I will be completely honest – I have been plagued with anxiety since Monday night thinking about what I was going to write for this week’s blog. The truth is, I lost all 3 of my Fantasy match ups this past weekend, and while some may see the disclosure of this information as a challenge to my title as “Miss Fantasy Football,” I think of this as an opportunity to accurately illustrate the unprediatability of Fantasy Football, no matter who helms the ship.

I would like to preface the details of my Week 2 Fantasy misfortunes with a short description of Lady Luck’s role throughout my Fantasy Football career: she has been relentless in her cruelty. Despite all our preparation, luck will ultimately decide the Fanagers’ fate each and every week, and I can tell you from experience she is no fan of mine. I am not all up in arms about losing in itself; 50% of people in head-to-head match ups are unsatisfied with the results every week. It is the manner in which I lose that continuosly affirms my role as the whipping boy (girl) of the Fantasy gods. Allow me to explain.

As you may have gathered, I spend a lot of time paying attention to the nuances of the NFL and their Fantasy implications. Every week I am projected (websites hypothesize scoring for players each week based on certain statistical factors) to win by a significant margin of points. Every week I put in the guys that are most likely to give me the best Fantasy numbers (although not based solely on the projections…I have my own system). Every week my opponent and I are the highest scoring teams in the league, and more often than not, by a considerable margin. Every week I would win if I were matched up against anyone other member of my league. Every week I watch Monday Night Football in misery as the one remaining member of my team inevitably falls a few points short of getting the W.

Every week.

As previously mentioned, I am in 3 leagues, and in an attempt not to jinx my more important leagues (apologies to Fanagers that didn’t make the cut), I will use my 2-QB Yahoo League as an example. Yahoo is the website that I am using and 2-QB means that all rosters have 2 quarterbacks instead of just 1. The complete weekly roster is as follows: 2 quarterbacks, 3 wide receivers, 2 running backs, 1 tight end, 2 slots for either a wide receiver or running back, 1 kicker, 1 team defense, 1 individual defensive player, and 8 players of any position on the bench from any of the 32 NFL teams. This PPR (points per reception) league places emphasis on high-scoring quarterbacks, wide receivers, and running backs that can catch the ball.

My starters for Week 2 were: (QB) Tom Brady, (QB) Ben Roethlisberger, (WR) Greg Jennings, (WR) DeSean Jackson, (WR) Santionio Holmes, (RB) Chris Johnson, (RB) Michael Turner, (TE) Antonio Gates, (WR/RB) Fred Jackson, (WR/RB) Cedric Benson, (K) Dan Carpenter, (DEF) Cincinnati (I usually have San Diego, but substituted since they were playing the Pats), and (D) Antrel Rolle. Not a bad squad if I do say so myself. Well…for those of us matched up against the Steelers Defense (who shut out Seattle, which my league awards extra points for doing), Miles Austin (143 receiving yards and 3 receiving touchdowns), and Matt Stafford (294 passing yards, 4 passing touchdowns), it was a long weekend. If you were as unlucky as I was and were matched up against these guys in mutliple leagues, it was an especially long weekend. Add to that the fact that I own Antonio Gates in 2 leagues and he dropped a big fat goose egg (0 points), and we have the perfect storm.

In conclusion, I think that the league standings will speak volumes for my case. I am in 3rd place overall as well as in points and am just 5 points short of the guy in 2nd place. It has only been 2 weeks and I am easily 1st in points against me (points that my opponents scored when they were matched up against me). I have 536.88 points scored against me so far this year which is by far the most. In fact, only 1 other person has broken 450 in points against them and they are nowhere close to the 500+ mark. This means that people have their best weeks when they play me; people consistently score higher when competing with me than when matched up against anyone else in the league. This is a trend in every single league, every single year.

One would think that this cycle of misery would hinder my love for the game, but alas, it is not so. I am more willing than ever to have my heart not only broken, but also ripped out of my chest, thrown on the ground, and then stomped on, but hey, at least the Redskins are undefeated.