fantasy football

i'm not a fad follower, let me tell you, but i admit it - i play fantasy football. after dismissing the idea for years (why would i want to root for non-patriots?), last year a co-worker finally talked me into trying it (obviously before i became a sahd). actually, i think playing fantasy has made me a better fan. i know so much more about the league than i did before. i appreciate the strenghts and weaknesses of my pats more than i did before.

my rookie year in fantasy spoiled me. i had watched the the pats' offseason moves, acquiring welker, moss and stallworth and correctly predicted a banner year for tom brady. i drafted him, welker, gostowski and the patriots dst and cruised to the playoffs at 13-1-0, only to lose the league championship.

this year has been harder. i ran 4 teams in 4 leagues this season. using the same off-season/pre-season predictive method i guessed that the jets offense would be much improved, and drafted thomas jones and lavernues coles in all leagues. i also went for marion barber, michael turner and deangelo willliams. i picked up welker and gostowski again in three leagues. i started the year with pats and panthers dsts, but went to the jets dst after the pats terrible first showing against the dolphins. qbs were kind of an afterthought, but i was lucky enough to pick up jay cutler in late rounds and matt cassel off of waivers. i shuffle my lineup a lot. i'm quick to play the waiver wire. last year this netted me ryan grant and adrian petersen (the good one). this year my big waiver score was eddie royal.

on the whole, i had a solid draft and didn't lose any significant players to injury for most of the season. in 4 leagues, 56 total games i was a cumulative 33-22-1. i was at least .500 in all leagues. as of this weekend, i had already qualified for the playoffs in one league, and needed a win to get in the other three. sadly, i did not win out, and only 2 of my teams made the playoffs.

half the game is knowing when to play who. i would have won another dozen games across my 4 leagues if i'd played the right guy at the right time. like last week, when i started marion barber over deangelo williams and left 22 points on the bench. i had added and dropped kevin walter 4 different times, but never managed to play him on one of his huge days. it goes like that sometimes.

the lineups for my playoff qualifiers are very similar. my flagship unit, patriot act, has at qb jake delhomme (vDEN) and chad pennington (vSF) and i don't know which to start. i have marion barber and thomas jones at rb. my wrs are welker, coles, terrel owens, marques colston and lance moore. te sheffler has been spotty this season. my kicker is john carney and my dsts are jets and panthers. my second qualifier, patriot act iii has a marquis qb in jay cutler. i have jones and deangelo williams at rb. my wrs in this league are second rate, with eddie royal, mushin muhammad, braylon edwards (total bust this year), vincent jackson (who i failed to play this week when he had 20 pts) and jericho cotchery. my te is the serviceable rookie john carlson who has a great matchup this coming week (vSTL). my kicker and both dsts the same as the flagship team. if anyone reads this blog other than my wife, and cares to offer opinions as to whom i should start, i'd appreciate the advice.

so yeah, i guess i'm hooked now. i'm daddy x, and i'm a fantasy football addict. wish me luck.

birthday

baby d will be 18 months old this week. 18 months away from the night of blood and pain when he was cut loose from mamarama.

there had been a placental abruption. both of them were in mortal danger. i stood by the OR door, my view of mama obscured by half-a-dozen strangers in medical gowns. i couldn't see my wife, but i saw a lot of her blood. i remember watching a nurse moving round the table, counter-clockwise, collecting absorbent pads sodden with blood, with mama's blood, putting them in a sack. i remember wondering- "where does all the blood go?" it was a "routine" emergency c-section i was told as nurses came in and out, and not too worry. what in the hell is a "routine emergency"? i wonder if medicos realize how ridiculous they sound when they tell you not to worry? did they imagine i'd just go grab a cup of coffee and the newspaper? i've never felt so helpless. then i heard the baby cry, and felt so relieved i cried myself.


he was so, so tiny, gray and slick with gore. the pedes brought him out of the OR into the anteroom where i waited. he wailed as they wiped him down and warmed him with i swear-to-god some kind of hair dryer. they wrapped him in a blanket and handed him to me. i said hello to my son for the first time, and he stopped crying immediately. he stared at me wide-eyed, listening as quiet, soothing nonsense spilled out of my mouth. it was gut wrenching when they took him away to be weighed, measured, rested. i stayed by the door to the OR for another hour, until the doctor came out to say mama would be fine. i went then to the nursery to hold baby d again, introducing myself to this strangely alert, wizened creature so suddenly become a central concern of my life. it was another three hours before mama was put together enough to hold him, and three more before she was alert enough to want to. we were all together then, all breathing the same air for the first time.

