Tuesday Review v3.6
A relatively lackluster week in the PPFFL turned into a boon for Team STY when Braylon Edwards decided to start catching passes, including ones that led him into the end zone. This once despondent team posted over 150 points for the week and officially became part of the PPFFL's upper tier.
In what is shaping up to be the most exciting season in our fake football league's history, we have at least a four team battle shaping up as we head toward the midpoint of the season. The top two teams, in fact, are separated by less than a point. This is the closest two teams have ever been, anywhere in the standings, at any point in the season. To paraphrase Peaches Napear, this season is going to be a DANDY!
Official Standings (Week 6):
Cyclones 678.87 (117.55)
The Dragons 678.81 (119.47)
Gnomies 670.36 (90.73)
Team STY 645.38 (152.62)
The Maestro 611.99 (96.42)
The Dominator 599.08 (67.94)
The Outlaws 511.03 (68.10)
The Dragons take this week's "I Sure Wish I Would Have Played That Guy" Award. Had they played Andre Johnson (25.95) instead of the less than motivated Randy Moss (4.30), they would be leading the league right now. Heck, they could have subbed Johnson for their other receiver, the brightly clad Terrell Owens (6.10), and the result would have been the same.
The Cyclones took back the league lead on the back of the frontrunner for the 2008 PPFFL MVP Award, Drew Brees (51.75). His performance against the Raiders was about as perfect as a QB can be, as only four of his 30 passes fell to the ground. After the game, though, New Orleans coach Sean Payton had criticism for his franchise player, saying "I know he went 26-for-30 for over 300 yards and 3 touchdowns, but we were playing the Raiders. Those four incompletions are blemishes that are unacceptable to me." Frank Gore (17.85) was headed for a huge day until the Niners took a nine point lead over the Eagles and Mike Martz decided to turn the game over to J.T. O'Sullivan. The result was negative yardage in the 4th quarter, three killer turnovers, and being outscored 23-0. Larry Fitzgerald (14.95) and Calvin Johnson (12.25) had decent games, helping make up for the fact that this team cannot find a tight end that can produce anything better than what Dallas Clark (2.85) did on Sunday.
Only six-one-hundreths of a point back are The Dragons. Kurt Warner (30.67) didn't have his best week of the season, but it was enough to put this fake team into a near tie for first place. Correll Buckhalter (21.90) was a tremendous pickup in the wake of Brian Westbrook's injury. He provided proof that career backups can earn big contracts if they get the chance to start against the Niners. Reggie Bush (18.75) had another great game against a sad sack Bay Area team. Philadelphia's defense (16.00) and Nate Kaeding (12.00) chipped in solid numbers from areas where double figures aren't always a certainty. As mentioned above, one place where big numbers didn't come from was the WR position. Moss looks to be back to his Raider days where, playing with a bad QB, he seemed to only try hard when he ran a deep pattern. Occasionally, like against the Niners, he will connect on one of those routes, but typically he will be worthless, as he was against San Diego on Sunday night. T.O., meanwhile, had his ninth straight game of less than 100 yards receiving. This led to him dressing like a cab driver in Lazy Town and ignoring all reporters, except to reiterate that everything was okay. No, T.O., those Elton John-esque sunglasses suggest that everything isn't okay. The plaid driving hat, though, is a great touch. You might want to wear it next week when you strip down to your compression shorts to do arm curls and crunches in your driveway.
Fading a little in Week 6 were the Gnomies. Their first week of under 100 points in awhile was due mostly to a pedeatrian game from Brett Favre (24.73) and horrible games from Adrian Peterson (5.30) and Steve Slaton (4.05). In fact, had it not been for an exceptional week from the Tampa Bay defense (21.00), this week would have been a near disaster. It just proves the rule that when you rely on Brett Favre to carry your fake football team, you are relying on Brett Favre to carry your fake football team. Oh, and the week off that Favre had to help the economy recover didn't really help. Heck, the stock market went down over 25% during that time. Fortunately for America, Kurt Warner and the Cardinals took care of things, beating the Cowboys and inflicting heartache and grief on Jerry Jones. Had that not happened, God would have surely taken out his frustration on the world's most surgically enhanced oilman billionaire by pushing the stock market down another 500 points yesterday. Kurt, America thanks you and your buzz cut wearing wife.
