Yes, I know there wasn't any football on, but it was game six of the World Series, or as I like to call it "The American and Sometimes Canada Series", and I was interested to see if the Giants were gonna take it or if the Royals were going to push the series to Game 7.
Spoiler Alert: The Giants did not have a good game.
Anyway . . . three things occured to me.
The first was that . . . and you might be shocked to hear me say this . . . the last time I was aware of which teams were playing in the World Series . . . the last time I was reasonably aware that the World Series was even happening . . .
1989.
The A's vs the Giants.
The Loma Prietta Earthquake Series.
That's a quarter of a century ago, for anyone who cares to do the math. I will not go into details about what also happened that year, but I will point out that that was the year my father was just about the same age as I am now. Whoa.
I obviously haven't been tracking baseball, like at all, but the reason I was marginally interested this time is because whenever NPR starts reporting Ebola or the Middle East, I switch the dial over to ESPN radio. I do this because I wanna listen for any football insights I can glean, maybe get an edge over my other Fantasy Bretheren, and obviously so I can write a better blog.
But since the World Series is going on, that has pretty much overtaken the conversations, so my interested has been piqued . . . so to say. My appetite whetted.
Yet, secondly, I have had nothing but football games drilled into me for the passed twenty weeks, so I also noticed that after every base hit, I was automatically on edge waiting to see if a flag had been thrown.
I will never get over those three TD's called back on Percy Harvin the night I lost what should have been an easy match. It was my own private Guantanamo Bay.
There is a little black and white leprechaun running around in my dreams screaming "Pass Interference . . . Offense . . . Ten Yard Penalty . . . Repeat Third Down."
Anyway, so I had the game on last night.
And . . . spoiler Alert . . . this was not a close game.
KC basically said "Go ahead, bitch, get complacent about your bull-pen decisions."
So the third thing that occured to me as the Giants were staring down a ten run deficit, was that garbage time really sucks.
For everybody.
Everybody except those few fantasy football owners that needed James Jones to have a big day.
Or the guy that had Cutler loaded up this week. (That guy was me . . . by the way)
But it sucks for everybody else. I mean it even sucks for the winning team. They have to sit there and twiddle fingers until the time runs out. They also have to decide whether or not to keep in their starters and risk injury or toss in their secondaries and risk a closer game.
Even fantasy geeks shiver a bit during garbage time. I mean . . . it could be a boon . . . (Cutler) . . . or your guy could get pulled at the end of the 3rd quarter.
Or . . . the worst thing that could ever happen . . . your guy gets injured on a day when he's already had monster stats. I will point out specifically the 2012 year when Belechick left Gronk in when they were so completely far ahead, and Rob got a broken arm, probably ruining their play-offs, and Gronk's 2013.
I had that moment on Sunday when Foster had already gotten his biggest game of the year, the Texans lead wasn't going anywhere, and they didn't put him on ice. Seriously, run Blue, I'm good.
And speaking of good . . .
THIE BIG NEWS:
Of course the big news is the Big Ben game. Okay . . . so yay . . . er whatever. Actually, I'm not that complacent, I really liked Ben this year with all the talk about letting him do his thing and it shows every single time the back office lets that happen. I was drooling over Antonio Brown pre-draft, but he kept getting sniped before I pulled the trigger. And I have a really wierd amount of Steeler fans in my family considering that no one I really know has ever actaully been to Pittsburgh. So yay.
But I think the real fun bit was Monday Night when cuddily little Colt McCoy and a non-complacent Washington defense handed the Cowboys what will likely be the greatest upset of the season.
Sorry Steve.
But these are the games I love to watch cause I love that moment when the tide turns and the underdog gets some wind beneathe their wings. This particular moment was when Murray got stripped of the ball, lost possesion, and then Colt connected with DeSean a play or two later to put the Redskins in the Redzone.
Cool stuff.
Get well Romo.
and speaking of getting well . . .
INJURIES AND BAD DECISIONS:
Actually aside from the foot of one very dissapointing Muscle Hamster, the injury list was pretty light. Romo went down off a viscious hit, but then fought his way out of the locker room and back onto the field (Though, that might have gone down as the dumbest, most reckless, career ending decision ever.)
You don't mess with back injuries . . . trust me.
Rodgers pulled his quad in the middle of game which may have been the reason the Green Bay didn't totally dominate New Orleans, but he still threw for 412 yrds (with no help from Nelson). I actually think it was Ingram who won that game, but we'll get to that in fantasy land.
And Brian Quick is out for the season. Which is both very sad and gonna make the Rams Niners game interesting.
