On The Heath

I always have at least one of these weeks every year; a week where it seems like a foregone conclusion that I will lose. I'm not talking about those times when the opposition is so much better that it will take a miracle to pull off a win. I'm talking about those times when I am evenly matched or almost always in possession of the superior team on that given week and yet I still have the dark feeling that no choice I make will be the right one.

The reason I call it being on the Heath is that I am usually so unsure of my choices that I pay special attention to the "experts" I refer to. They all seem to support my choices, yet there's still something in their tones that tell me that they aren't giving me the full picture. They become the "Weird Sisters" seeming to promise me victory but always with a shrug in their voice and a "should" rather than a "will" in their promises. "LenDale White should get 25 carries". "Maurice Jones-Drew should get stopped by the Tennessee defense like he was stopped in week 1." "Jason Witten should continue his dominance over the same Giants team he has dominated for the last two years"...

Almost every player I started or benched on every one of my teams was mentioned with a "should"--either positive or negative--in something I read or listened to being put forth by a paid fantasy football expert. Every one I started had an average of four out of five stars beside their names on the two sites that use that rating system. Every one of the players I left on the bench had at least three and usually two stars beside their names. Almost all of them were more productive.

That inferred shrug I mentioned is both as chilling and as ridiculous as the idea of a forest walking up to my front door. How can all of these productive players have bad games?

The truth is most of them didn't have bad games. They performed at or just below their average. The problem was that the matchup should have given them much higher numbers but mostly due to nagging injuries or defensive adjustments they didn't.

Then there are those one or two players in the lineup that completely fall off the table. My old pal LenDale on one team, Jason Witten on another, Kevin Jones and Braylon Edwards who both had touchdowns but sub-subpar yardage and reception totals. (Jones actually ended up with two-digit negative yardage! He set a record in futility.) I think of these players as the tragic flaw in my team that week. All indications prior to kick-off were that they would be at least fine. No consideration was given to the fact that they had been doing so well previously that it became the opposing team's full mission would be to take them out of the game.

And then when I hoped for a miracle to occur for me as has happened in the past during Sunday and Monday Night games, I saw only rain fall on and impair the efforts of Joseph Addai, Antonio Gates, and Matt Hasselbeck. While my opponents' champion, Reggie Wayne (He actually did me in on two separate teams.) rose above the elements and double and triple coverage to bury all my hopes for the week. Shockingly, I have been referring to him for over a year as "The Touchdown Thane". This can not be coincidence.

On top of all of this was the fact that I was suffering from the worst flu I have had in seven years. And the first one I've ever had while playing fantasy football. Such illnesses usually hit me in the dead of winter. Don't get me wrong, I've had plenty of colds but those are enjoyable to deal with while convalescing with blankets and notebooks around me. When a bad flu hits, all I want to do is drop my head back and dream of a time when I might feel good again.

It was due to this that I trusted the numbers even more than I usually do when I arrive at The Heath. But even so, the choices I make when confronted with these omens always add up to ultimate destruction.

These are the weeks that are always on my mind while I do all the preparation and post-game evaluation during the other weeks.

For a fantasy football player I compare this week to "Upset Saturday" in college football. You know it's coming you just hope you survive it. Luckily all my teams are still in playoff contention so the possibility of ultimate triumph is still mine.

The Non-Participant

"...there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so"--(Hamlet II,ii)

I had an interesting experience this week with my two IDP teams. My Flagship team, the Longfaced Jackals, is pretty lousy this year. It’s a dynasty/keeper team that has gone through several years of picking last or late in every round and its premier player, Shaun Alexander, has finally hit the wall. The team I manage in honor of my son, the NattyWeldos, is a redraft team that is very good—second in the league.

Both teams played against the most indifferent members of their leagues. The Jackals opponent didn’t field a QB and had either three or four players on bye-weeks in his lineup. But this guy had Viking, Adrian Peterson, who broke the single game rushing record. The Jackals had their single worst day in Fantasy Football and only managed to score fifteen points more combined than the rookie from OU did on his own. Needless to say I had my butt handed to me. The NattyWeldos scored slightly below their low average but still scored enough to trounce their nonplussed opponent.

