So far so good. I was 45th last week, and am now 28th overall. Kicking butt and taking names. All this and modest too. Now it's Week 3, and we start to separate the wheat from the thins. I'm looking at two games to load up on players from, Kansas City-San Francisco and Pittsburgh-Tampa Bay.
In this competition, each week's high score (standard scoring) will win a $25 Fantasy Index gift certificate, and the season champ will win an enviable prize package, which may be delivered to your door if you happen to live near me.
How to play: Sign into your Fantasy Index account and click the blue "Your stuff" button in the top right corner. Then look for the link to Fantasy Index Blackout on the right side of the page. Pretty simple.
Here's my Week 3 lineup.
Quarterback: Ben Roethlisberger and Ryan Fitzpatrick. Picked up Fitzpatrick in an FFPC league this week. And somebody actually dropped Jameis Winston, so I imagine I'll be adding him next week. Eventually Fitzpatrick will have a couple of bad games and the Bucs will turn to the Uber-talented (too soon?) Winston, but maybe not for a while. Roethlisberger paid off handsomely last week, I'm punching that clock again.
Running back: Kareem Hunt and Kenyan Drake. Alvin Kamara is available and I suppose I ought to take him; maybe I will. But Hunt is due for a breakout game against San Francisco, and Drake is home against the Raiders. But just maybe I'll switch him out for Kamara, who's more of a full-timer.
Wide receiver: Antonio Brown, Michael Thomas and Mike Evans. People have probably noticed that the star wideouts aren't being blacked out very much. (I'm not involved in choosing the Blackout players.) I'm thinking the reason is that there are so many great ones in the league right now, people will have different favorites each week. I went back and forth on a lot of these, since with this group I'm leaving out the likes of Tyreek Hill, A.J. Green and Odell Beckham. DeAndre Hopkins, too, all of whom look fantastic. But Thomas is simply tearing up the league, Brown is going to get some squeaky wheel treatment, and Evans should destroy the Steelers' struggling secondary. But I'll switch off Brown if it seems his calf injury will be an issue.
Tight end: Travis Kelce and Rob Gronkowski. Uh, nothing to see here.
Kicker: Dan Bailey and Stephen Gostkowski. I was thrilled to see it was very easy to pick up Bailey in every league. Kickers are people too, you know.
Defense/Special Teams: Jets and Eagles. Just a note that the point spread in my pick 'em game has the Browns, who haven't won a game in nearly two full years, as a 3.5 point FAVORITE over the Jets. The Browns. Now, maybe they'll win. Maybe being home and facing a rookie quarterback in primetime will be enough for the players on this roster to overcome what seems to be the most incompetent coaching staff on both sides of the ball we've seen in some time. Actually, all three sides, let's not forget special teams. Anyway, this is a coaching staff that has actually cost the team wins time and time again. And they're favored by 3.5? Right.
Good luck to the rest of you.