The worst football week ever?

This time of year is a grand time for sports fans. Baseball is in the midst of the pennant run. Colleges are back in session leading to a host of fall sports. And yes, of course, football has returned.

While all are great, the fact that the Cleveland Indians gave up on the baseball season back in April meant I was especially looking forward to this football season. After all, the Cleveland Browns were optimistic for their first serious playoff run in oh, twenty years, and the Hulkamaniacs were the defending regular season, VUFSA fantasy football champions. So yeah, what's not to like about a fresh football season with so much to build on?

And with that build up, Week 1 might be the worst foootball week ever. Short of losing some key player for the season, I don't know how I could have done worse.

For starters, I participate in a Yahoo Pick 'Em league in which participants pick the winners of the weekend games with confidence points. There are no point spreads, simply pick who I think will win and rate how confident I am that I will be right. After this week one, I am 25th of 25 teams - behind a pharmacy tech who picked games based on "which city I would rather visit" and a team name of "Howdoesthisthingwork?" Super.

Then I have the fantasy component of the week, which holds disproportionate importance in my life in general. I read somewhere that an estimated $150 million dollars will be lost as a result of Tom Brady's season ending injury because of prize money in fantasy football leagues in which he plays such a critical component. I had the good fortune of playing the team with Tom Brady this week, and yet I still managed to lose by a massive margin. Not only did I lose in blowout proportions, I am dead last in the league thanks to a meager cumulative point showing.

A good reason for that poor point showing is the result of playing two Cleveland Browns, Phil Dawson and Braylon Edwards. Both were superstars last year, but in week one, they along with the rest of the Cleveland Browns took a dump in Cleveland Stadium. With the Browns on TV in Minnesota and me having off a full Sunday from Walgreens for the first time, well, ever, I sat down with the intent to watch the whole game. What a disaster.

Dallas 28
Cleveland 10

Derek Anderson completed 11 passes. This from the Pro Bowl quarterback marking his first opening day. Throw in 91 yards rushing, and I witnessed the offensive juggernaut, the mighty Cleveland Browns, amassing a whopping 205 total yards, which is far less than Michael Turner had by himself in the Falcons game. The revamped Browns defense looked like Brother Martin High School as Dallas could do anything at any time and quite frankly did. The Cowboys had 5.4 yards per rush, which was the strong part of Cleveland's defense. I could go on, but the situation is too depressing to do so.

Well, week two holds promise as there's nowhere to go but up. Phil Dawson's Dawgs, Wherefore Art Thou Romeo?, and the Cleveland Browns could not have performed worse in week one, but if there's going to be a bad week might as well get it out of the way early.