Probably the most important lesson I’ve learned in my years as an actor is that when someone else in a cast is getting to me due to their lack of interest or ability in the work, the first place I need to look is at myself. I have been in truly awful productions and had a pretty good time. The reason being was that I was focused in on my job. Even if I didn’t feel that I had a grasp on my character yet, I knew I had the tools, passion and ability to continue to pursue that objective. It was in those moments when I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing that I began to look around and gripe about slackers. The main thing I learned is that such issues aren’t even remotely my responsibility. They are the responsibility of the director. If I truly feel that the below par actor’s work is a detriment to my work then the only person I should tell is the director.

That being said I can only think of a couple of occasions out of the 100+ productions in which I’ve been where anyone else’s work was a detriment to mine. Every other time I was able to or could have gotten out of my snit if I had just focused in on my job.

Even so, like an addict in a weak moment, I find myself wanting to blame when things aren’t going well. The sin isn’t the urge. The sin is recognizing the urge and giving into it when the solution is already obvious.

The same could be said for fantasy football except that instead of the director it is the commissioner of your league who holds the responsibility.

While it would be my preference to kick both these guys out of the league and replace them with more active members, it’s not my call. My personal philosophy is that you get out of something what you put into it. My other personal philosophy is that even if I don’t have a burning passion for something I’m involved in, I recognize that somebody else might.

During the years I was an actor in New York, I was a mild-mannered temp at a major magazine publisher by day. I often found myself working jobs I didn’t particularly care about but I recognized that the people I was working for or with had chosen their jobs as a career. I took satisfaction when my boss and co-worker in one particular department got promoted to very illustrious positions at other magazines within the company. I wasn’t satisfied because I ever believed my work helped them to get the promotion. I was a temp. I was just happy that I was a drag on their ambitions.

The fantasy counterpart to this for me would be fantasy baseball. I don’t even come close to having the same passion for it but I still draft a team and check in to quickly adjust lineups almost every day. The reason being that I know someone in the league loves it as much as I love football. So even though my moves may not be as well researched I’m still keeping things competitive.

Even so, like an addict, I find myself on the league message boards in fantasy football griping about opponents such as the ones I played this week. In fact I commented about my Jackals opponent. I thought I was being matter of fact. If the guy isn’t participating, get rid of him. He was clearly bothering other members of the league judging from other comments. But the truth was I didn’t care that much because I couldn’t control it. The Commish seemed to have made up his mind on the matter. And I’m sure my comments probably only came across as yet another gripe. It’s a tough job being a commissioner of a fantasy league. I’m sure if you polled them they would mostly feel like their members are a bunch of malcontents.

Sorry guys. I mean well.

As for the non-participants, I would prefer that you at least made an effort. But if you don’t, it’s not my problem.

Trusting The Average

One of my favorite lines from a movie is also a line I think of often during football season: As the disabled title character in the 1980 movie "Airplane!" begins it's landing someone suggests that the searchlights at the Airport be turned on. In a parody of his catch phrase from his role on the "Untouchables", Robert Stack replies, "No...That's just what they'll be expecting us to do!"

The patron saint of such absurd thinking as far as pro football is concerned is Mike Martz in Super Bowl XXXVI. In that game, the Patriots defense was far more susceptible to the run than to the pass. The Rams had Marshall Faulk who was the best running back at the time. So of course, Marshall Faulk got 17 carries total.

It might have been that Martz was simply aware of Patriots head coach Bill Belichick's strategy of always neutralizing the best player on the his opponent's offense. But it seemed that he didn't even test the matter. His offense was like nothing ever seen before. The way it moved down the field was compared by many to a fastbreak in basketball. And it wasn't even a case that Faulk was being shut down. He was averaging 4.5 yards a carry. Everyone with whom I was watching, fully expected the Rams to come out in the second half and pound the ball at the middle of the Pats defense and wear it out, but no "that's just what they'd be expecting them to do."

Brad Childress of the Minnesota Vikings seems to have adopted such a strategy against the Cowboys two weeks ago. Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I'm a Cowboys fan. But Adrian Peterson was severely underused in that game. Certainly sixty yards and a TD is productive but he was capable of a great deal more. To be fair the Cowboys D was doing a better job of containing Peterson in the second half. But not good enough to abandon him altogether.

All this being said, I do have some sympathy for these coaches. I have often made the mistake of filling out my roster with longshots on weeks when I had a close matchup. It's a case of over thinking it.

I probably should have written this a couple of weeks ago but the strategy still has validity: Trust the Average.

