Don't miss your chance for football betting at BetUS.com. As America's #1 sportsbook, BetUS offers the most up-to-date betting lines & odds for all your betting needs.
Keyboard Quarterback: Fantasy Carpet Ride
Authored by Andrew Perna - 21st November, 2006 - 12:23 am
While there isn't a real marquee matchup, Ravens vs. Colts, Panthers vs. Bucs, Bears vs. Falcons, and Chargers vs. Patriots are all pivotal games in the standings.
With John Herrera standing to his right dressed in black and appearing not unlike an undertaker, Lane Kiffin sat down at the podium for Sunday's postgame news conference.
Baltimore wants Flacco to be their QB of the future. But the Ravens feel they have no choice but to start him now because Boller and Smith are unavailable. Wrong!
RealGM Search
Wow. Week eleven in the NFL was one for the ages. The Colts lost their first game, the Eagles lost their quarterback for the season, and LaDainian Tomlinson once again single-handedly lifted millions of fantasy owners to victory.
As fantasy football inches closer and closer to the postseason, I’ll also fill you in on how my army of teams’ stands after the wild fantasy week eleven we witnessed. It wasn’t all that bad, but I didn’t have too good of a week either. I’ll get more into that later on…
Week Eleven Highs Dallas Ends Indy Streak The Cowboys ended the Colts unbeaten streak with a 21-14 victory at Texas Stadium. Tony Romo orchestrated a perfect game-plan throwing for 226 passing yards, and deferring nicely to the dominant Dallas running game. Indianapolis, now 9-1, now has San Diego and Baltimore, both 8-2, on their heels for the AFC’s top spot.
Buffalo’s Mr. 83 Lee Evans, number 83, scored two touchdowns in the first quarter against the Texans. The amazing thing was, both scores were for exactly 83 yards! Evans finished with eleven catches for 265 yards and two scores. Evans broke the franchise’s single-game receiving mark, and became the first player to have two 80-plus yard scores in the same quarter.
LT Dominates…Again LaDainian Tomlinson is playing like a man possessed. He led the Chargers to a 35-27 won over the Broncos in Denver with 179 total yards and four touchdowns. The win gave San Diego first place in the AFC West and inched LT closer to Shaun Alexander’s touchdown record.
Roethlisberger Shovels Steelers to Win It looked as though the Steelers were going to fall to the hapless Browns on Sunday, until Ben Roethlisberger engineered a strong comeback and ‘shoveled’ his team to victory. He led Pittsburgh to twenty-one fourth quarter points, including an innovative shovel pass to Willie Parker for the go-ahead touchdown with just 32 seconds left.
Ocho-Cinco En Fuego It may have taken Bengals’ wide receiver Chad Johnson a while to warm up this season, but he has paid dividends in recent weeks. After last weeks two-touchdown performance, he lead Cincinnati to victory over the Saints with 190 yards and three scores. The win moved Cincinnati back to .500, and kept them in the AFC playoff hunt.
Week Eleven Lows McNabb Lost for Season He began the season on fire, torching opposing secondaries for touchdown after touchdown. Then he cooled down, but still remained one of the candidates for the league MVP as he kept the Eagles in NFC East contention. Now he’ll have to watch from home after tearing the ACL in his right knee. In turn, he’s ended the season for the Eagles and the millions of fantasy owners who are counting on him.
Seahawks Stunned Matt Hasselbeck didn’t return after all, but last year’s MVP Shaun Alexander did. In an unimpressive performance he rushed seventeen times for thirty-seven yards and no touchdowns. After winning consecutive games with both Hasselbeck and Alexander on the sideline, Seattle stumbled against the 49ers 14-20. The win, San Fran’s third in the row, puts them just a game behind the Seahawks in the NFC West.
Jets Lose to Chicago This was a game that New York could have won, and needed to in order to keep pace with the victorious Patriots. Instead they lost 10-0 to the impressive Bears. Sure, the Bears improved to 9-1, but putting up ten points against the Jets isn’t much to brag about. Meanwhile the Jets fell two games behind the Pats after turning the ball over twice.
Rams Lifeless The Carolina defense held the St. Louis Rams scoreless in a game that could have pulled the Rams to within a game of the NFC West-leading Seahawks. The Panthers won 15-0, on the strength of their defense and a touchdown by Steve ‘Vomit’ Smith in the second quarter. The Rams managed less than 170 yards of offense, and fell to 4-6.
Falcons Lose Third Straight For the third straight week Mike Vick’s passing game was a non-factor, and for a third straight week Atlanta lost. After surging to a 5-2 record, the Falcons are now losing grip on their playoff dreams with just six regular season games remaining. They are a game behind both New Orleans and Carolina, heading into a battle against the Saints this weekend.
My Fantasy Diary… Nine leagues and nine different stories, that’s the best summation of my fantasy football situation. My best team stands at a respectable 8-3, while my worst team recently dropped to 3-8. It’s around this time of the season that playoff hopes and dreams are decided, while my hopes are making like birds and flying south.
After my 5-4 record in week eleven, I haven’t gotten any closer to my goal of ending the 2006 season with an even combined record for my field of teams. I currently stand 46-53, which is pathetic considering the time and effort I have put forth. In some of my leagues, including the East Coast Pigskin League, I have decided to throw in my hat. I’m doing my best to remain competitive, but losses no longer cause me to spiral into a deep depression.
I’m now trying to field a team that has several worthy ‘keepers’ so I have multiple options when the 2007 season rolls around. The sad thing is I can’t wait for next year. It’ll give me a clean slate, and a new chance to embarrass myself in front of my friends, family, and readers.
My fantasy weekend wasn’t anything out of the ordinary so I thought I’d fill you in on the bizarre weekend my friend Asher had in our Nichols College League.
In week ten he lost his first game by four points, dropping his record to 9-1 through the season’s first ten games. He has the best record in the league by far, and has several of the number one rated players at their positions according to ESPN.com. His team includes numbers ones: Donovan McNabb, LaDainian Tomlinson, Marques Colston, and Robbie Gould.
On Saturday I was doing some Christmas shopping with my girlfriend, Christine, when my phone rang. It was Asher screaming in my ear that he’d gone 10-0. What the heck I was thinking? Is he drunk? The week was over, and he’d lost fair and square the following week. Then he explained to me that fantasy sports results around the world where being overturned because the NFL had decided to award McNabb with a touchdown pass on the play where receiver Reggie Brown ‘fumbled’ the ball to Philly’s back-up running back Correll Buckhalter.
The awarding of a touchdown pass, plus the yards involved, to McNabb gave Asher’s team the win in week ten. He was in fact 10-0!
I was pumped up for my good buddy, because my season (4-6) hasn’t gone nearly as well. However, that wasn’t all the drama Asher enjoyed, or suffered from, this weekend. Sunday he saw his golden quarterback, McNabb, tear his ACL and he lost Colston to a severe ankle sprain. Not only would he lose his all-Pro quarterback for the rest of the season, but it seemed as though he would truly suffer his first loss of the season against Team Riendeau.
Heading into Sunday Night Football, Asher was down forty-three points to Riendeau with only LaDainian Tomlinson remaining on his team. After LT’s four touchdown performance there was a chance that he might be able to single-handedly pull off the victory for Asher. Unfortunately, time ran out too quickly as Tomlinson posted forty-one points for Asher, just one shy of the victory.
That was a better fantasy football story than I have enjoyed all season…
Have any Fantasy Advice? Know of a way I can hack into the Yahoo scoring system? E-mail me at Andrew.Perna@RealGM.com
