Tuesday Review v2.12
The elongated Thanksgiving week of games concluded last night with a game for the ages. Not since the 1950s has a game been scoreless for so long. The groundskeeper at Ketchup Stadium sure picked the wrong week to lay brand new sod all over the worn parts of the field. The players looked like they were playing in a wading pool and every ball put into the air stuck to the ground like it had been hit with a sand wedge. As Kornheiser commented in the second half, "This sure is a great night to be firing at the flags!"
Heath Miller, who, with a few catches and some time in the end zone, could have helped tighten the race for 3rd place in the PPFFL, did nothing but get called for penalties. He threw up a big, fat, fantasy donut, leaving the standings exactly as they were at this time last week.
Official Standings (Week 12):
The Maestro 1,657.22 (144.90)
Kellogg Krushers 1,442.29 (145.97)
The Dragons 1,274.85 (80.38)
The Bouncers 1,249.80 (102.89)
The Outlaws 1,172.40 (108.85)
The Dominator 1,099.98 (113.61)
Chad Johnson's performance on Sunday helped The Dominator secure the 12th "I Sure Wish I Would Have Played That Guy Award" of the season. Ocho Cinco (38.15), who a couple of weeks ago was hooked up to a bunch of machines in the hospital, rose like Lazarus and put up Moss and Owens type numbers, in a game the Bengals actually managed to win. When you're a highly paid "star" and you wait until the 12th game of the season to have an impact on your team, you truly are in synch with this generation's athletes. Congratulations, Chad, your crummy play this season had the PPFFL's worst team sitting you on the bench in favor of the Braylon Edwardses (12.85) of the world. Now that the season is over for your once highly thought of team, feel free to put up big stats the rest of the way in an effort to get paid big in 2008.
The Maestro remains at the top of the standings, nearly pulling off another octuple double. Randy Moss (7.15), who was blanketed by the Eagles all night on Sunday, was the only guy to fall short of double figures. Tom Brady (41.40) and Larry Fitzgerald (31.80) were the big boys of the week, with Jason Hanson (19.00) having a huge game for a kicker. Fitzgerald's day was symbolic of what it's like to play professional football in Arizona. In a game against the worst team in the NFC, with a chance to get solidly into playoff position, the Cardinals experienced mountainous highs, along with the ignominious low of actually losing to the Niners. In Fitzgerlad's case, he killed the Niner defense all day long, even snagging a 48-yard Hail Mary TD to end the first half. When the game was on the line, though, and the Cards with the ball at the 2-yard line with one play to win, they called timeout and decided to throw a fade to their 5' 10" fourth string wideout. The play, predictably failed and the rest of the Arizona meltdown will be chronicled in the summary of The Dominator. Oh, and just to clarify a point for you Cardinal fans, Fitzgerald is 6'4" and outjumped everyone on the Niner defense before the half to catch a desperation pass...yet, during a timeout the Arizona braintrust found it better to throw the jump ball to the guy 6 inches shorter who doesn't even play all the time.
The honor of being the top scorer for the week goes to the Kellogg Krushers. Thanksgiving was huge for these guys as America's QB, Brett Favre (52.57), was awesome on the truly American holiday. Calvin Johnson (17.15) had one of his best games of the year in the same contest (even though he dropped about 5 passes), and Dallas Clark (13.45) had a nice game as the Colts drubbed the Falcons in the 2nd half. Wes Welker (23.45) picked up the slack for Randy Moss and Steven Jackson (14.25) did all he could in a game the Rams gagged away to the Seahawks. In what should be the signature highlight for the 2007 Rams, Gus Frerotte fumbled the snap on a 4th and goal from the one as the Rams were going for the victory. If you don't like that, you don't like NFC West football! The Patriot defense (13.00) put up nice fake numbers, due primarily to an interception return for a TD, but was otherwise shaky. In a home game against a team that gave up 12 sacks in a game a few weeks ago, it was less than dominating to give up 28 points. And, in case you didn't notice, that wasn't All Pro QB Dunnavunn McNabb under center Sunday Night, that was A.J. Feeley. The same guy who was a prominent part of the after-Marino carousel of QB suckitude in Miami. He predictably threw the killer interception as the Eagles were driving to either tie or win the game on a play where his primary receiver wasn't within a 15 yard radius of the ball.
