My 12 team fantasy football league has been whittled down to the final four, which includes my "Big Boys" squad slotted in the third position. I got lucky last night as the guy I'm pitted against has ridden Drew Brees all season to the top total points in the league, so him not going for 430 yards and 5 TD's and ending this nerve racking weekend before it really got started was quite a 'relief' - I guess. Instead, I now have to nurse my hangover frantically refreshing my 'Matchup' page waiting for the terrible news that TO (my opponents flex position WR) has caught a 99 yard TD or that Chris Johnson (clearly my workhorse RB this season) has twisted his knee and is sitting out the second half.

However, I've realized that the thing that makes me the most furious is seeing guys sitting on my bench putting up big numbers. For example, I started Antonio Bryant in the second WR spot over Braylon Edwards - a ridiculously long pros & cons list went into this decision, particularly that I didn't Rex Ryan to actually let Sanchez air it out a lot in his first game back - but through the first half of the Jets game Edwards has 2 grabs for 73 yards and a TD, which is good for 15 pts in my league and about 3 more points than I am hoping to get from Bryant for the full game later today. Somehow its that decision not to play Edwards that has me more PO'd than Mike Sims-Walker (my opponents 2nd WR) going for 18 pts on Thurs night against the best team in the NFL. Which in retrospect is plain silly - heck Bryant could end up netting me way more than Edwards, but still when i checked the matchup page and saw the 15 show up I let out an audible "Oh no!", as if someone had just run over my wife's cat.

The moral of the story is that the real life team owners, GM's, coaches, etc that question their own decisions (or have them questioned by others) when things don't work out at least have the luxury of not knowing how it would have gone otherwise - while us fantasy owners are stuck staring at the screen and looking at a guy on your own bench ruining your Sunday... Hopefully when our team takes the field, I wont spend the entire game looking at the guy on the end of the bench and wondering if he's got a homerun in him just waiting to jump out.

My personal 'Fantasy' - Braylon Edwards with 8 drops today