Fantasy Football

Well, that was some Monday night game. Nothing like setting off the work week with an abomination of a performance from the Browns as they suffer yet another shellacking, this time at the hands of the Eagles. Who I might remind you, couldn’t muster up even two touchdowns against the Bengals. I can’t believe we’re going to watch an NFL game in 2008 this Sunday with Ken Dorsey and Ryan Fitzpatrick leading the two offenses onto the field. I think we’re at a point with the NFL in Ohio that the two cities to the north and south of me need to quietly amass a boycott. Given, some are trying to attempt one already, but that’s only for Cincinnati. We need to pull our resources and make this a statewide effort.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some bright spots from last night’s contest. Who would’ve thought that only 15 weeks into the season, Braylon Edwards would start to make plays. I think this is evident but I’ll say it anyways: Ken Dorsey has earned himself the starting position. Sure, they only amassed 3 points on offense and Edwards only put up roughly ten fantasy points, but Edwards didn’t drop a single pass. That has to count for something, right? Just a moral victory? OK, then. I’m still not starting him this week.

I imagine this was one of the 30-something drops on the season.

On the Eagles side, is their a team more flaky than this one? They can steamroll the Cardinals (apparently a small feat if you do not reside in the NFC west), the Giants and the Browns (just to cover all degrees of opponents); yet get blown out by the Ravens and not put a single point on the board in an overtime game with the Bengals. Are they a playoff team? Probably not. Right now we have three teams sitting at 9-5, a half game in front of the Eagles, and one a half game back in the Bears.

That means even if you take out the divisional winners as they currently stand, Philly would have to be one of five teams competing for two open playoff spots. I don’t know what the schedules look like and I’m not going to research it, but if it’s possible for Tampa, Atlanta and Dallas to all win out, I wouldn’t put it past any of them to do so. Nice job Philly, your temperament is going to cost you a chance at the playoffs because you couldn’t beat the Bengals. That is something that doesn’t happen everyday: the Bengals were an actual obstacle for a playoff contender. Surely it was a result of not trading Chad Johnson when they had the opportunity. That’s why they beat the Redskins, too.

Also, a piece of advice to Andy Reid and Joe Banner: You might want to recalibrate your expectations of Kevin Kolb. He only threw a couple passes last night but one of them was for an interception, and the one game this season where he received significant reps (@ the Ravens) he looked patently awful. Seriously, just consider drafting one of these Big 12 QB’s (Daniels, Harrell, Bradford or even Tebow in the SEC if he comes out) with one of your late first round picks (they have the Panthers 1st rounder after trading the rights to Jeff Otah away in the 2008 draft).

Anyhow, that game last night was indicative of just how much the NFL owes to the advent of fantasy football. Thirty years ago, their audience would have been non-existent at halftime in every city outside of Philly and Cleveland. I don’t have the numbers off-hand, so I’ll concede that could have been the case last night as well. But some anecdotal evidence, we had two fantasy playoff contests going until the very last drive and had 7 out of the 10 participants in my league glued to the screen.

Naturally, nothing happened in one of the them as Kevin Curtis fell two fantasy points shy from pulling an improbable comeback (roughly a catch for 15 yards in our league). But in the other game, as the result of a DeSean Jackson interception, he lost his spot in the semifinals. He spent the rest of the night hoping for some garbage points from him but it was in vein. I’m pretty sure he’s under his desk sobbing uncontrollably at work right now.

Point being, regardless of the pace of the game, be it a blowout, low scoring, high scoring, highly contested or whatever else, as long as you have an active fantasy player in it, you won’t lose interest. We’ve known this for sometime, but since it was a Monday night game (the only matchup available), a blowout and we’re in the playoffs, it just seemed to typify what makes fantasy football so appealing in the first place.