Playing the Wire

It was my assumption that if I dissected the waiver wire I would find the top level teams won the game within the game- waiver wire pick-ups. I couldn’t have been more wrong. What the waiver wire dissection proved was that the good teams have always been good and they have no need for the meaningless pick-ups. Nasty has had four additions (Bills, Garrard, Kasay, Sproles). Bush has really only had two (Driver and Carney- picked up Scobee prior to week one as he didn’t draft a kicker). Legged has had seven pick-ups (Eagles, Randel El, Lloyd, Prater, Engram, Stokely, Cassell). And Coatu has only had only 23 waiver transactions and for him that’s ridiculously low. He should have at least 60 by now- proves how good his team is.

Does anyone see any good transactions in this list? I guess we could reach and say Driver was a good addition, but that’s it. Even more amazingly, I looked through all of the waiver wire transactions and no one has really become the Earnest Graham this year. We could look at a Sammy Morris or a Correll Buckhalter, but these are really just injury replacements and I don’t view them in the same light? Where am I going with all of this?

I realized that the moving to a 12 team set up would have some kind of impact, but I never would have guessed that it would have all but eliminated the talent pool in waivers. The two extra players taken (compared with a 10 team league) in each round really equate to 30 extra players being off the board. That turns into three more rounds. The players that are available in my other league are actually contributors… and may actually sniff a starting line-up here and there. In this league, we have guys (Stro) constantly adding and dropping schmucks like Kevin Walter. This dude wouldn’t even start for my team. There’s no one out there to be had.

So, in hindsight, the draft means everything in a 12 team league. If you don’t have a good draft you have about as much of a chance as Amanti getting laid when he goes out wearing a pink, soft cotton shirt (wish I had a picture).

As I’m always trying to look to ways to improve the league, I wondered how we could make this more exciting. Besides having the top team kick out a member of his choosing, I’ve thought of another idea. At least once every four weeks (3x before playoffs), you would need to trade at least one player off of your team to another team. Now forcing your hand to trade doesn’t seem right or fair, but think about it. This would be our way of using our knowledge to add some talent to our team... as this is all but impossible on waivers. No one would be trading their top dogs, but rather the bottom feeders of their teams. You’d see a lot of Tim Hightower for Warrick Dunn type of trades. Now let’s say that three weeks ago, you traded Tim Hightower for Mewelde Moore. Who wins? Moore obviously has had two outstanding weeks, but Hightower is going to be more consistent as the season goes on. Just a way to keep things fresh in what could become a stagnant league.

Now, let’s get to the rankings. I had the privilege of going out with Big G, Nasty, and Cousin on Friday night. Nasty was shooting his credit card around like a dog owner with a Frisbee. This was an obvious, but welcomed, ploy to sway my rankings. On the other hand, Ryan and Big G’s tact was to get me as drunk as possible and then plead their case as to why they should be moving up this week. I have to tell everyone that the league rankings weren’t compromised in any way from Friday night’s festivities, despite those dirty hoodlums worst intentions.

Here we go:

1) Nasty- How can he move down? He ended up beating Big G by 37, even though Greg felt comfortable with his chances of winning heading into Monday night. I guess he thought Cutler was going to have the game of his life. The fantasy Gods have put some pressure on Nasty’s coaching ability as they’ve taken away his primary running back (Reggie Bush) and his handcuff (Druggie McAllister). That leaves him with Sproles, Rudi J, or Mushin Muhammad to take their places. I wonder what lucky prick gets to play him this week… oh yeah, it’s me. I’m ready to take down the one seed.

2) Coatu- Good teams find ways to win, bad teams find ways to lose. Chester had his best game since week two and it still couldn’t figure out how to pull out the W. With an easy match-up against Amanti this week, this may be the week we see a changing of the guard on top. King seems posed to make a serious run.

3) Bush- Could Kyle be losing his team? Reports are out that he’s lost control of at least one player on his team, Santonio Holmes. Without Holmes, Kyle is looking at starting D. Bowe from the high powered Chiefs. What a week to have this happen as he’s playing the next team in the power rankings, Legged. This latest example of the lack of control and leadership on this team makes me wonder if he can really be considered a playoff contender. Look for a player’s only meeting very soon on team Bush.

