Fantasy Football

I say this as an Eagles fan, but the title of this post is pretty much par for the course.

Since this is technically a fantasy football site, I probably should have mentioned that the NFL was kicking off last night at some point during the day, instead of going off on a diatribe about the potential greatness for fantasy football in the college ranks. But, whatever. All of you already knew that, and anything I might have to say about it is pretty null and void. Needless to say, in any pay league we are in, we do not have any Giants or Redskins.

In fact, there is only one we even considered drafting (Burress), and someone over drafted him in the second and third fucking round. We consider it a testament to our fantasy football acumen that we never even considered taking any Redskins. It’s basically subtraction by addition.

But The Giants showed some promise. You can’t really tell if it’s a decent team looking like a sound playoff contender, or if we have a potentially overrated team at home pounding on one of the five worst teams in the league this season. Either way, I hope for Giants fans that their season looks more like the first half than the second. Wait, what? I fucking hate both these teams, so I don’t really hope anything for either of them.

But, since we must, here are our first impressions of everyone we saw last night.

Plaxico Burress: By far the standout fantasy performer of the night and instilled the most confidence. This title would be awarded to Brandon Jacobs if it weren’t for Derrick Ward piddling away at least 30% of the carries. 10 catches for 133 yards; no touchdowns, but that will change rather abruptly. Burress just recently signed a new contract, and since this isn’t the NBA and they’re not guaranteed, every player busts his ass to get all that money he is potentially contracted for. You have to love the NFL and all of its hypocrisy’s, they really cater to me, the viewer, who has nothing on the line.

Wow. We're a long way from single-handily devastating the Ohio State Buckeyes during the best season they had under Jon Cooper. Dick.

Brandon Jacobs: This guy ran like a champ and we knew he would, but with Ward eating up a third of the carries it’s difficult to have as brimming of an outlook for him as we do for Burress.

Eli Manning: In one word: Shaky. How many times were his passes batted off an DB’s hands? Or how many dropped interceptions did we see? Or he threw into double coverage? It is good he has confidence in Burress, but from a fantasy perspective that is mainly good for Burress. This was only a first game and their is plenty of time to hit stride, but this is basically the same Eli Manning we’ve seen for the past four seasons: Reckless, inconsistent and occasionally astounding.

Onto the Redskins supposed impact players, the news is a little more grim:

Jason Campbell: He looks like he is welcoming to a quarterback controversy. I’m putting it at about week four before we start hearing campaigning for Colt Brennan.

Clinton Portis: Did he even play? I mean, he did have twenty-three carries, but only averaged 3.7 yards for each of them (do the math if you want a total, idiot). Looks like another Woody Hayes year for the incredibly overpaid Clinton Portis, the last active remembrance of the fame and fortune running in the zone blocking scheme so heavily replicated by the Denver Broncos can bring you. Not only are teams finally smart enough to not overpay running backs (well, everyone except for the Redskins, as it stands), the Broncos don’t even give their H-backs the opportunity to demonstrate their potentially inflated wealth.

Allow me to go off on a tangent here: Selvin Young, the current starting running back for Denver, probably ranks somewhere in between the fortieth and fiftieth best running back to ever come out of Texas. Jamaal Charles, his teammate while he was there, regularly outclassed him on the field. And Charles is currently third string for the Chiefs. My point being, while running backs are often expendable and the easiest player on the field to replace, at some point you are doing yourself a disservice by going out of your way to not have a playmaker lining up behind quarterback.

Anyhow, back to the post.

Antwan Randle-El/Santana Moss: They are virtually the same, undersized, under-performing wide receiver. It’s not really their fault though, particularly in the case of Moss, who hasn’t really had a competent quarterback throwing to him. Except for in New York with Pennington, in which case he under-performed. With the aberration of a season that was 2005 (and arguably 2003), Moss hasn’t really lived up to the hype either.

Last night they both looked like they were running good routes and doing everything they could to make Campbell look good, but that is a daunting task. They kept it respectable as they caught 12 of Campbell’s 15 completions and Moss had their only TD of the game, but it might be a long season for them and everyone else associated with this organization.

We weren’t watching the game all that closely, but I’m sure Washington’s offensive line was key to their struggles, so we don’t want to pile on to the skill players without at least mentioning that it might not be entirely their fault. A dismal game from a neutral, non-fantasy standpoint, but it is football and beats the hell out of watching whoever the hell was speaking before McCain.

Back later with some notable injuries.