Week 8

I want to thank everyone who is reading this blog right now. I would say there is a 98% chance you are in this league if you are reading this. If you are one of those people I would say there is a 100% chance you agree that this is the best league you have ever been in. Part of that reason is we have all known each other for a really long time, and are pretty good friends. I had the fortune to watch the majority of the games this Sunday with not only my good friend, but my opponent for this week, Jason Pack.

The day starts out well. Jason goes to the fridge and grabs a beer, he asks what game is on I tell him we are watching Redzone but we need to keep an eye on the Dolphins Bengals matchup. Of course Jason is fine with this, he is starting Chad Henne in fantasy, and after explaining to him that the Bengals are in our division hes now rooting against the Ravens rivals as well. We talk a little bit about the league and how he's not happy with his team and needs to make moves. Jason lets me know that he has been eyeing Steven Jackson.  Right there, on the spot he offers me a third round pick in next years draft for what was the 15th overall pick last year and my second highest scorer currently. I quickly decline only for Jason to shoot out his next offer, "well, how about for Drew Brees?" I simply laugh at this request and go back to checking the fantasy scores. It should come as no surprise that I had been refreshing Yahoo's fantasy page every break in action, trying to keep up with the days scores. Some time in the second half of the 1 o'clock games I celebrate a 10 yard run from Jahvid Best (pretty sure it was his last touch of the day), which sparks a question from Jason "who am I playing today?" "Me you jackass!" We go back to watching football, rooting for our respective players and anything that I deem as positive for the Ravens (Cinci losing, Packers over Jets, ect). The 4 o'clock games start and I have a pretty healthy lead. The Chargers are driving and hand the ball off to Ryan Mathews who gets stopped at the 1 after a 9 yard gain. Next play is a hand off to Mike Tolbert, Jason's starting runningback, for a touchdown. I turn my head expecting to hear a bunch of smack only to find Jason asleep on the couch. He wakes up in time for us to watch the end of the 4 o'clock games and we get to see how Mike Tolbert is going off. Well I watched as Tolbert is killing my lead, Jason continues to cruse Scott for his terrible drafting and that he now only has backups on his team. Jason leaves before the prime time game and I'm holding on to a 64.2 to 48.38 lead. Going into the late game Jason has Marques Colston and his MVP this year Pittsburgh's defense while I'm running out my #1 pick Drew Brees (who is only worth a third round pick after keepers to some people). The first half doesn't go very well for me and Drew as I keep watching my lead over Jason dwindle. Then it happened, Drew throws an interception and ProtectYourNeck is only down by 3 points! Like clockwork my phone rings. Of course it's Jason ready to talk shit. I answer and he asks me if I'm watching "this". I do my best to be optimistic, but all I can think about is that I'm going to lose to this guy. Jason is a gimme, and I'm going to blow it (sorry Kirby). Jason goes  back to talking about the game telling me "I'm pumped, been waiting to watch this show for awhile now." Show? What the hell is he watching? "The Walking Dead! I told you about this show! Why aren't you watching this?" Jason football and the World Series is on. "Oh right you and sports all the time." ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? YOU JUST CUT IT TO 3 POINTS IN FANTASY! "Whatever. Ok I'm going back to this. Talk to you later." Well after that the fantasy gods felt sorry for me and made my Halloween wish come true. The Saints and the Heaphopopotamus win and Jason and the Steelers lose. Merry Halloween everyone, lets get to the rankings!

(Please note that most of what I quoted was not exact verbatim. There were moments when I went into shock talking to him and frankly forgot the exact words he used. So in advance Jason I am sorry for not getting what you said exactly right. I would worry about him complaining, but I don't think he actually reads these.)

White Rice - Dan - Always exciting when it comes down to Monday night! Dan was very quiet during the game, but was very quick to remind all of us how much his Arian Foster mancrush has grown. Foster provided Dan with 22.7 points, and if you add that to Brandon Lloyd's 22.9  and he would have beaten Will's total for the week. Sprinkle in solid performances from Kyle Orton (17.56) and shocker Chris Johnson (14.3) and its no surprise Dan was right up there for top scorer. The Empire Strikes Back....

Grundy Grabbers - Alec - The only other 7-1 team was able to put up the largest total of the week, against the last place team. Talk about overkill. Adrian Peterson lead the way with 20.2 points, but Alec had plenty of double digit performers. Sebastian Janikowski who leads all kickers in scoring, came through with big performance  putting up a 16 spot for the all of a sudden offensive juggernaut Oakland Raiders. We give a lot of the praise to Dan for his teams dominance, but if you look, Alec is only 16 points back. This will be interesting down the stretch.

