Fantasy Football Diary: The Wayne Event
October 24th, 2006 by Michael Stephens
My fantasy football team needed a wake-up call.
Reggie Wayne delivered it.
The newly-acquired wideout caught seven passes for 122 yards and a score, giving Mr. Britney Spears (me) a badly-needed boost at receiver and raising the bar for a group of underachieving teammates. Wayne’s 23 points were not enough to propel us to a demonstrative, 138-91 victory on their own, but they sent a message in the early going that this was a new team.
New name. New lineup. New mentality.
When we suffered a humiliating loss in Week Six to fall to 2-4, we made a decision. This was not about to be a lost season, and if we were going to fall short of our goal (every season’s goal is winning the title), we were at least going down like men. We were going to play smash-mouth football and leave it all on the field. Nothing less than 110 percent effort would be tolerated from here on out.
To that effect, Olindo Mare and the Miami defense have both been issued their unconditional release. They weren’t buying into our philosophy, and are officially looking for other work. We’re not kidding around.
Also answering the bell was star running back and #1 overall pick Larry Johnson. He had been lackluster through the first six games, but ran for 128 yards and a pair of touchdowns Sunday against the Chargers. That was good enough to negate the strong effort from our opposition’s LaDainian Tomlinson. It was that matchup that concerned our coaching staff most. We felt at some other positions, we were stronger. We were right.
In his first career start (for me), Philip Rivers threw for 266 yards and two TDs. A commendable effort and not one sign of the yips. Chester Taylor ran for 169 yards, including a 95-yard touchdown scamper. Tony Gonzalez and Javon Walker each eclipsed the century mark in receiving yards and hauled in a combined 15 balls.
The rout was on. “Warm up the bus” chants rained down upon the defeated Darkstar Dragons. The fact that the Dragons’ GM is also a personal friend of mine, rather than one of the several GMs in my league I don’t know, made the victory all that much sweeter. A win is a win, don’t get me wrong — but the $h!t talking potential is amplified when you can put a dejected face to your victim.
Of course, it won’t mean anything if we don’t back it up this week.
We’re still in 8th place out of 14, and have little margin for error if we want to earn one of the six postseason berths. No more letdowns are permissable.
The slumping Hard Dawgs (2-5) are on the agenda this weekend, and with our 3-4 mark and one-game win streak, we’re feeling like this one’s pretty much in the bag. It’s not overconfidence talking. Just our dearth of talent, and of course, our new mentality.
Smash-mouth, baby. Smash-mouth.
