Feeling Like Willy Loman...
Your Bigffbl/F**ers TEQ is back once again for a rambling.
After three weeks I have a combined record of 2-7 in leagues with some good old American currency riding on them and 3-0 in my league that is "just for fun". Life sucks but what can ya do.
So how about them Vikes? Although I am out here in the UP eh, I still have managed to see all of the first three Minnesota games without shelling out the big bucks to get Direct TV. The following is what I think I think about the purple people....
Now onto the Twinkies....
I suppose I'll talk some fantasy ball too. The HO(E)S extend their unbeaten streak to 6 in the F'ers league. I predict Kern's season will take a nosedive now that the airshow is over. I can't think of any witty correlation other than the fact that his karma was reduced by badmouthing the Duluth "freeloaders" in the Saturday DNT.
Other notable news in F'ers land is that Bergren may have set a single week low scoring record. I'm not sure, but I believe he put up a grand total of 22 points. Now, I know my team isn't at the top of the heap, but even I can say "THAT SUCKS". Once again, thanks for being there Bergren.....you do a heck of a job of keeping my squad up at least one notch from the basement.
As for the BIG.....Let's take a peek back at draft day and see who was the steal for each team.....and also the biggest bust (no not THAT kind of bust, or whoever has Warren Sapp would win hands down).
First up, Wong's LD's. Just perusing Wong's team, nothing jumps out at me. I'd have to say that his best move was probably grabbing Carolina's D. Duckett as his 3rd RB may have been a steal but the LD's didn't have any spectacular performances yet. As far as busts, Booker is the leader in the clubhouse, but after 2 poor weeks and a bye it is hard to judge the Bears just yet.
Air JC is next on the list (which is in no particular order). JC's best move probably was to take Lamar Gordon in all three of his fantasy drafts. The saying "too little too late" may apply for 2 of those 3 leagues though. As far as busts, go ahead, close your eyes, spin around a few times, drink a beer, stand on your head, take a shot of jag and throw a dart and you'll hit one of my failures. Donovan McNabb. Troy Brown. Jerry Rice. Tony Gonzalez. Eddie George. I'll stop there before I go get my noose out.
Team Smitty, I mean RMO (Male Bovine Testicles) time. Our league's computer guy (at least the "coder") possibly pulled a steal with Onterrio Smith as his 4th RB. Time will tell on that one, but Moe Williams early success has definitely contributed to O's low playing time thus far. Smut dog's loser pick so far has to go to Willie Green. I know that 50 yards per week isn't too bad but those are not numbers expected for the Brownie Back. A close second goes to Buckhalter but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt since he is stuck playing with Donosuck McSuck.
My favorite division rival, Juggers, is next. No question that Jugs got a steal in Santana Moss as his fourth WR. With Moulds, K-Rob, Stallworth and S-Moss, Jugsie has a stable of solid WR's. Someone remind him only 2 count each week though. As for poor picks, none come poorer than drafting a guy that is known to be out for pretty much the whole year. That's right, Jugs, and all his preparation, sucked in a breath of air and spit out the words, "I'll take Chad Pennington". The rest of us looked around muffling our laughs until Juice got the name typed in. Good work Jugs, it's nice to know we're all mortal.
Suomala's Flying Hellfish. Doesn't that sound like "Barnum and Bailey's Three Ring Circus"? Anyway, the wild westerner in our league has really only one somewhat bright spot from the draft and that is Michael Pittman as his #4 RB. As for the bad ones, he may be able to rival his Bison Division cohort JC with this list.... Rich Gannon, Peerless Price, James Stewart, Duce Staley and Bubba Franks. Ouch. And, just like Bergren, thanks for being there Suomala to at least keep me company at the bottom.
Juice is up next. Somehow he pried himself away from work long enough to conduct the draft but didn't fare too well it seems. My guess is too much Hold 'em and too little draft prep. Juice grabbed a future superstar and the future is now for Laveranues Coles. Juice also had a couple weak picks with Trung Dung, Emmitt and "The Other" Faulk backing up "The Broken" Faulk at RB. But Juice always seems to win so maybe he'll pull some more magic this year.
The first of two LB's (little brothers) is the LB's (little bastards). First off, love the new logo.....but, as Suomala will surely attest to, I love any product that MJ was spokesman for. Also, I kinda helped in the whole design and whatnot, but I take no credit for the new helmet, that needs some work. Jonny's steal picks would have to be Jeff Blake as his #3 QB and Kleinsasser as his backup TE. Bruce at #3 WR is also a solid grab to back up Key and Ketchup Bottle Ward. Bad picks for the LBs....Old Man Brunell and Old Man Hearst, but overall a solid job done by the freshman at Umm-dee-dumm-dee.
Jonny Tang is next. There can not be a better pick than Ike Hillard as a #4 WR (well, I think there is but I haven't got to Nookie's team yet). With Dainty possibly going on the shelf for a while, Maddox and Fiedler on the roof are solid backup options picked by Jonny. For poor picks.....A-Train in round 3? A-Smith in round 4? Ouch and ouch. Weak at the RB but solid at the QB and WR. Might play out well for Scuzzlebutt, I mean MoJo, I mean Team Tang.
