- Manning and the Broncos win tonight and don't lose again the rest of the season. I'm talking 13-0, ending with a Super Bowl title (as I write this, they lead the Saints 7-0 at the end of the first). Then again, just about every offense looks like a Super Bowl contender when playing the Saints.
- Since Taylor definitely isn't going to give him up after today's 2 TD game, I'll go ahead and make my prediction that Brandon Lloyd will finish as a top-5 fantasy WR.
And with that, here are notes, observations, and other pointless musings about the 2012 TTFFL season so far.
Screaming Eagles: What the hell? How is a team with Eli Manning, Ahmad Bradshaw, Shonn Greene and Heath Miller 6-1 and at the top of the standings? What's worse is: it's actually legit. Going into week 7, the Eagles lead the league in scoring by a substantial margin, joining Taylor as the only two teams to pass the 500-point mark. The receiving corps is solid (Julio, Brandon Marshall and Demaryius Thomas), and while his RBs are unexceptional, they show up when they need to. For example, Greene just happened to blow up on a week when Jason really needed it to get past Team Datanator. Will it last? Well, probably not, but it really only needs to happen about 4 more times. Two more regular season wins should be enough to get the Eagles into the playoffs, and two more wins after that will take him to the title.
The Leviathans: Levi's success has come from the opposite direction as Jason's. While Levi has a stud QB and two stud RBs --- his third-round confidence in AP is paying handsome dividends --- it's hard to believe this team has thrived with a patchwork receiving corps which features Dwayne Bowe and the surprising Lance Moore as its two strongest contributors. While the Leviathans have no doubt been a strong team, they have also had their share of luck, including a 90-88 win over Los Diablos in week 4. With 'only' 5 wins, they will have to work a bit hard than the Eagles to clinch a playoff spot, but momentum is definitely on their side.
Air Apparent: After the Screaming Eagles and Leviathans, it's pretty much anyone's guess who might find their way to the playoffs. But as the second highest-scoring team in the league, Air Apparent has the best shot at getting there. Many of Taylor's draft sleepers have paid off, most notably Matt Ryan, but also Randall Cobb and, to a lesser extent, Steven Ridley. Taylor has also benefitted from in-season surprises C.J. Spiller and Andre Brown. But after a blistering 4-0 start in which he looked unstoppable, Taylor has hit a cold streak in which he's dropped games to the first-place Screaming Eagles, the second-place Leviathans, and the pitiful Ninjas (and his week 8 game against Los Diablos looks ready to come down to the wire). Can Taylor snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, like he always has in the past? Or will this finally be the year he gets over the hump?
Los Diablos: During the draft, Kubicek reluctantly picked Brandon Pettigrew as his TE, and as it turns out, his concerns were well-founded. Otherwise, his roster looks fairly solid, but still hasn't produced reliably. Matt Forte is a stud RB, but he doesn't produce many TDs and he's lost some time to injury. And although Aaron Rodgers looked to be back to his usual, dominant self after a 42-point performance in week 6, he has suddenly started to struggle again in this week's home matchup against the lowly Jaguars. As a result, Los Diablos is mired in a 5-way logjam for third place in the league, with their playoff hopes very much in doubt. You have to think that Rodgers will eventually get right, and Los Diablos along with him. Let's just hope it doesn't happen in next week's matchup with the Ninjas.
Golden Graham's: Despite a strong performance to win the week in week 3, the Graham's are pretty much where you would expect them to be. Their roster --- Roethlisberger, CJ0ke, Antonio Brown, Marques Colston, Denarius Moore and Vernon Davis --- practically reads like a who's who of fantasy hot-and-cold players. Frank Gore is really the only every-week fantasy stud on the Graham's roster, and so it's not surprising that the Graham's also run hot-and-cold, winning when their players are mostly up and losing when they are mostly down. In fact, the Graham's have literally been hot-and-cold all season long, winning in weeks 1, 3, 5, and 7 while losing in the other weeks. Kevin will probably break the pattern this week and score his 5th victory since he's playing the pitiful Atomnation. And while a team like the Golden Graham's keeps things interesting --- on any given week, you're equally likely to score a 30-point victory as you are to absorb a 30-point beating --- it's hardly a recipe for a championship.
Strike Team: Aaron has managed to win four games based mostly on the play of his first four draft picks: Peyton Manning, Wes Welker, Reggie Bush and Willis McGahee. After that, due either to injury (Aaron Hernandez) or failure to live up to expectations (Michael Bush), the rest of the Strike Team can pretty be written off as a tax deduction. He looks set to fall to 4-4 against the Screaming Eagles in week 8, and with remaining matchups against the other three top-scoring teams (Leviathans, Air Apparent, Los Diablos), it's looking like an uphill climb for Strike Team to repeat their 2nd-place finish of a year ago.
