And A Year Goes By

From the title you may think this post will somehow reflect on the year of 2008.  You would be mistaken.  If you don't want to read about the inner turmoil of one struggling for a fantasy football championship, you can stop now.  This post is about that.

1-4

Last Place.

This was the start of the fantasy football team "Two Headed Monsters" co-owned by me and my brother.  

The rest of the league was happy.  2 years ago, Jason had won the championship.  Last year, I won it.

This league despises when there is a repeat champion.  With some weird things that happened last year, I was without a spot this year, so Jason and I co-owned his team.  This proved to be valuable for both of us.

1-4 and last place.  The rest of the league was happy with where we were.  We were at piece.  We would talk on the phone between weeks about who to drop and pick-up and if we wanted to offer any trades.  We both were convinced we had a good team and were just getting unlucky.  We didn't want to make a major move out of deperation.

After two more weeks we were 3-4.  We would call in to drop a bench player and add in a replacement for someone on a bye week and we could hear the other league members talking...  

"Have you seen who is on the rise?"

Entire conversations as work focused around the "Two Headed Monster" rearing itself back into contention.  They didn't want us to start a streak.  We were peaceful, studying each week to find the right match-ups of sitting and starting.

A tight-end pulls his groin, we find the best replacement.  A kicker is on bye, we find the best replacement.  A wide receiver breaks his face, we find the best replacement.  Quarterbacks benched and sidelined from injury, we find the best replacement.

Two more weeks and we found ourselves at 5-4.  In the playoff hunt.  The others were not as happy.  We couldn't rest comfortable now.

We began to plan ahead.  Instead of looking only at our coming week, we began preparing for a deep run in the future.  No new injuries, lets plan our defensive pick-up two weeks in advance. 

Receivers fixed their broken faces, quarterbacks started to find the field again.  We continued to win.

6-4 - virtually guarunteed the playoffs.

7-4 - playoffs clinched.

8-4 - First round bye clinched.

Time to look ahead.  Looking at the schedule for the last three weeks of the season we primed ourselves to find the biggest improvement we could make.  We had the luxury of planning ahead.  Who has the hot hand?  Who has the easy schedule?  Who has the best combination of the two?  

Lets finalize our roster a week early.

9-4.

First Place.  Last to first with a streak of 8 straight wins.  No one else happy.  We are set for a bye week in the first round of the playoffs and guarunteed our money back.

Receivers shoot themselves in the leg, no worries we like our roster.  Quarterbacks benched, who cares we picked up a replacement primed for the playoffs.  We were confident.

The bye was necessary.

Week 14-first round of the playoffs.  "Two Headed Monster" has a bye, fortunate, because they would have lost to any other playoff team.  

Week 15 - semifinal match.  Congratulatory messages sent after the night game.  We had the lead with players still left.  Nothing to worry about.  Not very stressful.

Week 16 - championship match.  12:00 we only have two players active, opponent has 5.  Out to lunch after church.  1:30...driving home from lunch I get the updates, our quarterback tied with his, but he has points elsewhere.  2:00 - home and with the internet, we are down by 18.  I cheer for 5 minutes and we are only down by 7.  10 minutes later down by 2.

3:00 - The first set of games are done.  We are down by 14.  We have 6 players left and he has 3 remaining.  All 6 of ours are playing, 2 of his are.

6:00 - We are finished.  51-47 we have the lead.  He has 1 wide receiver left playing in the night game.

7:25 - The night game has played 10 minutes of real time, 4 minutes of football time.  He has made up a point already.

8:15 - His receiver catches a touchdown.  I send the obligatory "NNNOOOOOOOOOOOOO" message to a friend over instant messenger and begin to open my phone to call Jason.  

8:16 - A red challenge flag is thrown by a coach.  The play is reviewed.  He was down a half yard short of the goal line.  We have new life.  A Christmas Miracle.  Dead and Alive Again.  The Resurection is real.

A year went by.  From 8:15 until roughly 10:35 I lost a year of my life.  My parents watched as I agonized, cheered, hoped, dreamed, anguished and toiled over almost every play of the game.  It was even cruel enough to go into overtime.  When all was said and done, we finished ahead 51-48.

51-48.

11-4 with a bye week on week 14.

10 straigh wins.  Last place....Champions.

Co-Owener:  Necessary.  There were games we always had the same instinct on who to start.  There were games we didn't.  There were games we won because of some of my insights, there were games we won because of some of Jason's.  There was a game I still believe either of us would have lost as an individual, but we won by combination.

There were pickups proved invaluable that Jason made the final call on (Kevin Walter over Lance Moore).  

There were pickups initiated by myself that fueled us to wins as well (Matt Cassel was our best foresight ever).

We didn't win because we got lucky.  We didn't win because we avoided the injury bug from our picks.  We didn't win because we managed to get perfect production out of the players we picked in rounds 1-4.  

We won from getting value from picks 5 and 6 (Thomas Jones and Anquan Boldin) who will go in the first two rounds next year.  We won because we picked up well off the bench.  We won because we rarely had people sitting on our bench that outperformed the people we played that week.  We won because we co-owned a team and covered all the angles.  We won by starting 5 of our 8 players in the championship game as people we picked up during the season. Undrafted.  

We won, because it was the best way to make everyone else mad, and the easiest ways to show our wives that our time was worth it.  (That doesn't mean they agree)

We made a profit.  

We smiled.

We went from last to first.

We made everyone else mad.

And even though I lost a year of my life watching a football game tonight, We Won.

Congratulations Jason... We Deserve It.  3 straight years with us 2 on top.