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Odell Beckham Jr made one of the most outstanding catches of all-time on Sunday night. And as good as it was, I couldn’t enjoy it in the slightest. That’s not because I’m a Jets fan and dislike the Giants so much that I couldn’t appreciate good play from one of their players, but his catch helped condemn the Salford Bloggers to an astonishing seventh loss of the season. It was devastating.
Going into the game, the Bloggers’ opponent La Linea Lineman had not had a triple-digit performance all season. That’s 11 games without scoring 100 or more points even once.
But if you’ve been following The League, or maybe this blog, then you’ll already know that players have had a knack of scoring big against me which prior performances would have suggested they aren’t capable of doing.
Had I played La Linea Lineman any other week, the 113 points I accumulated in week 12 would have been enough to comfortably overcome the opposition. But this time that wasn’t the case, as the team exploded for 132 points.
Not only did the loss mean that the Bloggers would miss out on the playoffs, it also continued the theme of horrendous luck for my team throughout the season.
To make matters even worse, two of the three best performers for Lineman were Eddie Lacy and Odell Beckham Jr. Lacy, who I was hoping would fall to me in the first round of the fantasy draft back in August, was taken by Lineman’s owner with the pick before mine, and then Beckham replaced my fourth-round pick Victor Cruz after the latter suffered a season ending knee injury.
Once he went down, the rookie became a hot waiver wire commodity, and I was beaten to the punch despite the Bloggers having the same record as Lineman who had also been first in waiver order for the past several weeks.
There is still hope that I can win the consolation ladder, but it is just that – a consolation. The playoffs were unlikely, but loss number seven meant that this year the playoffs are a bridge too far.
On to the next game.
La Linea Lineman
QB: Ryan Tannehill (228 passing yards, 15 rushing yards, 4 TD, 1 INT) – 26 points
RB: Eddie Lacy (125 rushing yards, 13 receiving yards, 2 TD) – 25 points
RB: Joique Bell (48 rushing yards, -2 receiving yards) – 4
WR: Alshon Jeffery (22 receiving yards, 1 TD – 8 points
WR: Odell Beckham Jr. (146 receiving yards, -2 rushing yards, 2 TD) – 26 points
TE: Coby Fleener (28 receiving yards) – 2 points
FLEX: T.Y. Hilton (122 receiving yards, 1 TD) – 19 points
D/ST: Patriots D/ST (9 points against, 1 INT, 2 sacks) – 7 points
K: Steven Hauschka (4 field goals made, 1 extra point) – 14 points
Bench
QB: Robert Griffin III (106 passing yards, 11 rushing yards, 1 INT) – 3 points
RB: Andre Williams (35 rushing yards, 12 receiving yards, 1 TD) – 10 points
RB: James Starks (-4 rushing yards) – 0 points
WR: Andre Johnson (36 receiving yards) – 3 points
WR: Michael Crabtree (10 receiving yards) – 1 point
WR: Michael Floyd – 0 points
TE: Dwayne Allen – 0 points
Salford Bloggers
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QB: Tony Romo (275 passing yards, 4 TD, 1 fumble, -1 rushing yard) – 25 points
What a performance by Tony Romo. My fears about the declining Philip Rivers earlier in the week led me to keep Romo in there. It paid off, and Romo played fantastically to take his team to victory over the rival Giants and confirm that starting him over Rivers was the right call to make.
RB: Mark Ingram (27 rushing yards, 15 receiving yards) – 3 points
Oh dear. Ingram had a nightmare against the league’s stingiest run defense, and the 20-plus points I was hoping from him turned out to only be three. Not good enough, and one of the reasons I didn’t win this week.
RB: C.J. Anderson (167 rushing yards, 28 receiving yards, 1 TD) – 24 points
Fortunately, I had another running back to pick up the pieces. With Ronnie Hillman and Montee Ball out, Anderson took the most of his chance and churned out his second 20-plus point fantasy outing in three weeks.
WR: Demaryius Thomas (87 receiving yards, 3 TD) – 26 points
The Broncos players dragged the Salford Bloggers away from the poor start to the week and took the team within winning proximity. Unfortunately it was not meant to be, but Demaryius Thomas’ performance was faultless as he was found in the end zone three times by Peyton Manning. The Bloggers’ performer of the week.
WR: Randall Cobb (58 receiving yards) – 5 points
Randall Cobb’s second-worst game of the season came at the wrong time. Even last week where he didn’t find the end zone since week three against Detroit, he went for over 100 yards. He achieved neither feat on Sunday and helped damage the Bloggers’ chances of winning.
TE: Jimmy Graham (47 receiving yards, 2 TD) – 16 points
This is what Jimmy Graham had been drafted to do – but on a consistent basis. Unfortunately, his production has varied from week to week. This just happened to be one of his better ones.
FLEX: DeAndre Hopkins (39 receiving yards) – 3 points
Hopkins hasn’t found the end zone enough to be a regular fantasy started this year, but he also failed in the yardage department on Sunday afternoon. Ingram, Cobb and Hopkins all let me down massively. Very disappointing.
D/ST: Cowboys D/ST (28 points against, 1 INT, 2 sacks) – 0 points
The biggest mistake I made this week was bringing in Jonas Gray over the Colts D/ST. The Colts picked up 15 points against the Jaguars, whereas the Cowboys didn’t score a single point. At least I didn’t start Miami, who recorded minus-five points against the Broncos in Denver.
K: Stephen Gostkowski (2 field goals made, 4 extra points) – 11 points
Gostkowski may be the highest scoring fantasy football kicker this year, but his week 12 performance wasn’t good enough to match or better Cody Parkey’s 20 points, who I left on the bench.
Bench
QB: Philip Rivers (291 passing yards, -1 rushing yard, 1 TD, 1 INT) – 13 points
RB: Chris Johnson (40 rushing yards, 22 receiving yards) – 6 points
RB: Branden Oliver (17 rushing yards, 23 receiving yards) – 3 points
RB: Jonas Gray – 0 points
WR: Percy Harvin (2 receiving yards) – 0 points
D/ST: Dolphins D/ST (39 points against, 1 fumble recovery, 1 sack) – -5 points
K: Cody Parkey (5 field goals made, 1 field goal missed, 4 extra points) – 20 points