The Dragons gave us the best example of how important it is to get production from the quarterback position. Jeff Garcia (1.18) subbed for the injured McNabb (just like he did for real last year in Philadelphia) and was knocked out of the game in the 1st quarter. Reasonable production from Garcia would have put his fake team well over 100 points for the week and would have kept them comfortably in front of their arch-nemesis, The Bouncers. Fortunately, Brian Westbrook (17.50), Terrell Owens (15.25), and Reggie Wayne (14.30) picked up the slack. It bears mentioning that T.O. wasn't doing too much on Thanksgiving, but was continually thrown to in the second half. You'd be a fool to think that wasn't a serious effort to get T.O. some stats in a game most of America was watching. If he'd have been held to the 2 or 3 catches he looked like he was going to have, without getting into the end zone, he would have been ready to fake another suicide, no matter what the final score of the game was. Kudos to Wade Phillips for recognizing a potential problem and doing what was necessary to avert it. Back to The Dragons for a moment, a big decision looms this week at QB. Phillip Rivers, who is Alex Smith with a better o-line, had a very good game this week, after weeks of stinking up the joint. Does he get the start this week, or does this team look for another guy on waivers? A swift recovery from McNabb is the only thing that will help Dave avoid having to make this decision.
Back into reasonable contention for the top half of the standings are The Bouncers. Peyton Manning (38.44), Greg Jennings (20.00), and the Chicago defense (19.00) made up for the fact that this team is wracked by injuries to its running backs. Only Cedric Benson (2.35) began the week healthy enough to play and he was knocked out of the game with an injury before halftime. Combine that with the injuries to Marshawn Lynch and Shaun Alexander and this team is getting punished for the decision to carry only 3 RBs on the roster. Their inexperience as phony GMs will be cited unless they are able to pick up some productive toters before Thursday. Everyone and their brother has been piling on Mike Shanahan for his stupid decision to keep kicking to Devin Hester on Sunday, and for good reason. It's been years since Denver has been a legitimate contender, but Shanahan continues to be revered as one of the league's best coaches. In addition to looking like an overly tanned rat, he is the one that thinks it's a good idea to revamp Denver's D-line every offseason; fired the team's defensive coordinator last season when the unit was in the league's top ten (it finished in the bottom half last season and is currently 25th this season); and replaced Jake Plummer with Jay Cutler at QB when the team was 7-4 last season. Needless to say, Cutler hasn't turned into the young Elway that Shanahan expected. All of this proves that Shanahan is basically Denny Green, right down to kicking to Devin Hester all the time. Devin Hester is who we thought he was!
Maintaining their hold on 5th place are The Outlaws. They got big numbers on Turkey Day from Tony Romo (31.75), Nick Folk (11.00), and Ryan Grant (21.60), then got propped up by Chris Cooley (16.80) on the weekend. They were hurt a little bit by Brandon Jacobs (DNP) missing the Giants game against Minnesota. Realistically, though, Jacobs wouldn't have been doing much more than trying to tackle the Viking defensive backs who were trying to run all of Eli's picks back to the house. Eli saw the way Peyton played in San Diego a couple of weeks ago and made sure everyone knew who the lamest Manning truly was. While watching the game last night, a commercial for some kind of watch came on, starring Eli. Peyton was nowhere to be found, which was very surprising. Anyway, as noted before, Eli had no speaking part in the commercial. Can anyone definitively answer if he can actually speak, other than grunting out random numbers and hut-huts on the field? He's like a real life version of the Daryls on the old "Newhart" show. Can't you see Peyton taking his brothers out to a dinner where he's receiving some humanitarian award and introducing himself like this: "Hi, I'm Peyton. This is my brother, Eli. And, this is my other brother, Eli."
