Boy, did the Red Zone Channel let us down this week.Well, actually, it wasn't the channel.
It was the games.
This week was especially boring. The Dolphins continued to kick field goals, and their five should have been enough, but then Tim Tebow worked some magic and scored 15 points in the final couple minutes to tie the game. It was the only exciting part of the game.
Then there's the Browns-Seahawks game. It was funny that I actually saw a couple glimpses of this game considering it featured just three field goals amongst the two teams.
And then there was the Monday night game, which I'm so glad I missed while I was at the Flyers' game. Four field goals by the Jags was all they needed to beat the Ravens. How boring was that game? No, I'm really asking. How boring was it?
I think it's a shame that two winning teams (Browns and Jags) — could have been three had the Dolphins either stopped Tebow or kicked a sixth field goal in OT — had the same amount of touchdowns as all the teams on the bye week.
Scary.
The lower scores this week — minus the Saints college-like blowout — translated over to fantasy football. Seven teams cracked 100 points this week and only two had more than 120. You know, a light week in the JFL.
And it figures that two of the lower scores paired up against each other as the Thieves and Boyer tied at 88.3-88.3. I waited until Wednesday night to write the recaps just in case there was a minor stat adjustment, but there wasn't one that affected their matchup.
So, we have our first tie since implementing the decimal system. One tie in three years sure beats the two ties we had in 2008 without the decimals.
Both the Jammers and the Slackers didn't need decimals, although, it was looking like they would as the Jammers needed a fourth-quarter comeback Sunday night and the Slackers survived a few rough outings thanks to 46 points from Drew Brees.
The two division rivals move to 5-2 and make it even harder for the Jawz Attack to mount a comeback.
As a note, World of Noise also will be affected by the division rivals — Slackers and Jammers — as if both win and Noise loses, he will be eliminated from Wild Card contention and will have to win the division to make the playoffs. Good luck with that.
Jimmy Jammers 119.4, Fear and Loathing 112
Not sure what the Colts ever did to upset the Saints, but I thank them for pushing the right buttons.
Because whatever caused the Saints to go out there with 48 points on the board and say, let's keep our three starting RBs — Mark Ingram, Pierre Thomas and Darren Sproles — in the game, made the Jammers extremely happy, trailing 112-111 at that point.
It was early in the fourth quarter and at 48-7 surely, Sproles, who had already surpassed 100 all-purpose yards and had a TD reception, wouldn't find his way onto the field.
Ingram started drive with two big runs, but came up a bit injured.
That got my hopes up. Maybe Sproles will come out and get 11 yards.
But no, Thomas came out and ran for the 11 yards I needed.
And then, it was Sproles.
First carry, 2 yards. Not enough.
Second carry, run right, breaks through the line. It looks like he has enough yards to win it and then at the 5-yard-line, he breaks a tackle and scampers into the end zone for a 16-yard TD.
There was still a need to worry with Pierre Garcon going for the Fear, but on the Colts very next play, Curtis Painter threw a pick-six to make it 62-7 with 12:12 left.
At that point, both teams had seen enough.
The Colts only attempted four more passes for the rest of the game and only one was completed.
At this point, the comeback was complete — and the comeback was necessary because Tim Tebow managed 28.5 points in that crappy Dolphins-Broncos game, and DeMarco Murray broke Emmitt Smith's single-game rushing record with 253 yards and a TD for 34.3 fantasy points.
It was yet another great waiver pickup for Fear.
His other waiver-wire gems were less than stellar. Jackie Battle, who we're all familiar with now had 7.6 points, Pierre Garcon had 3.7 points and Doug Baldwin had a big zero.
Even with those poor numbers, he still was in contention because Ryan Mathews and Daniel Thomas combined for 13 points, and Brandon Marshall and Larry Fitzgerald weren't much better. Both those WRs are dealing with QB problems. I watched Kevin Kolb bounce passes in the general direction of receivers. How awful is that?
Well, I guess it's not as bad as Tebow. He wasn't even getting his bounces close enough to hit receivers.
Sunday Slackers 123.1, World of Noise 102.9
Noise should give up. I mean, when you drop Plaxico Burress and he scores three TDs — 18 points that you desperately needed this week — it means it's time for you to give up.
Especially when elimination is around the bend.
So, maybe it's time to start thinking about 2012. I'd say trade some of your good players, but, you can see where I'm going with this joke.
For the Slackers, it was an ugly week. Drew Brees and Matt Forte scored more than half of the team's points — 70.7 of 123.1 — Ray Rice was a dud, Earnest Graham and Santana Moss each left early with injuries, and Jordy Nelson and Jermichael Finley were not Rodgers' favorite targets this week.
Still, as it has been all season, the Slackers wins with his trio — Brees, Rice and Forte — even though two had to pick up the other.
Chinese Organ Thieves 88.3, Boyer 88.3
Sounds like a lame FM station you don't want to land on: 88.3.
But that's the number stuck running through Schiavo and Boyer's heads for the rest of this week.
It's quite amazing to think about this. Either team has to be thinking, "Really? One more yard? Couldn't one of my guys get one more yard?"
