Fantasy Football - You Ruined My F'n Day - Week 10

Hey Woody, enjoy that bird seed we left on your seat.
It is in no way poisoned.

Every sporting event has its own unique set of characters, some harmless, most annoying.  For some unknown reason, we have a special ability to always find ourselves in the immediate vicinity of the most obnoxious people in the stadium.  It’s our curse.  Of course, since we so overly observant , we can't help but be pay attention to these jackasses.

On Saturday, we had the distinct displeasure of watching our beloved Scarlet Knights lose yet another close game to an opponent who they largely outplayed.  Going to Rutgers games is like “Groundhog Day.”  Our motto is quickly becoming: “As long as you come to the game without any expectations of seeing winning football, you’ll have a good time.” (Catchy, huh?)  Fortunately,we were able to introduce our special guest tailgaters (our brother and his gf) to both the joy of low expectations and the Section 224 Characters:

Look At This Guy: LATG, named after the phrase he and his dad utter during every single goddamn play, sits an all too close two rows behind us is your prototypical know-it-all football fan.  He just talks and talks and talks about how he knows more than the coaches and complains about every play call, even when the team does what, just two second before, he was imploring them to do.  Typical LATG exchange:


LATG:  I don't know why they're not throwing the ball. 

LATG Dad: Yeah.

(play starts)

In unison:  Look at this!!

(team throws ball, pass incomplete)

LATG: Run the ball!! Why are they throwing it!!

LATG Dad: Yeah.

(next play starts)

In unison:  Look at this!!

What's even better about LATG is that, despite his preternatural ability to remember every single players uniform number, shoes size, email address and girlfriend's name, he gets about 115% of everything else completely wrong.  At the beginning of the season, when starting quarterback Tom Savage was held out of the game after halftime due to an injury, LATG insisted, loudly and repeatedly, that the reason he wasn’t playing was because he forgot his helmet in the locker room.  Yeah, that's what the problem was.  A starting quarterback for a BCS conference team would totally miss multiple plays because neither he nor one of the 100 lackeys in the program could run back to the locker room to get his helmet.  We hate you LATG and your dad sucks too.

Woody Woodpecker:  This guy is just a douche hopping around from seat to seat like an animated bird to taunt and annoy us from all possible angles.  All he's missing is the laugh.  He fancies himself the section’s “Cheer Director” taking it upon himself to make the determination of when its appropriate to stand on third-down and, at times, even deciding which individuals have permission to stand and cheer.  (Is it our turn?  Oh, please, please, please, pick us!!)  Despite what you may think in your little animated bird brain, you are not entertaining anyone and we don’t need your permission to cheer.

Johnny Intensity:  Finally, we bring you Johnny Intensity, the 50-year old guy who's a middle manager at a middling pharmaceutical firm.  Both his wife and kids stopped listening to him 15 years ago and now he needs YOU to pay attention to him at he stands at the bottom of the section attempting to fire the crowd up and lead us in "R-U" chants.  Come down Mr. Intensity, you're going to have an aneurysm and none of us would be disappointed.

Now that we've gotten that off our chests, on to the real fake football.
1. The Dogkiller, QB, Philadelphia Eagles;

We were wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Spectacularly wrong.  Apparently it is possible to spend the better part of two years incarcerated and become a significantly better quarterback. It defies explanation but now that he's done it for weeks in a row, we're convinced.  The next level of quarterbacking has arrived, but good luck trying to find another.  Vick has always been the most talented guy on the field combining ridiculous speed and quickness with one of the strongest arms you'll ever see but before this season he had never quite put it all together.  On Monday, however, he took it to another level.  In a game that we all look back on 10 years and remember as the night he made the leap, Vick became exactly what everyone thought and hoped he could become when he was drafted #1 out of Virginia Tech. The numbers are simply historic - 20/28, 333 yards, 80 yards rushing on 8 carries and 6 total touchdowns (4 passing, 2 rushing). To steal Randall Cunningham's nickname, he is the ultimate weapon.

While we can't deny his on-field accomplishments, we still can't quite get on board with all the love and adulation he's receiving and it's not just because he's an Eagle.  We fully support the idea of redemption and understand that he's paid his debt to society through a rather significant prison sentence, but it all just seems too easy.  In a year, he's back on top of the NFL ladder as the MVP favorite and eveyrone, not just Eagles fans, seem to have completely gotten over their disgust at what he did.  Maybe they're better people than us, but for now, it just doesn't sit right.

From a fantasy perspective, he's easily a Top 4 QB with the likes of Manning, Rivers, Brees. As long as he stays healthy, the next 6 weeks are going to be fun, and potentially championship filled, for everyone who guessed that Andy Reid was a big fat liar, and snatched Vick off the waiver wire.

2. Calvin Johnson, WR, Detroit Lions;

Continuing the theme of guys becoming who were thought they would be, we're prepared to declare that Calvin Johnson will be a Top 5 WR for the rest of the season and challenge for the top spot next year.  Like Vick, Johnson is a physical freak (6' 5", 235, 4.4 speed) who's production hadn't quite matched his talent. After two consecutive seasons where he didn't even break 1,000 yards, this year and despite significant quaterback turmoil this year (Stafford and Hill both being injured, Drew Stanton being crappy), Johnson is on pace to put up a line of a career high 87 catches for 1200 yards and a whopping 16 touchdowns.  After a slow start to the season he could even eclipse those marks with a strong second half.  After watching Stafford go down yet again with a shoulder injury last week, we had our doubts about whether Johnson would be able to excel with a back-up, even a servicible one like Hill but Sunday's monster performance (10 for 128, 1 TD) with Shaun Hill under center (323 yards) finally put those doubts to rest. All hail Megatron!!

