By JIMMY D / Benched players produce more than starters | Jimmy's archive
Donovan McNabb does not make the Top 10 in fantasy QB production Sunday, but freshly unretired Daunte Culpepper does. (And so does Tyler Thigpen and Shaun Hill).
Brian Westbrook does not make the Top 20 in fantasy RB production Sunday, but Saint fourth-stringer Pierre Thomas does. (And so do J.J. Arrington and Steve Slaton).
Jimmy’s NFL Fantasy Gremlins were headed for yet another ignominious defeat Monday night with his stars.
Making matters worse was getting fantasy production from players NOT in the starting lineup, in particular the aforementioned Thomas. Jimmy picked the Saints backup RB off waivers two weeks ago when Reggie Bush got hurt and the rumours of positive steroid tests began swirling around Deuce McAllister.
But on a day when Westbrook and the rest of the Eagles were atrocious in a rare NFL tie against the pathetic Bengals, Thomas had 19 wasted points on Jimmy’s bench. Ditto at the TE slot, a wasteland all season for Jimmy D ever since choosing Todd Heap and Vernon Davis during the initial draft, where freshly-plucked-off-waivers Donald Lee of Green Bay sat on the Gremlin bench while Bronco Tony Scheffler accumulated zero catches against the Falcons.
(At least Jimmy bet the Broncos to win at +260 on the moneyline).
Jimmy shoved fading Roy Williams to the bench again (after he was the fourth pick in the original draft) and he generated a paltry 30 yards for the Cowboys). Lance Moore had another strong week for the Gremlins in his place. However Moore’s WR teammate Marques Colston – another highly touted Gremlin selection - was awful in the Saints win.
Other benched Gremlins who proved they didn’t belong in the starting lineup were Julius Jones (19 total rushing yards, minus five receiving yards and a fumble) and Bernard Berrian who was lousy again for the Vikings after scoring in four straight games and topping the 100-yard mark thrice.
Ice Gremlins iced again
You would never know that fantasy hockey is Jimmy’s main area of expertise by looking at his head-to-head Yahoo! league standings. After six weeks, the Ice Gremlins are dead last by a wide margin and just absorbed another 7-2-1 category loss last week.
The league leader has 80 points – Jimmy D has 22.
So what went wrong? For starters, you’ll recall Jimmy missed the draft and relied on the computer to auto-pick his team. That worked out OK with Jarome Iginla, Mike Richards, Marty St. Louis and others joining the roster.
But the auto-picker ignored goalies and didn’t bother picking any until the 10th round when Ilya Bryzgalov was taken. Injured Rick Dipietro and struggling Cristobal Huet were the others (although Jimmy has since plucked up Tampa Bay’s Mike Smith and wasted a waiver selection two weeks ago on the weak Kevin Weekes).
This week, Jimmy plucked red-hot Devin Setoguchi off waivers. The Shark winger finally got a bit of power-play time last week and he continued to respond with a three-game point streak. If penalty minutes are a positive category, the 2005 first-rounder is not a positive player (zero minutes so far).
Jimmy also added Boston LW Milan Lucic because he figures the big winger with the big mouth will be getting some penalty minutes in the next while. He had a goal and a noisy fight with Mike Komisarek last week when he made a bit of an arse of himself in celebrating the win.
Expect some tough NHL counselors to try to change that disrespectful Junior-B-style behaviour.
Freelance writer Jimmy D is a fantasy sports expert living in Halifax and can be reached at jpoole@herald.ca
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