Cracking the 1,000 point barrier in Week 12 was The Dominator. Derek Anderson (33.56) continued to play well, propping up the stats of his targets Kellen Winslow (24.35) and Braylon Edwards (12.85). Donald Driver (20.35) had a huge game on Thanksgiving, and received tons of praise from Brett Favre in a postgame interview. That led the Popster to scream at the TV, "The why don't you throw him the #$%^&*%&$ ball in the end zone, you *&^*%#&*% hillbilly?!!?" I think the ignominity of being in last place for so long is beginning to rear its ugly head. Let's face it, the reliance on Arizona Cardinal players can't be helping, as Edge James (6.45) and Neil Rackers (6.00) were on the humiliating end of a loss to the Niners. Continuing the analysis from above on how shameful it is to be on or root for the Arizona team, we focus on Rackers. By all accounts, he is one of the NFL's most reliable kickers, or used to be. On Sunday, after tying the game in regulation, he was given a golden opportunity in overtime to send the fans home happy as he lined up for a chip shot FG. The kick sailed straight through from 29 yards and "The Rack" raced around the field with his arms held high in triumph. One problem, though. The snap came a couple of seconds after the play clock expired, moving the ball back 5 yards. A 34-yard attempt indoors off of a perfectly groomed field is still a chip shot in anyone's book, yet Rackers promptly hooked it left, initiating the final series of events that would lead to Kurt Warner's end zone fumble and another ridiculous loss for the Cards.
Notes:
The elongated Thanksgiving week of games concluded last night with a game for the ages. Not since the 1950s has a game been scoreless for so long. The groundskeeper at Ketchup Stadium sure picked the wrong week to lay brand new sod all over the worn parts of the field. The players looked like they were playing in a wading pool and every ball put into the air stuck to the ground like it had been hit with a sand wedge. As Kornheiser commented in the second half, "This sure is a great night to be firing at the flags!"
Heath Miller, who, with a few catches and some time in the end zone, could have helped tighten the race for 3rd place in the PPFFL, did nothing but get called for penalties. He threw up a big, fat, fantasy donut, leaving the standings exactly as they were at this time last week.
Official Standings (Week 12):
The Maestro 1,657.22 (144.90)
Kellogg Krushers 1,442.29 (145.97)
The Dragons 1,274.85 (80.38)
The Bouncers 1,249.80 (102.89)
The Outlaws 1,172.40 (108.85)
The Dominator 1,099.98 (113.61)
Chad Johnson's performance on Sunday helped The Dominator secure the 12th "I Sure Wish I Would Have Played That Guy Award" of the season. Ocho Cinco (38.15), who a couple of weeks ago was hooked up to a bunch of machines in the hospital, rose like Lazarus and put up Moss and Owens type numbers, in a game the Bengals actually managed to win. When you're a highly paid "star" and you wait until the 12th game of the season to have an impact on your team, you truly are in synch with this generation's athletes. Congratulations, Chad, your crummy play this season had the PPFFL's worst team sitting you on the bench in favor of the Braylon Edwardses (12.85) of the world. Now that the season is over for your once highly thought of team, feel free to put up big stats the rest of the way in an effort to get paid big in 2008.
