Monday Update: Reality Check

Gentlemen,

We are 1 game away from having 5 complete Fantasy Football weeks in the books. FIVE. I'll remind you all that the regular season is only 13 weeks long, which means the midpoint is almost already here. That is not only depressing, but should be a wake-up call for us all.

If you read a lot of fantasy articles/publications (News Flash: I do), the "experts" often preach about patience. Don't be too reactionary. Calm down. Don't worry about your studs. Everyone will be fine. All is well. Nothing to see here.

I'm not saying they intentionally give bad advice, but sometimes I feel they don't account for how truly short this season is. This isn't baseball... (side note: Do you realize the baseball season started in MARCH and is still going? Go away already.) We don't have the luxury to wait for some extended regression to the mean to kick in. Urgency is, and should always be, a factor in Fantasy Football.

Risks should be taken. Guts need to be trusted. I'm not advising everyone to go out and make senseless trades...leave those to Gow. What I am advising is to take a long look at your roster, everyone else's, and the waiver wire - do what you think is best to make your team better.

Right now, our league is wide open. Yes, teams are separating a little, but all that matters is getting to that #6 spot. If the scores hold tonight, meaning no team passes another, only 1 game will separate 2nd place and 9th place. That is parity. And it's exactly why everyone should be ratcheting up the intensity, focusing even more, and be going after one of those playoff spots.

Those of you that are adverse to making any trades or spending your FAAB money, I'm telling you: Tomorrow is Today. What are you waiting for?

The Vikings
We look good. Actually, Tennessee looks fucking horrible. We actually made plenty of mistakes, didn't always capitalize on their turnovers, yet we still scored 30 and routed those assholes.

And the Pack lost again. Oh how I love this season thus far...

The Gophers
Bye week. Be happy we didn't lose.

Cracker's College Football Corner
I emailed Whitebread early this morning, but thought it was curious that I didn't receive a response within a couple hours. Cracker is usually pretty prompt in his college writeup and this was odd. What should I do? Should I call the police to file a missing person report? Should I just go directly to his place to see if he's there, or if he left any clues on the way to his murder?

I first decided to forward the initial email (that was sent to his work account), to his gmail account. Lo and behold, a quick response. Apparently it's Columbus Day, which I guess is justification to not work if you're Cracker.

1. The Gophers get Northwestern this weekend. In order to get to 6 wins, and be bowl-eligible, we need this game, yes?

I don't want to go as far as saying it is a must win but if I were handicap bowl probabilities the likelihood of the Gophers making a bowl game if we beat Northwestern is probably 75%-ish and if we lose it would probably be more like 33%.  Along with Purdue at home and at Illinois, this is definitely one of the more winnable games on the remaining schedule.

2. What's the scouting report on Northwestern anyway? Aren't they looking semi-competent this year?

Northwestern enters the game 5-1 highlighted by wins over Syracuse, Vandy, Boston College at Indiana.  It isn't exactly a murders row of teams from BCS conferences but considering others in the conference were losing to teams like Central Michigan, Louisiana Tech, Ball State, etc it is shows they have at least beat teams that are their equivalent.  They have two QBs that switch back and forth; one is a better runner and the other the passer.  A freshman running back, Veneric Mark, has been the pleasant surprise for NU and has been carrying their offense early on.  Their defense has inconsistent and ranged from horrid to shut down win a ball game with your offense not moving the ball.  They are coming off a choke job against PSU in which they gave up 22 unanswered points in the 4th quarter to lose 39-28.

3. You have inside sources (don't deny it)... What are they saying about the QB situation for this weekend? Can/will Gray play?

I was in Walla Walla, Washington this past weekend so I have no idea what is going on.  Last week the word was that the Gophers were game planning for having Shortell at QB.  Gray is listed as questionable.  This is about the time you would hope he would come back from the high ankle sprain, the mid-point of 2-6 week forecast recovery.  In the past Northwestern has struggled to stop Gray so it would be nice to see him back in action for this game.

Walla Walla, Washington? Where have I heard that before...

Skip ahead to 6:00, or watch the whole thing if you're an old Looney Tunes junkie like me.

Team Names
Kind of a fun topic this week. I told my brother about it and he thinks we're all lame, although he was a fan of most of the songs we chose.

Now I don't want everyone making rash judgements here. It's important you take the time to listen to all these terrible songs before you decide. Here we go...

Party Rock Anthem

New TaylorSwift Song

Lady Gaga - You & I

We Are Young

California Gurls

Glee

The Lazy Song

Skrillex

Call Me Maybe

The Power is On!

Who had the Best Team Name in Week 5?

If Whitebread had chose Some Nights (which is the better Fun. song), I probably would have gone that direction. But I'm lukewarm on We Are Young, so...

I'm going with California Gurls. Yes, I realize it was actually a 2010 song, but I don't care I'm still voting for it. If I didn't go with Party Rock, I would have definitely chosen a Katy Perry song myself. Her music is so terrible, yet catchy and singable... it just epitomizes what this topic was about. Plus she's hot, especially in that video.