On to The Inside Straights. After announcing the fire sale after week 2, Mike has been off of the email trade offerings for a few days now. Maybe because of the lack of tradable material on the roster, but hey, who the heck am I to decide what is good fantasy material. So a bad couple for Mikey include Vick in the 3rd round. My guess is that he would have been there 2 rounds later and you still could've had him without much of a fight. The Zereoue pick along with Hambrick are looking a little weak now but Chambers is a very very nice #2. So, sadly, I would have to say that Mike fills out the "Three Stooges" of Carlson/Suomala/Vanneste.
Nookie time. This team is stacked. Let's look at his #4 drafted RB.....Moe Williams (that's to go along with Portis and Jamal Lewis). How about #3 Charles "Mr." Rodgers for WR (with Horn and a soon to explode Driver)? Shockey will get those hands figured out and along with QB Kerry "Tom" Collins will be a solid 1-2 scoring punch for Ben. There are some bad picks though....Holcomb may pan out but has been very very bad thus far. Marcel Shipp at #3 was no good from the start with Emmitt in town....Tim Brown may have died, I am not sure on that one. Overall I'd say our defending champ has only one thing against him.....he goes to school in Ciskie-country.
My man Ritchie and Team GOO. Rico has moved out of the black hole known to outsiders as St. Cloud and has gotten his life (and fantasy team) back in order.....and apparently passed the torch of "worst team ever" on to yours truly. Great picks by GOO include grabbing Bulger as a #3 to back up Emergency Room dream QB's Warner and Garcia. I think Byron Chamberlain will pay dividends as Rich's #2 TE and Bettis as a #3 RB will soon show that he should have been Cowher's starter all along. Cutts didn't pull the best deal in the WR dept though. Plax is solid at #1, but Boston, Kev.Johnson and Terrell have all been iffy at best. We all know this league is dominated by RB's, but without the supporting WR points you can't get it done.
Last and oldest (sorry man) is LRH (that's Little Red Horse to you non-Big readers). So Jason just about helped JC out with his first JCS victory of the season, but managed to ride Alstott's 2 TD's to a total of 69 for week 3. Jason made a few picks that can be considered nothing less than occurring due to a Hermanoid education and they are Joey Harrington as his #2 QB and even worse, #3 QB is Rob Johnson. A final Hawk-style pick was Eddie "Really, I'm still in the league" Kennison as a #4 WR. Jason must have taken a class or two over at good old PHS though since he did pull one of the best picks of draft day out with Derrick Mason as his #3 WR. Jugs is still pissed that Mason went that deep.
Comments for this week (JC's responses)
I guess people should be assured that Hurricane Isabel did not destroy our
Nation's Capital. But it also brought up another thing.
Politicians and
lobbyists don't run day-to-day Washington. The Metrorail and Metrobus
system runs day-to-day Washington. When it announced it would shut down at
11 am Thursday (at winds of 10 mph) for basically two days, the vicious
cycle happened, businesses shut down and, yes, the federal government shut
down for two days (at $65 million/day of taxpayer money). I think
Washington is a city of Northern control freaks working with Southern
efficiency among other things. Don't even get me started about
Washington's work ethic. It is about as non existent as John Madden's diet
plan or Carrot top's fashion sense or my chances of making the playoffs in
either the BIG or F'ers.
So the Vikings are 3-0 and the Rails are 4-0, I'm just wondering, who has played
the weaker
schedule? Well, Packers/Bears/Lions or Cloquet/Crookston/Virginia/I.Falls?
I'm gonna say that Proctor has played a relatively rougher schedule but we all
know that I.Falls could take the Bears up in the Ice Box.
How about them Twins? Time to get out those Homer Hankies!! I think
the
only twins that are hotter than the Minnesota Twins are the twins you see in
those Coors beer commercials. Amen to that.
Out here in the Mid-Atlantic you get the chance to do a fair bit of wine
tasting with wineries all over the place. I don't know what you like, but
I
suggest the Father Lincoln in Gettysburg when you get a chance. Wine
tasting sounds like something I could get into, but I don't think I'd let my
taste buds tangle with something called the "Father Lincoln". I
like my dead presidents the only place they should be.....in my wallet.
Recently I found out that George Carlin, the most insightful comedian
I've
ever heard, will be performing at the DECC in November. In honor of that
news, I'll just pass along a couple of memorable quotes from his routines.
First Seinfeld, then Cosby, now Carlin? Wait....is Duluth actually
joining the modern world? Or at least catching up to 1992?
"There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent
past." When I think about this one, my brain hurts, or should that
be hurted?
"Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that
apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy." Obviously.
"Why is the man (or woman) who invests all your money called a financial
broker?" Well, since they probably went to school to be an
engineer and then after graduation decided they didn't want to be an engineer
and chose to trade stocks with other peoples money. After all this, all
that really happened was their parents went broke by paying all that tuition,
therefore "financial broker".
"Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice?""
Only old people must worry about this, and I am not old.....although this
past Sunday I moved one digit closer to AARP membership.
That's all this week. And I'm spent.
So to shorten it up I'll sign off here. Hope you all enjoy week 4. I will, as long as I win just once.
Need I say more?
BIGFFBL senior writer Jeremy Carlson (TEQ) sounds off whenever he feels like it on www.bigffbl.com