Fantasy Football - You Ruined My F'n Day - Week 4

"Heavens to Murgatroyd, my choice of neck wear makes me a douche!!
That and the fact that I'm a pink mountain lion who apparently thinks he's an actor."

We have two rules in life.  The first is never trust a man in a bow tie.  Don't trust him near your wife.  Don't trust them near your wallet.  And certainly don't trust hi near your grandmother.

Aside from certain limited social situations (weddings, clown conventions), the only reason for a person to wear a bow tie is because they think they're special and are just desperate for people to notice.  While everyone else reluctantly puts on their big boy clothes, bow tiers wake up in the morning and decide to show their superiority through neckwear.  And then they come to the meeting and sit in the back in one of the comfy chairs while everyone else suffers in the awful pink plastic abominations, looking smug and feeling smarter than everyone else in the room.

They are, of course, wrong.  They're not special.  In fact, they're so painfully unspecial, so normal and nondescript that they need a dopey little tie to stand out.  But it always backfires.  At best they come off as a weird Tucker Carlson-wannabe.  At worst, people assume they masturbate in a public movie theaters and talk to chairs.  People would be more comfortable if they simply refused to wear pants or were just an interesting person.

So, bow tie wearers, do everyone a favor and quit your nonconformity.  Okay, Snagglepuss?

Oh, and nobody cares if you can tie that special little bow, we all just assume it's a clip-on anyway.

1.  Brett Favre, "Retired" Quarterback/Active Jerk, Wrangler Jeans


This man will just not go away.  The real story here is that Favre's successor, Aaron Rodgers, is making a strong case that he deserves a spot after the slash in the "Best Quarterback in the League" conversation.  With his 408 yard, 6 TD (yes, read that again, 6 touchdowns) performance it's no longer a default Brady/Manning conversation.  If you had Aa-Rodg, you could have started the Dongslinger at every other position and won the week.  He was that good.

But, as is his unique talent, Favre manages to be the story here.  In a radio interview this week, Favre decided he was jealous of Rodgers' success and needed to let everyone know:


"I'm going to be honest, I was not surprised. The biggest surprise to me would be that he didn't do it sooner ... 


That's not a terrible start.  A reasonable person could turn this into a glowing review of the other guys talent, say that they always saw it coming, etc.  WWBFD?  Not that.


]M]y last year in Green Bay prior to the first game, I made the remark that this was probably the most talented team that I've ever played on. And of course everyone looked up and was like ‘This guy's off his rocker.' We were very, very young; take me out of the mix and we were by far the youngest team in the league ... 


There goes Mr. Favre again.  Yelling at kids to get off his lawn and talking crazy.  Just ignore him, he's a harmless old coot.


But I could see the talent pool across the board was outstanding. Now our season kind of ended up being a reflection of that. We came close, and I think we took a lot of people by surprise, but guys emerged rather quickly ... 


That season the Pack went 13-3 and lost in the NFC Championship game to the Giants in a game that saw Favre throw a crippling overtime interception and Tom Coughlin lose 2/3 of his face to frostbite.


Aaron had a chance…even though the last couple years it's seemed like he's almost a rookie, he's been around awhile. And I'd like to think that he watched, he learned, and then when he got a chance to play, he brought in his ability—which is obviously very good or they wouldn't have drafted him in the first round ... 


"to replace me!!!  Can you believe they wanted to replace me?  Do they not know who I am?  I'm Brett Fucking Favre.  Men want to be me and women want to get in my wranglers.  I'm a legend baby!! I'm Brett Fucking Favre.  The best they'll ever see.  But you can't push out a legend like me!!  So, I went elsewhere and ... well, never mind.  Just know, if I was there with all that talent, we'd have won 3 Super Bowls.  WOOOO!!!!"


And so he just kind of fell into a good situation. On top of that, he's a good player. I don't think there's any pressure on him now, the talent around him is even better than when I was there. So I'm really kind of surprised it took him so long. In the early part of last year season, it hadn't quite clicked yet and I didn't know it would. I just kind of figured when they hit their stride, they're going to be hard to beat. And that's what happened."


And there's the money shot.  To call this a backhanded compliment would be a backhanded compliment to backhanded compliments.  Maybe someday when Favre finally shuts the hell up, we'll be able to ask him, what took so long.

2.  Reality?, Offense, Buffalo Bills;




Ryan Fitzpatrick - 199 yards.  0 TDs.  First 0 TD game of the season.