Merrill's Marauders: If the Golden Graham's is an example of a team made up of hot-and-cold players, the 2012 Marauders read like a who's-who of fantasy disappointments: McFadden, Mathews, Jordy Nelson and Cam Newton, with a handful of one-shot wonders (Brian Hartline, Kyle Rudolph, and possibly Torrey Smith) thrown in. Week 8 pretty well sums up the Marauders season thus far. You know your fantasy season is in trouble when you start Jay Cutler over Cam Newton --- and he proceeds to have a fairly predictable 4-turnover outing (yes, I know Romo had 4 turnovers for my team this week as well --- but I scored 101 points, so it doesn't matter). Merrill's opening losses to Kevin and Kubicek are likely a better indicator of his future performance than his recent 4-1 run has been, and a thrashing at the hands of the Ninjas probably signals the beginning of the end for the Marauders, as they too have three games remaining against the big boys in the league.
Team Datanator: Once again this year, Nick proves that the autodraft and benign neglect can get a team only so far. While Josh Freeman has been a pleasant surprise recently, and Marshawn Lynch continues to perform like an RB1 (color me surprised; I figured he'd go back to being an indifferent runner once he got paid), they haven't been enough to overcome Nick's tendency to keep players in his lineup through their bye weeks. Team Datanator's problems can't be solved simply by rostering 4 QBs and 3 DSTs.
Orion River Horses: Things are not looking too rosy for the defending champion River Horses. If it weren't for his 10th-round pick of rookie sensation RG3, and to a lesser degree Vincent Jackson, the River Horses' roster would have no brights spots at all. Matthew Stafford, Michael Turner, Trent Richardson, Larry Fitzgerald and Antonio Gates have all disappointed more often than not, and about the only bright spot in the River Horses' season so far was their Week 6 3-point victory over the Leviathans, thanks pretty much entirely to Vincent Jackson's 2 TD effort. (Well, Stafford went off this week, but of course he was sitting on Pete's bench when he did it). Like Strike Team and Marauders, the rest of the River Horses' schedule does them no favors. It looks quite likely TTFFL will see a changing of the guard again in 2012.
Newnan Puttheads: The Puttheads have played slightly better than their 2-5 record indicates, having scored the 5th-most points in the league so far. Jody caught a break when Arian Foster fell to him with the 5th pick of the draft --- and that's about the last time the Puttheads have had any luck this year. Every pick of his from the 4th round on has either underperformed or fallen to injury, though Titus Young may finally be starting to live up to his pre-season hype. Jody's hard luck has continued into the season, as three of his five losses have come in weeks when he's scored enough to win a typical game, only to see his opponent score 80+. On the other hand, if a team were going to come back from 2-5 to make the playoffs, it would be the high-scoring Puttheads, whose only real obstacles are late-season matchups against the Leviathans and Screaming Eagles. And they may also be challenged by the league's other 2-5 team . . .
Psychotic Ninjas: In 2010, Pete started the year with 5 straight losses before battling the Ninjas to a tie in week 6. He eventually put on a burst with the QB/WR tandem of Matt Cassel and Dwayne Bowe, clawing his way to the brink of playoff relevance at 5-6-1 before dropping his final two games. In 2011, Los Diablos started out a humiliating 0-7 before trouncing the Ninjas in week 8 en route to a crappy 3-11 season. This year, it was the Ninjas who couldn't buy a win early in the season, a streak that finally ended week 5 against Kevin week 6 against Taylor. The Ninjas are now on a 3-game winning streak (I don't think I'm being presumptuous here; Andre Roberts is good, but he's not 52 points-worth of good), and with Shady McCoy, Fred Jackson, the surprising rookie Doug Martin, Percy Harvin, Reggie Wayne and Jimmy Graham, they're the 3-5 team no one wants to play. Could they fight their way back into the playoff hunt? Time will tell. I'm just glad that this 3-game win streak has put me in a 3-way tie for 9th place two games away from a playoff spot.
Suspended Atomnation: The team so bad, not even Tom Brady can help them. Tony Gonzalez is pretty much the only other 'stud' on Adam's team, though Hakeem Nicks might be now that he's healthy. Still, Andre Johnson has been his usual disappointing self, Steven Jackson is clearly winding down his career, and might not even finish the season as the Rams' #1 RB, and the law firm has not lived up to preseason expectations. The lowest-scoring team in the league by a fair margin, the only real question left for Adam this season is whether he'll be able to avoid the newly-instituted 'insult to injury' rule which might leave him leading a team named the Precious Pink Princesses next year.
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