A Girl's Fantasy Week 4

Despite his five rushing touchdowns this weekend, there is a very good reason not to like Ronnie Brown and that’s if you were playing against him or, like Red Dogs owner, Sarah, you benched him against the Patriots. But was it really that unreasonable not to start him against a rushing defense that hadn’t given up a single touchdown in the last nine games? Miss Shortcake owner Alexandra, who played Sarah this week (and beat Sarah this week thanks to that “unfortunate” decision) doesn’t think so. And for those of you out there like me, who can sympathize with Sarah, this weekend brought up some painful memories. Sadly enough, it took me back to September 26, 2004 when Javon Walker had 200 yards receiving and three touchdowns…out of nowhere…and on my bench. He hadn’t had a single touchdown all year and two weeks before that had put up just 37 yards. As a warning to Brown owners, don’t get your hopes up because Walker had just 37 yards and one touchdown the week following his break out performance. And I was never able to redeem myself in that fantasy season---failing to make the playoffs or reap the benefit of Walker’s potential. Walker didn’t put up anywhere close to 200 yards again that season nor did he have three touchdowns again in a single game. And he hasn’t done it since. But, I will never forget it.

Brown has a bye this week so Sarah has an extra week to think about what happened. But for this week, she has to find a flex player out of either Brandon LLoyd or Lee Evans. Evans may not have found the end zone yet in 2008, but he is facing the Rams, currently boasting the worst scoring defense in the league. And while Lloyd has only improved each week, he does face a nice looking Philadelphia defense in week 4. If they sacked Ben Roethlisberger eight times last week, what the hell is Kyle Orton going to do? Then again, it’s not like the Steelers excel when it comes to pass protection. And while Chicago hasn't fared much better, they are improving somewhat now that they finally got rid of that terrible Florida quarterback. The fact is that both Evans and Lloyd have seen about the same number of passes this year, so this one should really come down to which defense she prefers to face and I think it’s an obvious choice.

Strawberry Shortcake (and, yes, our league has divisions called "hot" and "pink" as well as teams named after dolls...and serial killers...and several teams named after people's pets) has already put LaDainian Tomlinson back in her line-up after benching him for Darren Sproles last week. She was scared off by the “not-100%” rumors, but the fact is that LT at 40% is still a beast.

Claudia finally redeemed the Fighting Turtles this week by beating the always-solid Golden Rules. The Turtles have been beyond pathetic this year so my advice to her: 1) drop your defensive back-ups. In leagues where you use independent defensive players there’s no reason to hoard them on your bench because they don’t score enough points alone; 2) Take Maurice Jones-Drew off of Injured Reserve before the Moral Commissioner fines you and replace DeAngelo Williams with him in your line up and 3) As long as you have Donte' Stallworth on IR you should pick up someone to replace him because our league allows that.

Golden Rules owner Melanie will be replacing Peyton Manning with Aaron Rodgers this week and starting the 4th best quarterback in A Girls’ Fantasy points instead of the 13th isn’t too bad of an option. Rodgers is a decent start against Tampa Bay who’s pass defense is struggling and the Buccaneers haven’t given up a single rushing touchdown all year so it’s a lot more likely the Packers will score through the air. Although, please see the Ronnie Brown disclaimer above as I’m only talking about trends not certainties.

Fellow-blogger Leila (see Not Jennifer Aniston) has six players on bye this week so her line-up decisions for Big Cats have already been made by the NFL-scheduling gods. Plus she has Michael Turner who helped her kick my ass last week. Unfortunately for the Black Widows and my own team, the Blonde Devils, life isn’t as simple. We are both in running back hell and should probably be fighting the free agent wires for some players. Christina is looking to start either Jamal Lewis or Rashard Mendenhall this week and I need to decide whether to stick with Ryan Grant and Earnest Graham, who’s teams face each other this week or replace them with rookies Steve Slaton or Johathan Stewart. I like Stewart’s match-up against Atlanta (they’ve allowed a 100+yard rusher in the last two games) but Slaton faces a slightly tougher rush defense in Jacksonville. For Christina, the fact that Mendenhall will be getting the start in place of an injured Willie Parker is negated by the unfortunate match-up against the Ravens. Lewis, on the otherhand, is in the opposite situation. The Bengals are pretty easy to run against and if the Browns actually go through on replacing Derek Anderson with Brady Quinn, they’re going to need to rely on Lewis a little bit more—someone give this guy 20 carries please! And if that happens Purple Haze will have to decide on a replacement for Derek Anderson between Matt Ryan and Trent Edwards. The rookie is still only a "play if the match up is right"guy so she should stick with Edwards against the Rams 30th ranked pass defense.

Speaking of free agent pick-ups, Dientes Locos’ reserve players absolutely suck! Sharon needs to join Christina and me in fighting for some free agents. Maybe we’ll all mud wrestle for them. (Just kidding ladies—was only adding a gratuitous girls fantasy reference for the guys).

Simy Says (Amy--what does that mean, anyway?) will be replacing her bye-week starters with Antwaan Randle-El and Warrick Dunn. The Redskins will need to get creative to beat Dallas and utilizing Randle-El for his many different skills, including quarterback, just might be part of their game plan. In addition, he has the second most receptions for Washington behind Santana Moss. As for Dunn, he sees more receptions than Earnest Graham and is getting around the same number of carries (which isn’t saying much), except for last week when he had less than half the carries, but more yards. And Green Bay has struggled against the run this year so there’s even more potential this week.

H-Town Cagedancers (again—what does that mean?) has to deal with a few byes all at once so unfortunately she is going to have to play Hines Ward against Baltimore this week. She also will have to use Selvin Young at running back against Kansas City, but she should be doing that anyway. The Chiefs along with the Lions are the only two teams in the league currently giving up over 200 yards per game on the ground.

And finally, Frog Legs will be starting one of her two Arizona running backs this week against the Jets, which may be pretty tough for a bottom third rushing team. But she doesn’t really have a choice. And if you’re wondering about the origin of Sarah L’s team name, just know that I bestowed this name upon her as punishment for not giving her team a name before the beginning of the season…completely unaware of the fact that she harbors an intense fear of frogs.

Good luck in Week 4 ; )