Guts, Glory, and Team Names that are Odd

So I don't know if anybody has noticed, but in case you haven't heard, football season is here. Yes, the fall is coming and the pigskin is being tossed around all over America and I couldn't be happier. The Tide has started off the season 3-0, which is great. But instead of writing yet another blog about how exciting it is that Alabama football is here (I have a few friends who are way better at that than I am), I would like to turn your attention to the tales, the ups and downs, the drama of Team Tractor and their quest for Fantasy Football supremacy. Never heard of Team Tractor before? Maybe not. But you may know the team manager. In fact, right now you are reading his blog.

I am not the kind of guy who is so into fantasy football that I get angry when a running back takes a knee at the goal line to run out the clock. I don't read all the fantasy reports and keep the numbers in my head of how many points a certain player is projected to get this season. But I do enjoy some friendly fantasy football, and in the past I have actually been pretty good at it. I have won at least as many leagues as I've lost, which is something worth bragging about.

I like fantasy football because it is such a great way of keeping up with the NFL. It is rare to find many NFL fans here in Alabama, but I have to say I am one of them. In the NFL I don't have a team that I always pull for every year, through good times or bad times. I like certain teams, but there is no Crimson Tide or Atlanta Braves - you know, that team whose success is directly correlated with your mood for that day. Fantasy football gives me the chance to keep up with the season with a little bit at stake. I can root for my players, and pay close attention to the ticker for any news of how the fantasy QB or RB is doing.

Last year I had a great season. I nabbed Tom Brady in the draft and later acquired breakout Pats receiver Wes Welker as a free agent. With that combination I cruised straight into the playoffs and all the way to a championship. While Brady, Welker, and the Patriots were busy going 16-0, I was racking up hundreds of fantasy points and celebrating yet another fantasy victory.

However, this year has been a different story. It started off the same, but things have taken a turn for the worst. Once again I managed to get Tom Brady in the first round of the draft and Wes Welker in the fourth. Along with some other notable pickups such as Plaxico Burress, Clinton Portis, Hines Ward, and Dallas Clark, I was ready to go for another fantasy gold... until disaster happened.

In the very first quarter of the very first game of the season, Tom Brady went down with a knee injury. He stayed in long enough to get me 76 yards of offense and ultimately 3 fantasy points. The news was not good: a torn ACL and MCL. Just a few minutes into the first game and Tom Brady's season was over.

And apparently, so was mine. I got obliterated by my friend and fantasy rival, Keith (whose team name is Wolfpac, by the way). He beat me by an outrageous 115-63. I posted the 7th lowest score in a league with 8 teams. This was not good. Last year, the Golden Boy was absolute gold for my team. He was so good I didn't even worry with making sure my best players were in the game every week. Sometimes a bye week would come for a couple of my starters, I would forget to bench them, and I would still win. It was one of the most low-maintenance teams I ever had. But now, with Brady gone, who would be able to fill the shoes of one of the greatest quarterbacks the NFL has ever seen?

Enter Matt Cass- er, Hasselbeck.

I dropped Brady and went to the waivers to see if I could find a new QB. I picked up Philip Rivers, adding him to my roster along with my draft picks of Hasselbeck and Jon Kitna. Unsure of who to start this week, I went with Hasselbeck because I thought he could do some damage against the 49ers. I was wrong. Hasselbeck threw for 189 yards with 2 interceptions and 0 touchdowns. I got a total of 4 points from him. Rivers threw for 3 touchdowns and Kitna threw for 2.

The bad news is that my QB didn't do so well. The good news is Tractor actually won 80-63, in spite of Hasselbeck's poor performance. Even better news is that no one in the league had Aaron Rodgers or Jay Cutler, two of the NFL's best performing QBs at the moment. This morning, I picked up both of them, dropping Matt Hasselbeck and Jon Kitna in the process. So now my QB roster is made up of Philip Rivers, Aaron Rodgers, and Jay Cutler. Kind of a young bunch, and they may never match the experience, poise, and skill of Tom Brady. But I'm holding out hope, and I'm feeling pretty good about rebounding from a week 1 disaster.

Man I'm glad football is back. It's going to be a fun season.

LET'S GO TRACTOR!!!!