Fantasy football picks frustrate long-time fan

  Has anybody ever wondered why I hate Brett Favre so much? It’s kind of a touchy subject if you ask me, but here goes nothing. It was Dec. 22, 2003. Yours truly was in an all-or-nothing fantasy football league. 

  My team had dominated all season long and I was on the doorstep of putting 300 extra dollars into my bank account. I was up by 27 points in the league championship game going into the Monday night game between the Green Bay Packers and Oakland Raiders. The money was mine, oh wait, that’s right, Favre went off that night on the Raiders for 399 yards and four touchdowns. Some people say that Favre’s performance was fueled by emotion after the death of his father several days earlier. The real reason was that Favre was playing against me in that game. 300 dollars out the window!

  I’m just like the Minnesota Vikings it seems. Every time I get that close to the brass ring, I choke like President Bush enjoying a pretzel during a football game. I’ve tried to figure out why this always happens to me and just this past week I figured it out.

  According to many sources throughout the Jacksonville area, Houston Texans defensive end Mario Williams was spotted talking to quarterback Matt Schaub before their contest with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Williams told Schaub that he was playing against the “Year of the Carl” and suddenly a transformation began. Schaub didn’t put up gaudy numbers in his first two games, but lightning struck Schaub and he turned into Robo QB. Seriously, it looked like something from Dragonball Z, with Schaub screaming gibberish and throwing balls through walls and Jacksonville defenders on his way to 300 yards and a couple of touchdowns. The next week when Schaub didn’t have to deal with the pressure of facing the “Year of the Carl,” Schaub missed the game with a stomach virus.

  To further prove my point, Kansas City Chiefs running back Larry Johnson had the same problem in the first two games. Nothing like a visit from the “Year of the Carl” to pad those stats! Johnson ran like I was chasing him and gained 198 yards and two touchdowns to pound my team into submission. The next week, Johnson gained a whopping 7 yards!

  Don’t worry, this is not limited to people I play against. Players that wind up on my team also wind up in the crapper. I had the number one pick in a league and was debating on taking either Vikings RB Adrian Peterson or San Diego Chargers RB LaDanian Tomlinson. The original plan was to take Peterson, but with the effect that I have on players, I didn’t want the Vikings to have a horrible season (Oops, too late!). So I took LT instead. LT has a reputation of being super unstoppable awesome man coming into this season. NOT ANYMORE!!! LT has one 100-yard rushing game after being taken No. 1 overall by me. What’s the problem? His big toe is bothering him. Aw, we can’t have problems with our footsies now can we? This has lead to mass profanity coming out of 306 North Hall every Monday morning including, but not limited to, “LT only had 35 @#$%^&* yards!?”

  I know that many people feel like they have the same problems as well. Many people are probably thinking about ripping this column in half and screaming something like “DID YOU DRAFT TOM BRADY?” or “Your team didn’t have five guys not score a point this week! Stop crying!” 

  However, next time you’re getting pummeled by 40 points by sub-human performances, remember that there are people who go through that every week, which makes football season unbearably long.