him. Guess what? My opponent didn’t play him. In an inexplicable move he had drafted 3 quarterbacks. You’ll have to ask him why since RB’s as we learned, score the most on a consistent basis except for one of the top 3 QB’s in the league. Palmer was rated #1 most places in pre-season and it isn’t unusual to draft a back up with the injuries to QB’s happening often. But to put three on your roster when you need to play 2 or 3 RB’s each week makes no sense. He also drafted Tom Brady and Matt ; instead of playing Palmer he played Brady, rated anywhere from 2-4 on the pre-season polls but……against Cleveland you play Palmer every time. You play the match up rarely with a number 1 starter and that’s the problem with having Brady and Palmer. You’d normally not move each of them and trust that over the season all evens out even if one of the guys has a bad game here and there. But in this instance, with a choice and with the matchup against the lowly Browns you play Palmer. LT had a rough week 1 against the monstrously good Chicago Bears defense. Although they were playing New England, that has a great D of its own, I believed that LT wouldn’t be contained again, no matter who he was running against since he had been the MVP last season. Andre Johnson now had a great new QB to throw to him in Matt Schaub and after week 1 in which Schaub showed his stuff and Houston actually won a game I believed that against Carolina whose D has gone downhill in the last couple of years, Johnson could break out. So those were my assumptions prior to the game about my opponent’s team. My mentor tells me that I should never make my own management choices for my team based on who my opponent plays. He is right; you go with your best team and hope for the best. In Yahoo you can click on the hot link called “match up” to see what the Yahoo computers believe your score and your opponent’s will be at the end of the weekend. I try not to believe it if it has me losing and secretly cheer when it has me winning. So here is who I put out there for my team: Big Ben at QB, Shaun Alexander and Willie Parker at RB’s, Calvin Johnson and Donald Driver at WR’s, Antonio Gates at TE, Wes Welker at one flex position requiring a pass catcher and Derek Ward of the Giants for the other flex position that required a runner. Josh Brown was my kicker and I used the Green Bay D. Here’s how it ended up: I won big. Why? My opponent missed the boat on a 6, count them 6 TD day by Carson Palmer, LT had another crappy day and didn’t see the end zone and other than Andre Johnson, and Tom Brady he had a terrible performance out of the rest of his team. I had no one score multiple touchdowns but other than Welker and Ward, every one of my guys scored for a very balanced total. I got double digits from my D which is your goal each week and my kicker got a respectable 8 points although it was a bit disappointing for me. The final score for the week was 83-67. When my opponent and I emailed about the game I asked him why he didn’t play Carson Palmer which would have turned the tide for him. He said he hadn’t looked at his lineup after the draft and hadn’t studied the matchups for his guys. Lesson folks: don’t ever suit up for a Sunday without having at least scanned the games to see if the guys you are starting are the best ones you have; remember my mentor’s advice. My opponent had a far superior roster to choose from than me and he didn’t use it. All I know, is that I’m 1-0 and that’s a good thing. Let’s see what happens next week.

OK, haven't reported in a while and never got to you on the draft. I was pissed off about it and went into a funk; only to be rescued by my fantasy football mentor and friend. Here's the story:

Sports Journey host, Lake Lewis wanted us to have a league for staff and fans of the show. He set it all up with Yahoo for us to draft the day prior to the first game of the season; a lesson he learned was the right strategy from yours truly. Fast forward to draft day and Lake had not researched the Yahoo rules well enough to understand that we had to have an even number of teams in the league all registered with Yahoo at least 45 minutes prior to draft time. Like many folks, a number of participants waited til the last minute and blew us out of drafting that day at all. Why? Yahoo's computer servers are so jammed with drafts taking place every 10 minutes, all around the world, that it needs server space to get the drafting mechanism in place and working well for every team drafting at the appointed time. So they lock you down 45 minutes prior and if all members aren't in place and that adds up to an uneven number of teams, you get pushed off your time OR you get to have a computer pick for all that are then present. Trust me, half the fun is drafting and the shenanigans that go on. We voted NO on auto-drafting by the computer and that meant we had no other time to draft with the season the next day. We had to go fantasy-less into Week 1 of the season. I had everyone I know who is in a league waiting with baited breath to see who I picked. They had already drafted and sent me their rosters. I was bummed out beyond belief because it just isn't the same....you crave the competition and the reason to watch all 16 games each week. I was without that and felt ashamed to admit it. Enter my mentor who scooped me up and gave me a room to play in while I waited a week to draft and start the real fantasy league with Sports Journey. He had formed a Salary Cap fantasy league and invited me to join. Instead of drafting against all other teams in your league and having to share all NFL players with them, you get to pick who you want. Why? Because although your ultimate weekly score is measured against other teams in your league, your challenge is to pick a team that fits under a $100,000,000 salary cap that scores a lot and beats the rest of your league. Each player is given a designated dollar value that goes up, down or remains the same each week based on their real on-field performance. Try and build a good team with that restriction! It’s a huge challenge but I guess that the grief I felt at not being in the big fantasy league for Week 1 made me feel loose and free to pick like nothing depended on it and I won that week; I was atop the standings on Tuesday morning. It helped me through til the following day when the rescheduled Sports Journey league finally drafted:

OK, here is the team as picked that day: QB’s Big Ben and Matt Schaub RB’s Shaun Alexander, Willie Parker, Ron Dayne and Marshawn Lynch WR’s Donald Driver, Wes Welker Calvin Johnson and Kevin Curtis TE’s: Antonio Gates, Ben Watson K: Josh Brown Defense: Green Bay and Detroit We play 1 QB, 2 RB’s 2 WR’s, 1TE, 1 Kicker, 1 Defense and 2 “Flex” positions: one for a WR or RB and one for a WR or TE.