Good news is that players are making their way back into line ups. RGIII, Megatron, possibly Jennings (oh please oh please Jennings), AJ Green is ready to dominate again and we might finally get to see what Clowney can do. The dude has mentioned how much he is dying to hit people, which doesn't sound very nice, but that's his job.
WHAT TO WATCH:
So last week it was the show-down in the desert that I thought was going to be the kicker. And it was. McCoy had 80 yards against the toughest run defense, and Fitzgerald looked like Fitzgerald. Sproles was a non factor, but Maclin was insane, which, I know this sounds wierd, but everytime I watch Foles play, I think that there is no way this guy is a Top 12 QB, and yet every week he throws up some serious stats. I might have to takes notes this week, cause there's a good chance that Yahoo is just making things up.
Anyway, the game I'm most interested in is the Niners vs the Rams.
It seemed like they just played one another and last game I had really expected to see the Niners start to revert to their tried and true Ground and Pound mantra and they did just the opposite. Though I counted at least four receptions in that game that defied physics, especially that one where Kaepernick was nearly horizontal and flicked the ball to Boldin in the end-zone even though there were clearly fifteen defenders between the two. The Safeties and Corner Backs might just as well have been made of smoke.
It lead me to make the comment that when the Niners run, they win (Weeks 4&5). When the Niners don't run, but get lucky, they win (Weeks 1&6). When the Niners don't run, and don't get lucky, they lose . . . hard (Weeks 2,3,& especially 7).
Now, if I was paying attention to such things and had any part in the decision making process, I might consider rolling with the run a bit more. Cause getting lucky isn't exactly easy to practice. You've got a machine in Gore, and THE best back-up in the NFL in Hyde. You've got massive high percentage bodies to throw to in Davis and Boldin and you have a few wide receivers that aren't getting any seperation. How is "Go Long" even in your vocabulary?
The caveot, of course, is that their defense isn't fully back yet. Which means they have to have a high octane offense cause of how burned they're getting in the secondary, so I get it. With Willis, Bowman, and Aldon Smith still hanging with the players wives, I understand how they'd want to try and get down field quicker.
But with Brian Quick out of the picture and Kenny Britt not beating anybody I think we're going to start to see the Niners trying to slow this game down and get ready for a monster playoff bid.
If anything else, we're going to get to see what ever kind of adjustments they've made during the bye.
which leads us to . . .
NORCAL NOTES:
Still lovin Carr. I hope hope hope that next year they surround him with a bunch of hungry angry criminally young players next year. He, more than any other quarterback in the league deserves a win.
I think that might be it.
Go Giants.
FANTASYLAND:
ForFuns League (4-4) 5th place
ForReals League (5-3) 3rd place
This was a weird week. I fully expected to lose the one I won, and win the one I lost.
See, in my ForFuns Team everyone played great. They didn't play quite as well as my opponent (who had Antonio Brown and Jeremy Maclin.)
But all my guys beat their projections. Except, darn it, Michael Floyd. That was a really painful doughnut. Especially considering that I had LaFell on my bench. (one little switch and I would have won the game.) But that's how this game goes. I don't feel too bad, I may be fifth in the league, but have the top score in overall points by an insane margin, so my chances are good when I make the playoffs.
I was not so sure about my ForReals Team.
I was going up against the number three team and the projections were a dead heat. (I don't know why I even bother looking at that number, it's never close, but I can't help it) If any one part of my team tanked I was not getting the "Double You"
Cutler was my first worry. New England hadn't been dealing a lot of points to opposing QBs and last week he was so terrible that I thought this might be the turning point where I was going to have to treat him like Eli.
At the end of the half he was only at ten points and I couldn't watch anymore so I took my son to the skatepark and skipped sports for an hour listening to a podcast of "This American Life"
But, thanks to garbage time, I got 38 points out of my wayward son and since he is hitting the bye this week, I don't even have to think about him til November.
Foster felt good, did awesome. Golden Tate felt good, did awesome. Nelson felt great, tanked (How exactly does Rodgers throw for 412 yrds and only 20 of those go to Jordy?) Joique felt good, he was okay. And I went for Jace Amaro in the TE spot, cause there weren't a lot of options while Donnel was on Bye, it was a bunt, but it got me on base. And then there was Ingram.
Now Ingram was the first Hype player I ever drafted. The year was 2011, Ingram was a first round draft pick and a Heisman Trophy winning RB. At the time, gosh I was so young, I didn't know about things like avoiding rookie RB's (Sankey), or what exactly an RBBC was and how terrible it is for the fantasy game.
When I finally understood what "The Dreaded RBBC" was, my season was already lost.