4) Legged- 142 points last week? Are you kidding me? Anyone notice that this was done with Marcques Colston laying an egg (didn’t even touch a ball), my boy Matt Prater only managing one point, and Jason Whitten only getting four points. So, his team scored 142 points with three guys accounting for only 5. Pretty impressive. Taking all of this into consideration, Cousin should be higher in these rankings, but he’s my whipping boy and I’m not ready to give in yet. Anyone notice that Cousin is also the first team to implement a two tight-end set into his starting line-up. This could be the wildcat formation of fantasy in years to come. He’s such an innovator.

5) Curse- Definitely not a pretty win by my team, but a win nonetheless. Anyone beginning to feel badly for Quevin and his team? It’s almost like feeling good when you beat a blind kid at basketball. There’s really no fun involved. Scoring a 69 should only be a sign of victory in one way, but not in fantasy sports. I’m glad Jon won as this may now give him the momentum needed to get hot at the right time. No one should want to be the horse in the front of the pack this early. You just know they’re going to get caught from behind. Jon is gaining on Mr. Bolt and we’re about to hit the home stretch. Be worried, Nasty.

6) dc- Did Dan just move up again this week? Keep paying no attention to Dan’s ascension. I’m not sure or not, but has anyone had every player on his team score in double digits? Dan came awfully close this past week, only missing this mark by one point from Jamal Lewis. That’s pretty impressive when you can have a team effort of this magnitude. You won’t see anyone on this team make foolish decision, like the reckless bunch on Kyle’s team. Also, did anyone notice that Stro matched Craigger’s futility mark by not having anyone on his team record double digits this week.

7) Pump- What a disappointment this team is. All of this talk about how they should’ve been number one two weeks ago. This team needs a lesson in humility. Getting beat by almost 100 points is unacceptable. Mark’s pleads that this was one bad week fell on deaf ears. Lucky for Mark, he gets to play Chester this week and should get back on his winning ways. A loss however, could mean an even bigger drop in the rankings. His team will need to stay focused to achieve greatness.

8) Crusaders- If I were to pick a team that is underperforming, it would be Big G’s unit. He has some talent on this team, but no one is stepping up. I love the Chad Pennington waiver wire addition. He should be good for at least 5 points. Maybe his hope was for Chad to provide leadership for his floundering team. He plays the medicine man, Quevin, this week so he should get back on his winning ways.

9) Gamers- Is there a funnier name in fantasy than BenJarvus Green-Ellis? There may be one funnier name, Houshmandzadeh. Yup, Amanti has both on his team. What does this mean? Nothing. It just gives me something to write as there’s no redeeming quality to this team.

10) Smokey- I sense a surge in coming weeks from Smokey. I’ve made some necessary moves to get dead weight off of my team and am excited for the future.

11) Quevin- I just realized that Kevin has the worst record in the league. I originally had him in the 10 spot, but I’m feeling now like my 2-4-1 team far out-trumps this rag-tag bunch. Could he go to 1-7 this week? I hope not, because if that happens, I may have to take Craigger out of the 12 slot… and I don’t want to do that.

12) Chester- I love this kid! There is a single underlying reason why this kid will forever be 12th in these power rankings regardless of how he finishes this year- evaluator of talent. Anyone notice that he dropped Cassell for Brad Johnson? How’d that work out for him? The other note that wouldn’t be that recognizable is a discussion we had prior to kick-off on Sunday. He wrote to me wanting to know if I had any interest in Calvin Johnson because he’s going to be nothing now that Roy Williams isn’t on the team anymore. The 23 points CJ posted was obviously the high on Craig’s pathetic team.

