Fantasy Football

I can’t believe this shit actually happened. I mean, I guess they’re both in the same division and perennial playoff contenders, and with the current unlucky streak I’m on I really shouldn’t be all that surprised. Only I could take a 20-1 bet with the returning Superbowl champs and have them square off against my team in their first playoff game. At least give me until the conference championship so I have some time to adjust. If the NFL had a modicum of sense to their playoff seeding I would be getting just that. Now, instead of playing the softness that is the Arizona Cardinals, the Giants are facing elimination against my half-heartedly beloved Eagles.

Philly’s Outlook: With a resurgence that I’m almost convinced Andy Reid stumbled into when he benched McNabb in the second half of that now infamous blowout they sustained against the Ravens, the Eagles look to repeat their performance against the Giants in week 14. Coming off an expected and rather convincing win against the Vikings, many believe this Eagles team is poised to make a 2007 Giants like run for the title.

We, however, are not buying it. As nice of a consolation prize as it would be to see the Eagles win the Superbowl in lieu of the Giants winning me $630 on a $30 bet, this team is extremely erratic offensively. My mind keeps going back to that 10-3 loss and how indicative it seemed of their whole season, especially since it was in between blowout wins against the Browns and Cowboys, two teams that were considered to be at opposite ends of the NFL talent spectrum. In short, they’re just too inconsistent. Of their sixteen regular season games, in all but five of them the Eagles scored either over 35 or under 20. Four of which were under 15 (Redskins, Bengals, Ravens, Steelers) and another three met or exceeded 40 (Cardinals, Cowboys, Niners). That is a wide spectrum of teams for both circumstances.

Now, it goes without saying that it’s never a bad thing to score a lot of points. They were 5-1 in games over 35. But this is the Giants in the playoffs we’re talking about, does anyone see them putting up numbers even remotely comparable to that? There best bet is to play it close to the vest and keep the Giants number of possessions limited. Attempt to keep it a low scoring affair that doesn’t give them a chance to rile up the crowd. It’s obviously not an impossible feat (they split the season series with only 11 points dividing them) and I’d actually venture to say that a healthy amount of pundits are picking them to win this game, if not the majority. But when you have two teams that are evenly matched (at least when the Giants are banged up), I tend to side with whoever has the better game plan.

New York’s Outlook: Has a team that’s been so dominant throughout a season ever had so many questions surrounding them throughout the playoffs? Perhaps the biggest one: Have they recovered from not having Plaxico Burress to bail out their quarterback yet? We know the running game and defense will be replenished, but if Philly is able to blitz as successfully as they did against Minnesota and they force Manning into some errant passes…this game could (and probably should) really come down to the wire. Especially with the secondary the Eagles currently sport (it might be unpopular, but we deem it the best in the league).

ESPN Manufactured Storylines: Is Plax still a distraction? Is Tom Coughlin’s coaching style suitable for such a tenuous situation? Will this game save Donovan in Philly? Will it save Andy Reid in Philly? Can McNabb turn this game into an endorsement for Swanson family dinners? Is Eli the better Manning brother? Can Brian Westbrook shoot fire out of his hands? Will Asante Samuel drop any key receptions? Seriously, how much does this team hate Tom Coughlin?

Fantasy Implications: I’m not going to comb over it again, but if fantasy football is still of concern for you, I really like a rested Brandon Jacobs and Kevin Boss to be key contributors in this game for the Giants. On the opposite side, if I like anyone it’s obviously Westbrook. And if you think the Eagles are going to win, for reasons stated above I like their defense. A lot. Their receivers (Brown, Jackson & Curtis) are the best McNabb has been dealt since 2003, but still too inconsistent and fucking tiny.

The Pick: Giants at -4? Ehh, I like New York to win but Philly to cover. It is mildly ironic I am not taking the favorite with the smallest line of the three we’ve seen so far, but remember I am doing this from most to least confident. And I’m not entirely sure why I have this rated as more confident that the Titans-Ravens game, as prognosticating it seems like a guaranteed losing proposition. I can see an Eagles win because they’re at their peak throughout the season, but I could see them losing because of inconsistency and questionable play calling.