It also gives me an excuse to post this...

Who had the Worst Team Name in Week 5?

Some of y'all weren't very specific here... I'm looking at YOU, Skrillex & Glee. That could warrant it's own Worst vote, but I'm going with New TaylorSwift Song. As someone who listens to a lot of country music, and actually kinda likes some of Miss Swift's music, this song is horrible. And so many of her songs would have been so perfect for this category! What a miss...

This week's category is very simple: Ugliest Person.

A couple stipulations here...

1) You can't just Google search and pick some random. This person has to be either A) Famous or B) Someone that we all know. Basically, you have to be able to explain who this person is.

2) This person must be alive. Let's not besmirch the dead, gents.

3) You must provide a picture. Since the Y! photo uploader sucks (and it's tiny), you can either send the pic to me directly, or throw up a link on the message board or in your smack talk. Make sure you do one of these things, so I have the right image.

I will be posting all the pictures on the blog next Monday, so be sure I get something to use, or I will have to pick one myself, and that will piss me off.

The Games

Crabs vs. Dallus

• Crabs' team had been nosediving each week this year, so he was overdue for a bounce-back type of game... and he got it.
• Romo was on bye this week, so Crabs started Ponder instead and got a healthy 17 pts from him, despite a semi-Romoesque 2 INT's. 
• 23 pts each from Cruz and Harvin, including a combined 5 TD's between them. That's 5 more than Gow's team had this week.
• Crabs' trade last week was poo-poo'd by those of us in attendance at MNF last week, but it is worth noting that Gonzalez was a beast yesterday with 18 pts.
• Cam Newton is easy to root against, and this was a week to do so. He was 3/15 at half time. He ended the day with less than 8 pts, over half of which he got rushing. Not too helpful for Dallus...
• Trent Richardson continues to be a draft day steal.
• Chris Johnson scored less than 1 point. 

• This one is in the books - Crabs takes it 124-84 and is currently your leader for the Points Bonus no longer in the lead for the Points Bonus (I wrote that last night before Colston went bananas).

Jerks vs. NooShoo

• Let's not spend too much time on this... 
• I had a pretty incredible week, which was topped last night by Mathews and Colston blowing up and surging me to the Points Bonus lead. 
• Gow's team did not score a TD.
• I'm currently up 127-44. I have Foster, Gow has Houston D. There's a couple records at stake here tonight: Biggest Blowout, Lowest Weekly Point Total, and maybe more... who knows?

Juan vs. JoJo

• I don't want to overdramatize a 3-2 record, but let's call a spade a spade: Juan Coconuts has been terrible at Fantasy Football. This has been a truly a storybook season for him, thus far.
• Ridley, believe it or not, continued to look like someone worth significantly more than Shonn Greene.
• James Jones was a very nice plug 'n play this week with 2 TD's. This feels so weird to be complimenting Juan...
• JoJo actually had a decent week himself. 
• AlfMo continues to make me punch things for dropping him right before Week 1.
• Drew Brees had a ridiculous night that actually could have been even bigger...
• Absolutely craptastic WR's for JoJo: Nate Washington and Jerome Simpson. He no lika da Juice.
• Juan wins 117-96.

Crapswell vs. Whitebread

• The Packers may suck, but Aaron Rdogers has still been awfully good this year. Another ho-hum 25 pts for Andy... imagine if GB actually had tried to score in the 2nd half.
• Andy eclipsed 100 and it was very workman-like if you check out his box score. Very few TD's. Lots of yards. Just about everyone contributed, except...
• Isaac Redman. Why is even owned?
• Marcus had the #1 and #2 QB's through 4 weeks, so he traded one away last week. And yesterday, the nightmare scenario happened with the other getting concussed... #GetWellRG3
• And the prize of said trade, MJD, scored exactly 5.9 pts. 
• This one is basically over. Andy leads 103-75, and Whitebread has Shayne Graham. 

Ned vs. Kenny

• The one match still in doubt...
• Kenny's team is basically Tom Brady and the Bears D. They accounted for 55% of his team's points this week.
• Jordy, Sproles, Wallace & Crosby all scored less than 4 pts each.
• Ned's team wasn't much better... he only had 2 guys in double digits: The Vikings D got exactly 10, and...
• The newly acquired Ahmad Bradshaw got 27 pts! Almost as much as Steven Jackson has for the whole season.
• Here's the deal... Ned's season doesn't hinge on this game, but if he loses he'll be 0-5. So basically, yes it does. 
• Ned trails Kenny 70-85 and has Andre Johnson and Owen Daniels playing the role of heroes tonight. I know we'll all be rooting for him...

Tonight
Pulled some last-minute strings to go last week and was treated to 3.5 hours of political conversations  (puke). Not happening tonight... I will not be in attendance.

Enjoy Tebow, boys.