Fred Jackson - 66 rushing yards, 32 receiving yards, 1 TD.  First time under 100 total yards this season.

Stevie Johnson - 4 catches, 58 yards, 0 TDs.  First 0 TD game of the season.

Not so good.  Worse yet, anyone who tried to get cute a start David Nelson or Donald Jones or Scott Chandler was rewarded with no more than 21 stinking yards.  Maybe the Bengals D is that good (they're #1 in total defense so far this season) or maybe the Bills will slow down.  We don't know.  What we do know is that they play the Eagles next week and their defense is awful so keep these guys in your line-up.

3.  Peyton Hillis, Rare White Running Back, Cleveland Browns;


Hey, remember when Peyton Hillis was running wild all over the league and sports radio guys like Mike Golic were creaming over his biceps and he was so popular (read: white) that he got himself on the cover of Madden?  Nope, us neither.  Before the season, Hillis won the "Most Likely to Go Bust" superlative and was probably the most obvious candidate in recent memory (maybe since LaMont Jordan in 2006).  Now he's doing everything he can to to prove the doubters right.  On the season he's already missed one game (he had strep throat/was 11 years old) and only one decent performance (94 yards, 2 TDs) in which he only  had a 3.5 yard average.  And now. he's being questioned about whether he's distracted by not having a contract extension.  All together, we're not bullish on the Albino Rhino.  Trade him to your vaguely racist friend (or Hank Williams, Jr.) before everybody catches on.

4.  Ryan Torain, Stat Stealer, Washington Redskins; 


Guess what?  Mike Shanahan hates you.  But you knew that already.  So why did you draft Tim Hightower and expect him to hold the starting running back job for a team coach by that evil bastard?  Oh because he looked good in the preseason?  Or because the Skins, a team that never seems to have any draft picks, gave one up to get him?  Or perhaps because Shanahan seemed to be praising him left and right?  Well, Ryan Torain just ran for 135 yards and ruined your plans.  But it's your own damn fault.  You should have known better.

5.  Andy Reid, Hater, Philadelphia Eagles;

We hate to belabor the point or pile on the Eagles' highly disappointing beginning to the season but what the fuck Andy?  How does it happen that last week, you trailed for most of the game but still managed to rush Shady McCoy (perhaps the most dynamic runner in the league right now) 24 times and this week, in a game your team lead 20-3 at the half, you gave him only 9 carries?  That's an absolute disgrace.

If you were trying to prove everyone wrong that said Vick wasn't the player you sold him to be.  That worked out ok - 416 yards, 2 TDs, 75 yards rushing.  If you were also trying to prove once and for all that you lack even the most basic of game management skills.  You passed that test with flying fucking colors you rotund bastard.

6.  Arian Foster, Running Back, Houston Texans


It's seems somewhat fitting that in a week when Hank Williams, Jr. is being credited with "comparing President Obama to Hitler" that the Reign of the Arian Nation would return with a vengeance.  And a vengeance he did return with.  After throwing a shovel full of dirt on his grave last week and touting Ben Tate's potential to unseat him, Tate got hurt and 30 carries, 155 yards and 1 TD later Foster seized full control of his position as fantasy's #1 back.  He fits  Houston's running game to a "T" and if he's healthy (and we still contend that hamstrings are tricky) and Tate is not, Foster seems destined to rack up carries (and points) as his team copes with the temporary loss of Andre Johnson.

Speaking of Hank Williams, Jr., can we all just admit that the headline "Hank Williams, Jr. compares Obama to Hitler" is a tad misleading.  He said that Obama and Boehner playing golf together would be like "Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu."  We certainly don't recommend that any person in the public arena mention Hitler in the same sentence as a sitting president (former presidents are fair game, particularly Taft), but it's also pretty clear that old HW Jr. was trying to make a "two people who are polar opposites" analogy (even if we all accept that he thinks the word "analogy" means the study of asses.)  It's bad enough that he maybe he shouldn't have said it and maybe his song should be dumped from Monday Night Football, so we really didn't need the misleading headline.


7.  Brandon Lloyd, Shitty Wide Receiver, Shitty Denver Football Team;


We don't care what he did last year.  Brandon Lloyd sucks.  And unlike many of our past vacillations, we'll stand by that statement in perpetuity.  So, if' he's going to have more games where he catches 8 passes for 136 yards and cost us games against teams we should beat, we're going to quit fantasy football.  At least for a day or two.  Fuck Brandon Lloyd.