Well well. A lot of bandwagon hopping and swapping and we have week three.
I once again may not have a lot to add for the various games, as I was driving back from Minnesota at the time. I listened to the entire Bears game on the radio (which was in and out, which made me turn my head to the radio and squint for some reason, as if that would help), as well as the three and a half hour post game show.
My fantasy team won by a remarkable 2 points against my pastor. I was up by 10 going into the Monday night game and he had Larry Johnson and Tony Gonzalez and I had no one. Stick a fork in me, right? Thanks to the miserable performance by the Chiefs, Gonz ended up with 7 points and LJ had -.70. Wow. I cannot believe I pulled that one out. So thanks to his team doing slightly more miserable then mine, I managed to win.
Well the Vikings finally won, la-dee-frickin-da. And now everyone will jump on their bandwagon, even though they were playing a MISERABLE Saints defense, which Culpepper has had 300 yards and 3 touchdowns or more against each of the past 4 times he’s played them. But oh well, I guess Culpepper was bound to throw a touchdown at some point right?
And now I’m starting to kind of feel bad about the Packers. They are really bad, and I just hate to see Favre go out like this. However, he is Favre, so you still never know what they may be able to put together.
And the Lions looked pretty good this week.
I love seeing the Raiders at 0-3, however to their credit, they have had the most difficult opening schedule. Is Arizona still everyone’s sleeper pick? (Tim) Just kidding. Although, with Kurt Warner going down, that team could slowly descend into madness. If only they still had David Boston. New England came back and beat Pittsburgh, because that’s what they do. (Tim, do you have any specific Pittsburgh gripes you could share? heehee) LT was a freaking machine this week. Craig from my fantasy league got 49 points off him (that’s almost half of my whole team this week). And my prediction of Denver being one of the worst teams in the league is not working out so well (which is fine, because I actually don’t mind Denver, it’s just not fine for my prediction).
Okay, those are my thoughts on the other games, now to the Bears game. Since I am an eternal optimist (and being a Bears and Cubs fan, you have to do these kinds of things), I have to say that the score makes it look worse than it was. However, I do have to say that the Bengals are a tough team. The Bears defense held them in check for most of the game (in fact, the Bears still ended the game with more total yards and rushing yards then the Bengals, and they had more passing yards for most of the game), and Palmer still got it into the end zone three times and made virtually no mistakes. If you have 6 turnovers in a game, you will not win, plain and simple. I’ve been waiting for Kyle Orton to look like a rookie, and he did this week. But maybe it’s better that it happened now and just before the bye week, so he can take some extra time and work on the things he did wrong, and then we come out against the Browns. We then play the Vikings, then the Ravens. Those are all beatable teams. So I still feel pretty good about where we sit.
The only major complaint I have for this game is why didn’t Cedric Benson see the field? First off, Kyle Orton threw the ball 39 times. That is WAY too many for a rookie against a turnover-crazed defense. I realize Thomas Jones was running pretty well, and I’m not suggesting pulling him, but I would have loved to see more of a double threat sort of thing with Benson coming in too. They should have run the ball about 40 times that game, and split it up with maybe 28-30 to Jones and 10-12 to Benson. I have yet to hear a good enough reason that this wasn’t done.
Actually now that I think about it, I have a second complaint. Doug Brien SUCKS! Okay, there, I said it. I’m not pining to have Edinger back, because he wasn’t doing so hot either, but this move has not done us a bit of good yet.
Brien = stinky
So like I said, I still feel good about where we’re at, but I would really like to see Benson get out there more, and I see nothing wrong with platooning him and Jones, but we’ll see what happens. I know we can’t lose this Sunday.
Listening to Pittsburgh sports radio has been fun the past two days. As some of you know, there was a clock mistake right at the beginning of the 4th quarter that put an extra 52 seconds on the clock after a penalty. Because the Pats won with 1 second to go in the game, that became a big story on the news last night. However to the Steelers credit, and suprisingly to some of the callers this morning’s credit, they aren’t blaming the clock mistake for the steelers losing. Basically the patriots won the battle in the trenches on both sides of the ball, and Brady was perfect in the fourth quarter when it mattered (12 for 12 passing in the 4th quarter). Adam V is the best closer (clutch kicker) in football and he nailed another game winner from 40 yards out. The Steelers have a bye week now, so I’ll get to hear double the grumblings, but in the end it looks like the Steelers are the real deal, and my preseason pick of them missing the playoffs looks mighty shaky even after this loss. (Ok, my preseason picks look shaky all over the place, but I digress).
The AFC east is in trouble. The Jets lost their starting QB for the season, and then lost their backup in the same quarter, so they’re in big trouble. The Bills lost their start LB Spikes for the season in their loss, and J.P “Loss”man has gotten worse every game. The Pats lost their 2nd most important defensive player (Richard Seymore being first) for the season when Rodney Harrison lost his entire knee in a play that makes you wanna puke when you saw it and turn away from the screen for all the replays. Not only that but the Pats lost their starting left tackle (most important position on the offensive line) Matt Light for a while a little bit later in the game. We now are going to be starting two rookies on the left side of our offensive line. They did very well together in the second half against the Steelers which is encouraging, but the bottom line is both of those players are big losses for the Pats.
The one great thing about the Pats/Steelers game though…it felt like a playoff game. It had that intensity that you usually don’t see this early in the season. Brady’s 4th quarter was amazing and gives me hope even with the injuries.
So do Pittsburgh radio listeners still have to put up with Mark Madden? That guy is one of those dudes who isn’t happy unless he’s unhappy.