I could see the Giants coming through with a win because they’re simply better coached and more talented than the Eagles, but I could also see them being upset because, I kid you not, they might be contemptuous that they have to play the Eagles in the first place. Considering Philly took Arizona behind the woodshed just over a month ago and they have a better record, no one would argue that the Giants are getting the raw end of the deal between them and Carolina. They’re probably wondering right now why they went to the trouble of forcing that game in week 16 into overtime. Given the circumstances, we’ll hedge our bets and make sure we’re right on at least one account. Expertise!

We’re going to attempt to follow the same format we used yesterday. If their is some innocuous difference in how we preview this game, then please, keep it to yourself or try to reconcile with the fact that we are more than aware of it, but we just didn’t care.

Also, The only reason this game is rated higher on our competitiveness scale is we give much more credence to the win over the Colts than Arizona’s win over Atlanta. Indy was a better team than the Falcons throughout the season, they played a better game than Atlanta in the wild card match-up and just in tone and tenor it felt a little less fluky.

San Diego’s Outlook: Much to my surprise, people are picking the Chargers to win this game outright. Apparently if you can run with Darren Sproles against Indy, you can run against a record setting defense. Now, we’ve been hinting at Sproles being the better option in the backfield than Tomlinson since roughly week eight or nine. And some might say he proved it on Saturday night. While he did look impressive and he could quite possibly be an elevated degree of the diminutive running back trend we’ve seen in the NFL this season, it doesn’t mean he’s going to run against the Steelers.

Why so pessimistic? One reason, really: Nobody runs against the Steelers. It doesn’t make much sense to me to suspect that a warm weather west coast team is going to travel east to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in January and pull out a win. It just doesn’t. Particularly when the east coast team won four more games during the regular season. the Indy win was great and all, but Indy is/was a finesse team. Pitt is a bruising, hard nose, “we’d only wear leather helmets if we could” old school team. Troy Polamalu, Ike Taylor and Jerome Harrison? That’s an entirely different ball of yarn than Dwight Freeney, Robert Mathis and Gary Brackett.

That said, no team offense and no quarterback has been moving the ball downfield better than the Chargers (well, except maybe the Patriots. Ahem). Phillip Rivers has been the best quarterback in the league for the last month and assuming they play with Vincent Jackson, they’ll be able to spread the field and maybe put a dent in that Pittsburgh defense. It is somewhat trite to say, but if their defense forces some turnovers (because their defense isn’t good enough to continually force the Steelers to punt), they can come out of Steel town with a W.

Pittsburgh’s Outlook: With a team that’s as focused and virulent as the Steelers, there is never a question as to whether they’re going to forget their objective because of a week off. They won’t. I’ll never understand why the Steelers organization is so much better ran than everyone else in the NFL, but I imagine it has something to do with coaching. Mike Tomlin was a strong hire to continue the Chuck Nohl, Bill Cowher mindset.

In other words, the Steelers typically do not lose games like this. If they’re involved in a game where there is a clear cut favorite and an upset takes place, they’re just about always the ones doing the upsetting. I wouldn’t expect anything different this week especially with the circumstances being what they are.

On the other side of the coin, however, the offense this season has been the epitome of inconsistence. If you look at their point totals for the season, you have to imagine that if they go into this game and can’t regularly move the ball downfield, things have the potential to become much more challenging than they should be.

Roethlisberger, for as great of a winning percentage as he has and for as great as he can look any given week, is just not the quarterback everyone wants him to be. Pittsburgh is, was and always will be a run first offense. He is best used in small, efficient doses (limited passing attempts for big chunks of yardage and a couple touchdowns). That isn’t to say he isn’t serviceable or even very good. But he isn’t Joe Montana or John Elway or even Phillip Rivers.