At this point in the season players have settled into their roles so you can trust that the average on their stat sheet in your league is an accurate median score. You've spent the season building this team now trust their productivity.

I had forgotten about this but back in my first season I used to add up the average weekly points of my team and the average of my opponent. My goal was to have my team's average be twenty points higher than theirs. As I mentioned before, this was the season I went 16-1. I've never even come close to that since. A major reason for that is members of the league are more active now (I must admit there was more than one week that year that I was up against a team riddled with injured players or players on bye weeks). Plus, the participants are much better educated now so it is almost impossible to have that great an advantage beforehand.

The other thing this strategy did was temper my maverick tendency of going with a less productive player just because I had a hunch. One incident I remember in particularly from that season was Thanksgiving when I really wanted to play Dexter Coakley even though he wasn't my highest scoring defensive player. I love having a player to watch in both games on Thanksgiving. I had Emmitt Smith. But I wanted someone on both sides of the ball. Silly, I know, but it's my own idiosyncracy. I finally reconciled it by adjusting my roster to make sure I still had my twenty point margin by benching another hunch guy in favor of a more productive one. Believe it or not, the player I activated was Randy Moss. Another idiosyncracy would be how much I hate starting players, even great ones, against my Cowboys. My feelings are always twisted in a knot. If they perform well, I feel guilty. If they perform poorly, such as Sammy Morris a couple of weeks ago, I feel like a jerk and that I got what I deserve. My attitude towards this has been refined in later years. If I have a comparable player not going against my 'Boys I play him. Otherwise, I live with the guilt.

I certainly lived with the guilt that day. I think Moss had three T.D.'s and a ridiculous amount of yardage as the Vikes walloped the 'Pokes. It did help that Emmitt had Two T.D.'s and a similar amount of yardage. And I think Dexter even had six tackles. I ended up winning the week on Thursday. My opponent didn't even match those three players plus my Lions MLB.

The point is trust the team you've built. Think a great deal about any chances you take. Even if your team averages slightly less than your opponent's. If you've been active on the waiver wire and if your opponents haven't committed any collusion everybody should be pretty evenly matched.

McClellan/Showalter Syndrome

One of the things I love most about fantasy football is how much I learn about myself through the decisions I make during a season. Most Chess players would probably tell you the same thing about why they love chess. In fact self-awareness and self-improvement whether as a conscious pursuit or as an unsought by-product is probably a driving force in why we each are driven to do the things we are each uniquely driven to do.

I am an actor by profession and passion and a fantasy football player by leisure and passion and I have found that both push me to face what shortcomings I have and both push me to overcome them. And one of my greatest shortcomings is my constant struggle with a problem I have named McClellan/Showalter Syndrome.

The name choice in itself is probably an indication of the condition: I can't decide between the two names because they both come to my head simultaneously as an illustration of the problem.

Quick history lesson before I continue: George McClellan was a young Union General who had shown some ability in limited action with a small force at the early part of the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln soon chose him to become the supreme commander of the Eastern forces. McClellan's attention to detail and intense discipline turned the largest army in the western hemisphere up to that time into a fine-tuned disciplined war machine within a year. Having done so, he then found it difficult to put this machine into the battlefield. It became little more than a grand show-piece. In fact, it was McClellan who gave it the name "Grand Army of the Potomac".

After two chances Lincoln finally gave up on McClellan and after turning the command over a few times finally found Ulysses Grant who, though not as detailed or well-educated as McClellan as able to drive that well trained army toward it's purpose--victory.

Quick recent baseball history lesson: Buck Showalter was the manager of the Yankees when I first moved to New York and fans were pretty happy with him. He got the team to the playoffs in 1995 for the first time in a long time and it had looked like he would have done it in '94 if the strike hadn't happened. The only problem was that with the talent he had, he still couldn't get into the World Series. Showalter was fired in '96 and Joe Torre took them to five out of six World Series and won four of them.

Buck went on to be the first manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks where he was fired in '01 and Bob Brenley took them to the Series where he beat those selfsame Yankees in that fifth appearance. He then went on to the Rangers and was fired in '06. Lightning didn't strike three times but that's because it was the Rangers who don't suffer under a curse but rather suffer from supernatural indifference.

The book on Showalter was that he was a great details guy, who could put a great team together but then got bogged down in side issues and allowed himself to think himself out of winning.

