In case you haven’t heard, Chris Cooley’s season is officially over, which is strange because as recently as one month ago, we were told that the surgery went well, was non-evasive, and that the tight end would be back on the field in 4-5 weeks.

You may want to file this one under “no one cares about your fantasy football team,” but this is how Chris Cooley is trying to kill mine.

The setup: 12-team PPR auction league. I was sitting pretty with a lineup of Romo/Eli, Adrian Peterson, Tim Hightower, Brian Westbrook, Laurence Maroney and Marshawn Lynch at RB, Larry Fitzgerald, Brandon Marshal and Steve Smith 2.0 at WR and Owen Daniels at TE.

I already had a first round bye pretty much wrapped up when Daniels went down. I didn’t have a backup TE to speak of since I was using my extra roster spots for depth at RB and WR, since we start a total of six players at the two positions (2-3 RB, 3-4 WR). So Daniels and Cooley get hurt, but both Cooley and Jim Zorn are saying that he’ll be back for the fantasy playoffs. I’m faced with the decision to either use my remaining bidding bucks ($34) to acquire Cooley, or Kevin Boss, or both. I narrow the decision to putting $34 down on Cooley or $24 on Cooley and $10 on Boss. (Remember, the news about Cooley is pretty optimistic at this point, so $34 seems reasonable to get a top 5 TE back for the fantasy playoffs.) I elect to go with $34 on Cooley since there was one other team in need of a TE and they had $33 bidding bucks remaining. I get him. Boss goes for $10, so I wouldn’t have been able to add him since the tiebraker is fewest points (and my team had the most in the league at the time).

That same week Dustin Keller is inexplicably dropped. This is after he has a 8-76-1 outburst in Week 8. But I’m out of bidding bucks, so I’m not able to pick him up. (He went for $9, so I would have been able to snag him had I originally done a $24/$10 Cooley/Boss split. I would have missed out on Boss and had $10 left over for Keller.)

The news on Cooley gets progressively worse and the league’s trade deadline is approaching. I’m sitting on Cooley, Bo Scaife and Donald Lee. Ugh. I offer up Tim Hightower for Jason Witten or Brent Celek but the owner (who has both) doesn’t bite. He says that Hightower is losing touches in ARI to Chris Wells. The best deal I can get is a Maroney-for-Heap swap, which was looking a little better two weeks ago than it does now. I still think Maroney is going to lose touches to Sammy Morris, but his two-TD Week 11 would have looked very nice in my lineup.

Brandon Pettigrew is cut. I pick him up for his Thursday game against the Packers. As the Lions try to set up a screen for him around the goal line, he blows out his knee. Great.

I still feel OK about my team, but with Westbrook sidelined and a gaping hole at TE, I’m not as confident as I was five weeks ago. I’d feel a whole lot better with Dustin Keller and Laurence Maroney on my roster.

And that’s how Chris Cooley is trying to kill my fantasy team.

(Don’t worry, Chris. I still love ya.)

Photo from fOTOGLIF

As if things couldn’t get any worse for the Redskins, the Washington Post is reporting that tight end Chris Cooley suffered a broken right foot in Monday night’s loss to the Eagles and will miss the remainder of the season.

Cooley broke his foot in the second quarter after he caught a pass and tried to change direction. He had not missed a game up until this point, but will now land on injured reserve for the first time in his career.

Fred Davis will start in Cooley’s place, which could be a good or bad thing for the Redskins. Davis has great hands and a solid receiver, but he’s a major liability as a blocker and that’s the last thing Washington needs right now considering the pass protection for quarterback Jason Campbell hasn’t been great as it is.

After their loss to the winless Kansas City Chiefs last week, the Washington Redskins stripped head coach Jim Zorn of his playcalling duties and handed them over to Sherman Lewis, who hadn’t even been with the team for a month.

The move was made in hopes to spark the Redskins’ dismal offense, but as their 27-17 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles tonight can attest to, Lewis isn’t going to change Washington’s misfortune over night.

The Redskins’ loss to the Eagles actually had very little to do with Lewis’ playcalling and more to do with Washington’s lack of execution. In the first half, quarterback Jason Campbell had a ball batted into the air by a defensive lineman and intercepted by linebacker Will Witherspoon, who returned it for a touchdown. Later in the half, Campbell escaped the pocket but didn’t get the ball out of his hands in time and was stripped from behind. The Eagles recovered and turned the gift into three points to take a 17-0 second quarter lead.

Campbell finished the night 29 of 43 passing for 284 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. For all intents and purposes, his final numbers weren’t bad (he had a QB rating of 91.6), but he often settled for check downs or underneath routes and both of his touchdown passes came around the goal line. He still struggled with hanging onto the ball too long and missing open receivers.

That said, his pass protection wasn’t that great and his receivers dropped a few passes. He also didn’t have Chris Cooley, who left the game early in the first half due to an ankle injury and never returned. All in all, it was a complete team effort by a Redskins squad that somehow generated 17 points from a brutal showing. Lewis wasn’t the problem tonight – lack of execution by the players was.

Although the game was never in doubt, the Eagles weren’t too impressive either — at least offensively. Defensively they battered Campbell the entire night, shut down Clinton Portis and flew around the football.

But offensively, McNabb and company struggled without Brian Westbrook, who left the game early in the first half after he suffered a concussion. The Eagles had major issues sustaining drives and were completely shut out in the second half when they didn’t get the same great field position generated by their defense.

Thankfully, DeSean Jackson was a showstopper. The second year player scored on a spectacular 67-yard run on the first possession of the game and then broke free in Washington’s secondary for a 57-yard touchdown reception right before half. He was the Eagles’ offense tonight.

But regardless of their offensive struggles, this was a big win for the Eagles, who desperately needed one after the Raiders embarrassed them last week in Oakland.