A great week for Team STY ended on a less than positive note: Tony Romo (42.42) will be out for at least a month with a broken pinky on his throwing hand. Unless there are some front office moves looming for this team, that means it's immediate future is being placed in the shaky hands of Eli Manning. Don't let recent articles stating that Eli is now better than his big brother fool you; this is still Eli. Super Bowl trophies aside, this is the guy who took the gas pipe last night against one of the worst teams in the NFL, albeit the best team in Ohio. Fortunately, guys like Marion Barber III (28.65), Braylon Edwards (23.70), and Reggie Wayne (22.90) stepped up. For the sake of this team, it is imperative that these guys keep producing until Romo comes back. Barber looks to benefit the most statistically, as he will probably be the only eligible receiver that the Cowboys will line up within the throwing range of backup QB Brad Johnson (Did you hear that, T.O.?. Your QB for the next month has a weaker arm than Chad Pennington!).
Leading the pack of also rans at this point is The Maestro. Early in the day on Sunday, it looked as though this team would be making a move similar to that of Team STY. Peyton Manning (37.82) posted about a 35 point first half and Ronnie Brown (13.65) was again racking up yardage out of the Wildcat. Unfortunately, Manning stopped throwing in the 2nd half of their rout and guys like Felix Jones (2.20), Jason Witten (6.75), DeSean Jackson (12.35), and Wes Welker (12.85) didn't get the memo that it was okay for them to score touchdowns. Every player that represents this fake team seems to think that the end zone is covered in burning coals or has hungry grizzly bears waiting there. There are no stats to back this up, but it's likely no other team has a higher yards gained to touchdowns ratio than this team.
The PPFFL's worst Week 6 belonged to The Dominator. Two weeks ago this team was knocking on the door of the penthouse. Now, they are falling back toward the bottom. Jay Cutler (25.94) was decent and Clinton Portis (23.15) was great, but the rest of the team was nearly non-existent. Joseph Addai (0.15) was hurt early against Baltimore. Santana Moss (3.10), meanwhile, was shut down by the laughingstock known as the Rams. The rest of this team either was scratched late because of injury (James Jones and Shayne Graham) or played like their relative anonymity would suggest (Visanthe Shiancoe). One positive, though (and it's nice to have at least one during a week like this), was when the Minnesota defense (14.00) tricked Lions QB Dan Orlovsky into believing the end zone was 20 yards deep. This led to the hilarious highlight of Orlovsky taking a snap at his own 2-yard line and dropping back fifteen yards before rolling out. The fact that he ran the play full speed and even threw the pass after taking about 20 steps while he was out of bounds was the really funny part. It's amazing he didn't realize his mistake when he had to juke to get out of the way of the goal post. "Lions Football 2008: The Field Can't Contain Us!"
Once again, the team summaries end with a recap of the week for The Outlaws. Their week wasn't the worst, but it wasn't much better than the worst. In a week where a lot of guys were scratched late, they lost Eddie Royal to that fate, then saw the heretofore dominant Giants defense (-1.00) get spanked around the field by the heretofore anemic Browns offense. Not even Dunnavunn McNabb (32.30) cashed in on what should have been a 50 or 60 point outing against the Niners. Royal and Brandon Marshall (11.90), the once unstoppable duo for Denver, was hampered by injury and a Jaguar defense that brought out the Jay Cutler of 2006-2007. It's getting late early for this team, as they're about a week and a half's worth of points out of first place. This has been written in past seasons about this team, though, and they always get hot and pull themselves up toward the middle. This team is like Barry Zito. This is their 0-9 start. Now we just have to see if they have a 10-6 finish in them.
Notes:
A relatively lackluster week in the PPFFL turned into a boon for Team STY when Braylon Edwards decided to start catching passes, including ones that led him into the end zone. This once despondent team posted over 150 points for the week and officially became part of the PPFFL's upper tier.
In what is shaping up to be the most exciting season in our fake football league's history, we have at least a four team battle shaping up as we head toward the midpoint of the season. The top two teams, in fact, are separated by less than a point. This is the closest two teams have ever been, anywhere in the standings, at any point in the season. To paraphrase Peaches Napear, this season is going to be a DANDY!