So you know what that means right? You take a runner for the flex position. Stats prove that RB’s score more, gain more yardage and help your team more than a receiver. Sure a WR can have a 2 or 3 touchdown day; see for reference Steve Smith and Randy Moss, but it doesn’t happen weekly or even every few weeks. Compare that with what a stud running back can do every game. There is no comparison. So……take the RB in flex every time….you hear me?

Here are the moves I made immediately after the draft: I threw out Ben Watson and picked up Derek Ward, the RB on the NY Giants. Yahoo’s list of players didn’t include Ward since he was so far down the depth chart he wasn’t considered to be worthy on draft day. But the good point (yes there is one) about drafting after Week 1 is that you know who is good, bad or injured. Ward took over when the Giants’ running back got injured and he kicked butt. Other than that I sat with my drafted team and hoped for the best.

After all, I had won in Week 1 at Salary Cap; I was on a roll wasn’t I? Tune in next week kiddies.

OK, so I used the mock draft mechanism on ESPN.com and although it was enlightening in some ways it still pointed to one solid fact: draft postion is key. If you've got savvy and competitive managers in your league you better get a good position to grab a stud running back or one of the top 2 QB's who might make or break you this season. This year, if you are playing on Yahoo.com, which is where I tend to land, the points for scoring and yards gained have been changed. Did I tell you I hate change of any kind...other than my clothes, shoes, nail polish color, etc.? So that is the other thing I learned this year: go to the rules and scoring details on the site you choose prior to the draft. This year, passing touchdowns get you fewer points than running TD's and running yardage to gain one lousy point has been increased. So what does it all mean? It means that your fantasy QB is now officially not as important as your running backs of all kinds: starters or backups. To get good RB's you've got to pick early or get lucky that you are drafting with the stupidest people in the world. Your second pick HAS to be a RB now if you play Yahoo since the bulk of your points will come from their scores. Your second pick might be a starter on a so-so club or it might be the back up on a great club. Either way, do some research to see if there is history from last year that matters. For example, if you picked Julius Jones of Dallas last year, you got pissed off really quick that he'd get replaced in the red zone by Marion Barber who'd push in for scores. The two guys are still on the same team so you might think that is the smart play again...not quite. Bill Parcells is no longer the coach and with a new one installed there might not be as many reps for Barber to barrel into the end zone. Maybe Jones will get more chances. Another thing, the sharing of running chores between 2 backs on the same team might be a ripe situation for you to take them both if you play in a "run heavy" scoring league. Ah, all this to ponder and my draft coming up on Wednesday. What's a girl to do?

I met my fantasy mentor and guru for lunch yesterday and he asked me if I had tried a "mock draft" yet. I didn't even know there was such a thing and when he told me the benefits and we started discussing particular players I realized that time had flown and so had a piece of my football brain. It's the second week of pre-season and I haven't checked out the rankings yet for the various positions I'll have to choose at my draft. My guru had to tell me that Stephen Jackson, who I was leaning to as my stud running back for my team this year, was ranked just under LaDainian Tomlinson at that position. Shame on me and now I'm anxious and setting aside the time it should take to get me up to speed.

I'll check out the major sites and their preseason rankings as well as one of the better magazines on the subject. I tend to swallow it all whole, have it mix around in my digestive system and then see how it all feels. I guess you could say I take opinions of "experts" only when they all agree and the rest is gut feel, what I know about each player's physical fitness, his depth chart position and how he played last year. Oh yeah, and if he has had good additions to his team that might help him perform well or better than last season.

But I came away from lunch with a plan; at least that happened. He took me and shook me and I realized I hadn't paid enough attention to my upcoming mania that lasts from Game 1 until the last game of the season. I don't play fantasy during the playoffs. By that time I am spent from days on end of reading, making changes on my team, watching every game, every week and worrying. I had a friend once, who after listening to me moan about my concern that I would lose to some bozo based on a Monday night game in which I didn't have a player involved but my opponent did, asked why it didn't sound like I was having fun. Isn't this supposed to be fun for you, she said? I realized that the competition of it all takes precedence when I am in the fantasy mode. Sundays become times that friends and lovers know enough not to bother me for fear of reprisal; Monday nights become another cause for worry if my opponent and I are close enough in points for one score to tip the contest to one of us. My guru once told me there is nothing like winning on Monday night and that the low of losing by a nose on Monday stays with you the whole week. He was right. So I now have to go into training for the grueling 15 weeks of competition and the hour of horror called the draft. If you push one wrong button on your computer, if you use the Internet to play, you can be cooked for weeks or the whole season. It's gut wrenching and I am never sure I did well, no matter how many stars I got on my team. The proof's in the pudding and week 1 will start telling the story. So thanks to my pal who jump started the new season of ecstasy and horror all rolled into one. Onward to a mock draft for me. I'll let you know how it goes.