I Am Experiencing Acute Feelings of Self-Loathing and Regret After Benching Ronnie Brown

At first, it was funny. When Ronnie Brown emerged from 2008 fantasy obscurity yesterday to run for a first quarter TD on a direct snap play against the Patriots yesterday, I turned and laughed to a few of my friends, who’d told me earlier that morning that I should bench Brown in favor of Ryan Grant, he of the ailing hammy. “Grant’s going against a weak Dallas defense,” they told me. “Plus, Brown is going up against the Patriots. The Pats never give up a huge day to anybody.” I took this advice, thinking that it was the smart play.

It was not the smart play, friends. It was anything but.

Brown would go on to score three more rushing touchdowns, all of them coming on the same direct snap play that the Patriots were totally unable to stop. And the thing is, Brown wasn’t just running it in from the goal line. He ran one in from 62 yards. By the early fourth quarter, I was wondering if the Dolphins would try to run the play from their own goal line to see if RB23 could score a 99-yard TD. That’s how things were going at that point.

And oh, yeah, if that weren’t enough, Brown also threw a 19-yard TD pass to Anthony Fasano. He had 39 fantasy points on the day, but the rumor going around right now is that he also kicked three field goals and returned an interception for a TD. Scoring adjustment forthcoming.

Ryan Grant? Thirteen carries for 54 yards. It wasn’t a total loss, though: he also lost a fumble.

I lost to Mr. T by a margin of 35 points.

So who’s to blame here? My friends, for suggesting that I bench Brown? Me, for listening to them? Ronnie Brown, for not giving us any idea that this might be coming? Dave Wannstedt? Jay Fiedler?

Of course, it’s me, undoubtedly. And try as I might to find a little sympathy, a little compassion, from my fellow Rex Grossman Fantasy League Competitors, I continue to come up emptier than a Kerry Collins highball glass. Here’s the thing: sure, I benched a guy who had a 39-point week, but now I also have one of the best players in fantasy on my roster – a guy I drafted at the end of Round 8. Nobody’s going to shed any tears for me.

So, here I am, agonizing over my decision and the defeat that it lead to, left all alone. I can only come back to the words of Mr. T, which elicited lots of laughter and joking when he wrote them in an email chain last year but which suddenly have taken on a stirring resonancy. “That’s life,” he said. “That’s fantasy football.”