To make it even worse to think about, as a knowledgable statistician in many sports, the one not-common fact about yardage is that one a player crosses the yard line, the statistical spot is actually the next yard. For example, when they say the ball is at the 45 and a half yard line heading toward midfield, it's actually statistically placed at the 46. So if the RB ran the ball 5 1/2 yards, he gets 6 yards in the stat book.
So if any of these guys would have pushed forward a few inches, they may have earned that extra decimal point.
I'm sure this is all making these two teams feel better.
For Boyer, the tie doesn't work out to be such a bad thing. Leading the division at 4-2-1, he'll actually have the chance to finish with the same amount of wins as someone in his division or conference and still move ahead of them because he'll have one fewer loss — unless we somehow have another tie.
The low scores were made possible thanks to a slew of players missing because of the bye week. Boyer was missing Tom Brady, and then took a big hit when Marshawn Lynch was scratched from the lineup just before the game and Boyer missed it, which was good for the Thieves because Ryan Grant or Willis McGahee both scored points and would have won it for Boyer.
Still, for how unlucky Boyer was with Lynch, he got lucky that Roy Williams finally showed up for a game. He does that from time to time. We expect to see him play a football game again in November of 2013.
The Thieves were also unlucky in that Philip Rivers was rather disappointing with 12.4 points, the second time this season he hasn't reached the teens. Rivers has had four 24- to 27-point games, but he's ranked 17th in the JFL in QB scoring. It's not been the great year many thought he could have. There's still plenty of time to turn that around, but when the Thieves have to seriously consider starting guys like Mark Sanchez (ranked 10th) and Ryan FItzpatrick (11th) you know there's trouble.
It will be a tough decision to make, but any more 12-point weeks will certainly lead to change — and hopefully, no more ties.
Dottsville Toasters 117.3, Graybill's Generals 67
Joe Flacco wants a new contract.
The Ravens are unlikely to give him one when guys like Ray Rice are more deserving of the pay raise.
He still has another year after 2011 on his Ravens contract, so he's not leaving Baltimore if his struggles continue, but there's got to be some questions to whether or not he'll return to the Generals.
I don't want to go all Redskins on you here and call for Flacco's head when the Generals are 4-3 and leading the division, but there is reason to worry when he's had four performances of 17.9 or fewer points (13.5, 10.9 and 4.7). His two big weeks of 29 and 41.7 were so long ago that one has to wonder if they will happen again.
The Generals certainly hope so, especially with LeSean McCoy returning from the bye. And he could certainly use him when Dexter McCluster, Sidney Rice, Johnny Knox, Donald Driver and Steve Breaston all combined to score 23 points, which is just 2.4 more points than McCoy averages per week. The good news is that Steven Jackson had his fourth double-digit game of the season.
That's more that the Toasters can say about Chris Johnson, Mr. CJ2K, who got paid and decided to take a vacation. Only two double-digit weeks with his highest point total being 13.1, the week he scored his only TD of the season.
Calvin Johnson had another 20-point week, and I have to admit that I was wrong about James Starks. He got the same amount of carries as he normally does, but he actually averaged more yards per carry, thus giving him a decent 10.5 points.
It wasn't necessary this week, but it was promising for the Toasters who need someone at RB to step up with Jahvid Best dealing with concussions and Chris Johnson dealing with TMMD (Too Much Money Depression)
Channel 4 News Team 136.4, T-Money 100.3
I know the feeling, T-Money. I do.
Aaron Rodgers goes for 37.3 points and Arian Foster posts 44.4. It's exactly what the News Team did to me Week 1 last season. Foster had his best week of the season, and it looks like he's back from his injury. If you look at his numbers, he's progressively getting better, and the Texans have been using him in a bit of a different way. He had well over 100 receiving yards last season, and he continues to be a speed option while the Texans use Ben Tate, who had 100 yards rushing in this same game, to take care of the hard yards in the center of the field.
With Foster healthy, it gives me hope that the Texans may actually win their division after all. It was a slow start, but they're looking like they're turning it around.
The same may apply for the News Team, who easily won thanks to Foster. If these two keep it up, it could be night-night for the division-leading Generals.
It was for T-Money this week as he got just four double-digit efforts, and if you do that when the defending JFL champs have two guys score a combined 81.7 points, you're pretty much done.
Jawz Attack 97.9, Houserville 89.2
It was a big win for the Jawz, but unfortunately, the remaining road isn't easy. But he does have the players to pull off the kind of winning streak needed to get back into the race.
But, to be as cliche as every athlete and coach out there, he just has to take it one game at a time.
This one was a great victory under the circumstances. DeSean Jackson, Fred Jackson and Wes Welker were all on the bye — that's 54.9 points per week on the bench.
He'll get all three back this week, although he'll lose Josh Freeman for the bye.
Dawson has to worry about getting Darren McFadden back period. He got 0.9 points Sunday and left the game early. He had three other RBs who scored enough points to win the matchup, but of course, there was no way he could have predicted McFadden's early departure.
It was a little bit of luck for Jawz who had been one of the unluckiest teams in the League. We'll see if that luck has permanently changed this week.
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