ESPN Manufactured Storylines: How will Big Ben recover from his concussion? Can Darren Sproles repeat his performance? Can the vaunted Pitt defense “find” Sproles behind the offensive line? Will Vincent Jackson’s DUI be a distraction for the underdog? I think the only way to settle these and more is to have a hyper, inarticulate discussion riddled with insider jokes between Chris Berman and a slew of former players.

Fantasy Implications: Just like yesterday and for every other game this weekend, there really isn’t any. But if you want recommendations for NFL.com’s fantasy playoff challenge extravaganza, I like Antonio Gates to blow up as he’ll be used to bail out Rivers several times I’m sure. A healthy Willie Parker isn’t going to do you wrong, either. Also, if someone puts a keg and a couple Patron bottles in the end zone, Vincent Jackson might be setting all kinds of records. Someone has to take the initiative, though. Those bottles aren’t going to buy themselves, people.

The Pick: Ugh, I hate to do this for the second game in a row, but six doesn’t seem like a big enough spread. We have to take the Steelers to win outright and to cover, because if you look at who they have lost to during the season, two of the teams were 12-4 (Giants, Colts), one was 13-3 (Titans) and the other was the Eagles (who are arguably the hottest team in the NFL at the moment). As much as I may want to (and you have no idea how much I want to), I just can’t see San Diego following up last week’s performance on the road. Outside of the superior passing game, the only thing San Diego has going for it is Darren Sproles’ low center of gravity. He’ll be able to eat up the slop that is Heinz field better than most.

Back with more tomorrow.

So what we’ve decided to do for the playoffs is to compound everything about each game into a single post, in order of the least to most competitive game (as seen through our prism), giving us cannon fodder from now until Friday. Yeah, we have no idea what we’re going to do for next week.

As a side note, it is requiring every ounce of strength I have to not pontificate on everything that was wrong with Ohio State last night. Hopefully, for your sake and mine, this will be the last I mention it.

Arizona’s Outlook: With a spread of -10, it doesn’t look like Arizona is getting much credit for their win against Atlanta. As well they shouldn’t. Arizona deserved the win, but they were playing at home against (despite how impressive he’s been) a rookie quarterback, and 23 of their 30 points could best be summarized as flukes. A two point conversion, a weird mid-air fumble recovery by Antrel Rolle returned for a touchdown, a flea flicker touchdown in which the flea flicker had absolutely no baring on the outcome of the play and a missed tackle that resulted in a 50 yard scamper after the catch. Even after all this and two more turnovers, Arizona only won by six at home.

Next week, one would probably assume they won’t be quite so fortunate. Because seldom has it been that any team has gotten so many breaks in a single contest. Not to mention they’re playing on the road in what will be (relative to Arizona) a cold weather game against a veteran savvy team. Luckily for them, that team is the Panthers and not the Giants. If they were going to the Meadowlands instead of whatever the name is for the Panthers stadium, they’d be dead in the snow before th game ever started. Because you know, Kurt Warner reacts to snow like Wolverine to magnets.

Still, if they manage to pull off what I would qualify as a bigger upset than the Giants beating the Patriots in the Superbowl, and the Eagles also win (which everyone seems to be convinced is a distinct possibility), they get to play the NFC title game at home. That’s right. A 9-7 divisional champion will be blessed with a home conference title match-up because of the antiquated and illogical NFL playoff structure.

So, they at least have a lot to play for.

Carolina’s Outlook: Rested, rejuvenated and seemed to be peaking at the right time. Thing is though, for team’s like Carolina I tend to think that the bye week hurts them more so than it helps. This is a team that was fairly inconsistent for the first half of the season, and managed to find some sort of groove with letting DeAngelo Williams’ recently morphed and ‘roided out freak body dictate the terms of the offense and falling back on the passing game when need be. Now, with a week off and a litany of over-confidence going into this week’s game, they could let this one slip away.

