Fantasy Fumbles, Part IV

There are many reasons that you wish that you hadn’t picked a certain player or defense. Maybe a player is getting older, or his quarterback was hurt for most of the preseason and training camp, or maybe it’s because he got hurt week 3 and won’t be back until your fantasy league playoffs begin. Or maybe you drafted a defense that lost a shutdown corner, or whose star linebacker got hurt. It doesn’t matter what the reason is; things like these eat us up for the whole football season as we review our draft results and look at which stud we could’ve taken instead of the bust that we actually selected. Here are just a few players many owners are hitting themselves over the head with a hammer with because they took them way too early.

Tony Gonzalez - TE, KC

Gonzalez was arguably the most dominant tight end over the past six years. He has been among the top tight ends in every league since the late 90s. Gonzalez has had over 1,200 yards twice in his career and over 800 yards in five of the past six seasons. Over the past six years, Gonzalez had over ten touchdowns twice and at least six touchdowns every year. This year, however, Gonzalez has failed to record over 100 receiving yards in any single game, and has only managed to get into the end zone once.

A big contributing factor to Gonzalez’s struggles is that Trent Green hasn’t played as well as usual; through week 9 the quarterback has thrown for only seven touchdowns, averaging less then one touchdown per game. Gonzalez has played better lately, but will he be able to turn it around for a stellar second half?

Honorable Mention: Dallas Clark (Ind)

Mike Vanderjagt - K, Ind

Vanderjagt’s poor start to the season isn’t really all his fault. He has only had eleven field goal attempts so far this year, and in those eleven tries, he’s put ten through the uprights. That one miss was a 48-yarder in week 6 against the Rams. Vanderjagt has made every one of his 32 point after touchdown attempts. The biggest problem for Vanderjagt is that when the Colts get in or near the red zone, they always seem to score, rarely giving Vandy the chance to kick field goals.

Honorable Mention: David Akers (Phi), Ryan Longwell (GB)

New England Defense

The whole New England team so far this season has taken a slight turn for the worse. When the Patriots lost Romeo Crennel to the Browns and Charlie Weis to Notre Dame, and lost captain Tedy Bruschi to a stroke, people knew it would not be an easy season for the defending champions. Then when they lost Rodney Harrison for the season and Richard Seymour and Randall Gay were sidelined with injuries, bad turned to worse.

So far this season, they have given up more first downs and total yards than they have forced. They have also given up a whopping 1,108 yards on the ground, nearly 400 more then they have rushed for. Mike Vrabel is the only player with more then 50 tackles so far this season. With Tedy Bruschi’s return, and Gay and Seymour expected to be back soon, we’ll see if the Patriots can turn things around.

Honorable Mention: Baltimore

 
Corey Chamberlain is commissioner of the Vince Lombardi League. You’ll find him posting in the Cafe’s Forums as PackerAttack84.