I’m sure many of you can relate to this, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but there’s nothing worse than seeing your team put up the most points they have all season long when you got knocked out the week before. This is especially true if you think you deserved to win. Last week I ran into a guy that scored his most points all season, thanks mostly to Ryan Grant. Ouch. My team put up 167 points this week in an ESPN standard scoring league, with 1 point from kicker. Depressing. Matt Ryan, Reggie Bush, Frank Gore, Megatron, Steve Smith, Dez Bryant, Ed Dickson, Seattle Defense = 167 points. Figures Megatron and Bush save their best games for when I’m knocked out! Ohh well what can you do right? This is however, the worst fantasy season I’ve ever had overall, as I’m only alive in one low money league. Definitely looking forward to next year and the start of basketball/baseball. Good luck to those of you that are still battling for that fantasy championship!

Now on to the positive stuff. I was fortunate enough to give back to someone in need with the help of some really good people. I was listening to Fantasy Pros 911 a couple weeks back on Sirius XM radio when I heard Paul Greco and Tony Cincotta talking about a listener (I think they contributed as well) that donated $2500 in gift cards for needy families during the holidays. They were looking for listeners to email in possible candidates that were in need this holiday season. My family owns a salon in Palm Harbor Florida that I currently manage so I see and get to know a lot of people on a day-to-day basis. There was one guy that particularly stood out to me. Ex-Marine, served our country in Vietnam, religious family man with two boys. He volunteers at the Little League, collects for Toys for Tots, etc. He recently lost his job and is on the verge of losing his house now within the next month if he is unable to find work. Being a former banker, apparently if you lose your house to foreclosure you can never work in the industry again. Pretty harsh considering the guy had no control over the situation. He’s actively trying to find work to keep his family afloat. To make a long story short, I emailed in and Paul called me on Friday saying that the guy I knew was chosen as a finalist. They gave out 5, $500 gift cards live on air to the deserving candidates. Really touching stuff and stories from all of them. It was really great to see people in Paul and Tony’s position giving back to their audience and making a difference for those in need during the holiday season. After all, that’s what it’s all about, giving back, right?! I’m very thankful for the opportunity that Paul, Tony, FantasyPros911 and Sirius/Xm Radio provided me this holiday season! It sure did feel great to hear the reactions of everyone they helped out this year!

It’s hard to believe that we’re through 8 weeks of the 2011 NFL season already. It seems like it was just yesterday that we were all waiting to hear if there would even be a season this year, and now we’re quickly approaching the fantasy playoffs in most leagues. Most fantasy leagues play through 13 weeks of the regular season before the playoffs begin. That leaves you with only 5 weeks to make a move to put your team(s) in a position to make a playoff push! Time to get down to business. Sorry for the delay on posting this week, I was lacking motivation with a semi-bad fantasy week.

As far as my personal teams go, I’ve made a decision to stop reporting on my first ugly experience with a PPR league, as I mentioned in an earlier post that I’m playing for next year. I’ll be sure to report next season when I’m sitting pretty with 3 first round draft picks! As far as the rest of my teams, I’m liking where I’m standing so far. With my ESPN and Yahoo leagues, I’m a combined 30-26 at the moment. If the season ended today, I’d make the playoffs in 5 of 7 leagues. Not too shabby, but definitely room for improvement down the stretch. The biggest injury that is going to affect me and I’m sure plenty of other people this week is Darren McFadden. It was reported that he left practice yesterday in a walk boot AND on crutches. Things aren’t looking so great this week if you’re a McFadden owner. My guess is they will keep him out this week even if he’s close to being healthy because they’ve got a short week with a game the following Thursday. If you are a McFadden owner, I hope you were smart enough to scoop up Michael Bush as a handcuff. I’m prediciting him to have a big game this weekend. Unfortunately for me, I was unable to get Bush in my lone league with McFadden and I need a win more than anything this week. Looks like one of my seasons might be cut short due to the loss of McFadden AND Andre Johnson. Looking back at that league (2-6 record), the biggest mistake I made was not accepting a trade just before Johnson went down that would have netted me Matt Forte and Percy Harvin. I will attempt to make another post with more information by Sunday as it’s been a busy week here in Tampa, but I’m always available for questions and advice on Twitter @FantasyFocusedd. I’m also looking to convert my blog into a regular website some time in the near future, definitely by next season.

One more quick story before I go. If you happen to have Sirius XM radio in your car or home, I’d highly recommend checking out channel 87. It’s like my dream come true. I bought a new car about 6 weeks ago and had never experienced XM radio. While surfing through the channels I came across Fantasy Sports radio. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week fantasy talk. What more could a fantasy junkie ask for in life? Needless to say, I haven’t moved the dial in 6 weeks. I’ve been fortunate enough to be live on air 3 times now so get some advice and pointers. Most recently, I was actually able to speak to Maurice Jones Drew! Pretty awesome stuff. MJD hosts a show every Friday night at 7pm called “Running with MJD”. I love it. It’s cool to hear a superstar talk live to his fans about football and fantasy football. MJD is an avid fantasy football player as well so it’s refreshing to get his opinion on things. I’m so glad I decided to call this week. My first attempt at calling the MJD show as I figured it would be extremely busy. After a few tries I actually got through and held for about 20 minutes. My question to MJD was this: Would you trade Calvin Johnson for Cam Newton or Vick AND Ryan Mathews. He told me not to do it. I listened. I won and I happened to be playing the guy with Mathews who went down on Monday night, sealing my 5 point victory. Sure it would have been great to grab one of those QBs and I still might try to make a move, but DeMarco Murray and Frank Gore have been solid for me the last couple of weeks or so and my receivers are solid. All and All, I’d just like to say thanks to MJD for talking me out of it. My favorite of the Sirius XM Radio hosts is easily Paul Greco. The guy knows his stuff, and is always “banging out” some solid advice. Be sure to check him out on Twitter as well @PaulGrecoRadio.

One more thing associated with Sirius XM radio that I highly recommend you check out is the weekly salary cap challenge. It’s a free game you can play against thousands of others including the radio hosts, MJD and general fans. You’re given a $60,000 budget to create a lineup of ten players. If you can beat all of the pros, you’re actually given a guest host apperance on one of the shows, pretty cool. I’ve only done it the past two weeks and I’m doing pretty well. I’ve average about 153 points each week. I’m happy that I’ve scored better than MJD in each of the last two weeks and Paul Greco this week as well. My entry is “Levy’s Losers”. I wish I would have started during week 1 so I could have competed with the others for total points. Besides the free versions of the salary cap challenge, you can also deposit real money and join tons of other leagues against randoms or against other sirius xm hosts to win real money. Pretty cool stuff, definitely check it out.

http://football.myfantasyleague.com/2011/siriusxm

http://www.fanduel.com/