That said, I wouldn’t expect that to happen. They’re playing at home, where they’re undefeated against a team that was 3-5 on the road (and all three wins came against divisional opponents, none of whom finished better than 7-9, and they beat San Fran first game of the season when they still had Mike Nolan), snuck into the playoffs by virtue of being in a shitty division and whom many considered to be among the worst NFL playoff teams in the history of NFL playoffs.

In short, the only way Carolina is losing this game is if they fail to take the Cardinals seriously. Given it’s the NFL playoffs we know crazier things have happened. Like Arizona winning last week’s wild card game. Alright, that’s not crazier, but the manner in which they did so was the football equivalent of the Joker’s cruise ship caper.

ESPN Manufactured Storylines: Can Kurt Warner return to the Superbowl one last time? Can Steve Smith refrain from knocking the shit out of his teammates? Can Edgerrin James make himself relevant? Can Tim Hightower break a tackle? Just how good of friends are Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin? Does Anquan Boldin get hit by the truck, or the truck hit by Boldin? None of these are really intriguing, but throw some up-tempo music into a montage with some sleek looking graphics, and we have a story!

Fantasy Implications: Basically, there are none. But since the URL is talking fantasy football, we have to at least pretend to make an effort. If you’re still alive in the NFL.com 2008 fantasy playoff challenge extravaganza not only can you go fuck yourself, but I would also acquire DeAngelo Williams if you have the means to do so. To be frank, we consider the 42 yards and one touchdown the Cardinals held Michael Turner an aberration, Williams will break off at least two scores against this team. And call me crazy, but since this game is at home I like Muhsin Muhammad as a relative dark horse. He should be fairly cheap.

On the Arizona side of the ball, if you’re going to play anyone, Steve Breaston and Larry Fitzgerald seem to be the only two viable options. Growing up and attending school at FSU, much like his quarterback it would seem that Anquan Boldin never really learned how to perform in cold weather. There won’t be snow on the ground or anything (at least there shouldn’t be), but a cool breeze seems like it could turn him into Freddie Mitchell. I have no idea how this guy can endure a hit like the one he did against the Jets but struggle so mightily in non-ideal climate conditions, but that’s the scenario we’re in.

The Pick: If you couldn’t tell from the fucking screed we’ve produced here, we’re taking Carolina to win. We lied earlier, the line is actually 9.5, and if we we’re going to bet against it, Carolina is still the pick. I’m sorry, but this Cardinals team is about as uninspiring as a playoff team could be. Which I imagine was hard for them to pull off, consider the franchise hasn’t won a playoff game in over a decade.

Back tomorrow with another preview.

Oh yeah, the playoff games. As you could probably tell from today’s earlier post, I was woefully unimpressed with the Dolphins-Ravens match-up, particularly the Dolphins performance. Chad Pennington made Phil Mickelson look collected at Wingfoot with his showing yesterday afternoon. If you actually used any of the players from this game in your fantasy challenge, then bully for you, but I still think you’re an idiot. Unless you had Baltimore’s defense (five forced turnovers and a solid effort all around) the outcome probably left something to be desired. God help you if you were enough of a homer to take Chad Pennington.

The follow up was an improvement, but not much of one. Compared to Saturday Sunday’s games were like watching grass grow. Philly came out and gave the Vikings a pretty thorough and convincing beating. If anyone thought that Tavaris Jackson could impede Minnesota’s progress, then you thought right. His game statistically speaking wasn’t the worst of the day (that honor belongs to MVP runner up Chad Pennington), but it really should have been. We are in the playoffs, after all. Even if he wasn’t the worst of the four quarterbacks playing on Sunday, he was the most responsible for his team’s failures. In fact, I will go so far as to say of all the people on the field, he was solely responsible.

