Fantasy Football

This was a rather askew week for fantasy football and the NFL alike, mostly as a result of a fucking monsoon devastating the 4PM and Sunday night games taking place in the eastern time zone, but it definitely had an effect on the 1PM games as well. If anyone was unfortunate enough to watch the Browns-Colts, then you can probably attest to as much.

First off, let me just say that I can definitely sympathize with anyone who had fantasy players in that game who weren’t either defenses. I’m not sure if it was the weather or what, but if I had any authoritative control over what took place in Cleveland yesterday I would be offering a tearful apology. It looked like Romeo Crennel was actually under the impression that his 6-3 lead that he accrued in the second quarter would actually hold the entire game, so the conditions must have been atrocious. Or Crennel is an overrated coach who had one fluke season with a soft schedule and is clearly in over his head. Tomato, tamato.

But when you have Manning, Braylon Edwards (and to a lesser extent, Dallas Clark) on your roster in just that one game, and you face a four touchdown Brian Westbrook performance, well, it’s impressive that you even finish within fifty points of your opponent. Not to mention a Vincent Jackson performance that failed to net a single catch in yet another disappointing home loss. Combine that with Denver winning in surprising dominant fashion at the Jets, and their season is effectively over.

But enough self-loathing, as their was a litany of lopsided surprises this weekend. In addition to the Broncos beating the streaking Jets, Minnesota racked up 34 in a win against the defensive oriented Bears, Pittsburgh decided to show up this week and put a drubbing on the Patriots in New England and though it was a little more even, Carolina managed to make me look like an idiot by winning in Green Bay. The latter turned out to be the only entertaining game of the week.

For a week with fifteen games played in it, eight of them were decided by 16 points or more, another was the Chiefs-Raiders, one was the aforementioned Colts-Browns, a third was the Niners 10-3 win in Buffalo (marking the first time a pacific team beat an eastern team on the road), and another was a 16-12 eyesore involving the Dolphins and Rams. That leaves three games that may have proven intriguing, and their was nothing all that spectacular about any of them.

In short, it was a terrible week to be confined to a living room watching football. The only thing that could have redeemed it would have been a fantasy win. Or even the potential for a win. Being subjected to the Colts-Browns wasn’t exactly making for a great afternoon. At least over on FOX we had a Giants-Redskins contest that everyone insisted was going to be hotly contested.

It wasn’t. The Giants beat them as convincingly as they seem to beat everyone these days. Which brings me to the Plaxico Burress debacle, who might have just exceeded every conceivable measure that one could lose a fantasy player. I wouldn’t know how long it takes to recover from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the leg, as I only watch The Wire and don’t attempt to embody it (Speaking of which, someone should tell Burress that Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell never carried a firearm; so he probably doesn’t need to either). But even if he is cleared medically to play before the end of the season (which he won’t be), I can’t imagine Coughlin, Giants front office or law and order Goodell approving his return.

Naturally, because things had been trudging along too smoothly for the Giants, it looks like Antonio Pierce could be implicated in some wrong doing for potentially disposing of the illegal firearm of which Burress shot himself. Derrick Ward was reportedly at the club with them, but doesn’t seem to have any rumors circulating about his involvement. Now, one could look at the three games the Giants have played this season without Burress (this week, last week against the Cardinals and a one game suspension against the Rams) and conclude that they probably do not need him to repeat. But losing Pierce would be catastrophic, as the Giants are stretched thin on defense as it is. Normally I wouldn’t care about any of this, but when you have a $50, 20-1 stake in a teams season, it tends to pique your interest.

Right now, the Giants look like the clear cut favorite to win the NFC, but with the Titans, Colts, Steelers (and to a lesser extent) the Jets all peaking at the right time; that AFC supremacy we’ve heard about for the past seven or eight years starts to look more and more glaring. For the time being, they’re still the favorites. But teams have under-performed in the past with much fewer setbacks and distractions. We’ll see just how much like Teflon this Giants team is next week against the Cowboys.

And finally, in honor of the crapshoot that is the 2008 NFL season, we’re going to be issuing an award for the least suspecting performance of every Saturday every week. Last week we dubbed this the Tim Hightower/Peyton Hillis/Mark Bradley performer of the day, but for the sake of brevity we’ll cut it to the Tim Hightower award. The stipulations for this award is that you have to be owned by less than 30% of the leagues on Yahoo, relatively obscure and have an aberration of a performance for one week.

This week’s Tim Hightower award winner: Mark Clayton. Clayton, a fourth year receiver out of Oklahoma managed to receive and pass for a touchdown last week against the lowly Bengals. He is often confused with Michael Clayton, who was also a first round draft pick taken out of LSU the season before Mark. Our winner has toiled away in obscurity as Baltimore has struggled to find a legitimate passing game ever since Vinny Testaverde bolted for the Jets in the late 90’s. So congratulations, Mark Clayton, on dropping a third of your seasonal production in one week on nobody in particular because you’ve never been reliable enough to own, much less start.

That’s it for today, back with more tomorrow.