The Maestro remains at the top of the standings, nearly pulling off another octuple double. Randy Moss (7.15), who was blanketed by the Eagles all night on Sunday, was the only guy to fall short of double figures. Tom Brady (41.40) and Larry Fitzgerald (31.80) were the big boys of the week, with Jason Hanson (19.00) having a huge game for a kicker. Fitzgerald's day was symbolic of what it's like to play professional football in Arizona. In a game against the worst team in the NFC, with a chance to get solidly into playoff position, the Cardinals experienced mountainous highs, along with the ignominious low of actually losing to the Niners. In Fitzgerlad's case, he killed the Niner defense all day long, even snagging a 48-yard Hail Mary TD to end the first half. When the game was on the line, though, and the Cards with the ball at the 2-yard line with one play to win, they called timeout and decided to throw a fade to their 5' 10" fourth string wideout. The play, predictably failed and the rest of the Arizona meltdown will be chronicled in the summary of The Dominator. Oh, and just to clarify a point for you Cardinal fans, Fitzgerald is 6'4" and outjumped everyone on the Niner defense before the half to catch a desperation pass...yet, during a timeout the Arizona braintrust found it better to throw the jump ball to the guy 6 inches shorter who doesn't even play all the time.
The honor of being the top scorer for the week goes to the Kellogg Krushers. Thanksgiving was huge for these guys as America's QB, Brett Favre (52.57), was awesome on the truly American holiday. Calvin Johnson (17.15) had one of his best games of the year in the same contest (even though he dropped about 5 passes), and Dallas Clark (13.45) had a nice game as the Colts drubbed the Falcons in the 2nd half. Wes Welker (23.45) picked up the slack for Randy Moss and Steven Jackson (14.25) did all he could in a game the Rams gagged away to the Seahawks. In what should be the signature highlight for the 2007 Rams, Gus Frerotte fumbled the snap on a 4th and goal from the one as the Rams were going for the victory. If you don't like that, you don't like NFC West football! The Patriot defense (13.00) put up nice fake numbers, due primarily to an interception return for a TD, but was otherwise shaky. In a home game against a team that gave up 12 sacks in a game a few weeks ago, it was less than dominating to give up 28 points. And, in case you didn't notice, that wasn't All Pro QB Dunnavunn McNabb under center Sunday Night, that was A.J. Feeley. The same guy who was a prominent part of the after-Marino carousel of QB suckitude in Miami. He predictably threw the killer interception as the Eagles were driving to either tie or win the game on a play where his primary receiver wasn't within a 15 yard radius of the ball.
The Dragons gave us the best example of how important it is to get production from the quarterback position. Jeff Garcia (1.18) subbed for the injured McNabb (just like he did for real last year in Philadelphia) and was knocked out of the game in the 1st quarter. Reasonable production from Garcia would have put his fake team well over 100 points for the week and would have kept them comfortably in front of their arch-nemesis, The Bouncers. Fortunately, Brian Westbrook (17.50), Terrell Owens (15.25), and Reggie Wayne (14.30) picked up the slack. It bears mentioning that T.O. wasn't doing too much on Thanksgiving, but was continually thrown to in the second half. You'd be a fool to think that wasn't a serious effort to get T.O. some stats in a game most of America was watching. If he'd have been held to the 2 or 3 catches he looked like he was going to have, without getting into the end zone, he would have been ready to fake another suicide, no matter what the final score of the game was. Kudos to Wade Phillips for recognizing a potential problem and doing what was necessary to avert it. Back to The Dragons for a moment, a big decision looms this week at QB. Phillip Rivers, who is Alex Smith with a better o-line, had a very good game this week, after weeks of stinking up the joint. Does he get the start this week, or does this team look for another guy on waivers? A swift recovery from McNabb is the only thing that will help Dave avoid having to make this decision.
