Seder Slate for Week 8 (Rhyming!)

This weekend is Homecoming for my alma mater (yeah, I can say that now), the University of Pennsylvania. 

Sounds really pretentious when you write it out like that.  Oh well.  

The Fighting Quakers are just 2-4 this season, but are 2-1 in the Ivy League, and in sort of a mirror match are facing off against a 4-2 (1-2) Brown squad.  Penn has fallen off in the last couple years, going 7-9 (6-4) after going 23-7 (19-2) in my first three years there.  From the looks of it, they could use a big Vigtory Saturday.

**awkward expectant expression**

OK, moving on.

WHAT? Carolina Panthers at Chicago Bears

WHY? These are two teams that are headed in opposite directions, despite both having much higher expectations than last year.  The Panthers are 1-5 and have lost four straight, but it's not all bad, as their point differential is better than six teams with equal or better records.  On the other side of the field is a Bears team has won four in a row, and leads the league in point differential (per game), with an average scoring margin of +14.  This game would have "blowout" written all over it, but it seems like just when you know what's going on this season, the Patriots lose to the Seahawks.

WHO? Everyone (and by that I mean FantasyLand) is getting on Cam Newton for being a disappointment this season, but is he really playing that poorly?  

2011 (16 gm): 310/517 (60%), 4051 yds, 21 TD, 17 INT; 126 rush, 706 yds, 14 TD, 3 fumbles

2012 (on pace): 269/461 (58%), 3699 yds, 13 TD, 16 INT; 123 rush, 728 yds, 8 TD, 8 fumbles

The noticeable declines here are in pass attempts and total touchdowns.  The thing is, I don't think anyone thought that Newton was going to repeat his rushing touchdown total from last year, but his yardage is right there.  The passing touchdowns are way down, but to be honest, a lot of the problem here is that the running backs haven't run well at all (without Cam's rushing, they'd be 31st in the league), and that gives him fewer opportunities for touchdowns. 

HOW? I'm going to give you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch this game from the sidelines -- as my delivery boy.  I told Steve Smith that I'd get him a stepladder so he could more effectively talk trash with Brandon Marshall.

WHAT? Oakland Raiders at Kansas City Chiefs

WHY? I'll be real with you here, there really isn't much of a reason to watch this game.  Yes, AFC West games tend to be competitive, but these are the two teams that no one cares about or expects anything from.  The Raiders are 0-3 on the road, and the Chiefs are 0-3 at home.  The Chiefs are in the bottom third in the league in rush defense, but face a Raiders team that's 31st in the league in rushing.  The Raiders are in the bottom third in the league in pass defense, but face a Chiefs team led by Brady Quinn.  The Chiefs have by far the worst turnover differential in the league, but Oakland has the fifth-fewest takeaways in the NFL.  Wait, I'm not making the right point here.

WHO? This game will be defined by the performance of the two star running backs, Jamaal Charles and Darren McFadden.  Charles is coming off a torn ACL, but as we've seen with Adrian Peterson, that's really not a problem.  He has more rushing yards per game than 13 teams with fewer than 20 carries per game, due to his yards-per-rush being 4th in the league.  On the other side of the field is Darren McFadden, who is 41st out of 46 qualified players in yards per rush (tied with Vick Ballard and Alex Green), and that includes a 64-yard touchdown run.  This coming from a guy who was averaging over 5 yards per carry each of the past two years.

HOW? In the spirit of the NFL Films Presents show I just watched (and the gloomy picture I painted of this game above), you really should just bust out your NES and put Christian Okoye head-to-head against Bo Jackson.  Bet you can't top this though.

WHAT? New Orleans Saints at Denver Broncos

WHY? Say it with me: ssshhhhoooooooooooooooootttt-ooooouuuuuuttttt.  The 6th best total offense and 7th best scoring offense faces the worst total defense and 4th-worst scoring defense.  The 3rd best total offense and scoring offense faces the 10th best total defense and 17th best scoring defense.  The Saints are coming off three consecutive games with 370+ passing yards, while the Broncos are coming off a bye after a big comeback win and are playing at home.

WHO? Despite all of the passing numbers that I expect to see on Sunday night, perhaps the biggest non-quarterback contributor could be good old Willis McGahee.  At the ripe old age of 31, he's on pace for 1500 total yards, which would be a career best, and 8 touchdowns, which would be his third-best.  This week, his fresh-off-the-bye legs get a chance to rumble with the 31st ranked rush defense (which is also giving up the 4th-worst yards per rush).  The threat of Peyton Manning will scare the Saints' defense plenty after they gave up 400 yards to Josh Freeman last week, and McGahee should benefit.

HOW? Nosh on some grits with the Manning family, as Eli celebrates another late-game victory, Archie roots against his old team, and Cooper begs for someone to pay attention to him for once.