(Interesting fact. I attended game 4 of the 2001 World Series and found myself only about 10 yards from Showalter who was standing on a platform watching the game as it went into extra innings. He was an analyst for ESPN at the time and had not made any appearance on the platform until that moment. The fans around greeted him warmly and I observed a soft smile on his face as he watched these two teams he had built locked in a tie fighting for the championship. To this day I wish I could ask him what he was thinking that night.)

I wrote all this because I started LenDale White in week 5. Not a stupid decision but an overly cautious one that cost me an easy victory against a particularly annoying individual who enjoys bullying the worst player in our league. Mr. Annoying is 42 years old. I had hoped to teach him a lesson. Instead, I taught myself one by recognizing my affliction.

I had Joseph Addai and his backup, Kenton Keith. Keith had come into the game the week before and showed that he was quite capable of being more than productive in the Colts offense. Addai had left that game with a minor shoulder injury. The early reports were that he would have returned but the Colts had the game well in hand. By the middle of the week, reports were that Addai might not play because he had a bye week coming up in week 6 and sitting out would give him an extra week to heal. Those were reliable reports but not official. The official report was that Addai was a game-time decision.

I knew that Addai probably would not play and I had Keith in my line-up right up until Saturday night when I over thought it. My logic was that White had been reliably producing seven or eight points a week and since I would be out before the late game started I would not have time to plug Addai in if Coach Dungy decided to put him in. But Dungy is not Bill Belichick he does not play games with injury reports.

All three choices bore some risk. But, like McCLellan being fooled into believing he was outnumbered on the peninsula by the same Confederate battalion being marched through a clearing over and over. I was fooled by the lack of a definite answer.

When I first started playing fantasy football, I had to rely on matchups because I was still learning how to draft. As the years have gone by, I have gotten much better at putting together a team of clear starters(Joseph Addai) along with above average handcuffs(Kenton Keith), reliable backups (Maurice Jones-Drew), and the best of what's left(LenDale White). The whole reason I had Kenton Keith on my roster was just for this situation...and then I played it safe.

LenDale White had his worst week. He fumbled and was pulled off the field early in the game and only scored one and a half points. Kenton Keith scored thirty points. Jones-Drew scored twenty. Had I started either Keith or Jones-Drew I would have won. I haven't even gone into why I didn't start Jones-Drew because I'm not sure. He hadn't been producing as well as he should but he was still averaging as much as White and he definitely had more upside. Besides I like the guy's attitude and work ethic far more than White. Somehow I had rationalized that since White was playing at home, he was the smarter pick. It was almost as if I was punishing Drew for not playing up to his potential.

As I said at the beginning I love playing fantasy sports because it can illustrate my strengths and limitations through the choices that I make. Not only can I be aware of them and deal with them in the game, I can recognize and be aware of the same patterns in my work and private life.

You Down Wid' IDP? (Yeah, you know me!)

I want to say I hate team Defense leagues but that can't be true because I play in a few team defense leagues out of necessity. I guess I tolerate them. I just don't think there is any skill or art in drafting or choosing team defenses.

There's usually about three or four defenses at draft time worth starting every week. This year it was Chicago, Baltimore, New England and maybe Pittsburgh. Chicago suddenly became iffy when Mike Brown, strong safety, went down. Then they completely fell apart when six starters went down to injury. Plus Rex Grossman didn't throw an interception unless the lucky recipient had a clear lane to the endzone. All those turnovers for TD's counted against this vaunted D. Suddenly the above list shortens to two worthwhile teams, the Patriots and the Steelers because they have reliable offenses.

So now you're spending too much time on the waiver wire finding the strongest Defense that is going up against the weakest offense. Not much thought goes into it.

One final thing that is incredibly annoying about team Defense leagues. Every year the NFL makes rules which support more scoring by the offense yet the penalties for being scored against stay the same or even increase.

I love IDP leagues. No wait...I LOVE IDP leagues. They show respect for defensive players and if the league is designed correctly, who you have on your team can offset those one or two Running Backs who scored over twenty TD's in a season or transcendant Wide Receivers that ended up on one team.