On Our Knees

Nothing much to rant about this week and don’t have too much time, but I know everyone is eagerly anticipating the weekly power rankings. Sorry for not including pictures this week. Hoping to have more time next week. By the way, I may be out in Boston on Friday night if anyone wants to meet me out to beat me up (seriously, try to meet us out- I’d love to catch up with you guys). Anyways, let’s get to the weekly power rankings:

1) Nasty- A lot of people don’t believe in the CBS power rankings, but Nasty is perfect in these rankings. He has the most points, the best record, and the best “Breakdown” (simply meaning he would have beat most of us on most weeks). He and Bush had a tough match-up this past weekend, with Bush coming out on top by six. I believe I predicted this may happen to Nasty and believe it or not, I’m picking the number one team to lose for a second straight week, this week against the Crusaders. Even with the loss last week and the predicted loss this week, I still have him number one, but the others in the top four are gaining.

2) Coatu- At the time of this writing, Kinger has K. Smith in his starting line-up instead of Michael Pittman. Maybe he’s a New England fan and is blind to their defensive troubles, but I have to question this move. Even so, he’s jumped a few spots and people are going to want to know why. I usually like to do these power rankings based on where people are, not where they are going. However, with Coatu, Bush, and Pump, I had to look ahead to see where we’d be after this week. Coatu, playing an invisible Chester Catamounts (abbreviated CMC somehow), will easily get the win and thus deserves this number two slot.

3) Bush- I’m really just trying to make fun of the Catamounts, but Bush is playing the other Green Mountain team, the Gamers, and they are WAY better than the Catamounts… and he’s the tenth ranked team in these rankings. So, even being a 50 point dog this week, he has a better chance beating Bush than the Catamounts beating Coatu. So, taking all of this into consideration is the only reason why Bush is number three and not number two. They should both win easily and it may be whoever scores the highest point total will take over the two, or possibly even the number one slot next week…. if all of my predictions come true.

4) Pump- I promise you I’m not taking Mark down a couple of slots to be funny. Honestly, take a look at this line-up and tell me if you’d even have them as high as number four: P. Manning, K. Faulk, F. Jackson, B. Marshall, G. Jennings, C. Cooley, K. Walter, J. Nedney, and Baltimore D. Kevin Faulk and Freddie Jackson aren’t two guys I’m too scared of. I think my tandem of Deangelo Williams and Mewelde Moore will outscore these two ass clowns this weekend. Again, I hate to look into the future, but Mark may struggle this week.

5) Legged- Does anyone else ever feel that the Amantis always end up on the right side of luck? Do you know who the One Legged Lover plays this week? Yup, the aforementioned Pump with all of his RBs on byes or hurt. This is the type of thing that really pisses me off and why I’ll never have Legged higher than five. The kid fires me up with his lucky streaks.

6) Crusaders- Big Country has a lot riding on this week against Nasty. A win here definitely vaults him past Cousin and Pump and possibly into the top three mix. Now, I don’t know if that means he throws this weekend or not, but he seems to be above curses and superstitions. I fully expect a beat down of Nasty this weekend, which would give this power ranking business the big shake up it’s been looking for.

7) Jeff’s Curse- Well played. It was only a matter of time as the team formerly known as Spunky (or Little Spunkster as I liked to refer to them), changed their name. With an easy win over the pathetic Catamounts last week and looking forward to an easy match-up against an owner on the verge of being voted out of this league (does Kevin even know how to log on to CBS?), things are looking up for my team… or I mean the team that I love… or I mean the team I think will win it all… or… ok, I better stop. I will buy a trophy for the league if this team wins as it may be my only way to ever have my name on a champion trophy. What an honor to name the team after me. Thank you so much, Jon… I promise not to let you down. And don’t worry about this week, it’s an easy win for you.

8) dc- Dan has to be laughing out loud with these power rankings. As in baseball, I continued to tell him that his team sucked, and he must’ve been laughing all those times, too. Now in football, with me feeling I have to do these power rankings weekly now, I feel as if I need to tell Dan weekly that his team sucks. Has anyone noticed, but he continues to slowly move up every week. I’m hoping that if I just slowly move him up the rankings that by the time he’s number one, it’ll seem as if I had him there all year. Let’s see how that plays out.

9) Quevin- The next four teams won’t get much written about them. We all suck. I figured I’d make Quevin the captain of our all-suck team. He scored the most points of all of us last week with 76…. this with two of his players not even playing. Quevin is solely to blame for his team’s disastrous state. They may be actually ok with a baboon managing their club.

