There are two principles that I espouse in the Fantasy Football league I play in. Well, more than two principles, but two game-day principles. The first is that if you score 80 points you'll win 2/3rds of your games. The second is that coaching wins games where the scoring difference is 10 points or less. Through 49 games over three seasons, scoring 80 points would have won 30 of them, so not quite 2/3rds of the games. Out of 18 games decided by 10 points or less, I've won 10 of them. So assuming the above maxim is true, I'm a little better than average coach.

Coming into season 3 I was complacent. I drafted quarterbacks over defense and I paid for it the first few games because our defense sucked. Offense wasn't doing all that great either, but they turned it around without having to replace them wholesale like I did on defense. We started out an abysmal 1-5 but have proceeded to go 7-2 over the last nine games. No hope for winning the championship but it's been fun turning this team around into a competitive one, especially when we beat the top two teams on consecutive weeks.

One of my other hard rules in this game is never trade with another team. Chances are anybody who proposes a trade knows exactly what they're doing and since I don't pay that much attention it's better not to trade at all. I remember doing that in Season 1 when someone offered me a couple of Niner players for some quality starters, hoping that maybe I'd be such a homer that I wanted home-town players.

This year the top team wanted Charlie Garner and they were willing to give me a bunch of non-starters for him. Ok, what's wrong with this picture? It's one thing if they're not starters on your team and probable starters on my team, but if they're not going to start on my team either then why am I giving up a starter? The second point is that these guys had done quite a bit of work pre-week 1 so they certainly knew what they were doing. So even when they upped the ante and also offered Terrell Davis I still declined. And it was a good decision since Garner has been an ok scorer.

So now I want to write some game summaries of each week. Make it a bit more dramatic and give me writing practice and fill in some journal entries.

Week 1. A heartbreaking close loss marked the beginning of Season 3, as a 65 point offensive effor wasn't enough to offset an anemic 8 point defensive effort. The Garden City Beach Bums scored 61 points offensively and 20 points defensively to stretch out an 84-73 victory. Torgian QB Rich Gannon threw 2 touchdowns, RB Ahman Green ran for 157 yards, and K Sebastian Janikowski kicked four field goals in the loss. After the game, the Torgians signed DT Sean Gilbert to beef up their defense.

Week 2. Due to the devastating events of September 11th, week 2 games were postponed until after the end of week 17. Although the mood of the nation was mostly somber, afraid, and apprehensive, outspoken linebackers Randall Godfrey and Ronald McKinnon immediately tried to enlist in the Army. Fortunately, Torgian management was able to convince the players to stay on the team.

Week 3. The Sacramento Torgians were blown out by the Twisted Nuts, 88-49. QB Rich Gannon was stifled for only 125 yards passing while the Torgian defense continued to underperform. New DT Sean Gilbert and the defense scored only 9 points in the loss. K Sebastian Janikowski was the only ray of sunshine in the anemic offense, kicking 3 field goals in a wasted effort. During the following week, the Torgians signed CB Eric Warfield as they continued trying to shore up the defense.

Week 4. The Torgian offense finally showed their potential, scoring 75 points in an 80-54 thrashing of the Wyoming Annihilaters. Torgian QB Rich Gannon threw three touchdown passes and ran for another, TE Marcus Pollard and RB Tyrone Wheatley each caught one of the touchdown passes. Although the Torgian defense performed poorly for the third straight game, scoring only five points, Torgian management added to the offense by acquiring WR Jerry Rice.