the week – they are a time to watch football with friends, have a few beers, and play in the park (maybe even accidentally break
one of your friends foots). And if rainy days truly get you down, you shouldn’t live A) South of the Mason-Dixon Line B) North of
the Mason Dixon line or C) in Seattle.
Sunday’s can be great – Colt’s Portis breaks out with 3 TD’s – and they can be upsetting – C45 opponent Brick’s Jordan
matches the feat. Sunday’s can be muddy – Jacobins unable to break out of low scoring slump – or as solid as concrete –
Nomads exceptional day. Sunday’s can be gloomy – Shermtanks looking for a break – and sunny – Married finally gets some
mileage from Culpepper.
But what happened this PAST Sunday?
Tools Cannot Destroy Marriage
What’s to say? Moss did his part, as did James, Martin, Green and Heap. With Jimmy Smith on a bye, and Engram and Williams
hurt, back-ups Finneran (0 points as a number 2 WR) and Peerless Price (a last minute pickup to scrounge up SOME points)
couldn’t pull their weight. Meanwhile Married’s Culpepper tore out of his season long (and first half of the game) slump to grab
27 points. McGahee and Jones weren’t fabulous, but were able to scrounge up 18 together. Add on Hall’s nice night (11) and
Fitzgerald’s BS touchdown form Josh “I shouldn’t be a starter” McCown, and you now know how I managed to lose… by 9. ARG!
Blade Slices Up Five
Welcome back Mr. Owens. We missed you. TO came off his bye and pumped up Blade with 16. Of course, it helped that
Ronnie Brown had a career (yes, I know, it’s been a short career) day with 15, Mike Anderson added 14 and Billy “One Hit
Wonder” Volek helped out with 11 of his own. It was good enough to beat Five… this week… a slow week for Five. Yes, the
cocky one was hurt by a season low for Tomlinson (great work Philly D), a slow-to-come-back Burleson, and a Mike Anderson
taking the spotlight from Tatum Bell. Not to worry – Pittman and Galloway will return next week.
Jacobins Get Sniffed
What can I say? Nose may pick up EVERY fantasy player in the league at one time or another, but it’s working. The SI Kid is 5-
2, and that’s carrying dead weight with Ricky Williams (you keep holding onto him…). Nose won, even with his best at their
worst – season low’s for Muhammad (5), Palmer, Boldin and Brown. But his team was defined by two players: Keeper Steven
Jackson (21) and Az (28). In fact that’s all he needed, as Jacobin’s continued to slide, this week’s 80 a mere 5 more than last
weeks 75. Stokley continues to be a bust (2) and Droughns may just be on the team for fun (9). Keeper’s Barber and
Gonzales certainly have been helpful (28 combined this week), but the team is standing on shaky legs.
Wall’s Crack, but Don’t Break
It all looked so promising for Gregg early on – Portis had three TD’s, Farve lit up Minnessota in the first half, and CJ had a TD
(called back). Everything looked to be great. But then Shipp stumbled, Kinney only barley helped out (9 – side bar: remember
when 9 used to be a HUGE number? I do, but those days are fleeting) and the Bengals D couldn’t contain the Pitt O. Colt’s still
managed to put up 103, and going into the 4 o’clock games it looked promising. And then Lamont showed up. After making
the famous “put the team on my back” quote, the Raiders did – Lamont’s three TD’s and extra yardage helped him outscore
Portis by 6 points. Then McCown proved his worth with 10 (he started off slow, 1 point by halftime). Add that to his amazing
WR’s (Wayne, Stallworth and Chambers combined for 40), incredible D (Colts worth 21) and Westbrook (who decided to go the
b*tching route in his pre-game comments) and you have yourself a dominating 133 point game. Watson’s Wall looks
impenetrable. So far this season he has zero losses, zero games below 110 points, and zero active players that scored zero
points when playing. And on top of everything else, of the 9 players who started the year for him, all but 1 played for him last
week (where have you gone Marc Bulger? Brick Walls turns lonely eyes to you). I’m not even sure “hate” is a strong enough
word…
Mouth Eats Russia
In week 2 Born had his only 100+ game of the year, beating Married by 43 points and looking like his week 1 loss might have
been a fluke. Then came 4 – yes 4 – losses in a row, where he averaged 82 points per game. So you can understand why Big
Red though he might have a chance to win his third in a row. Little did he know that Born was back at a computer, and ready to
change things up. In the last two weeks, Born has added and dropped at least six different players. In fact, Week 1 -3, Born
started the same group, switching out one player on a bye in week 4. In Week 5, changes were made to the a big part of the
starting team, all leading up to the McNabb trade prior to Week 6. So this week, Born came out and racked up the points –
Coles tied his season high with 15 points, Manning threw a late TD to surpass the 20 point mark, and recent acquisition
McCardell added on 16. Total it up and you have 107 points. So what did propaganda do? The same thing he has done all
year. Nick, who has made several changes to his team to boost stats (Vick benched for Ferotte worked early, but not recently)
and added several critical players (Jurevicius who came out with a 24 point game, and has seen his numbers decrease since
then – 9 this week). At the end, the result was the same – a sub 100 point game (his seventh of the year). propaganda is
averaging 81 points per game, the lowest in the league. With a 2-5 record, more changes will need to take place if he plans on
a very last minute run to the playoffs.
Nomads Stop Bandits Train
After a crushing 1 point loss in week 1, it has been hard to deny how good the Bandits have been. But this week showed us
something else – that he is vulnerable. With a 67 point showing (his worst of the year; the lowest points scored by any ROFF
team this year), Bandits proved how important Holt, Alexander (interesting – the last time Alexander failed to get 10 or more
points Bandits lost), and McMichael are to the team. Meanwhile, Nomads spanked him. Hitting a season high for the team at
145 points, Nomads had all but one player cross the 10 point mark (Wiggins missed hitting 10 by just 0.27 points). Even his
bench had a stellar day – excusing players on Bye’s (Smith, Davis) and injured (McNair), all three bench players scored in the
10’s. It was a heck of a day. In fact, in the last 6 games, Nomads only loss came the week Priest was on a bye. A repeat
Championship for Nomads isn’t so unlikely…
Ducks Sh*t on Tank
This was the preverbal nail in the coffin. At 1-5, Tanks could have run the field and made the playoffs. At 1-6, it doesn’t seem
so likely. With Jamal benched and no player on a bye, the Tanks scored 13 less than their season average. And while Philly
and Manning had exceptional days (21 and 20 respectively), slow showings by everyone else (Moulds, Glenn and Anderson
had significant point drop offs from the previous week), a Tanks victory was not meant to be. Meanwhile the Ducks moved to 2-
5, and a 109 point showing with McNabb at the helm (his 17 was only a point better than Plummer’s average over the first six
weeks) makes you think that HE could make a late season run. Harrison posted his second 10+ point week in a row, Moore had
HIS third week at 10+ in a row (not including his bye). And new WR’s Robinson and Jones looked good at 10+ each. Beware
the Ducks and possibly the biggest comeback in ROFF history.
Best of luck to everyone this week.
Swami, 4-3 this week, will be have predictions entered by the Friday night.