Official Standings (Week 6):
Cyclones 678.87 (117.55)
The Dragons 678.81 (119.47)
Gnomies 670.36 (90.73)
Team STY 645.38 (152.62)
The Maestro 611.99 (96.42)
The Dominator 599.08 (67.94)
The Outlaws 511.03 (68.10)
The Dragons take this week's "I Sure Wish I Would Have Played That Guy" Award. Had they played Andre Johnson (25.95) instead of the less than motivated Randy Moss (4.30), they would be leading the league right now. Heck, they could have subbed Johnson for their other receiver, the brightly clad Terrell Owens (6.10), and the result would have been the same.
The Cyclones took back the league lead on the back of the frontrunner for the 2008 PPFFL MVP Award, Drew Brees (51.75). His performance against the Raiders was about as perfect as a QB can be, as only four of his 30 passes fell to the ground. After the game, though, New Orleans coach Sean Payton had criticism for his franchise player, saying "I know he went 26-for-30 for over 300 yards and 3 touchdowns, but we were playing the Raiders. Those four incompletions are blemishes that are unacceptable to me." Frank Gore (17.85) was headed for a huge day until the Niners took a nine point lead over the Eagles and Mike Martz decided to turn the game over to J.T. O'Sullivan. The result was negative yardage in the 4th quarter, three killer turnovers, and being outscored 23-0. Larry Fitzgerald (14.95) and Calvin Johnson (12.25) had decent games, helping make up for the fact that this team cannot find a tight end that can produce anything better than what Dallas Clark (2.85) did on Sunday.
Only six-one-hundreths of a point back are The Dragons. Kurt Warner (30.67) didn't have his best week of the season, but it was enough to put this fake team into a near tie for first place. Correll Buckhalter (21.90) was a tremendous pickup in the wake of Brian Westbrook's injury. He provided proof that career backups can earn big contracts if they get the chance to start against the Niners. Reggie Bush (18.75) had another great game against a sad sack Bay Area team. Philadelphia's defense (16.00) and Nate Kaeding (12.00) chipped in solid numbers from areas where double figures aren't always a certainty. As mentioned above, one place where big numbers didn't come from was the WR position. Moss looks to be back to his Raider days where, playing with a bad QB, he seemed to only try hard when he ran a deep pattern. Occasionally, like against the Niners, he will connect on one of those routes, but typically he will be worthless, as he was against San Diego on Sunday night. T.O., meanwhile, had his ninth straight game of less than 100 yards receiving. This led to him dressing like a cab driver in Lazy Town and ignoring all reporters, except to reiterate that everything was okay. No, T.O., those Elton John-esque sunglasses suggest that everything isn't okay. The plaid driving hat, though, is a great touch. You might want to wear it next week when you strip down to your compression shorts to do arm curls and crunches in your driveway.
Fading a little in Week 6 were the Gnomies. Their first week of under 100 points in awhile was due mostly to a pedeatrian game from Brett Favre (24.73) and horrible games from Adrian Peterson (5.30) and Steve Slaton (4.05). In fact, had it not been for an exceptional week from the Tampa Bay defense (21.00), this week would have been a near disaster. It just proves the rule that when you rely on Brett Favre to carry your fake football team, you are relying on Brett Favre to carry your fake football team. Oh, and the week off that Favre had to help the economy recover didn't really help. Heck, the stock market went down over 25% during that time. Fortunately for America, Kurt Warner and the Cardinals took care of things, beating the Cowboys and inflicting heartache and grief on Jerry Jones. Had that not happened, God would have surely taken out his frustration on the world's most surgically enhanced oilman billionaire by pushing the stock market down another 500 points yesterday. Kurt, America thanks you and your buzz cut wearing wife.
A great week for Team STY ended on a less than positive note: Tony Romo (42.42) will be out for at least a month with a broken pinky on his throwing hand. Unless there are some front office moves looming for this team, that means it's immediate future is being placed in the shaky hands of Eli Manning. Don't let recent articles stating that Eli is now better than his big brother fool you; this is still Eli. Super Bowl trophies aside, this is the guy who took the gas pipe last night against one of the worst teams in the NFL, albeit the best team in Ohio. Fortunately, guys like Marion Barber III (28.65), Braylon Edwards (23.70), and Reggie Wayne (22.90) stepped up. For the sake of this team, it is imperative that these guys keep producing until Romo comes back. Barber looks to benefit the most statistically, as he will probably be the only eligible receiver that the Cowboys will line up within the throwing range of backup QB Brad Johnson (Did you hear that, T.O.?. Your QB for the next month has a weaker arm than Chad Pennington!).
