This is what Fantasy Football dreams are made of.  Imagine being in a situation where your team is 1-9, and you aren't completely out of the playoff picture.  Well, this is exactly where I found myself after nine weeks of the most painful Fantasy Football of my entire life. (One week we actually play two different games, which is why I had ten fantasy games, but only nine weeks of NFL games.)

My team had struggled more than you could ever imagine to this point.  To pretty much sum up my season, my second and third round picks were Philip Rivers and Peyton Hillis.  Rivers was essentially the most disappointing quarterback of the entire fantasy season, and Hillis was a complete let down after having such a strong season last year.  Fortunately though, as bad as everything had gone to this point, there was still about a 2% chance that this team could steal the final playoff spot.

The playoffs in this 12 team league were set up so that the three division winners won a spot, and then the final three spots were given to the highest scoring teams of the remaining bunch.  So all I had to do was literally score over about 150 points for the rest of the year, easy task right?  Not even close.  At one point this season my team scored 63.5 points (week 7), so I was definitely a long shot.

Then everything took a complete 180.  In the final three weeks leading up to the season finale (week 13), my team put up scores of 177.5, 172.5, and 101.  The 101 point day almost cost me a shot at the playoffs, but I went into the final week down by 26 points of the final playoff spot if an interesting win/loss scenario occurred (otherwise I was down by about 82).  Going into Monday night of week 13, that crazy win/loss scenario had worked out perfectly, and I had a 35 point lead with Philip Rivers up against Paul Posluszny (this is a league that has defensive players, more about this below).  It is important to note though, that interceptions cost you -3 points in this league, and Rivers throws quite a few interceptions; so I was far from a lock here.

In the end, Rivers FINALLY played the way that I had expected him to play all year, and the man got me into the playoffs in the 6th spot.  I'll have my work cut out for me next week, but it's still a great feeling to make that comeback.  Oh, and even more incredible is the fact that my team was 4-10 to end the season!  Below is my full roster, and teams must start 1 QB, 2 RBs, 3 WRs, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 DE/DT, 2 LBs, 1 S/CB:

QB- Philip Rivers
QB- Christian Ponder
RB- Ray Rice
RB- Reggie Bush
RB- Peyton Hillis
WR- Jason Avant
WR- Jordy Nelson
WR- Mario Manningham
WR- Early Doucet
WR- Santana Moss
WR- Jon Baldwin
WR- Kevin Walter
WR- Jacoby Ford
TE- Jason Witten
TE- Jermaine Gresham
K- Dan Bailey
DE- Julius Peppers
DE- Jason Babin
LB- James Laurinaitis
LB- David Harris
LB- Tamba Hali
S- Roman Harper
S- Troy Polamalu
S- Jordan Babineaux

As you can see, this team is far from a star-studded lineup (aside from Ray Rice), and will need to keep up the pace in order to take down this league.  The defensive players have come up big to this point though, and the emergence of Reggie Bush has been huge as well.  Regardless of the outcome, have you ever seen a team with a 4-10 regular season record having a shot to win the league come playoff time?  I hadn't until now, but with all of the crazy injuries and up and down's, why couldn't this be the year?

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