10) Gamers- The great part of this story is that the Gamers own Eli Manning in both leagues he’s in. All he needed was a decent day from Manning and he wins both leagues. Manning decides to get picked three times and doesn’t even throw for 200 yards. This kind of stuff only happens when you suck. When 65 points would get you a win and you can’t get there, you know your team is on their knees.

11) Smokey- I’ve been on my knees sucking so long that my lips are numb.

12) Chester- And then there’s my friend, Christian. Does anyone’s ineptitude ever cause happiness to you? Not sure exactly why, but it puts a smile on my face when Craigger’s team continually sets new lows. I looked at his team’s points and you could add three of his weeks together and come up with 133 points. Do you know that Coatu had 135 in one week? Can we agree that Chester has to change his name to “Bye” if he doesn’t post at least 60 points this week? At some point there has to be penalties for sucking as bad as this.

Amanti Makes the Playoffs!

By the numbers:

-Amanti would make the playoffs if they started today, despite the fact that he has the fewest overall points this year. I still can't believe we don't use power rankings to determine playoffs.

-The past residents of the Homo Hotel (Craig, Amanti, and me) have the three lowest point totals out of everyone (360, 363, 364), which makes me wonder what we did while we all lived together to make us so collectively bad at anything revolving fantasies.

-Nasty and I put identical beat downs on our opponents last week (105-70). The only difference- I beat a legitimate team while Nasty was his typical bully self and stuffed Craig in a locker and pissed all over him.

-Nasty has outscored his opponents this year by 143 points. Next closest, 72, by Cousin. He's lapping the field at this point.

-90... the percentage of chance that Jon shows up on my doorstep threatening my wife if I don't stop telling people he has a good team.

-10... the percentage of chance I listen to Jon when he shows up.

-Craig, Amanti, and I are listed in the coaches ratings (whatever the hell this is) on the CBS site as the 9th, 10th, and 11th worst coaches in the league. Strangely enough, Jon is listed as the worst. Maybe it's not me. By the way, did anyone catch the Sports Guy rant on his fantasy league? The person who finishes in first has to kick someone out of the league (they're able to apply for reinstatement the following year). I LOVE this rule...even though I'd be the one out as I piss everyone off.

-Our top 20 draft picks: LT, Tommy B, AP, Westbrook, Manning, Jackson, Lynch, Portis, Owens, Lewis, Johnson, Wayne, Graham, Housh, T Jones, McFadden, Bush, Maroney, Turner, MJD, K. Smith, Palmer, A. Johnson, McGahee... only four of these top 24 picks are in the top 11 in overall points for QB, RB, WR, and TE. FOUR out of 24!!! Talk about sucking at making picks. Who are those four you may want to know? Turner leading with 89, Portis with 79, AP with 66, and Bush with 65. The top seven overall picks: LT, Brady, AP, Westbrook, Manning, Jackson, and Lynch no where to be found.

When looking at the numbers, it’s easy to figure out the power rankings this week:

1) Nasty- Even with Favre out and a mediocre performance from Garrard, Nasty still managed to have the highest point total of the week. At some point he’s going to falter and it could be this week against a strong, but recently underperforming, Bush team. Even so, as mentioned above, the big guy has exploded out of the starters gate and is now in Husein Bolt coast mode. Anyone else see the similarities of Bolt and Nasty?

2) Pump- I think PP is the only one that wants to be on the top of this list. I shouldn’t look into the future, but his match-up with a horrendous Quevin team should propel him forward in his quest for a playoff slot. I’m not worried about the Colts as everyone else seems to be. I’d rather be in their shoes than the Pat’s. Completely off subject now, but Cassell looks scared shitless in the pocket. Can Pat’s fans see this too, or are you blinded by the Bill Belichick blinding aura?

3) Legged- These Lovers probably have a legitimate gripe not being in the two spot, but I can’t put a team higher than three if the majority of their team is as old or older than me. I can barely run to the end of my driver without waking up sore, so I will continue to believe that this bunch of old-timers will eventually wear down and need to take a break every other week which will limit the potential of this team… especially when we get to the playoffs.