On the sidelines Brad Childress should definitely endure some of the blame. Set aside the fact that the offense looks inept and one-dimensional 90% of the time they take the field, and that he is obviously limited by his quarterback options, he didn’t do any adjusting to potentially help aid his struggling QB. Take for example, when there were roughly six minutes left, Minnesota was down two scores and clearly not advancing the ball down field anytime soon, wouldn’t it had made sense to pull Jackson out in favor of Ferotte. I mean, Gus isn’t exactly Tom Brady, but he’s clearly the better pocket passer of the two and thus more likely to hit open receivers when time is of the essence.

But no. They ended up punting, then getting yet another stop out of their defense, then he fumbled the ball on their last offensive possession of the game. All while the coach sat idly by waiting for Tavaris Jackson to do something everyone knows he’s incapable of doing: Leading an NFL team to victory in the waning minutes of a game. I’m sure the Minny fans who came out at the last second to purchase tickets appreciated it.

Still this wasn’t a problem for just this game, but pretty much the entire season. With the slew of quarterbacks set to enter the 2009 draft, I expect Minnesota to address this need direly. In fact, if I’m Detroit, I attempt to take advantage of their situation and trade away the rights of the first overall to them for a slew of middle-tier picks.

In short, I’m not sure how dominant Philly was but rather how dominant Minnesota made them look. The Eagles are going into the Meadowlands next week, to play a Giants team that has since adjusted to being top 10 receiver-less since the last time they crushed them 20-8, shortly after the nightclub self-inflicted gun wound incident. If they resemble the type of team they showed then and last night, I think we’ll be looking at yet another NFC title game for Donovan McNabb and the Eagles, if not, I’m sure a once banged up but rested Giants squad is going to come out swinging.

That’s pretty much it. We’ll try to dedicate a full post to each game this upcoming weekend from now until Friday. Until then, hopefully something relevant and interesting to fantasy football will come to mind so we can try to stay on topic.

And just like that, we registered our first correct pick of the playoff season. It only took us four fucking games to do so. Now that, my friends, is a resume builder. If in the next three years we’re not cleaning streets for a living, then this country deserves all the misfortune it’s currently receiving.

Speaking of which, you know what was really unfortunate? Having to sit through that Miami-Baltimore game. Or rather, sitting through the Miami-Baltimore game because you’re too lazy to do anything else and someone in your house is already watching it. What an eyesore. At the very least can’t we all agree that Chad Pennington finishing tied for second in MVP voting is utter bullshit. He had a nice season and all, was the second highest rated passer in the league and was integral to leading a 1-15 team from a year ago to an 11-5 season. On the other hand he threw for 17-8, his passer rating was 97 and the team’s offense was primarily ground oriented. These are not the makings of someone who should be in serious contention for MVP.

Look, he had a nice season and competition for MVP was fairly paltry in 2008. Virtually everyone who had a chance at it either played themselves out of contention or their teams did it for them (Clinton Portis, Drew Brees, Kurt Warner, Jay Cutler, etc.) and the award was given to Manning by default. But if we’re going to start putting quarterbacks in the running solely because they never fucked anything up significantly, then we might as well have named Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson MVP’s of their respective Superbowl victories. I mean, they are the quarterback’s, that’s the most important position.

Really this is all moot because Manning won in a landslide. And let me state that I believe it is very much deserved (though I don’t know why these awards are only for the regular season). But when Pennington can get more votes than Adrian Peterson, who put the offense on his back and carried them into the playoffs with over 1,800 yards of total offense and Gus Ferotte and Tavaris Jackson doing nothing to distract opposing defenses from him, something is wrong.

I am of the opinion that running backs are easily replaceable, expendable commodities. But Peterson is a game changer and proved it throughout the course of the season. They’ve staged fourth quarter comebacks just by handing him the ball. Do you know how rare that is? Do not give me the fumbles statistic, either. He only lost four of them (nine total), and that’s in part that his team is so reliant on his production. Let me put it this way, if you’re a (fill in mediocre NFL team here) fan you don’t want Peterson because of his four lost fumbles, then you deserve to watch your team lose.

