At one point in the season, I was only ~3 points out of first. I had a tremendous stretch during the bye weeks outperforming everybody by an insane amount. Once those bye weeks were over though, my team sucked. It makes no sense but sho nuff, that’s how it went. I didn’t post much afterwards because it was just going to be post after post of “Arrrrrrgh’s” and “Nooooooo’s” and “*&#@$’s”. You would think if you could make it through bye weeks in good shape, you could only go up from there. So you look at your match-ups and Drew Brees gets a Ravens D that was lit up a week earlier by Houston, a “what should be a shootout” in ATL and then the Bucs while Joe Flacco gets a fake Saints D, Cleveland! and the BENGALS! Yet somehow Drew Brees continued to throw pick after pick and Joe Flacco continued to be touted as great despite looking like one of the weakest QBs in the NFL week after week. Just because their teams were winning, they skated by, but in the world of fantasy football, there is no skating by. They got me a combined 15.24 points in the final week of the season. That’s your 2010 Sports Man of the Year, Drew Brees and the next great QB, Joe Flacco. Throwing non stop picks, turning over the ball and not completing passes is no way to be considered QB greatness yet somehow both of those QBs did just that and were somehow never exposed. Well consider yourself exposed guys. Drew Brees can no longer throw any more picks this season because his fake Saints team lost to the 7-9 NFC West champion Seahawks yesterday and I have no final for Joe Flacco yet but he’s certainly looking as futile as ever against the Chiefs right now. Good.

I’m not gonna delve too much into the rest of my team. Most of those guys were patchwork guys I picked up mid year like Brandon Lloyd, Ryan Torain, LeGarrette Blount and Jacob Tamme. They all served me pretty well for where I picked them up; on waivers. In reality, I probably should have never even been competing for a trophy. After the first few weeks of the season, my team looked to be in bad shape and if it wasn’t for some decent pickups, I never would have climbed in the standings. Perhaps the best things that happened to me all season were Jermichael Finley going down early in the season and then another team picking up Malcom Floyd before I could make up my mind, forcing me to pick up Brandon Lloyd. Finley’s injury took Greg Jennings from nothing to the top instantly and we all know how Lloyd performed this season. Jennings, Lloyd and Maclin were probably the highlight of my team. However, as much as you need good WR performance to win a championship, it can’t, unfortunately, be your only good thing.

So lets skip all the final 3 weeks of garbage and go straight to the last game of the season. I needed the Seahawks to hold Steven Jackson to under 22 points for me to medal. They did just that and the Galapagos Tortoises came away with the 3rd place bronze trophy. The tortoises started slow, picked it up in the middle but unfortunately couldn’t keep pace. There was no championship repeat in the cards for those mammoth reptiles this year.

I hate fantasy football. The last few weeks of the season had been a miserable experience containing failures of epic proportions. I’m so glad it’s over. And that’s the problem with professional sports and thus with fantasy football… there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it but sit back and watch it all implode. You try not to get too vested in it but you can’t help yourself. So you say to yourself… you say, “Guy, do the Eagles not cause me enough pain by never winning anything? Am I a glutton for punishment? Do I need more pain?”. “Yeah! Of course!”, you say, so you decide to play fantasy football where 32 team’s worth of players can make you personally fail. And that’s where we are as a society. Millions of us looking to shorten our life spans just a little by thinking we have some sort of control over anything that goes on around us. Well there are 2 things I know for sure. 1) We have absolutely 0 control over how professional athletes perform on the field week after week and 2) I can’t wait for next year’s fantasy football league. C’mon, this post didn’t sound too dire did it? Next year has to be awesome. What could possibly go wrong switching to a 32 team, head-to-head league next year? It’s not like we’re drafting 2 catchers. Or are we? Regardless, it all sounds like a blast! See you all next year. And yes, I am a glutton for punishment.

What I’m watching: AFC Wild-Card Game: Baltimore Ravens at Kansas City Chiefs