First of all, there's so much more to research in preparation for the draft. For instance, knowing the base defense of the team can help you decide who to take at each position--in a "Cover 2" cornerbacks and weakside linebackers can be as valuable as strong safeties and middle linebackers in a "4-3". In a "3-4" tackles can be a valuable as ends. You can break it down even further by finding out what the philosophy of the defensive coordinator is. Some are more about covering areas while others have a go to the ball philosophy. All of this and much more can be taken into consideration be fore you make your picks. Plus if you do the work you are more apt to make value picks in later rounds while others are reaching for recognizable names. Back in the Nineties someone would always take Deion Sanders even though he was rarely thrown at nor punted too. The value in the 4-3 is the second cornerback.

A friend of mine who played fantasy baseball made the cynical observation that all you had to do was take the guys from the bad teams since they are the ones who will likely be on the field the most. It's certainly a consideration but as I've played more and more I've learned players who are on the field a lot are likely to get hurt. Plus bad teams can be scored on so quickly that nobody gets many points. Ray Lewis was the best linebacker in both the lean years and the Super Bowl and playoff years. Urlacher had one of his best years last year en route to the super bowl. Sacks occur more often when an offense is rendered one dimensional because they need to come back from a large deficit.

And even with all this there is the element of dumb luck: I was considering benching Osi Umenyiora in week 4 due to his nagging injuries and almost started Robert Geathers. Then, while listening to the Sirius Fantasy Show, Adam Caplan made a throw away comment while talking about Donovan McNabb that the Eagles were starting a rookie at tackle. He said that would make a great matchup for Osi. Osi in Geathers out. Osi got six sacks and scored 36 overall points and I regained the top spot in my division from the guy who had the first pick in our league.

My point is that being good at IDP is like being a bassist in a rock band. It doesn't take much talent to be competent at it. But there is a lot of potetial to study and be great at it. Team Defense is like being the tamborine player.

I'd like to start a movement right here with the three readers I have spreading out the message: Make requests to all your Fantasy Football services to make IDP leagues an option in their public default leagues...I'm looking at you, ESPN. My two favorite leagues have seven players on D but a default could easily be Linebacker, Defensive Lineman, Defensive Back, Defensive Flex. Whatever. Just make the request and give IDP a try and you'll be down wid' it.

The Kevin Curtis Dilemma

I could have titled this particular dilemma with several different names because I have faced it many times over the years with mixed results. But since Kevin Curtis is the most recent and glaring example. And since this is the first time I have recognized it as a dilemma, it shall be, in perpetuity, named after him.

Here's the scenario: A quality NFL third receiver, who runs excellent routes, has excellent hands, is speedy, and has proven he has the ability to be a very good, if not great, second receiver when he has filled in for the injured first or second receiver on his team, is traded or signs a free agency deal with a team whose offensive system should suit the player better than the system he is leaving.

The situation I am describing is Kevin Curtis going from the Rams to the West Coast system of Andy Reid's Eagles where he will not only move into the second receiver role but wil probably be considered the go-to guy. I could see his probable productivity clearly but I could also see a period of adjustment to a new system as well as the adjustment to a new QB who is dealing with his own adjustment to coming back from a style devastating knee injury.

I was able to pick Curtis pretty late in every draft so I had a couple of proven receivers on every team. I felt pretty comfortable benching him in all my leagues in week one. But in week two, due to a couple of weak performances, the idea of starting Curtis began to creep into my head.

Greg Cosell, an NFL analyst who I respect a great deal, talked about the Eagles/Redskins matchup during his weekly appearance on the Sirius Radio Fantasy Football Show. He talked about how Green Bay had been successful against the Eagle receivers because they had used "press/man coverage". Simply put, the corners hit the receivers and then have the speed and quickness to recover quick enough to stick to their assignment like glue. He felt like Washington wouldn't do this because their corners were not as practiced at it and it wasn't a technique they could just pick up in one week.

I went ahead and started Curtis.

The Redskins went ahead and played press/man coverage.

I lost all the leagues in which I started Curtis.

Even with the coverage he had gotten open. The real problem was McNabb's inaccuracy due to the limits his stiff knee placed on him. He was misfiring all game.

Because they needed something to talk about, many in the press nad on radio spent the week between games two and three discussing whether McNabb was no longer the elite QB he once was. McNabb became even more prevalent when He made comments in an interview on HBO's REAL SPORTS which some perceived as controversial.