Back into reasonable contention for the top half of the standings are The Bouncers. Peyton Manning (38.44), Greg Jennings (20.00), and the Chicago defense (19.00) made up for the fact that this team is wracked by injuries to its running backs. Only Cedric Benson (2.35) began the week healthy enough to play and he was knocked out of the game with an injury before halftime. Combine that with the injuries to Marshawn Lynch and Shaun Alexander and this team is getting punished for the decision to carry only 3 RBs on the roster. Their inexperience as phony GMs will be cited unless they are able to pick up some productive toters before Thursday. Everyone and their brother has been piling on Mike Shanahan for his stupid decision to keep kicking to Devin Hester on Sunday, and for good reason. It's been years since Denver has been a legitimate contender, but Shanahan continues to be revered as one of the league's best coaches. In addition to looking like an overly tanned rat, he is the one that thinks it's a good idea to revamp Denver's D-line every offseason; fired the team's defensive coordinator last season when the unit was in the league's top ten (it finished in the bottom half last season and is currently 25th this season); and replaced Jake Plummer with Jay Cutler at QB when the team was 7-4 last season. Needless to say, Cutler hasn't turned into the young Elway that Shanahan expected. All of this proves that Shanahan is basically Denny Green, right down to kicking to Devin Hester all the time. Devin Hester is who we thought he was!
Maintaining their hold on 5th place are The Outlaws. They got big numbers on Turkey Day from Tony Romo (31.75), Nick Folk (11.00), and Ryan Grant (21.60), then got propped up by Chris Cooley (16.80) on the weekend. They were hurt a little bit by Brandon Jacobs (DNP) missing the Giants game against Minnesota. Realistically, though, Jacobs wouldn't have been doing much more than trying to tackle the Viking defensive backs who were trying to run all of Eli's picks back to the house. Eli saw the way Peyton played in San Diego a couple of weeks ago and made sure everyone knew who the lamest Manning truly was. While watching the game last night, a commercial for some kind of watch came on, starring Eli. Peyton was nowhere to be found, which was very surprising. Anyway, as noted before, Eli had no speaking part in the commercial. Can anyone definitively answer if he can actually speak, other than grunting out random numbers and hut-huts on the field? He's like a real life version of the Daryls on the old "Newhart" show. Can't you see Peyton taking his brothers out to a dinner where he's receiving some humanitarian award and introducing himself like this: "Hi, I'm Peyton. This is my brother, Eli. And, this is my other brother, Eli."
Cracking the 1,000 point barrier in Week 12 was The Dominator. Derek Anderson (33.56) continued to play well, propping up the stats of his targets Kellen Winslow (24.35) and Braylon Edwards (12.85). Donald Driver (20.35) had a huge game on Thanksgiving, and received tons of praise from Brett Favre in a postgame interview. That led the Popster to scream at the TV, "The why don't you throw him the #$%^&*%&$ ball in the end zone, you *&^*%#&*% hillbilly?!!?" I think the ignominity of being in last place for so long is beginning to rear its ugly head. Let's face it, the reliance on Arizona Cardinal players can't be helping, as Edge James (6.45) and Neil Rackers (6.00) were on the humiliating end of a loss to the Niners. Continuing the analysis from above on how shameful it is to be on or root for the Arizona team, we focus on Rackers. By all accounts, he is one of the NFL's most reliable kickers, or used to be. On Sunday, after tying the game in regulation, he was given a golden opportunity in overtime to send the fans home happy as he lined up for a chip shot FG. The kick sailed straight through from 29 yards and "The Rack" raced around the field with his arms held high in triumph. One problem, though. The snap came a couple of seconds after the play clock expired, moving the ball back 5 yards. A 34-yard attempt indoors off of a perfectly groomed field is still a chip shot in anyone's book, yet Rackers promptly hooked it left, initiating the final series of events that would lead to Kurt Warner's end zone fumble and another ridiculous loss for the Cards.
Notes:
- Get your transaction requests in soon. The Cowboys and Packers tee it up on Thursday, so we need to get the lineups set before then.
- I take back what I said about Tony Kornheiser a few weeks ago. He was very funny last night on Monday Night Football. If nothing else, he's the perfect analyst to have around for a near scoreless game being played in a monsoon on a field disintegrating before our eyes.
Sorry for the lack of post analysis notes, but I have work to do. Do great things, gentlemen.
The Commish
posted by Patrick Zalasky at 9:08 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home