I blame you, Ben Roethlisberger. I blame you, Kurt Warner. Now, you may be asking yourself, my good reader, how these two fine gentlemen could have possibly wronged me. I can assure you, it’s nothing personal. Roethlisberger isn’t even on my fantasy team now and Warner never was. And yet I have come to the conclusion they are the reason I’m having the fantasy season that I’m having.

You see, I have a confession to make: My team is 3-4.

That’s right. I have a losing record, and I have come to the conclusion that it is no fault of my own. You see, though neither Warner nor Roethlisberger can affect my team directly, they have been hurting me indirectly all season.

Warner started his campaign against my fantasy season when he retired in the offseason. Following his retirement, I decided that Larry Fitzgerald would be ok, that even without Warner he would still have an elite level season. I thought that even if Matt Leinart didn’t get the job, someone would be able to get the ball to Fitzgerald. So I drafted him. And you know what? I was wrong.

This season, with the revolving door that has been the Arizona Cardinals’ quarterback position, Fitzgerald has managed just one double-digit fantasy day and has yet to break 100 receiving yards in a game. At this time last year, he had 509 receiving yards and five touchdowns. He currently has 331 receiving yards and just two touchdowns. And as much as it hurts the Cardinals, I think it hurts me more.

But it is not all Warner’s fault. Oh no, he had an accomplice by the name of Ben Roethlisberger — the quarterback of the Pittsburg Steelers — who was suspended for the first four games of the regular season.

I knew about his suspension when I drafted Steelers’ receiver Hines Ward. My thinking was similar to what it had been with Fitzgerald that someone would get the ball to Ward. And the upside was that I knew Roethlisberger would eventually return. Once again I was wrong to trust “other” quarterbacks. In the four games the Steelers played without Roethlisberger, Ward had more than three receptions only once, accumulated more than 34 receiving yards only once, and scored just one touchdown.

In the two games since Roethlisberger’s return, Ward has doubled his total reception yards for the season, scored two touchdowns, and has gotten me a total of 30 fantasy points — 10 more than he got in the previous four games combined. The upside of course is that the season isn’t quite half over yet — I still have a chance to make up for the damage those two have done — but even I’m not happy that Roethlisberger is back. Now it just feels like he’s mocking me.

Check in next week for my midseason fantasy report to see who had a great first half and who would rather be drinking their sorrows away in Isla Vista on Halloween.

Pick Up of the Week: Ryan Fitzpatrick, QB, Buffalo Bills. He plays for the Bills, I know, but over his last four games he has racked up 20.5 fantasy points, which is more than guys like Peyton Manning and Drew Brees. I’m not sure he’ll keep it up for the rest of the season, but there isn’t any indication that he won’t, and with Tony Romo out for the season, I’m sure a good deal of you people are in need of a quarterback, and Big Fitzy can still be found on free agent lists in 95 percent of ESPN leagues.

Daily Nexus NFL columnist Josh Greenberg’s Halloween is completely ruined by his sub-.500 fantasy squad.

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