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  The Fantasy League Guru The Fantasy League Guru regrets his recent hiatus and promises to deliver another witty column next Wednesday. E-mail something, anything, please, to sports@media.ucla.edu. Click Here for more articles by The Fantasy Football Guru

Remember the Titans? No, not that Denzel movie. I mean the Tennessee Titans.

Do you remember the Titans of 2000? How about the Super Bowl edition of 1999? Do you remember how they used to have a suffocating defense and a bruising running game?

I barely do.

The 2001 Titans are a disgrace to fantasy football. I knew that after the Music City Miracle, karma would one day catch this team.

It all starts with Eddie George. I knew the optimism over the recovery from offseason toe surgery was too good to be true. That’s why I drafted Anthony Thomas as an insurance policy in the only league where I got stuck with George.

Coming into 2001, this Buckeye was too tempting an option to pass up. Since entering the league in 1996, George has not missed a game. He’s been Mr. Consistency, failing to rush for 1,300 yards only once (he finished with 1,294 yards in 1998). His touchdown total reached 16 last season, and his 403 carries combined with his 50 catches meant this workhorse was a vital part of the Titan offense week in and week out.

So more than a third into the 2001 season, George has only one touchdown and is averaging 2.6 yards a carry. On top of his slow recovery from toe surgery, George tweaked his knee on Monday Night Football in an embarrassing 34-7 loss to the Steelers. He managed to gain only 13 yards on 10 carries before being pulled from the game for UCLA product Skip Hicks.

The lack of a running game isn’t making things any easier for a battered and bruised Steve McNair. After taking a helmet to the chest in the season opener against Miami, things have not gotten much better for McNair.

He returned in Week 4 against the Ravens, and not surprisingly he finished with 154 yards and zero TDs. So far this season McNair has failed to throw for more than 230 yards in any game, but more alarmingly, he has yet to connect on more than one TD pass in a single game.

Derrick Mason has been an absolute bust at wide receiver. He has eight catches for 169 games in four games. That kind of total is respectable for two games, downright putrid in four. Needless to say he has regressed from his 63-catch, 895-yard, five TD performance in 2000.

Tight ends Frank Wychek and Erron Kinney are the only bright spots of this offense, and that’s on the disturbing end because Wychek is barely averaging more than 40 yards a game – and that includes a seven catch, 100-yd performance two weeks ago that I’m sure had several fantasy owners scouring the waiver wire.

Joe Nedney has produced about what was expected of him, but the problem with starting a kicker from a team as inconsistent as the Titans is you get stuck with close to nothing every now and then – like the single point he got on Monday night against the Steelers.

And finally, don’t get me started on that defense. Where has the Freak, Jevon Kearse, gone? Wasn’t Kevin Carter supposed to soften the constant double teams? The two have combined for five of the disappointing 12 Titan sacks in six games.

Turnover-wise, it doesn’t get any better. A defense that fed off chaos in 2000 when it forced 21 fumbles and intercepted opposing QBs 17 times, has four forced fumbles and two INTs to show so far.

It’s almost as if the world has been turned upside down and the Bungals, er ... Bengals, have taken over the role of the Titans.

Now, that’s one scary thought.