My first confession for the season: I'm chicken. Heading into week 2, I was ranked 186th out of 600 in the Fantasy Football Tournament of Champions. The top 200 at the end of the season qualify for a chance to play for the $10,000 prize. For those of you not familiar with FFTOC, owners can start any player from an NFL each week, but you cannot use them again for the rest of the season. After a good week one, I looked over the schedule and initially decided on this lineup for week two:

Other than McNabb and Davis, I felt like I was taking some decent chances and saving some of the better players for the stretch run. Then something happened that turned my strategy upside down: Stephen Davis injured his knee.

I've been a big fan of Deshaun Foster ever since the first preseason game he played as a rookie when he burst through the line, knocked over Lavar Arrington, and outran Darrell Green for a 50+-yard touchdown. The Chiefs looked vulnerable to speed backs with shifty moves, which is something Foster has showcased. Although Foster's power is not the most vaunted part of his game, his goal line touchdown run against Philly in the playoffs is a good reason why he's not the scat back I hear some people try to label him.

I immediately put Foster in my lineup over Domanick Davis. Sounds pretty gutsy in hindsight. It's not like Carolina's offensive line looked very good last week—especially when so many television analysts were about to throw a funeral for the Panthers as they headed into Kansas City. True, the Chiefs could have gotten ahead early and Carolina might have been forced to abandon the run.

But real guts would have been to stick with the rest of my lineup once I inserted Foster. Instead, I made some adjustments:

Culpepper maintained his nearly 75% likelihood over the last three years of scoring at least 18.9 points. Considering that Culpepper had a bad game on the football field, but was still this effective as a fantasy quarterback is pretty impressive. Unfortunately Onterrio Smith didn't have quite the game I anticipated from him. I still wound up with nearly 100 points-while this isn't a horrible result, I essentially wasted my most consistent quarterback in week two of the season. I could have gotten more from a middle of the pack signal caller and saved Culpepper for when I really need him. Plus, the differential of eleven points appears to be a lot in the rankings at this point of the season.

Playing to win feels better than playing not to lose. I need to repeat this to myself more often….

Now to the week 2 files of 20/20 Hindsight

Would've (From The Who Would Have Known File)

Daniel Graham would keep scoring like the best TE in fantasy football: Since week 9 of 2003, Graham has been scoring a touchdown every other game. For the last two weeks, Graham has had two, 2-touchdown games despite the fact that Brady likes to spread the wealth and the Patriots drafted the highly touted Ben Watson. Many felt it was only a matter of time for Watson to displace Graham in the lineup, but it looks like Graham-a first round pick in his own right-is coming into his own. Play Graham until Watson clearly overtakes him.

Lesson Learned: Ride the player if the trend is clear.

Roy Williams would light up the Texans for two touchdowns: Anyone would have seen the likelihood of this happening if they just watched both teams in week one. Williams demonstrated the athletic grace of Randy Moss with his one-handed grab against the Bears on one play and then on another he flashed the running skills of Terrell Owens where he refused to go down until half the defense had piled on top of him. Combine this with the fact that Drew Brees accumulated a 125 QB rating against a Texans' defense and suddenly Roy Williams' performance looks like the kind of result that has you slapping yourself in the head and shouting, "McFly!" And I started Derrick Mason over him…I'm going to have bad dreams about Nick Harper all week.

Lesson Learned: Exploit passing match ups against the Texans.

Jim Kleinsasser's absence would impact Onterrio Smith's performance: Onterrio Smith seem poised to have a big game against a suspect Eagle's run defense, but Kleinsasser's injury forced the Vikings to put a rookie tight end into the game. Not only was the rookie ineffective as a blocker, but he also accumulated at least three false start penalties-forcing the Vikings to throw. The injury to starting right tackle Mike Rosenthal just added fuel to the fire. The shaky line played coupled with the Eagles blitzing seemed to make Culpepper indecisive at the goal line. One of these plays looked like a run pass option with Smith as the primary receiver. Culpepper's indecision resulted in neither player getting the score. This completely took the Vikings out of their game. Fortunately, Smith is a decent receiver and was able to earn some points for me.

Lesson Learned: Although most of us already know offensive lines make the runner, it's worth considering that even in the era of the receiving tight end, the position is still an integral part of the line and the ground game.

Could've (From The Who Could Have Known File)

Ronald Curry would be a great fantasy start in week 2: Curry had 89 yards against the Bills, including a 43-yard touchdown reception in the opening quarter. As an owner that just spent his week rounding out my depth chart with Doug Gabriel, I'm scratching my head on this one. True, Curry has looked good in camp but if this carousel continues in week three the only safe play in the Raiders' passing game might be Rich Gannon!

Chester Taylor would out-gain a healthy Jamal Lewis? "The Rocket," gained 76 yards on 9 carries-including a 35-yard. Even without this play, Taylor would have averaged 5 yards per carry. Meanwhile, Lewis had to log it 26 times just to amass his 62 yards. Lewis did have two touchdowns deep in the red zone. Nonetheless, Lewis is off to somewhat of a lackluster start for fantasy owners.

Lessons Learned: The Raiders are going to surprise this year and has an offense filled with fantasy spoilers. The Ravens offensive starters are spoiling many owners' shot at a good start to a fantasy season.

Should've (From The I Knew I Should Have File)

Benched Quentin Griffin against the Jaguars stiff run defense: Griffin is going to have a good year, but no running back has had a good game against the Jaguars defense for seventeen consecutive games. This list includes backs like Tomlinson, James, Lewis, and Henry. I was fortunate to make the right choice here, but it was tempting to ride the Griffin hype from last week. Instead I decided to ride the Chiefs defense like a two-bit pony-and I'll continue to do so after I…

Started Deshaun Foster against the Chiefs Defense: Who does their work in a stadium, wears tights, and flashes red prominently in front an on-rushing opponent just before getting out of the way? If you guessed either a matador or the Kansas City Defense you'd be right. On second thought, don't the Spainards that run with (or from this writer's perspective-"run from") the bulls have uniforms that look more like the Chiefs? Either way you look at it, Kansas City hasn't gotten the job done against the run even prior to Foster and Griffin:

Lesson Learned: Riding the opposing defense's performance can be as beneficial as riding a player's.

For those of you that made the right decisions this week, congratulations. For those of you that didn't: Hindsight's a...