3. Fred Jackson, RB, Buffalo Bills;

After several weeks of ruining people's days with ridiculous performances from their passing game, Buffalo decided to let its running game, namely Fred Jackson, do the job this week. Just in time for us to regret including him as a sweetner to a deal that netted us Roddy White, Freddie put together a game that likely stole a victory from a few unsuspecting owners. Sunday's 25 carries for 133 yards with 5 catches for 37 yards and 2 total touchdowns represent season highs across the board and extends our streak of being completely and utterly stunned by a Bills' fantasy performance to 10 weeks. Keep playing your Bills, we guess.  Jackson should have a few more solid games to close out the year.

4. Mike Goodson, RB, Carolina Panthers;

Remember a few weeks ago when we reminisced about how the Panthers used to produce all kinds of great running back performances after somebody got injured? Well, apparently it just took one extra round of injuries. With both DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart sitting out with various ailments (Stewart was out with a “head.” Are we not allowed to say concussion?), third-stringer Mike Goodson (not to be confused with television producer Mark Goodson of Faimly Feud, Match Game, Password and Card Sharks fame), a second year guy from Irvington, NJ (apparently the former “Murder Capital of America”) via Texas A&M, put together a nice 100 yard performance that helped desperate owners far more than guys like Michael Turner.  Don’t expect it to last, however, the Bucs are a poor run defense and not only will he face the Ravens in Week 11 but Stewart (DeAngelo went on the IR yesterday) figures to return Carolina to its normal fantasy suckiness soon enough.

5. Quinn Glover, CB/Poor Volleyball Player, Houston Texans;

Bat. It. Down. Toward the ground, not diagonally towards a player who’s trailing the play looking for the deflection.  Glover’s volleyball shortcomings took a relatively mundane day by Mike Thomas (7, 99) into a much more meaningful 8 catches for 149 yards and 1 TD.  In PPR leagues with 5 point bonuses for 100 yards receiving, that’s a 17 point swing that cost plenty a game in the playoff standing.  While we’re here we might as well talk about Jacksonville’s surprisingly productive offense. MJD (24 carries, 100 yards and 2 TDs on Sunday) is a given and continues to be solid and sometimes spectacular.  David Garrard on the other hand is as hot as anyone in the league right now (6 TDs in the last 2 games, averaging 300 yards per) but figured to come back down to earth soon.  Enjoy the ride while you can. As for the aforementioned Mike Thomas, it seems that Jacksonville is only capable of producing one good WR performance per week and Thomas has been playing hot potato with Mike Sims-Walker to see who gets the numbers.  You can’t really trust either of them.

6. Jason Garrett, Coup Leader, Dallas Cowboys;

Hey Jason, Wade Phillips left a message for you, he says “Et tu, JG?"  (He also said "Go Fuck Yourself" but we left that part out so as not to hurt his feelings.)  Are we supposed to believe that the Cowboys could spend the first 9 weeks of the season looking like the aliens from “Space Jam” came and stole their mojo and after 3 days of practice (but it was with pads on!!) under Jason Garrett they become the offensive juggernaut everyone expected them to be all season?  With Kitna under center no less? Apparently there was a reason he was the coach in waiting (may be it should be “lying in wait.”)  Anyway, what do we make of this? Well, the Giants certainly didn’t play their best game (time for another second half breakdown?) but he Cowboys still looked great.  Eventually the league will remember all the things it used to do that prevented Kitna from ever being good but they still should be better than they showed.  While our previous predicted beneficiary of the Romo injury, Jason Witten, was an afterthought, Dez Bryant is rapidly emerging as both Kitna’s go to guy and a legit fantasy must-start. He’s got all the tools to eventually form the best WR tandem in the league with Miles Austin. Not sure who will be better but they’ll be tough to stop for a long time.

7. Tom Brady, Quarterback/Example of Terrible Hair Care, New England Patriots;

There he is. We went into the season expecting a huge season from Mr. Bad Hair, only to be forced to dramatically adjust our expectations adjusted with the Moss trade and then become confused and disoriented after Brady’s awful (for him at least) real life performance against the Browns (224 yards, 2 Tds). Sure his fantasy numbers weren’t terrible but it seemed to be further evidence of an emerging pattern of underwhelming numbers (no games over 300 yards). Sure he’s been throwing touchdowns (17 on the season) but he just hadn’t seemed to be his usual stellar self. On Sunday, against Pittsburgh’s vaunted defense, Brady reminded everyone why we do our best to ignore the fact that he left his pregnant girlfriend to marry a supermodel and then grew that hideous hair and draft him with a virtuoso 350 yard, 4 TD (3 passing, 1 rushing). What was even better was that the Pats actually ran the ball effectively, showing balance they haven’t had since the days of Cory Dillon. Fantasy owners should be excited again.




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