HELP WANTED Did you take one in the groin on the fantasy gridiron? Have some humorous quips about the NFL? Send me your best Groin Shots and Couch Comments Sunday night or early Monday each week and I'll add them to this column. This will really help me out as the holidays are fast approaching. Email

Were you the favorite heading into your league championship game this week? Never count your chickens, because a bunch of season long studs did a disappearing act on us.

Groin Shot of the Week Candidates

Amani Toomer. Fantasy league championship games everywhere this past weekend, and all I can think about is Arnie's line from Kindergarten Cop, but slightly altered. "Yes. It is a Too-mer…and it's getting bigger." Are you kidding me? Toomer hauls in 10 catches for 204 yards and 3 TD! Talk about unexpected hero to anyone who started him and shot in the groin, knee, ribs, teeth and nose to anyone who had to go up against him.

Marc Bulger. Can lightning strike twice? Can some unsung Rams QB bring championship glory to fantasy teams everywhere? Bulger made the candidate list previously for doing a one man wrecking crew performance and knocking the stuffing out of us. Now, for all the marbles, he is the clear starter so time to drop him into the lineup and reel in the big championship prize. However…Bulger was only in for just enough time to complete 1 pass for 11 yards before going out with a back injury. Lightning struck all right, but it missed the target and hit Bulger owners square between the legs.

Deuce McAllister. While home laying in the hot tub trying to ease the pain on my already pummeled groin area (already down McNabb, Holmes and Owens), I was watching the 'Aints-Bungles game. Imagine my surprise when Jim Haslett decides to remove Deuce McAllister from the game plan against the 30th ranked run defense in the league. Fifteen carries for a paltry 23 yards?!? What is wrong with this picture? McAllister is an easy choice this week, but certainly Haslett should share in the honor. Perhaps next season he'll figure out that they have the NFC's leading rusher in their backfield. Moron.

Jay Feely. Guess we shouldn't go back on our FF in the Groin rule. Any kicker who scores 5+ FG automatically makes the list. After this performance by Feely, we should see a significant upswing in membership to the "I Hate Kickers" fantasy football club.

Comments From The Couch

• I pity the teams that got to the playoffs on the arms and feet of the Buffalo Bills. Other than Travis Henry last week, the Bills have pretty much killed your playoffs. Bledsoe has thrown for 220+ yards combined for the last two weeks. No need to say what this means to Eric Moulds and Peerless Price, who actually dropped catchable balls this week. Yikes!!!
  
  
• Speaking of how bad the Bills played on offense, how about the Packers defense racking up the fantasy points? Six sacks, 6 turnovers and a shutout. Between them and Jay Feely, that is just the kind of thing that can turn a person off fantasy football forever.
  
  
• Many owners got kicked in the groin before the week even started with the loss of Priest Holmes. But hey, backup Mike Cloud was going to be the answer, right? Doh! A big "cloud" of dust is more like it.
  
  
• Oh my. Amazing we've gone this long without Mr. Groin Injury himself, Fred Taylor, not being a groin candidate. Could this be the first year that Taylor would actually play in all 16 games? Well, he started Sunday, but the word play is a bit strong. "Fragile Fred" went down with an ankle injury after only 3 carries for 17 yards. For all I'm concerned, that injury should have been a season ending in week 1, because he not only cost me my championship season, but his whole decent year will be overshadowed for fantasy owners by this one week…
  
  
• Is anybody in fantasy football land actually playing Marc Boerigter of the Chiefs? He had 5 catches for 144 yards and 2 TD against the Chargers, including a 99-yard TD reception. If you are playing this guy right now, then you deserve to win.
  
  
• What a matchup. The Saints need this game to keep their playoff position. Coming off a last second loss to the Vikings they won't be taking anything for granted. Playing the pitiful Bengals with only 1 win to their name. No problem, right? Saints lose to the Bengals?!? What is with Jim Haslett? Does he only have 12 good weeks of coaching in him before the players tune him out? I seem to remember a similar scenario last season.
  
  
• Ok. Enough already. I get it that the star from NYPD Blue does not want to do commercials. Tell me Nextel, what exactly is supposed to be amusing about this?
  
  
• Who is this Nick Luchey guy from Cincinnati? The announcers said he came from Miami, FL, but I sure don't remember him. What position did he play there, offensive line? With all of the great RB that came from there recently, this guy definitely fell off the radar. Did you see him just trample people in the Saints' game?
  
  [Mike: What I'd like to know is why the NFL.com live online stats kept putting up Nick Williams name instead of Luchey? You know the guy is an unknown when…]
  
  
• Who in H-E-double hockey sticks in Quentin McCord and why aren't the Lions covering him?
  
  
• I thought the Colts were a turf team? If they don't want to show any signs of life until the 4th quarter while playing at home in a game with big playoff consequences for them, then they aren't going to go very far in the playoffs anyway.
  
  
• Guess I shouldn't be too hard on just the Colts though. Could the AFC be more full of pretender teams with playoff hopes? While no game is a given in the NFL, it's hard to argue any of the Dolphins, Colts, Patriots and Chargers didn't lay an egg in week 16.
  
  
• So who rode Dee Brown to the promise land since Lamar Smith took his hiatus from the Panthers? Another 2 TD this week. Boy the draft seems like a long time ago and guys like this make you wonder how important it really was.
  
  
• Do these players not realize the fantasy season is one long marathon race? Here is the all "fell on their face at the finish" team:
  
  QB: Marc Bulger; RB: 2 of Priest Holmes, Deuce McAllister, Fred Taylor; WR: Terrell Owens, Jerry Rice; TE: Randy McMichael; K: (who cares); DEF: Chargers Yep, this was looking pretty much unstoppable back around mid-season.

FF In The Groin Mailbag
Mike, McNair kicked me in the groin again with his turf toe. He consistently has an off game when I play him. It didn't help that Kerry Collins repeatedly kicked me in the nads for benching him. I sure am sore this week. I'm still recovering from T.O. and Holmes. I played Cloud over Dee Brown. Ouch.

Mailbag Part Deux
Hey Mike, here is a double groin shot! Super Bowl week for my league, heading into the late games with a comfortable lead and then it happens. "Bulger goes down. Bulger goes down." And with it my title hopes, I THOUGHT. However, some of my opponents "big guns" ended up with poor late games so I go into the Sunday night game with a 25 pt lead with only Pennington to go against (with Pennington playing against the CHAMPS on their turf). I have to admit that while outwardly I hedged my bets and played the conservative, inside I was pretty confident that the title was in the bag. Then Pennington goes on to PULVERIZE the once proud Pats D. I lose by 4 pts. A groin "double shot" if ever I've seen one.

Mailbag Triple Play
Bulger is out in the 1st quarter? Had him starting in both Super Bowl game and in the 3rd place game in another league. OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!

And The Winner Is…
So many choices this week it's not easy to decide who our winner should be. There were a lot of disappointing performances. Plus Toomer's 3 TD game is certainly worthy of the award. Damn. There really is nothing worse than taking a goose egg from what is supposed to be a star player in your lineup. It just eats away at your insides. I might have given it to Deuce, who ironically gave me exactly 2 points in my championship final, but I managed to survive somehow. The flood of emails really seemed to favor Marc Bulger, so let's give it to him. Injuries can't be predicted, but that is little comfort when you have to think about what could have been between now and next season.

Thanks very much to everyone for their contributions this week! It's not easy doing this remotely while at my in-laws. You're not going to believe this, but they don't have cable or a satellite hook-up. Only a 13" TV with rabbit ears that don't work very well. Week 16 of the fantasy season and very little football. Now that, is taking it in the groin!