Week 4 Re-Cap

First, email response.
What a lot of people don’t know is that when anyone posts a blog, ANYONE can read it. So sometimes, I get email from people I don’t know responding to something I wrote in one of my posts. I don’t know why their questions weren’t responses on the blog site, but it doesn’t matter.

Every once in a while I’ll have an email that I respond to that I just have to share with people. As you know, I have been blasting the performance of last year’s fantasy hero, Maurice Jones-Drew. Needless to say, one of his “fans” sent me an email:

Dear Writer of the Quad Fantasy Football Blog,
Why you be sweatin’ Jones-Drew, yo?
Ray-ray

Obviously, this email came from a well educated person who thinks 50 Cents’ name is made up of two quarters. So I decided, in my response, to be kind:

Ray-ray,
Isn’t that a name some one calls their baby? What self respecting adult male would want to be called Ray-ray? What is it a nickname for? Most people who have nicknames, have nicknames with a purpose. Take mine, for example: Quad the Bod. Very bold, almost Marlboro Man-ish, tells exactly who I am: a person who has the Bod (24 inch pythons for arms) and Quad for my multiple personalities. But Ray-ray? Come on, man.

Anyway, to answer your question: “why you be sweatin’ Jones-Drew, yo?” Well, I don’t be sweatin’ him. I be sweatin’…….well……….sweat!!! What the hell else do people sweat?

Love,
QTB

If you are a historian and look back through the annals of football, there are very few regular season games that spark the interest at the same level as a national championship game in college or even the super bowl in the NFL. But this week’s game of the week, game of the season possibly, touted the two teams who are the only teams to ever win the championship in this league: The Red Hot Jimmy Peppers, 2005 Champions and the Bad Ass Bills, 2006 Champions. This game was marked on the calendar of both teams since the schedules came out because it could very easily be a prelude to whom the League Champion is THIS season.

The smack talking started early with coach E-bone taking the first shot after the first week: “I have week 4 marked on my calendar. I will be munching on some hot jimmy peppers during the day and even though my ass will be burning the next day, I'll have a smile on my face while thinking of the beat down I just gave you!!”

Very bold statements indeed, considering one week of the season had passed. But the coach showed some foresight as he strode into this week’s game as the ONLY undefeated team left in the league. The Peppers were 2-1 after a Dallas Cowboy beat down on the Bears last Monday night did him in.

But first, I have to ask a question: what the hell is going on in not just the NFL, but in our league? Talk about major mistakes by the dozen! And what is with all of the top performers of the NFL either being injured or not even performing? But…….more on that later.

One of the fundamental rules of fantasy football when drafting top running backs is to “handcuff” the star running back by also drafting his backup in a later round. A good example of this is Priest Holmes. Those who drafted him three years ago and handcuffed him by also drafting Larry Johnson have been reaping the rewards ever since. What does this have to do with the Bad Ass Bills vs. the Jimmy Peppers? Well, more on that later as well. But let’s flash back to the draft.

The fantasy pundits were “skeptical” at best on the summer time trade of Randy Moss to the Patriots. They all were basing their dooms day comments on how he was going to ruin the Patriots and how he doesn’t fit into the Patriots’ culture on his past attitude issues. Yes, he had a lack of performance in Oakland, but who the hell was throwing him the ball? Yes, he commented that he didn’t always give 100% when playing at Minnesota, but he didn’t have to in order to become one of the most prolific pass catchers of this era. But now………………….

People were laughing at me and telling me I f’ed up by drafting him, but I knew better. I know about winning. Winning has a way of making historically non-performers perform. The Patriots are the most legitimate chance he has ever had of winning a Championship. He is the number one receiver on a team that is overloaded with talent at every position. He has, arguably, the most prolific passer of this generation in Tom Brady, who is leading the league with a 141.3 passer rating this year. Which brings me back to the handcuffing comment earlier.

The one single thing that E-Bone could have done, that the coach of the Gnus has done with Manning and Wayne, was to handcuff Brady by also drafting Moss. Because he didn’t, he ended up with Wes Melker, who really isn’t a bad choice because of his versatility. But that one move is what doomed the Bills this week as the Peppers once again smacked them in the face with their coaches comments to the tune of an 11.6 point victory. One other mistake he made was to play the Bengals quarterback against the patriots D. While it’s a great thought to hope that last nights game between the Bengals and the Patriots would be another shootout like it was when the Bengals played Cleveland , it’s time to give up that pipe dream, get another pipe and smoke something that won’t make you think such crazy thoughts.

As mentioned earlier, Moss was the deciding factor for the Peppers with 26 points. Yes, the Bills got 31 points from Brady, 10.5 points from Lynch and a monsterous 38.2 points from the Seattle defense, everyone else on the team scored single digits with the points ranging from 8 to -2. He left a legitimate 13 points on the bench with, ironically, Deion Branch at 13.

The Peppers, even though they had four double-digit point scorers, actually got a way with some poor coaching decisions. The coach of the Peppers benched Tomlinson after three weeks of a lack of productivity and he subsequently responds with 21 points. He also benched the Bears defense who scored 22.8 points in defeat with the help of Darian Hester’s kickoff return for a TD. But the key thing to look at here is this: had the coach of the Peppers NOT made those changes, the defeat of the Bills could have been a LOT worse with a potential 36+ point victory. But, with that kind of bench, the Red Hot Jimmy Peppers are by far the most talented and explosive team in the league. They showed their strength by regaining the number one spot with this victory over the Bills.

So a special message to Coach E-bone: if you are going to talk it, then be able to walk it. Enjoy your ass burning from those Jimmy Peppers you ate and remember that feeling. What feeling is that? The feeling of your championship hopes being flushed with the remnants of those Peppers!

Warthogs vs. Syrens: in probably the lowest scoring affair in league history, these teams lit it up with the Syrens winning 98.9-86. Remember my question and comments earlier about mistakes in the league? This game had mistake one: the Hogs played a tight end who was on a bye week. That’s worse than the Syrens not playing a defense a couple of weeks ago.

Niners vs. Gnus: this week’s trivia question: what do the following have in common: 3, 0, 6, 5,-6, 8, 5, 4, and -8? There are the individual point totals of 9 of the 12 starters for the Niners. Remember my comments a couple of weeks ago about being too heavy on players from your favorite team, and how it could come back to haunt you? Well, the 49er heavy Niners had a total of -10 points from his 49er players. And oh, league mistake #2: he played Steven Jackson, who was OUT for week 4. But…….give it to the Gnus. Riding on the heels of Brett Favre having a “Comeback Player of the Year” season and Tampa Bay showing signs of the early Gruden era, they scored a whopping 146 points to win by, are you ready for this, 82 POINTS!

Virginia Revolution vs. Team Smith: I take my comment earlier back about the lowest scoring game. THIS game was the lowest scoring. Other than the Chiefs quarterback, Team Smith didn’t have any one score over 10.5 points. Ronnie Brown in Miami finally proved me right as the Revolution smacked it to Team Smith by 13.2 points. See comments about favorite team laden teams (Team Smith and the Steelers).

The Elvi vs. the BailBonds: I sort of take responsibility for the disaster that was the Elvi this week. The coach had emailed me asking for advice, but I didn’t get the email in time. As a result, she ended up playing Westbrook, who was out this week (league mistake #3). Not that it would have mattered. The BailBonds continue to show why they are potentially one of the best teams in the league, riding the coat tails of both Tony Romo and the Dallas defense. Between those two, they scored 65.1 points while no one else did too much. He did benefit from the carousel known as the Cardinals quarterback situation to the tune of 15 points, yet the 11.5 he got from Merrimam was an anomaly.