fantasy-tastic, week one.

I’m not much of a gambler, but during football season, I have a hard time resisting the lure of the fantasy games. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m playing in a record number of pools this season; this post represents the first of what should, in theory, be weekly updates about how things are going.

Pick ‘Em
I play a college and pro version, both based at work; in the pro game, we pick winners and in the college game, we pick against the spread. After two weeks of college football, I’m in second place, two points behind the leader. And after one week of NFL football, I’m also in second place, just one point down.

GBAPA League — Butler Braylons
This is a points fantasy league, and I did OK during the first week. I wracked up 135 points, good for third place. We have just six teams in this league, so my roster indeed resembles a kind of football fantasy team — Romo, LT and Earnest Graham led the way this week, and I have high hopes for my team’s namesake. But maybe not until after the Pittsburgh game.

Yinz League — Butler Bernies
Much like Kosar, I found a way to win on the first week of the Pittsburgh celebrity bloggers league. And as Bernie did frequently, I barely squeaked it out, beating Father Spoon’s Should I Drink That team by one-tenth of a point. How did I pull it out? By putting a voodoo curse on Minnesota’s Chester Taylor; if Taylor had gained like one additional yard on his fourth-quarter catch in Monday’s game, I probably would have been the loser. Of course, if I had noticed before Sunday afternoon that Seattle’s Bobby Engram was out until October with a shoulder injury, I could have taken him off my starting roster and squeezed some points out of someone else.

Points are tougher to come by in this league, managed by tehjim of Sportsocracy fame, because we have a full compliment of 16 teams — and the blue-chippers are really spread thin. I’m counting on Brett Farve to have a miracle season for the Jets — and for the Butler Bernies.

I’m hoping I can relax a bit this weekend — my Week Two opponent is PittGirl; she is the blogging giant of the Burgh but her fantasy team wasn’t so hot in its first game, getting crushed by Cindy’s crew, 86.07 to 59.97. Prediction: the Butler Bernies will bury PittGirl’s Minions this week.

The Bet
This is the Big One — the annual bet between The Wife and me, with a big fancy dinner at stake. We run through the schedule of games involving Top 25 college teams and the entire NFL schedule each week, simply picking winners. And in the 12 or so years we’ve been playing, I’VE WON JUST ONE TIME. I’m not sure why this is; I may pick too many upsets, or put too much stock in what I perceive to be my Superior Football Knowledge.

What I should do is go through an entire season just picking chalk. But she’s still figure out a way to beat me in the end.

I have a decent start to this season, though — we split the two NFL games we picked differently last weekend, and I gave myself one point on the first weekend because I left a sheet out for her, right on the coffee table, and SHE FORGOT TO FILL IT OUT.

So. I’m up one. Whooo!