What makes our fantasy football league great is the unpredictability of it.

In a head-to-head league, the best team doesn’t always win. Just like in real football.

For instance, last year when the Kansas City Chiefs upset the then-undefeated Green Bay Packers. That should never have happened in a million years, but it did.

Just because a team is the highest point producer one week doesn’t prevent it from being the lowest the next week. On the flip side, your team could score 125 points one week and be playing the only other team that scored more than you.

Congrats on your point total, but it still goes down as a loss.

The team I played last week, Kool & The Gang, could write a book about being on the wrong side of a high-scoring game. This team is averaging 106.3 points per game (fifth best in the league) and is 1-7!

One week his team scored 128 points, but his opponent scored 145.

Call it a fantasy football curse, who knows, but Kool & The Gang is snake-bitten. And not just this year. This team regularly has running backs go down with season-ending injuries and is the absolute king of having an opponent go off on Monday Night Football to deny him victory.

And that brings me to last week’s game where I defeated The Gang despite Tony Romo giving me a heart attack with four interceptions (-3 each time), three in the first half, of the Cowboys’ loss to the Giants.

After the fourth interception, I texted Kool & The Gang’s owner to congratulate him. As it turned out, Romo got hot in the fourth quarter and the Last Action Heroes did win, 99-87. The Heroes, after a slow start, are now 5-3 and tied for first place in the standings for Dereliction League, despite the ninth-best point total.

But Kool & The Gang should’ve run away to a comfortable win in this game, and that is where the unpredictability comes in.

Right before our game started, he traded away Peyton Manning for Philip Rivers and Antonio Gates. Sounds like a good deal, but Gates and Rivers combined to score him eight points. Meanwhile, Manning goes off against the Saints, scoring 35. The funny thing is, those points didn’t really help that other owner, either, because he happened to play the highest-scoring team this week.

See what I mean — unpredictable, or Kool & The Gang Curse.

Maybe he should do what I did last year and change his logo. It worked for the Heroes. Jack Burton from “Big Trouble in Little China” began a winning streak last year and has got me in first place this season.

Just saying, it couldn’t hurt.

One thing you can control is finding suitable replacements for your players on a bye. This week, that consists of players on the New England Patriots, San Francisco 49ers, New York Jets and St. Louis Rams.

That means these fantasy superstars need replacing: QB Tom Brady, RBs Frank Gore and Stevan Ridley. If you have every-week starters from the Rams or Jets in your lineup, you need to remedy that immediately with a trade and/or add-drop.

Some ready-made replacements for Brady:

Matt Schaub, Houston Texans — Maybe an owner dropped Schaub because he had a bye last week. If that is the case, jump on this because he’s playing the Bills this week and they are awful on defense.

Ryan Fitzpatrick, Buffalo Bills — The other quarterback in this matchup who is also coming off a bye, only owners may have been more prone to drop Fitzpatrick. Their loss is your gain because the Bills are going to be way behind in this game, which means garbage-time passing yards and maybe a touchdown or two for Fitzpatrick.

Here are two running backs that can fill in for Ridley or Gore:

Jonathan Dwyer, Pittsburgh Steelers — The ship has probably set sail on this one because of Dwyer’s big week last week, but if some owners in your league are still late to the party, this is the guy to grab.

Jonathan Stewart, Carolina Panthers — Carolina has been very frustrating with its running back situation, and of course you can always count on Cam Newton to vulture a touchdown or two at the goal line, but it looked last week like Stewart had finally solidified the No. 1 role. Plus, Carolina is playing Washington, which just allowed Dwyer to go off on them last week.

A receiver and tight end to think about:

Brandon LaFell, Carolina Panthers — I think this week will be an explosion of offense between Washington and Carolina, with LaFell benefiting from the extra attention the secondary is going to give to Steve Smith. He had a bit of a breakout game last week and should be available in many leagues.

Jermichael Finley, TE, Green Bay — Someone has dropped this player in your league; I can almost guarantee it because he’s massively underperformed up to this point. But it looks like Jordy Nelson will be out for a second week, and that moves Finley up the pecking order as a target for Aaron Rodgers. I am guaranteeing at least one touchdown for Finley this week against Arizona.

Chris Parry covers sports for the Tyler Morning Telegraph, and is an avid Fantasy Football player who drafted his first team in 1997 while in college at Texas Tech. He’s won several fantasy football and fantasy baseball titles. You can read his fantasy football takeaway every Thursday during the season. Any lineup or player questions or comments, please email to cparry@tylerpaper.com. You can also tweet to @CParryETFS.