COLUMN: So close to being fantasy champ

     I’m so close to being our fantasy football champion. As of Monday afternoon, I am leading by a score of 107-87. I have one player left, my kicker from the Buffalo Bills. I just picked him up and dumped my kicker from Green Bay, who only scored 4 points last night. (Sunday).

     My opponent though still has his quarterback, Josh Allen, who is also on the Bills. The previous week he scored 37 points. I need him to stay under 20 if I am going to have any chance of winning.

     This week the NFL had games Friday thru Sunday. Going into Sunday’s games I had what I thought was a comfortable lead. And then the Rams failed to score a touchdown and my Rams WR only netted me six points. And the Lions’ offense went flat once Matthew Stafford, their QB, got hurt. My Lions RB and TE totaled only eleven points combined. I could feel my lead slipping away despite a 35-point performance from Tampa Bay WR Mike Evens.

     At the last minute on Sunday, I switched to the Browns defense (six points), dropping the Texans defense (negative four points). That move netted me 10 points. So, I’ll spend tonight (Monday) hoping the Bills kick lots of field goals and Allen struggles, in the passing game. Fantasy Football does make watching the NFL more interesting.

     Hawkeyes’ bowl dreams are over. I should have seen it coming. Once the Hawkeyes were slated to play in Nashville in the Music City Bowl, I should have known this game might not happen.

     The city of Nashville has had a rough year. They had a devastating tornado, the pandemic has shut down live music several different times. And to top that all off, a person decided to take his own life on Christmas morning blowing himself up just a block off the main drag.

     We have walked by that exact spot where the bomber detonated the bomb so many times, I probably couldn’t even count how many. One of our favorite places to listen to live music is on that block, a place called Big Shots. A few times I noticed photos of the front of their building while looking at the news stories.

     Of all the places to detonate a bomb, this guy did pick a spot away from the heart of downtown. It still doesn’t make it any better for those affected on the street where it happened.

     Back to the Iowa-Missouri game. The Tigers made a choice last week and the Iowa football program and their followers are paying the price. Missouri allowed their players to go home for Christmas. Iowa kept their team in Iowa City. Once that was made public, I knew it was just a matter of time before COVID would rear its ugly head.

Iowa was fighting its own case of COVID in the football program but at least they were smart enough to keep everyone in town so their support system could limit the damage. I guess I’m just thankful I got to see the Hawkeyes play eight games in a strange year.