While our fantasy team is in first place in a 10 team league (3-1), there have been plenty of trouble spots. The lack of a reliable tight end (we started the year with Heath Miller and Vernon Davis -- both of whom did nothing ... then picked up Tony Scheffler, who finally reached the 4 pt mark for us this week) is glaring, but most teams deal with that. The bigger problem has been a lack of production from the WR2 and WR3 slots.
Matt Cassel turned Randy Moss into a scrub for two weeks and an assortment of WR3 pickups did not pan out (David Patten, Bryant Johnson, Antonio Bryant). Even Terrell Owens, our WR1, has had shaky weeks.
Well, enter T.J. Houshmandzadeh -- just acquired in a trade where we gave up the Tennessee defense.
It was a steep price for a player who hasn't done much this year and didn't promise to turn it around until Carson Palmer was ... well, back to being Carson Palmer. While Carson didn't set the world on fire today, T.J. was one heck of a pickup ... golly gee, you bet-cha! ** Sorry, I just got back from an aerial wolf hunting expedition with this crazy woman from Alaska ... I've suddenly started talking like her. It's as if her speech patterns entered my bloodstream <--- that didn't make sense at all. I really am talking like her! **
T.J. had 85 receiving yards (5 pts in our league) and two TDs today (12 pts ... 17 total), pretty much ensuring that our squad would win. Throw in the resurgence of Randy Moss (TD and 111 receiving yards ... 13 points) and an average day from TO (67 yards and a TD ... 10 points) and we had 40 points from our three receivers.
It wasn't necessarily a lopsided deal for T.J. After all, the Tennessee D held the Ravens to 10 points today and recorded two interceptions. That's surely a better performance than what the Pittsburgh D (3rd in fantasy points among defenses entering today, but not really at that level) gave us against Jacksonville. But there's no doubt that the gap between T.J. and our would-be WR3 (Bobby Engram?) is a wider gap than that between the Tennessee D and Pittsburgh D (which occupied our bench). T.J. was typically the 6th or 7th wide receiver taken in the draft -- I expect him to be in the top 12 among WRs for the rest of the season.
Our opponent received a big performance from his kicker (Gostkowksi = 14 points) and had TDs from Hilliard, Crumpler, and Gore (although Gore didn't have much yardage). But there were no TDs from Steve Smith, Ernest Graham, and Derrick Mason ... and Philip Rivers had an off day in Miami. It's safe to say that we'll prevail (in addition to the 40 WR points, we also had Matt Forte chip in with 15).
We still have Drew Brees and Reggie Bush playing on Monday night, while our opponent has the New Orleans defense starting (believe me, I'm as puzzled as you are ... there are better free agent defenses available -- the Vikings can't pass though, so it may be a smart play).
Our next priority will be using one of our running backs as trade bait to bring in a quality tight end -- f.e., Jason Witten. We have Ronnie Brown, Darren McFadden, Thomas Jones and Deuce on our bench ... it may be wise to trade Reggie Bush (at peak value) and try to acquire Witten or Gates (I'm partial to Witten). I wouldn't do that trade straight up, of course -- Bush has more value than that. If we traded Bush, Ronnie Brown would then join Forte in our backfield -- that's an average backfield compared to the rest of the league, but a backfield complemented by an awesome QB, a superior WR corps, and a really good TE. This type of team could win the league.
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