Fantasy Football

Fantasy Lemons

Cleo Lemon is not my friend.

Obviously, he is not my friend because he is a professional football player, and I take multiple naps every day.  We are nothing alike and probably have nothing in common, unless Lemon also happens to loooooove Christian rock.  But I highly doubt that.

Despite our differences, it is not like I ever had anything bad to say about the guy…until this weekend.  Lemon, who plays quarterback for the Miami Dolphins, single-handedly destroyed my perfect fantasy football season.  And for that, he is deader to me than my dead Adam Vinatieri night light. 

Strangely enough, Lemon did his damage while not actually being on my fantasy team.  Rightfully so, I did not pick him up this week because, well, he is Cleo Lemon (sorry, buddy, the gloves are off) and I already have enough mediocre to bad quarterbacks on my team. 

No, he was much more demoralizing in the way he took me down.  Rather than having a typically poor outing, Lemon played like a man possessed, throwing for two touchdowns and running for two scores.  Which was two more than Ronnie Brown ran for.

Brown, the best thing I have going right now, was on pace for another fantasy points bonanza, but Lemon’s heroic footwork kept that from happening.  In the process, he also kept me from winning.

The final score of my matchup was closer than I expected.  My opponent was spurred by Braylon Edwards’ three touchdowns, which was three more than my TE Kellen Winslow caught.  I bet Edwards and Lemon are friends.

The 12 points from Lemon’s two rushing touchdowns would have put me over the top this week, and it would have been a remarkable win.  Saturday, I plucked Wes Welker off the free agent pile, and he scored more than 20 points for me.  Were it not for Lemon, you would be reading about how much of a genius I am for picking Welker and how the ESPN.com should be working on their Kevan Lee fantasy section (if they’re not already).

Instead, I have fallen from the ranks of the unbeaten, and I want to trade every person on my roster.

How quickly things change.

Lemon’s touchdown runs were from one and five yards out.  Who does he think he is?  John Riggins?  The fact that he had the opportunity to run it in so close to the goalline speaks volumes about Cam Cameron’s playcalling.  And by volumes, I mean he needs to hand the ball off to Brown more.

Considering I did not watch the game, I guess Lemons’ scampers could have been improvised scrambles on broken passing plays (and really, what other kind of passing plays do the Dolphins have?).  But it is much easier to just blame him for everything that went wrong for me on Sunday rather than dwell on other failings.

In addition to Lemon’s touchdown vulturing, Brandon Jacobs laid an egg on Monday Night Football.  I was rooting for him to score 20+ points, but he seemed to be content getting outrushed by Reuben Droughns.   

Dwayne Bowe was a no-show, which is awfully difficult to do against the Bengals.

The Titans defense was nothing spectacular.  Thanks for the six points!

And Clinton Portis failed to reach the end zone to my displeasure and not to my surprise.

Despite it all, the difference between winning and losing was still those two Lemon touchdown runs.  Handing the ball off to Brown could have sent us on our way to BFFs, but instead, he chose the glory over the good friendship.

Looks like I’ll be getting d-d-d-down with the DC Talk without him.

Photo courtesy of images.tsn.ca.

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