4) Bush- He says he was cursed, but really his team just laid an egg. When six players account for only 21 total points, you know that you’re approaching the land that only Craigger is accustomed. This week will prove a lot to me as Bush faces off again Bolt… or I mean Nasty. Can Nasty continue to glide to the finish or will Kyle Bush be able to overtake him in the last lap? Stay tuned to find out.

5) Coatu- Much like the team underneath him, Coatu has fallen in recent weeks. Yes, he won last week, but losing Westbrook can’t be underscored. I see he has Buckhalter in his lineup which is a good move, but he’s no BW. With Chris Perry quickly coming out of favor in Cincy, he no longer has the RB depth he had a few weeks ago. Luckily for him, he’s facing the medicine man, Dan, this week (you know, the team that will make you finally feel better if you’re not playing well). Being this low may be a temporary stop for Coatu… unless he loses this week which would mean an absolute drop. You gotta win the games you’re supposed to win.

6) Crusaders- Starting at this point, Greg and the next two teams all lost last week. I figured these three slots based on who was the biggest loser (Kevin) last week. Kevin gave a piss poor performance and lost by 28, while the little Spunkster lost be 13 and Mr. Crusader lost by nine. Thus, Greg gets top billing over the other two losers. Does that make Greg the biggest loser or Kevin? Or are all three losers? Regardless of who is the biggest loser, they’re still above the hobbits in the basement.

7) Spunky- If I was right about anything, it was that this little Spunkster would be in trouble facing a hard charging Pappa Pump. I didn’t imagine my curse would cause him to score the lowest point total of the week, but now that his power ranking has sunk out of the playoff picture, expect a big week (oops, is this cursing him again?).

8) Quevin- This Boldin injury couldn’t have come at a worse time for Quevin. At the time this was being written, Quevin is a 60 point dog to Pappa Pump. The wonderful guru has him only scoring 56. This has to be the first time someone is an underdog by more points than the guru is picking for that team to score. Quevin is walking a fine line of becoming a hobbit and joining us that live in the basement.

9) Gamers- Anyone catch that this is Amanti’s third win in a row? Not sure if this is funny or not, but even winning three in a row has him only at nine in the power rankings. As mentioned before, Amanti would be in the playoffs if they were to start today. Unfortunately, a win this week against me won’t prove much, so it may be hard for him to move higher this week unless Quevin lays another egg.

10) dc- Again, dc was in danger of falling below Craig and me, but the Forte character runs with power and grace. I’m not calling him the next Sweetness, but I think he may be a little shorter than Walter so maybe we could start calling him Sweet and Low. He’s the only thing on this team worth mentioning.

11) Smokey- Whoa, what a beat down I put on the pathetic Bush team. Here I thought they were a much better team…. how wrong could I have been? They were dreadful as they allowed Deangelo Williams to trounce all over them. Smokey is going to ride the momentum into week six and hopeful be able to eek out another victory against the subpar Gamers. If this happens, sitting at 3-3 for a perennial playoff contender will put fear into all of those in the heavens.

12) Chester (group formerly known as Tasha)- Changing his name and the stupid logo on his helmet won’t improve this team. By the way, who spends time designing a helmet for fantasy… and what does the M stand for if you’re name is the Chester Catamounts? You’re making your team dumber just by being its manager. If it weren’t for Jon, you’d win the Lane Kiffin award for fantasy.