Basically what this vote says, is that no running back will be eligible for the MVP until he goes over 2,000 yards rushing. If Terrell Owens couldn’t come within an inch of winning the award in his first year with the Eagles then no receiver has a realistic shot. No lineman or defensive player has even sniffed the MVP, much less actually win it (we wouldn’t have complained if Jerome Harrison had won). So basically what we’re looking at is an award for best player of the year being specifically for quarterbacks. We’ll see if statistical production is improved throughout the league next season and if that has any effect on league perspective, but if this proves to be emblematic I’m really going to dislike the trend.

Back with recaps of the two games later.

So you may have noticed the site acting a tad wonky as of late, obviously this is beyond my control (and apparently beyond my employers) but technical issues have been plaguing not just this site, but the entire network. Thankfully this is, you know, a fantasy football site. And no one is really playing in a real fantasy football league at the moment.

Never the less, this proved costly (or as costly as a inaccessible blog can be) because I never got to publicly make my picks for yesterday’s games. Well, let me kill the suspense: I lost. On both accounts. I could lie, but if you’ve picked up on the tone and tenor of this site, you could probably determine that I was going to pick both Atlanta and Indianapolis to cover their 1 point spreads. It is a tad ironic though. Not being able to post my lines and everything. Because I actually had a friend in Vegas lay down a parlay for me with all four playoff games. For once I actually have money on the games slated for the weekend, and I am unable to pontificate about them on this here site.

Anyhow, as far as the Atlanta game is concerned, I threw out the old “NFC South sucks donkey dick on the road” credo in favor of the “The Cardinals are inept against anyone who isn’t in their own shittastic division” theory. This seemed reasonable. Mind you, Minnesota blew the doors off of Arizona’s defense in Glendale just four weeks ago. I assumed with Atlanta having a balanced offensive attack that hinged on the run, they would be able to get the job done at University of Phoenix Stadium (handily the worst named sporting venue this side of Papa John’s Stadium).

As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Their offense looked sporadic and downright frightened at times. I could get into all the reasons as to why I feel slighted as a result of this game, but without getting too technical, let me just say this: It took not only a safety, two sixty yard plus touchdowns and a defensive touchdown for the Cardinals to win, but also the greatest game ever played by the Cardinals in the franchise’s history in Phoenix. I should have known I was fucked when everyone on CBS’ pregame picked the Cardinals to win except for Matt Millen. You know you’re in trouble when the architect of the first and only 0-16 team in the league’s history is agreeing with you.

As for last night’s primetime game, it was yet another playoff failure by the Colts who always seemed to go unnoticed because they won one Superbowl. This marks only the second time I’ve bet on Peyton Manning and the Colts to win, and also the second time they disappointed me (2005 against the Steelers in the playoffs was the first, I found the schmuckiest of Steelers fans to give me Indy at even money).

What specifically happened in this game? Other than Sproles proved himself to be an every-down back and officially surpassed Tomlinson as the better option and it ended in overtime? I have no idea since I was busy eating and carousing at Elevator and didn’t watch it all that closely. (Mmmm, Crab Manicotti). But we should really stop acting surprised when the Colts loses in the playoffs. Going all the way back to the 2001 season when a Chad Pennington Jets team curb-stomped them in the wild card round to the tune of 41-0, Indy has usually been a disappointment.

If you’re wondering why I went with the Colts over San Diego, the answer is quite simple: San Diego hasn’t beaten anyone good all season. They’ve had some horrendous home losses and their defense is still pretty soft. But being at home against an Indy team that appears to be running on fumes (see the much narrower than the 31-21 score against the Lions would lead you to believe). Basically, if I had any foresight or an ounce of originality in my body, I would have went with San Diego. But I don’t, so I didn’t.

Anyhow, that’s 0-2, killing our dream of 11-0 for 2008 pretty hastily. If you want to know who to bet against for this afternoon’s games, I am taking Philly at -3 and Miami at +3.5 (the former seems to be much more popular of a sentiment that the latter).

That’s pretty much it. We’ll get back to some fantasy commentary come tomorrow morning.