Velour Fog - Titus - Not even Matthew Staffords mother was as excited as Titus was to see MattStaff back in for the Lions. Calvin Johnson is loving life again. Matt drops back looks to his left and chucks the ball up to his favorite toy. Calvin was one of the big scorers this week as he put up 28.1 points! Yes I'm salty Jahvid Best didnt get rolling...again...but after the performance Johnson had this week I'm hoping opposing defenses drop back both safeties and open up those running lanes. In that optimism I'm naming Calvin Johnson as the pimp player of the week.

Motor Boaters - Stilt - Ok ok ok I get it. You went away on vacation. Fine. But did you have to give away a victory to Kirby? A guy I'm tied with for the last playoff spot? I know Hittner agrees...and I'm sure some of the guys below us would have hoped you would have been playing them the week you wanted to say F it. True story, Stilt's bench outscored his starters. He may wanna set the roster for his match up with Titus this week.

nephew w/ out the n - Kirby - You lucky bastard. Yes I know that you scored 95 points, but I'm going to assume you would have lost if Stilt had started his team correctly and you would be behind me and Hittner and not in the way you would like. It will be interesting to see how Kirby handles the whole Randy Moss thing.* I know his team has done well this season even with him being pretty quiet, but that is still a big loss for any team just when you think about what Moss can do on any given Sunday. Big big big big matchup vrs Alec next Sunday.

*Well that was written last night and I think we all know how the Moss situation is being handled. It basically got Boldin from Pitz and prevented me from obtaining him. Awesome. 

Do You Like Apples? -  Hittner - Apples are hit or miss, but he does like loans! The story about this team changed dramatically yesterday afternoon when Hittner made the biggest deal to date, trading for the loan of Aaron Rodgers for the rest of the year. Schaub was serviceable throughout the season, but the Monday Night let down must not have sat well in the Hittner camp as it lead to a crucial loss to Dan.  With Rodgers manning the helm now this team does not appear to have a weakness anywhere in the lineup. There are some injury concerns on the bench (Britt and Floyd) but he does have plenty of depth on his team, and really injuries to your bench are never what prevents you from winning.  What can prevent you from winning is how the fantasy gods view your actions. Do the gods approve of the loan? We will see shortly...

Heaphopopotamus - Death - It's really not that hard to spell. If I can spell it anyone can.
Heap-hop-O-pot-a-mus. You'll never forget it, just like I will never forget the week that my free agent pick up at the kicker spot got me 19 points and won the week for me. Everyone not named Drew Brees underperformed this week and so Dan Carpenter drilled 5 field goals to carry me to victory. I used to love GOOOOOOULD, but now I can do with out the bling. Think about it. We are all worried about the fantasy gods and how they view our team. I had a kicker named "Gould" which of course makes you think of greed and false idols, I dropped my former kicker for a "Carpenter" and I get the win with a huge performance from him. Is he Jesus? I can't say for sure, but he will be starting for me this week vrs the Ravens.

Face. - Peach - Peach's score this week would have beaten Will and Stilt (who didn't set his line up). Awful. Peyton scored 19 points and while he continues to be succesful this team continues to struggle. At some point Peach will have to realize hes an idiot and took the wrong player with the first overall pick. I really can't drag out too much more from this other than Stilt's bench would have beaten Peach this week.

Gunners Treble - Lars - Big fall this week with the loss to Titus. In a game that had huge playoff implications Lars lost by 16 points, and started a QB, RB, and DEF who didn't play this week. Good management. With the moves that are being made by teams in the middle of the pack I don't think I see Lars making the late playoff push, you know since he won't even set his team correctly.  Lars faces White Rice this week, and it may be the last matchup of any significance for him this season.

crash and burn - Will - Yup. The name pretty much described this week. Will just set a new record for all time worse week score. The mark was previously held by Pitz back in week 4 when he scored a pitiful 46.44 points. Now that Will has traded away Aaron Rodgers, the ground is the limit for just how bad his team can be.

ProtectYourNeck - Jason - I have already covered Jason a lot this week so I'm not going to spend too much more time on this team. I will point out week 11; ProtectYourNeck vrs Chaos Theory. Mark your calenders.

Chaos Theory - Pitz - Pitz would have beaten 4 teams this week, unfortunately he lost to 1. Big swing in the record books. Let's not talk about what Pitz has the least in (wins), lets talk about what he is leading this league in and that's roster moves. As of 10:53am on 11/3/10 Pitz has made 24 moves to his team, 7 more then the next highest total (Hittner, 17). Can't say the kid isn't trying, it's just not working. Remember going into your draft next year, always beat on the Bengals and Cardinals. There is no way those franchises can be bad!

Ok this is going to be a great weekend with fantasy and a large number of us seeing Tosh on Saturday night. With that in mind I say good bye, and stay tuned for more "Shorties watching Shorties".