Palin for President... or Cousin

I know I’m speaking to what I can only assume is a bunch of conservatives from Mass, but c’mon. I was watching the VP debate on Thursday night and didn’t mind that The Office was not on or that I was making the conscious decision to delay watching the Real World- Island episode that I had taped the previous night, because I knew that this debate would provide more comic and reality television than these other two options combined. Lucky for me, it didn’t disappoint. I began to watch and immediately heard Palin say that the way she would tell if the economy was good was by going to a soccer game and asking a soccer mom what she thought. If this soccer mom said the economy was struggling than the economy was probably in bad shape. Are you serious?????? So, after the 50th “Gosh darn” and “You’d better believe it” I was happy knowing that no one in their right mind would vote for McCain/Palin as the Maverick (one of the coolest nicknames of all time) is one tick short of leaving this Palin chick in charge. This thought lasted until I saw my good friend, Drew, online. I chatted with him over this cool internet thing we have and began to poke fun at the second stupidest person in the US (behind our wonderful present president, of course). Unbelievably to me, he began to defend Palin. I honestly thought he was kidding at first. But, no, he wasn’t. I then made fun of him on an e-mail that had a few people on it and someone else came running to Palin’s defense. I pinched myself and, even though I feel like half of my life is just one big dream that I’m soon to awake out of only to realize that I’m 80 with only a few days left to live, I didn’t wake up. Could it be possible that there are people out there that think this dipshit can run our country? Is it because another jackass has done it for eight years and we have only come close to self imploding many times… but we’re still the USA so it must be doable? What are people thinking?

And then there’s Cousin. I’m beginning to hate this kid more and more. He picked Dan’s fantasy baseball team and I picked that team to finish in 11th. As we all know, Dan rewarded Cousin with some winnings as Dan finished in FIRST. Are you kidding me? FIRST! This after I picked Dan to finish 11th out of 10 teams. Do you know what place I picked Cousin to finish this year in the VFL preseason rankings? 11th. Do you know, based on points, where he stands right now? 1st. I can’t make this stuff up. Do you know who’s in first in power rankings? Nasty. Do you know where I predicted Nasty to finish in the preseason rankings? 12th. Again, I can’t make this stuff up.


So all of this leads me to my point about Palin and Cousin. I’m finally realizing now why I never did well gambling. I knew that I should always go through my picks and then pick the opposite team, but I’m so strong minded that I never would allow myself to second guess the hamster that runs my brain. Therefore, I’d always end up losing big money. A perfect example: To keep things interesting last year during football playoffs a buddy of mine and I picked each of the playoff games. I ended up going 1 for 12 in the picks and ended up having to pay for his entry fee into our other fantasy league this year. Do you know how rich I’d be if I could ever get myself to pick against my original thoughts? Could the same be said for all of my thoughts regardless of if they’re sports related or not? What’s the opposite profession from teaching? Something that involves work? Maybe a coal miner? Is that my true calling? Would I be the best coal miner ever to mine coal? What’s the opposite of a small Italian women? A fat Norwegian? Should I really have stock in a flour company for sexy time with what should’ve been my fat Norwegian wife? As you can see, my life decisions from now will always be second guessed by myself. Even while saying this, I’m having a hard time convincing myself that everything is going to be ok if McCain suffers another stroke and Mrs. President Palin takes over. If my thinking is right, she’s about to be the best president the US has ever known. Someone check me into a mental hospital.

So, as you can see, I’m no longer feeling confident about my picks, but things seemed to work out for Nasty last week and he didn’t fall victim to the dreaded O’Hara curse, so we’ll do this at least one more week. Here we go:


1) Nasty- Until researching the top part of this article, I didn’t realize that Nasty was my preseason pick to finish in last. This is after Nasty proved me wrong in baseball as well. Favre played out of his mind last week and unfortunately for Nasty is on a bye this week and he’ll go to David Garrard. Even with Favre on a bye, he gets back Harrison and Moss who were both on byes last week. I like Moss to have a huge game tomorrow as well as my sleeper pick, Mushin Muhammed to post numbers close to what he did last week. Nasty get the early season vote for MOY (manager of the year). See if he can stay unbeaten. Ha, who am I kidding, he’s playing Craigger. I could be his QB and he’d still win. Put it in the books. (interesting sidenote to this contest- I have Moss, Muhammed, and Gates in our other league and am playing Craigger this week. Craig’s week in both leagues will live and die based on how these three players do.).

2) Bush- Playing me in week five should propel Bush to 4-1. As we know, this league is all about Ws, no matter how you get them (reference Amanti at number 10 this week). By beating Kinger by 40 last week, it’s hard for me not to bump him ahead of our past number one. After getting to 4-1, Bush can start to rest his players for the playoffs.

