The thrills of fantasy football

I used to be so ignorant. For so long, I made fun of the people who spent at least one waking hour of the day checking football stats and league standings.

However, now I am a part of the movement. I check stats everyday. I spend a good amount of time staring at names of players on the waiver wire, trying to find the best person to fill a hole in my team.

For the first time in my life I have really gotten into fantasy football, and I love it. Where else can you get together a group of your friends and compete against each other using professional athletes as pawns to your fantasy chess game? Some people are good at it and others aren't.

So far, I've been good.

With a record of 5-2 heading into last weekend's games, my team, Baltimore "The City that Breeds", sat in first place in one of the two league divisions and second overall in the league power ratings.

This week I found myself stacked against Tufts senior Dave Sherberg. With an overall record of 3-4, Sherberg's team, "Jumbo Oblong Balls," resides in fourth place of the opposing division. In addition, it appears that Sherberg committed the ultimate fantasy football party foul by not updating his roster for the week. This played directly to my advantage. Instead of taking out Steelers running back Amos Zereoue, who lost his starting job to Jerome Bettis, and coach Dan Reeves, whose Atlanta Falcons team had a bye week, both people stayed on Sherberg's active roster.

In contrast, the Oblong Balls definitely had some point producers. Peyton Manning, Donovan McNabb, Toney Gonzalez, and Chad Johnson stand out, but guys like Amani Toomer and Michael Pittman can also score points.

However, just like Bone Crusher, "I ain't never scared." My team is tight and I know it. With LaDainian Tomlinson and Stephen Davis at running back, Drew "interception, but 250 passing yards per game" Bledsoe at quarterback and Tom "tuck rule" Brady at the miscellaneous offensive player spot, my team is nice. In addition, I have the Dolphins' defense and a somewhat injured Eric Moulds at one wide receiver. After dealing my running back bench rider, Moe Williams, to my cousin Russell for Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward, my team seemed far too nice.

Thinking I was going to blow by Sherberg's squad in Sunday's games, I was sorely mistaken.

Heading into Miami and San Diego's Monday Night football from Arizona, I was down 103-80, with only Tomlinson and the Dolphins defense to score me 23 points for the tie, which would give me a win due to bench points.

The bottom line was I needed the Dolphins to get some sacks and interceptions, while allowing Tomlinson to run for a good amount of yards, including at least one touchdown, which is not out of reach at all.

Sitting there typing on my laptop, the television tuned to ABC for kickoff, I was pleasantly surprised by San Diego's first two possessions. Chargers quarterback Drew Brees played right into my hands by tossing two interceptions, giving me four fantasy points.

In the meantime, Miami's defense showed no respect to Brees' arm by stacking the line against Tomlinson. Still, the Chargers all-pro running back got an exorbitant amount of carries to amass single digit fantasy points in the first quarter.

With the 10 points the Dolphins defense started out with combined with the two interceptions and Tomlinson's points, I was only down nine points after the first quarter.

Still, I either needed LaDainian to start getting off or Brees to complete another pass to the defense. And what do you know, no sooner than I started this paragraph, Brees underestimated Miami's secondary again, this time for an interception in the end zone.

The bad news is that the Chargers were getting bolted by the Dolphins, thus ruining my underdog pick in the Daily sports department's editors' challenge, but placing me within six points of a fantasy win.

Thanks to a Tomlinson swing pass reception and a couple sacks by the Dolphins' defense, I entered halftime down only one point, 103-102. If Miami could keep up its defensive intensity or if Tomlinson could break off one big run, I would have all but secured a victory.

Amazingly, in pure comeback fashion, with nine minutes left in the third quarter, "Baltimore The City that Breeds" jumped over "Jumbo Oblong Balls" 105-103.

While the second half featured much more one-sided football, the life of a fantasy football junky is quite nerve-racking. In between stat checking and refreshing your Internet browser for the latest live scoring updates, one could sweat off five pounds. Although I would have liked to be in the norm, I did not lose five pounds due to this close fantasy football match-up partially due to the Hodgdon burrito I ate during the pre-game show.

As Ricky Williams runs out the clock in the fourth quarter with Miami winning 26-10, the fantasy football live scoring reveals that I have won the pivotal inter-league week eight match-up, 117-103.

Fantasy football is tough and nerve-racking, but when you come out on the winning end, it makes it all worth it.