Great fantasy day, bad reality day

One of the best days of the year is the opening Sunday of professional football. Although my main focus is on the Indianapolis Colts, I also enjoy seeing how my fantasy players are doing. Sunday's games proved to be frustrating in terms of reality, but my fantasy team, Holy Roller, had a record-setting week and looks primed to be a contender throughout the season.
I wish I could say the same about the Colts. The Houston Texans showed that they were improved and wanted the game more than Indy did. Houston was more focused and ran Arian Foster for 231 yards and three touchdowns. At no point did the Colts have the lead.
Although there were many times during the game where I just figured that the Colts were going to pull it out because they always do, something about this one seemed like it was finally the Texans' turn. It was opening week and they had been specifically preparing for this game because they were 1-15 against the Colts all-time, including two big blown leads in the last two games played in Houston.
Although Peyton Manning played great, the offensive line struggled and wide receiver Pierre Garcon dropped a few passes and failed to make big plays like he did all year in 2009. An Austin Collie fumble early in the fourth quarter really took the team out of their rhythm. They would have had the ball at the Houston 10, going in for a score that would have made it a three-point game.
But the biggest concern of the game was the run defense, that looked every bit as bad as they did in 2006 when Maurice Jones-Drew ran all over the bumbling defense in a December game in Jacksonville. The defense also suffered the loss of Bob Sanders, who is out indefinitely with torn biceps. Arian Foster had a break out day, and that was way too much for the Colts.
Foster's big day wan;t too much for my fantasy team, that scored an incredible 166 points in a 166-34 victory over my opponent. That's right, I won by 132 points. No other team in the league even scored 132. Foster had 50 points for me, which would have been enough to beat my opponent on his own. But just for show I had Chris Johnson, who had 30 points, the third most in the whole league behind Foster and the Bears' Matt Forte. I beat my opponent at every position, with the help of Visanthe Shiancoe, Pierre Thomas and Eli Manning. Greg Jennings also had a touchdown for me.
I am confident that the Colts will get back on track as they host the New York Giants in the second ever "Manning Bowl." It's a home game on a Sunday night, but New York is really good and the Colts could be 0-2 if they do not improve from what they did on Sunday in Houston.
I still think they bounce back.
Around the NFL
I thought the Calvin Johnson no-TD at the end of the Lions-Bears game in Chicago was a bad call that cost the Lions the game. It was clearly a catch for many reasons. He had the ball in control across the goal line. That's all you need. He also had his feet in bounds and came down with the ball. The refs were wrong for interpreting it the way they did.
Bob Sanders is one of many key players around the league that will miss serious time to an injury. Kris Jenkins of the Jets and Ryan Grant of the Packers are both out for the season.

ESPN Fantasy Convention 2010

HAMMOND, Ind. - My friend John won tickets to the ESPN 1000 Fantasy Football Convention that took place August 28 at the Horseshoe Casino in Hammond, Indiana. I'm glad he invited me because I never participated in a live football draft so that was a good experience.

ESPN experts John Clayton (shown), Stefania Bell (shown) and Matthew Berry were on hand along with a number of ESPN local personalities like Waddle and Silvy and the afternoon saloon.

ESPN also had a lot of giveaways so I applaud them for putting together the convention.

They put together a bunch of leagues and even though they made a number of numerical mistakes that put me in a seperate league than what I was originally slated for, they pulled it off pretty smoothly considering the uncertainty about the number of people that show up.

I like the team I drafted. I thought I got out to a slow start in the first three rounds since I only had the eighth pick, but I really think I picked up some sleepers in the late rounds.

August 28 was a fantasy filled day, as my Yahoo! draft was laster that night. There I had the first pick and picked Chris Johnson. I'm also confident I put together a pretty solid team around him.

In the past I had been ant-Fantasy, but now I am on board with the belief that it only makes foootball season more exciting.

2009 Fantasy Football Champion

Before 2008, I was never interested in fantasy football. I only cared about the outcomes of the games. But as 2009 comes to a close, I am the fantasy football champion of a competitive 14-team league. 

This is my second year of competing in fantasy football. My team's name is Holy Roller, named after the famous Raiders-Chargers play from 1978. 

Right after the draft I had a great feeling about my team. With the top overall pick, I selected Adrian Peterson, an obvious choice. I surrounded him with solid picks in Roddy White, Kurt Warner and the Arizona defense. But my best picks were Ray Rice (Round 8) and Miles Austin (Round 10). I had a feeling those guys were going to have a good year because of how the finished in 2008. I also remembered Rice's days from Rutgers. 

Santonio Holmes was a risky pick, but panned out with a few big games in the fantasy playoff weeks. 

The only weakness on my team was JaMarcus Russell, the backup quarterback. But once Brett Favre finally signed with the Minnesota Vikings, I quickly dumped Russell for Favre. Having two old guys (Favre and Warner) as my QBs was fun. 

Fantasy Football is a fun game. If you take it seriously, you will gain more knowledge on players. It's good to know the QB, RB, WR situations all the teams are in. It makes meaningless games like Oakland-Cleveland matter. 

My fantasy football championship comes just three months after the St. Paul Saints, my fantasy baseball team, won the title in the same league. In that league, my team made the playoffs as the six and final seed by one game and pulled three upsets in the playoffs to win the title. 

2009 was indeed a great year for my fantasy teams.