To the delight of my friends and fellow co-owners, I’m having the worst year in my fantasy football history. If you have these guys on your team, chances are you are too. In no particular order…

Greg Jennings

I thought Jennings would be one of the top receivers in the league this year. He’s not even the top receiver on his own team, letting 53-year old Donald Driver take that crown. I expected at least 10 TDs if not more, plus 1200 yards. Jennings is 25th in the league in receiving yards and has all of 2 TD catches. As if I didn’t hate the Packers enough…

Brandon Jacobs

Jacobs recently made my 8 Players That Should Retire list and now he ends up here too. Owners expected fantasy studliness to the tune of about 15 TDs and around 1200 yards rushing. Jacobs has scored just 2 TDs, probably the most mind-boggling stat of the year. That puts him in a tie for…wait for it…33rd in the league for rushing scores. His teammate Ahmad Bradshaw has more scores and a better YPG.

Matt Cassel

Drinking the Pats Kool-Aid were you? Cassel has been completely underwhelming in his first season as a Chief. He barely cracks the top 50 in fantasy points, and is owned in only 49% of Yahoo! leagues. He might not even get to 3000 yards passing or 20 TDs. Mark Sanchez would have been a better pick.

Jay Cutler

Speaking of picks…Jay Cutler is actually where a lot people had him ranked: right around 12th in QB fantasy points. But 17 picks through 9 games? That’s insane. Imagine if just a handful of those weren’t picked. Then imagine if instead a few went for TDs. Now imagine he’s white. Well that last part was from “A Time to Kill”. But you know.

Anquan Boldin

Boldin has fought through some injuries and missed one game. But you didn’t think he’d have just one TD at this point of the season and you didn’t think you’d be better off with Steve Breaston.

LaDainian Tomlinson

Tomlinson has missed some games. So? The old LT would still be top 10 in fantasy points. Not the 2009 LT. He can barely crack top 30. 3.3 yards per carry? Only 385 yards? Who does he think he is, Bears Cedric Benson?

Clinton Portis

Like Tomlinson, Portis has also battled injuries and missed a game. Portis has just one 100-yard game and just 1 rushing TD. He also has hauled in all of 9 passes for 57 yards. What happened to the 35-40 catches a year? Saddest of all is that Portis may not even break 1000 yards rushing this year, a feat he has accomplished in every season of his career, save for the year he played in only 8 games.

Darren McFadden

McFadden has been out with injuries. But before that he basically was a benching waiting to happen. I think Tom Cable was going to punch him. I know I want to. Before Adrian Peterson came along there was McFadden. A big, strong, fast back that was going to run through the NFL. He had his chance this year and didn’t get it done. Millions of owners who drafted him as a sleeper were Cabling themselves.

Any to add to the list? Leave them in the comments.

It’s true — I have found the Mel Kiper of Fantasy Football and I have also spotted one of my long-time favorite Sportscenter anchors: Larry Beil.

The Mel Kiper clone is named Brad Evans and his delivery is just like Kiper’s. Only with more bad puns, less coiffed hair and excessively annoying. Why is he yelling at us?

I like this team. McFadden as a sleeper off the bench should Fast Willie get hurt. I’m ready for some football!

Antonio Bryant goes for 200 yards and 2 TDs. Are you kidding me? Antonio Bryant ruins my season?

It was fine when last year I drafted Larry Johnson in the first round even though I knew I shouldn’t have. Or the year before when I selected Tiki Barber as my first pick–even though I shouldn’t have. But this year I was rollin’ and I’m derailed by a guy who wasn’t even in the league last year?

This is one of the catches of the year, and the one that killed me:

“I’ve always thought that a lot of these guys (and 96% of them are guys) are nerds desperately in need of more sociable leisure-time activities. Leisure time for black folks historically consists of direct interaction, the kind of experience you get at a family barbecue or hanging out with friends. Sitting in front of a computer screen pretending to be Bill Parcells? Sounds like work to me.”

Yes, on Sundays white people like to barricade themselves in their homes and look directly into their computer and TV screens. We do not own grills and all our friends are of the cyber variety. Is he serious?

I won’t delve deeper into the racial component of the whole story. Smith has never wrote or said anything that I’ve found to be particularly insightful, so he’s really not worth the keystrokes.

Perhaps an article in response to Smith from What Would Oakley Do? best sums up his latest column:

The great irony (or tragedy) of Smith’s story is that when offered a relevant assignment about race by his boss – Smith tells the reader he was asked to find out why most fantasy sports enthusiasts are white – he retreats to stereotypes and my-way-is-better-than-yours defense mechanisms rather than digging deeper into the issues screaming for attention just below the surface.

And that seems like par for the course when it comes to Smith.

Some people think he has had too huge a workload over the last 2 seasons. Others cite the loss of offensive linemen. But I like what the NFL Minute has to say about it:

There were three games last season when Johnson didn’t total more than 100 yards from scrimmage. On the other hand, there were 10 games last season when he totaled more than 140 yards.

The post also refutes the arguments for taking Addai, Gore or others instead of L.J. When my time comes up I’m going to find it awfully hard to pass up L.J.

Thoughts?

Yes, they have many weapons. And yes that’s what I said last year when I got all giddy about Kerry Collins. It didn’t work.

The addition of Art Shell might help the O-Line but it’s just not very good. Football Minds also points out that in a recent preseason game “announcers are quoting Moss about how he “would love to be catching passes from a guy like Walter, who is young and has a strong arm and can get you the ball.”

Hmm. it could be that last year was a blip for Brooks, who has otherwise been solid in his career. But I wouldn’t bet on that and I sure won’t spend a high draft pick on him.

Any busts or breakout predictions? Please share…

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I play in a keeper league. I can keep 4 players, although I don’t have to. I am definitely keeping Randy Moss, Cadillac Williams and Clinton Portis. I am contemplating the benefits of keeping Reggie Wayne vs. Antonio Gates. We do not have to play a TE, so that plays into it.

Gates has a rookie QB in Phil Rivers. That makes me nervous. But maybe Gates is the guy that just falls out of bed and gets 10 TDs and 1000 yds.

In Indy, I think Manning is going to go off again with the loss of E. James. Whatever Joseph Addai turns out to be, it doesn’t look like goal-line stud will among the descriptions.

From NFL.com draft profiles: “Despite measured size, Addai looks like a third-down back on film and plays smaller than his size. While he can keep feet against hits, he lacks the power and strength to break tackles. An upright runner that takes a lot of hits because of it, and struggles to run with power on inside rushes. Not a shake-and-bake runner that can make tacklers miss. Despite being a good athlete, he lacks the explosive burst and top-end speed you expect from a guy who runs a 4.4 in the 40. ”

Which brings me back to Wayne. I’m thinking his yards and TDs will go up to somewhere around his 2004 totals. Which is why I’m leaning toward keeping him.

Chime in on this as well as any other FF stuff.