18 months. The days race by. every day his understanding astounds me. he's the same quiet, watchful baby i met on day one. his growing physical ability nurtures his curiosity. he gnaws on everything. he's headstrong. the next 18 months will (god willing) bring speech, and 10,000 questions. why is fire hot? why do i have to wear shoes? why is up up? maybe someday, he'll ask what it was like on the night he was born. in the meantime, he'd like me to read him another book, thank you.

anniversary

tuesday marked the third anniversary of the day i met my wonderful wife, mama x. some people mark their wedding anniversary (which, in our case would have been our second, on 11/20 i think). oddly we prefer to observe our first date, on 12/2 because we like the numbers better. this year, we decided to forego any expensive gifts in favor of a lovely new rug in baby d's bedroom, which i thought a little strange, but was happy to go along with. you see, dear reader, i had already been planning for a couple of weeks to make her a native american totem painting, which wouldn't cost more than $20 in materials. it was to be a turtle, a native american symbol of feminine power, health, and longevity. it was intended to be a healing totem.

mama had a scheduled trip to boston on the day of our anniversary, and with a sickling baby, it was decided best that d and i not travel with her this trip. though i'd sorely love to see boston at christmas time, i also had planned to work on her anniversary gift while she was away. my efforts were delayed by yet another day when mama's flight was cancelled on sunday, so i had only two days to complete the project. it's difficult to work on such a project with baby d awake. he's a very insular, introspective baby sometimes, but he whats what he wants when he wants it (like mama?) and i spend a lot of his waking hours reading to him, or spinning things for him, or feeding, or changing...the list goes on. in short- i had only the boo's sleeping hours to work on it. so in twelve hours over two nights i threw myself into measuring angles and swinging arcs and fine detail painting with very small brushes. i mixed colors in bad light. my back hurt and my hands cramped and i'm grumpy without adequate sleep, but i got it done with two hours to spare before mama got home. two hours i used cleaning up the house and preparing a tasty dinner for her.

mama predictably arrived exhausted. she saw the totem painting on the kitchen table, thanked me for it, and then changed into slouch clothes and turned on the tv because that relaxes her.

and that's fine. really. i don't need or expect gushing thanks for a painting on our anniversary. the painting was my way of thanking her for how hard she works every day to provide for me and d. to thank her for being a thoughtful and loving partner. to thank her for being my wife.

patriotism

three weeks left in the nfl regular season, and the playoff picture is uncertain, to put it mildly. 20 of 32 teams are still in contention for the 12 playoff berths. we're pats fans here in household x, and got all geared up for a pats/steelers game. we went to a pats fan club meeting at a local pub, which might be somewhat surprising for central nc. hell, it's surprising anywhere. pats fans, being new englanders, are generally a dour, taciturn bunch. or maybe that's just me. it didn't help that the steelers #1 defense stuffed the rush, pressured our surprisingly good backup qb, and randy moss blew an easy td reception. twice. what's most surprising then, is that sitting with family x in a room full of frowning yankees decked out in red, white and blue was still a lot of fun. sadly, we had to leave early to get mama x to the airport for a flight that ended up being canceled anyway. daddy x will post on the evils of airlines another time.

in truth, these have been good times to be a pats fan. since the 2001 season, the pats have been a dominant force in the nfl. they've gone to the playoffs six times in seven years, the afc championship 5 times, the superbowl 4 times, and won the lombardi trophy thrice. it's been a helluva run. we'd be right back in the mix had our mvp gq qb not been downed for the season with a knee injury in the 1st qtr of the 1st game this season. still, we have most of the offense that set an nfl scoring record while having the 1st undefeated regular season in 35 years. so happily we remain one of those 20 teams in contention.

there are a lot of bandwagon pats fan these days. a lot star-struck brady-chasers who are more concerned with tabloid news of baby "jet" than they are with the pats win/loss ratio. i say welcome to them, but remind them that it wasn't always like this. when i was a child, the pats were known as the "patsies", and were the joke of an afc east that featured dan marino's fins. i had a pats lunchbox when they took grog in the 1st round in '76 and he turned them from a 3-11 team to an 11-3 team. i remember the crushing defeat of superbowl XX when we got "shuffled" by da bears. i was living in north carolina when there was talk of moving the pats, when bob kraft saved the franchise (all hail robert kraft, the smartest owner in football!) and made drew blesdoe the #1 pick of the '93 draft and the new face of a resurgent team. i watched drew lead the team to 4 playoff runs and go toe-to-toe with brett favre for 3/4 of the '96 superbowl. then i watched as bledsoe spent three years as a tackle-dummy for opposing defenses because of chronic offensive line injuries. many pats fans were skeptical of the young backup tom brady when he took the reins after mo lewis took out bledsoe in the second game of 2001 season. but after watching #11 getting knocked down for three years, i thought brady was electric. his record now stands for itself. the patriots have built a dynasty that stands with the steelers and the cowboys of past decades, in an age when the nfl does all it can to discourage dynasties. yes, the cracks are showing. we still lack a dominant rb. we keep losing quality cornerbacks to free agency (sure miss lawyer and law!). our starting linebackers are getting old. still, we have the best coach in professional football, maybe the best since lombardi himself (sorry, tom landry). we have a front office that selects and grooms players with uncommon wisdom. and next season, our future hall-of-fame qb will return, refreshed. the glory days of the patriots are right now, and there's plenty of room on the bandwagon.