The First NFL Sunday

Finally the day has come. Yes I know there was a game on Thursday, but if you are not a huge fan of one of those two teams, that game serves only as a teaser for the upcoming season. Today... this is the day when everything really starts.

Today we gather around the television sets and watch our favorite teams play. Today we watch the games with our fantasy players on our teams and pray they do good. Today we gather around our computers, laptops and some cell-phones to keep tabs of our fantasy teams. Today the season truly begins.

Today is also the most questionable fantasy football day of the year. So many owners will follow many experts advice and play New Orleans Saints players against Detroit. It sounds like feasible advice since Detroit had arguably the worst defense in NFL history last year. Yet do those experts consider the complete over haul the Lions did to their defense in the off season? With 9 new starters out of a possible eleven, new coaches with more aggressive schemes and a plan to blitz a lot, Detroit's defense may not be as bad as many think.

How about Dallas? I cannot say how often I saw Marion Barber and Tony Romo get drafted in the earlier rounds. Yet Barber will likely lose time to Felix Jones and Romo does not have T.Owens to keep defenses as honest. The only comparison between Roy Williams and Owens is that Williams is beginning to show signs of becoming the same attitude problem. Williams is not even close to the talent level though.

Every expert has his own opinions on who will stand tall and who will fall. Many of those opinions will be right but just as many will be wrong. There is a famous saying that goes something like this. "The best laid plans are only good until the battle begins." It is the same in Fantasy Football. As soon as the season kicks off, there will be the sleepers who will come from nowhere to have big games. There will be the perennial star who falls flat and there are always injuries to worry about.

There is so much that can go right and so much that can go wrong. All of the preparation in the world can now be tossed out the window as we throw the dice of which players to start. Not to say that preparation did not help. It lifts your odds of having a good team when the season starts. Now the battle will begin and those plans will not help much anymore. Now we compromise and react to what happens rather than what we think will happen.