3) Coatu- As I mentioned last week, it’s going to be hard with so much RB depth to pick the right one to play. I’m so glad I’m not in that position. Chris Johnson was the man last week while Pittman struggled. I feel like Kinger will eventually stab himself multiple times for continually making the wrong decisions as to who to start. I think he should just trade away his team so he doesn’t stress out about whether to play D’Angelo Williams or Selvin Young like I do every week. Man I hate my team!

4) Pump- Not sure what to write here. Here’s what I’m thinking Mark reminds me of: 1) Kid in a candy shop with how happy he is that his team is winning or 2) Three year old on a long trip constantly asking “Are we there yet?” I’m going to knock Mark down a spot every time he asks for these rankings. By the end of the year he should be 15th. 3) The scene from American Pie where Shitbreak in reference to one of Stiffler’s comments mentions, “I don’t like the kid, but he’s got a point.” Yes, with his impressive 82 point performance (still beat me by 27), Mark gets to move up one slot (mainly because of Greg’s even weaker performance. He probably thinks he should be number one, but now I left him wanting more. Maybe this will get him to stop asking me for these rankings every Tuesday.

5) Legged- As I mentioned above, Cousin has the most points out of everyone in this league. Much like how I think ERA should be the only category to determine the Cy Young, I feel like I’d like to be in a rotisserie football league where the top scoring team for the year wins. Seeing how we aren’t in that kind of league, gives me the right to put Cousin at number five, because I refuse to believe he drafted a better team than me two drafts in a row. Simply unbelievable at this stage of my life.

6) Spunky- Newsflash, I like this team, but here he has three QBs on his team with only one legitimate field player on his bench to substitute in. With three players out on a bye, I question this judgment…. but what do I know, he’s the one that came in first for baseball. Playing a surging Pump, leaves this little Spunkster nervous. It’s hard to call a week five game a must win, but we’re getting pretty close to that for my preseason pick.

7) Crusaders- My how the mighty have fallen. I had Greg at number two only two weeks ago and here he sits at eight. Don’t blame this on me, blame the Cowboys for only running Marion eight times or their defense for merely recording two sacks on the powerhouse of the NFC East, the Washington Redskins. I fully expect this team to bounce back and get into the playoffs, but as for now, they’ll stay here at eight.

8) Quevin- Kevin was one broken sinus away from tying the number one team, Nasty, last week. Warner’s 30+ yard touchdown pass to Boldin would have given Kevin the necessary 10 points to tie Nasty. Unfortunately for him and Boldin, things didn’t go accordingly. We are beginning to see what happens when teams don’t have benches as Kevin was one of seven teams who had players that didn’t record a single point for their team. There were many others that had players that only scored one point. This is why I believe strong benches are needed in this league.

9) dc- The only thing keeping him above Amanti and Craigger is this guy’s belief that Matt Forte is the next big thing (expect an ACL tear this week). With a couple RBs on byes, this could be the week that he drops below Amanti and Craigger… of course he’ll still stay ahead of me regardless of what happens.

10) Gamers- Without Larry Johnson last week, this team could have sunk to new lows. Even with a LJ resurgence, this team is still weak. The only thing going for him, besides playing Craigger last week, is playing Dan this week. The only thing better would be if he played Craig or me this week. Maybe he only needs to post 65 this week to keep his winning streak going.

11) Tasha- So it turns out that the Guru actually overestimated Craig’s team. As I mentioned last week, I can’t remember the Guru ever predicting under 80 for a team, yet he predicted only 59 for Craig last week. Craig made the Guru look pretty smart by posting a whopping 57. Amazingly, Amanti only scored 61 to get the win. Talk about playing the right opponent at the right time.

12) Smokey- My team is horrendous. Now I simply get to route for my Skins as I have finally called upon Jason Campbell to be my on-field general. I would be offering up ridiculous trades if I felt that I had anyone on my team that anyone else would want. This team is the lowest point I’ve ever encountered in my fantasy tenure. I’m embarrassed.