Having only recently come down from my GOP-infused, caffeine-fueled Johnny Drama-like gutteral chats of "VICTORY!" I am now ready to return to my less than stellar fantasy reality. Certainly much has happened since I have been away. Fire Starters started a brushfire of buzz with his first ever video column. Although I have to say, it's all been done before. You want to really step your game up? Everyone knows that all good directors only do films in 3D these days. If I had watched that intro in 3D, I still may not be sleeping at night. Terrifying.
It's always best to measure any prolonged absence from the game by noting how many teams Randy Moss has been on in the meantime. It seemed like just the other day that Moss was catching touchdown passes from the Bieb... err Tom Brady. Then he went back to the tried and true Purple People eaters. But the match made in heaven never really got off the ground as Brett Favre looks more likely to soon be doing guest spots in commercials for erectile disfunction than to keep up these Wrangler ads. (Hey! He's just having fun out there! Right, Jen Sterger?) As soon as Chilly sends him packing, Jeff Fisher is more than happy to welcome in the mercurial wideout to stretch the field for VY and CJ1K. (Why does every Titans player go by alternate droid nicknames from Star Wars again?) The only question that remains: Is Randy Moss still any good? Apparently 31 NFL teams don't think so.
Anyway, now that I'm back and I've been gone too long to expect me to actually come up with a new gimmick for the column, let's do some old-fashioned predictions.
black is for sunday vs. showmedamoney!In the battle of teams that refuse to use capital letters, we have a showdown that probably means next to nothing. Things just have not gone well for me this season. When my players zigged, my schedule zagged. While my trades were ying, my luck was yang. And once again, I am laid out on my back looking up at the rest of the league. No one is going to copy my 2010 draft strategy and preserve it for future generations but my team is not nearly as bad as my record. I have three very competent wide receivers, a stable of running backs who can contribute, and Joe Flacco has been exactly what I thought he would be. I also think it's fair to say I have gotten the better end of the Hillis/Colston for Marshall/Orton deal. With Megatron showing the high end of his ability the past few weeks, there are better days ahead for my team and I think Sunday is going to be one of those days. Darren Sproles is not a startable RB2 even for a team battling injuries and bye weeks. Make a trade. For anyone. And Ryan Fitzpatrick is not a long term replacement for showmedamoney's golden boy QB1. (NEWSFLASH: It's about to get really cold and snowy in Buffalo, NY.) Billy desperately needs to move Andre Johnson before the deadline tonight to shore up other positions or showmedamoney can go ahead and cash in on this season.
Pick: black is for sunday40 acres & a mule vs. Fire StartersWhile Fire Starters may have given up on tracking his own predictions, we haven't forgotten how horribly inaccurate they have been all season. Pimping ain't easy, huh? Fortunately, for him, he's been a far more solid manager of his team's success than a predictor of other teams' success. No team has been more of a moving target this season than Fire as his starters have been anything but consistent. Chris has made a league high 34 moves this season and pulled off at least two trades with implications of changing the landscape of the league. That latest endeavor will bring Thomas Jones right back to wreak havoc and revenge on his former squad. Danny Woodhead, the new oompa loompa, has foudn the perfect home but not much production since coming on board. The real killer is Phil Rivers. Someday PBS2 will be able to explain to us why he would trade his most valuable commodity midseason for Ahmad Bradshaw but he's going to have to think for a while just to come up with what was going through his head when that happened. Another year, another head-scratching trade from A.J. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Pick: Fire StartersSHolstonKayakPirates vs. The InstituteOf all the managers in our league this year, no one has had more of a nightmare season than Jeff. Watching the Pirates season unfold has been like reading Great Expectations cover to cover in reverse. Nothing like a riches to rags story to really sour you on the whole experience of fantasy football. If there's one coach on the hot seat it has to be Jeff. The pressure from The Flying Crouton and Bacon Bit has to be mounting as we speak. This level of failure will not be tolerated from a once promising talent pool. This week, he welcomes in the upstart Institute squad who has claimed victory in five of their last six contests. With Peyton Manning under center and Ron Dayne still out there lurking and waiting, this team's confidence is at an all-time high. The edge goes to VZ under the strength of the play of the wife beater and L. McCoy who are facing off in what I am certain will be a high scoring, intriguing QB battle between Manning and Mike Vick.
Pick: The InstitutePhoenix Rises vs. the iconBattle of the fantasy zombies in this game as the icon finds himself undead after riding a 3 game winning streak and a tie to an over .500 record, not a small feat in this league this season. Brandon, meanwhile, just has one too many identical players on his bench. Even though I know he is working his fellow fantasy managers by sending them late night text messages, emails, and phone calls like a desperate ex-girlfriend, no one is giving into his Burgergate booty call this year. We're too strong and we respect ourselves too much to take your leftovers. His quest for zero to hero status just seems to have been derailed by a previously unscheduled inability to score touchdowns. Piling up yards gets you into close games but scoring TDs has always been the difference between winning and losing. That said, the icon is due for a fall. His team is much more like the one we saw the first four weeks than the one we've seen the last four. Back to the grave, zombie. We're tired of you feasting on our brains.
Pick: Phoenix RisesGame of the WeekK Rabbits vs. The CommishThis is by far the most interesting game of the week. Not only does it pit two of the top three teams in the league against each other but is also a rematch of last year's championship game. Could it also be a preview of Kris' second place destiny? I've been saying all year that Gates is the not-so-secret weapon for this year's Commish squad. He's been nicked up at various times but has managed to avoid serious injury. McFadden is on fire and AD is AD. But Foster has been the cornerstone of the Texan offense while LT2 catches Detroit this week. Rodgers gets the edge in the battle of the QBs over Big Ben. But Welker and Ochocinco look very unimpressive these days and I think they are the difference as Kris misses a golden opportunity to pick off The Commish sans CJ1K.
Pick: The Commish
If you think about it, Randy Moss' decision to retire rather than accept one of the presumably mediocre contract offers he was fielding was genius. He totally changed the conversation about where he was in his career and where he was heading.
