Fish Fear Me

That Figures

The bad news is that my fantasy football season has been every bit as weird and awful as the real NFL season has been for my Minnesota Vikings, and the next two weeks will find me fighting in the dreaded Toilet Bowl to avoid having to host the end of year party. The good news is that a combo that I had hoped would fire up about week six has finally arrived, spotting me a 30 point lead on my opponent right off the bat:

The San Diego Chargers have regained their December swagger, thanks to Vincent Jackson's return and a smash-mouth defense.
Jackson caught a career-high three touchdown passes, Philip Rivers surpassed 4,000 yards passing for the third straight season and the Chargers beat Alex Smith and the San Francisco 49ers 34-7 on Thursday night to stay alive in the AFC West race.

I could have used that Rivers-Jackson team a few times earlier this year, but I guess I'll take it now. Hopefully Chris Johnson will show a pulse for two weeks in a row for a change and I can build a comfortable margin for week 2. 

Yeah, I'm counting on that about as much as winning the lotto.

 

Sporting News

Ouch: It was a tough loss for the Twins last night and familiarity with the script didn't ease the pain any. Once again the Twins took the lead and and once again they couldn't hold it. Francisco Liriano was tooling along pretty well until the sixth inning and then he just lost it. On offense, the Twins had their chances but couldn't put the game out of reach. I'm not going to say it's over, but the Twins must now win at least one in New York, even if they manage to get the W tonight. I've seen nothing that says this team has the chops to do that. 

Instant Buzz: I don't think the return of Randy Moss quite eclipsed the Twins in the news, but it was a near thing. A true deep threat who can go after the ball is just what the Vikings needed to open up the short game and relieve some of the pressure on Adrian Peterson. If the offense can get in synch now, when Sydney Rice comes back it could be one heck of a beast.

.500. After opening with two losses, I've managed to claw my FFL team back to 2-2. I'm not entirely happy with my team, but a few moves have improved it and I think I'll hold tight for now. In the meantime it would be awfully nice if Chris Johnson could put together a string of good weeks instead of this one good/one bad stuff.

The 2010 FFL Team

Here we go:

QB-Philip Rivers, SD
QB-Eli Manning, NYG
RB-Chris Johnson, TN
RB-J. Addai, IND
RB-Felix Jones, DAL
RB-Pierre Thomas, NO
WR-DeSean Jackson, PHI
WR-Mike Wallace, PIT
WR-Braylon Edwards, NYJ
WR-Vincent Jackson, SD
K-Joe Nedney, SF
DST-Giants

I think I did a much better job of preparing this year, but then I didn't execute so well at draft time. I think what threw me for a loop was that more WRs were picked in the first two rounds than expected and several times I had the player I wanted to draft plucked right from under my nose, leaving me scrambling a bit. I'm pretty happy with my backs and I think I have three good options to pair up with Chris Johnson. I'm not so happy with my receivers. I like having DeSean Jackson and I think Mike Wallace will prove to be a very good #3 WR, but I should have another option besides Braylon Edwards to go with them.

About that V. Jackson pick. I probably should have picked up another WR instead of Manning, but I think that Jackson will settle with a team and be able to get the NFL to waive the second 3-game suspension, but not the first obviously. San Diego is playing hardball with him, which is their right, but I think it makes it more likely that Jackson will win arbitration and be available week 4. It's a risk and probably will turn out to be foolish, but if he does land somewhere soon it could have a big upside. We'll see. In the meantime, I'll be watching the free agent projections for this week.