Since that time, I have sorta sat quietly and hoped that either Ingram would break out, or he would get traded away to a team that wants to use an RB. But nothing happened, he was called out for being too slow, and then he was injured, but I never gave up that twinkle of hope.
But I've been thinking about the RBBC a lot. Not only as it pertains to the Fake Game, but also what it means in the real game.
I mean, as it pertains to the fake game, it's hands off. You could go crazy trying to decide between Ridley/Vereen, or Bush/Bell, or Jackson/Spiller, Bradshaw/Richardson, Mojo/RunDMC, Johnson/Ivory, Ingram/Thomas, Miller/Moreno.
Of course we know now, but we were all just a bunch of Jon Snows in August.
And the obvious reponse is that REAL coaches don't care about your fantasy teams.
They care about winning. They care about things like the "Hot Hands" and "Fresh Legs" and "Limiting Carries"
So this year, I identified the teams that really push the RBBC. I won't go through the list, but it's essentially ten teams
And after watching closely I'm starting to think they're wrong. And wrong by a lot.
See, what an RB needs for a big game is carries (obviously you say) But what he also needs is time. time to read the defenses, time to get warmed up to the flow of the game, and it may sound linguistically counter inutitive, but a rushing attack slows down the game. It's not a sexy as a 59 yard long play, but a good RB with a decent OL can get you 3.5 yrds per carry. That puts you 10.5 yards at the end of the third down. That's a first down . . . just about every time.
Commiting to the run gets you down field. How you handle the Red Zone is a toss up.
But RB's get hurt, so wouldn't rotating them make sense?
Yes, injuries occur often, but it happens a lot more to the guys who are pushing too hard. And no one pushes harder than an RB in an RBBC.
For instance, of the ten teams I picked as RBBC teams, seven of them are dealing with injuries this week. And I'm not even including the Jets because Chris Johnson is useless but not technically hurt.
But aren't they winning games?
Well . . . no . . . only four of them have winning records and Buffalo is the only team without a Top 5 Quarterback.
But what would happen if they just decided to go with a main RB?
Hmm? Well . . . that brings us back to Ingram doesn't it?
The Saints, unsure about rookies Cook and Robinson, and without Sproles, put Ingram into their battle plans this year and he got off to a great start.
But then broke his hand.
Not a season ending break, but the kind of break that says he's not coming back for four weeks, time to waive him and pick-up a backup kicker.
Anyway, when I saw him on the wire, I decided to take a bet. I can't use him for at least three weeks and he's probably not gonna do well that first week back, and if Khiry blows it up, then it's back to the old RBBC and I might as well have gone with a kicker. But he's going against soft defensive lines in Week 8 and Week 9, right when I roll into Bye Week Black Hole, and what if?
What if?
The What If turned into a perfect storm of injuries, soft defense, and a little trust from Coach Peyton.
Now, I'm hoping to see something like that again this Thursday, and I'm hoping to see if they're going to ride his coat-tails into the off-season. And, just because I'm human, I hope he secures a super great contract this year from a run first and ask questions later team.
That would be a lovely Fairy Tale, wouldn't it?
and speaking of Fairy Tales . . .
CRAZY/STUPID PREDICTIONS LAST WEEK:
Cutler sobers up and gets three TD's to Bennet, Forte and Revis. (Yup, 3TD, Bennet, Forte, And Jefferies, and though he didn't throw a pick-6 to Revies, the Pats Def grabbed a fumble for a TD, so I was pretty close)
Daniel Thomas gets a TD and Miller owners freak. (Nope, but he did get some serious carries)
Carolina beats Seattle (So close, and notice how relevant Jonathon Stewart became.)
In DET vs ATL the annnouncers won't shut up about moving an NFL team to London. (I have no idea since I was geared up for this game happening at 6:30PM and not 6:30AM, so I didn't see a thing)
Harvin goes for 100 yrds and gets in a fight with Vick on the sidelines. (28 rushing, 22 rec, 144 kick-off return) No fist fight with Vick, but, if you recall, I did say it ws only a matter of time before Vick runs for 82 yards, he got 69 on Sunday.
CRAZY/STUPID PREDICTIONS THIS WEEK:
Ingram and Newton have more than 200 yards combined on the ground
Eli Manning has the best game of the year but is only loaded in 3% of FF teams.
Raiders Beat Seattle in Seattle
80 Total points in the New England/Denver Game
Michael Floyd has a comeback game, but only if I bench him for Lafell.
That's it for now boys and girl (Hi mom!), and remember . . .
see a penny, pick it up, and all the day, you'll have ebola.
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