Leading the pack of also rans at this point is The Maestro. Early in the day on Sunday, it looked as though this team would be making a move similar to that of Team STY. Peyton Manning (37.82) posted about a 35 point first half and Ronnie Brown (13.65) was again racking up yardage out of the Wildcat. Unfortunately, Manning stopped throwing in the 2nd half of their rout and guys like Felix Jones (2.20), Jason Witten (6.75), DeSean Jackson (12.35), and Wes Welker (12.85) didn't get the memo that it was okay for them to score touchdowns. Every player that represents this fake team seems to think that the end zone is covered in burning coals or has hungry grizzly bears waiting there. There are no stats to back this up, but it's likely no other team has a higher yards gained to touchdowns ratio than this team.
The PPFFL's worst Week 6 belonged to The Dominator. Two weeks ago this team was knocking on the door of the penthouse. Now, they are falling back toward the bottom. Jay Cutler (25.94) was decent and Clinton Portis (23.15) was great, but the rest of the team was nearly non-existent. Joseph Addai (0.15) was hurt early against Baltimore. Santana Moss (3.10), meanwhile, was shut down by the laughingstock known as the Rams. The rest of this team either was scratched late because of injury (James Jones and Shayne Graham) or played like their relative anonymity would suggest (Visanthe Shiancoe). One positive, though (and it's nice to have at least one during a week like this), was when the Minnesota defense (14.00) tricked Lions QB Dan Orlovsky into believing the end zone was 20 yards deep. This led to the hilarious highlight of Orlovsky taking a snap at his own 2-yard line and dropping back fifteen yards before rolling out. The fact that he ran the play full speed and even threw the pass after taking about 20 steps while he was out of bounds was the really funny part. It's amazing he didn't realize his mistake when he had to juke to get out of the way of the goal post. "Lions Football 2008: The Field Can't Contain Us!"
Once again, the team summaries end with a recap of the week for The Outlaws. Their week wasn't the worst, but it wasn't much better than the worst. In a week where a lot of guys were scratched late, they lost Eddie Royal to that fate, then saw the heretofore dominant Giants defense (-1.00) get spanked around the field by the heretofore anemic Browns offense. Not even Dunnavunn McNabb (32.30) cashed in on what should have been a 50 or 60 point outing against the Niners. Royal and Brandon Marshall (11.90), the once unstoppable duo for Denver, was hampered by injury and a Jaguar defense that brought out the Jay Cutler of 2006-2007. It's getting late early for this team, as they're about a week and a half's worth of points out of first place. This has been written in past seasons about this team, though, and they always get hot and pull themselves up toward the middle. This team is like Barry Zito. This is their 0-9 start. Now we just have to see if they have a 10-6 finish in them.
Notes:
- The League Championship Series are in full swing right now, with Philadelphia up 3-1 on the Dodgers and Tampa leading the Red Sox 2-1. Fox is no doubt hoping for huge comebacks in each series so they can have a World Series featuring two of the biggest media markets in the country, not to mention the Manny and Joe Torre vs. Boston storyline..
- During the radio broadcast of yesterday's Rays/Red Sox game, there was this exchange: John Miller: "Joe, what do you think is wrong with David Ortiz? He looks lost up there?" Joe Morgan: "He has to be hurt. He just can't hit the good fastball anymore" It's more than a little ironic that Big Papi's performance has slipped over the last couple of seasons while he has battled chronic injuries. This, after he seemingly morphed from a mediocre big leaguer in Minnesota into an elite power hitter in Boston. It couldn't be because Big Papi was on the juice until 2007 when testing became mandatory and the penalties became stricter, could it?
- The Presidential election is less than a month away and, although this site tries to feign from commenting on politics, I thought it would be important to note that if Barry Obama wins, he promises that Keith Olbermann will come to your house once a week to give you a neck rub before you go to bed.
- Speaking of Olbermann, I once again missed the colossal Football Night in America show. There was a baseball playoff game that had been decided since the second inning on at the same time, along with a preseason NBA game. It's my loss, because listening to the witty banter among the 23 experts on the FNIA set would have surely made my life better, particularly with regard to the Minnesota/Detroit thriller.
- On that note, in case you haven't already guessed, the Pillow Fight of the Week was indeed: Minnesota 12 Detroit 10.
That's all for this week, gentlemen. Until the pads start crashing again, do great things.
The Commish
posted by Patrick Zalasky at 10:41 AM
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