week 9

Our group had a great time in Nashville this weekend for the Packer-Titan game. Weather was perfect, LP Field is a great place to watch a game, and it was a very good game even though it did not turn out good for my Packers. However, it appears that the game I was at had a lot of impact on my fantasy matchup.
I had both our lineups written down, as of Thursday night when I left. Since I was at the game, and am not a crackberry addict, I could only see the scores of other games. No stats or nothing. I didn't care, because I loved watching the Packers. Or maybe it was all the Jack Daniels I drank? (Packer fans finished a whole bottle of JD at Coyote Ugly to win a contest of who could drink more...packer fans or titan fans. I still don't know what we won)
After the disappointing loss, I went back to McFaddens, who treated us great all weekend. I was half watching the Denver-Miami and Atlanta-Oakland games. I assumed I had won my match thanks to the big games by Kurt Warner, Trent Edwards and Tim Hightower. Orlovsky had a good game for OPT, butI didn't see any other big performances by his guys.
I drove back to Wisconsin on Monday and got home around halftime of the game. I had Washington's defense and they gave up a TD thanks in large part of a blocked punt, which I wasn't happy about.
After settling in, I anxiously went to the computer to see if I made the top 2. I got to my game against OPT, and I was winning by 6 or 7 points, which was not good, because I needed to win by 8.14. I then looked to CC Desperado's score, because if he lost a game, then my 2-0 would suffice to get me in (assuming washington didn't give up 24+ points in the second half without getting any sacks/ints). He won his match, but only had 82.62 points. I then looked at the other scores, and he was currently 6th, 1.02 points out of 5th, but he didn't have any players left. I then double checked the others in the top5 and those within striking distance of my 90 points, to ensure I couldn't get leap frogged by 2 people to drop out of the top 5. I couldn't.
Just when I started feeling safe about being in the playoffs, the Stellers got 2 quick TD's to drop me 4 points. With 20+ minutes left in the game, I could conceivably lose my match, and a shot at a million dollars, if Pittsburgh got 2 more TDs. Thankfully, they didn't score any more and I finished 2-0 and Desperados went 1-1, so I was in and would get to face OPT again for the championship.
Yesterday, I looked over the matchups after seeing the Week 9 highlights, to see what transpired on Sunday helping me make the playoffs. Turns out I was super duper lucky to go 2-0.

- I won by 7.8, and he had Jennings drop a sure long TD pass, he started Leon Washington over Thomas Jones (I always start the back who gets more touches), and he had Kevin Curtis who got tackled at the 1 on one of his catches

- Desperados were 1.02 points out of the top 5, which would have knocked me down to 3rd. He/she has the best team in the league by far, which turned out to be their downfall. They had 6 guys on the bench who scored 15+ points (Ch. Johnson, Jacbobs, Rodgers, Benson, Driver, Rosenfels)

- Rob Bironas' missed field goal at the end of regulation cost him 3 points (2 for the miss and 1 for the shorter FG he made in OT)

- He had Matt Schaub, who got hurt in the 2nd quarter, so if he had stayed healthy, there's no doubt he wold have scored at least 1.02 more points

- I may not have won if Warner didn't get lucky on the TD pass to Urban which should of clearly been intercepted. That also may have led to Hightower getting less rushes due to the team not being ahead by a few scores

There's a lot of skill in shaping a fantasy roster, but there's also a lot of luck. Anyone's who's played fantasy football for a while, has been on both ends. Luckily this week I was on the winning end. Now anything can happen!