I realized I had gotten ahead of myself and put Curtis back on the bench until the situation in Philadelphia straightened itself out. For a split second I even considered dropping him for free agents on the waiver wire.

I thought better of that when I remembered how I had traded Priest Holmes after the first few games he played in Kansas City. In this case Holmes had gone from being a backup to Jamal Lewis in Baltimore to being the starter for Dick Vermeil in the offense that had made Marshall Faulk a star. Because I had started Holmes from week one, I had become frustrated with his lack of productivity and thought I was a genius. He hit his stride the week I traded him and the rest was history. Had I kept him I would have had both Shaun Alexander and Priest Holmes. Since this was in a keeper league I would have probably won three straight championships.

My very first year of fantasy football, I went 16-1. Although I have won leagues in subsequent years, I have vever repeated that feat. The wish to do so and to be hailed as a genius--to be the guy who picks the perfect sleeper or knows the exact game to play an unheralded benchwarmer has hurt me in fantasy football way more than it has helped me.

In the league where I had Andre and Chad Johnson, I also have Chris Chambers, Brandon Marshall, and Kevin Curtis. When Andre hit the fantasy IR in week 2, I had to choose between these three talented benchwarmers. Chambers was the most consistent. By my calculations I needed to get the receptions and yards Chambers had gotten in each of the first two weeks to have a reasonable chance of winning. He got exactly his average and I won by twenty points.

Both Marshall and Curtis outscored Chambers. Curtis in particular got three TD's and 221 yards. Had I played him I would have won by almost 70 points. I had considered starting him but who's to say that Detroit, the Eagles week 3 opponent, wouldn't suddenly become press/man mavens?--which they didn't. And even if they didn't, who's to say that McNabb would suddenly become accurate?--which he did. Although I will remember what was probably Curtis's career performance, I won't lose any sleep over it. As much as I wish I could, I can't see the future.

The goal is to win the league--other enticements, such as top scores in the entire fantasy system is just luck and you could lose everything chasing it.

In another game last week, my opponent had Curtis. Had he played him he would have beat me. It's a judgement call. It's the first four weeks of the season. Nobody should be panicking yet. Nobody won any of my leagues in week 3. With or without a win both my opponent and I know we have a very talented option on our bench who is hitting his stride and hopefully will be available to us throughout the season. Last Sunday was probably the greatest game of Keven Curtis's career and it would have been nice to be able to say I had played him--but that's just bragging and salve for long term memory. It has little to do with winning fantasy football.

By the way, I did start Curtis in another league. But that's only because he was the best available option. And yes, he did mean the difference between a win and a loss.

Preparation for Week 3

I was having trouble deciding between starting Larry Fitzgerald against Baltimore or Bernard Berrian against Dallas. Baltimore is supposed to have one of the best D's in the league and Dallas has a pretty suspect secondary.



In fantasy drafts Fitzgerald was considered to be a top 10 receiver while Berrian, though he is Chicago's primary guy, was considered a high #3 in fantasy. I almost pulled the trigger and then I remembered Sept. 10, 2000.



During that season, the Ravens D was considered one of the greatest defenses of all time. My opponent that week had Jimmy Smith in his lineup going against Baltimore. He had a quality backup WR on his bench although I don't remember who it was since I didn't write down what players were on my opponent's benches back then. I only wrote down the starters. Sufficeth to say that it was someone on par with Berrian who was facing a less difficult defense. I was relieved on Sunday morning when I saw that he had chosen to start Smith against Baltimore our matchup was close and I was sure the Jaguar receiver would be shut down.

He scored three touchdowns and had 291 receiving yards. His backup got his average and had he played him, I would have won.

I learned a valuable lesson from my opponent: Use matchups as a consideration between like level players such as Berrian and Vincent Jackson or Larry Fitzgerald and Roy Williams. But when faced with the choice between a #1 receiver and a #3, go with the #1 regardless of the matchup. NFL rules favor the receiver so it's likely that a top receiver will do reasonably well even against a difficult opponent.

None of this is guaranteed but I have spent the early part of many seasons chasing my tail when I would have done at least as well if not better if I hadn't second guessed myself and put in the inferior player, when those that I chose as starters outscored my opponents from the bench.

(Larry Fitzgerald ended up making 5 receptions for 85 yards against Baltimore. Berrian made six for 73. In standard scoring leagues Fitzgerald scored one point more. In points per catch league they tied.)