Week 7's Titans, Texans, and Tampas

Bye weeks are probably more strange for the players than they are for the fans, but it's still odd, even in the age of fantasy in which every game has some intrigue, to have no games on the schedule in which I have some real emotional stake.  Something beyond "hey, I'd really like to win this fantasy football game which, even if I win every single game all year, will not impact my life at all."  Yeah, sure, it makes me viscerally squeamish to watch the Giants come back to win on a busted coverage by Washington, but it's just not the same as watching the Lions come back to beat the Eagles on busted coverages.

Ah well, it's only a week right?  I'll get my opportunity to scream at Michael Vick in due time.

TITANS 35, BILLS 34

TRIUMPH:  Chris Johnson: LOLWUT?  With a ridiculous 18 carry, 195 yard, 2 touchdown performance in this game, Johnson now has 40% of his carries, 68% of his yards, and 100% of his touchdowns in just two games (this one and a surprising Week 4 performance in a losing effort against the Texans).  Yes, the numbers here are significantly better than anything we've seen from him this year, but he's actually had at least 91 rushing yards and 4.8 yards per carry in 3 of his last 4 games after gaining no more than 24 yards or 2.1 yards per carry in 3 of his first 4 games.

TRAGEDY:  This really wouldn't be worth commenting on at all if it weren't for fantasy football, so you can thank your lucky stars for that.  Scott Chandler, who averaged just over 3 receptions for 43 yards and 0.8 touchdowns per game in his first five games, has gained just 19 yards on 3 receptions with no touchdowns in the previous two weeks.  This is especially bad because the Titans had allowed no fewer than 7 receptions for 60 yards against tight ends thus far this season, including a ridiculous 8 touchdowns in 6 games.  And I started him in two of my three most important leagues this week.  Blech.

TREND:  I'm fairly sure I've written about this before, but it's increasingly worth noting: Steve Johnson is the king of moderate statistics with touchdown upside.  Of his 23 games the last two seasons, he has had between 45 and 75 yards and a touchdown in 7 of them (he has scored 11 total touchdowns in that span).  He's had between 4 and 6 receptions in 14 games, and between 6 and 10 targets in 17 games.

TRAIL MIX: The Bills were this close to being alone in first place in the AFC East for a couple hours (albeit in a division whose teams were all 3-3 entering Sunday, and one of which was on a bye).  They let a 6-point lead disappear on a late-game drive (which, by the way, caused them not to cover), and are now in last place in the division.

TEXANS 43, RAVENS 13

TRIUMPH: So I guess the Texans' defense wasn't as demoralized by the loss of Brian Cushing as we thought.  After giving up six touchdown passes to Aaron Rodgers on Sunday night, they held a Ravens offense that had scored at least 23 points in 5 of 6 games (and at least 31 in 3 of 6) to just 3 in the first half, including a safety and a pick-six.  After the offense built the lead to 29-3 at halftime, they eased up a bit, but this is clearly a team that has its act together when injuries strike.  Last year, they allowed two fewer points per game after Mario Williams went down in Week 5.

TRAGEDY: This sort of goes with the first one, but Joe Flacco probably shouldn't be putting himself into the "elite" conversation any time soon.  He completed a not-abysmal 48 percent of his passes, but threw for just 147 yards on 21 completions (and with 43 attempts, his 3.42 yards-per-attempt is the worst of his career).  His 0.3 Total QBR was the worst in the league since Kyle Boller's relief performance for the Raiders against the Chiefs almost exactly a year ago (7/14, 61 yds, 0 TD, 3 INT), and the worst of anyone who played the entire game since -- and you shouldn't be shocked by this -- Mark Sanchez in Week 11 of 2009 against the Patriots (8/21, 136 yds, 1 TD, 4 INT).

TREND: Ray Rice had just 9 carries in this game.  Since 2009, when Rice has 15 carries or fewer, the Ravens are 8-11.  They are 30-6 when he has at least 16 carries.  This isn't rocket science.  Or even earth science (no offense).

TRAIL MIX: Since Week 16 of 2009, Arian Foster has played in 38 games.  He has scored a touchdown in 28 of them, with 43 total touchdowns.  Ba.  Nanas.

SAINTS 35, BUCCANEERS 28

TRIUMPH: So apparently Josh Freeman is the new Drew Brees.  In his first three games, Freeman threw for 491 yards with 4 touchdowns and 3 interceptions.  In the past three games, he has thrown for 1047 yards with 7 touchdowns and 2 interceptions.  Keep in mind, though, that two of those games were against bottom-three pass defenses and the other was against a Brady-Quinn-led Chiefs team that did nothing themselves offensively.  This is also coming from a guy who had 6 interceptions in 2010, followed by 22 in 2011, and this season has a significantly better yards-per-attempt than those two years despite a significantly worse completion percentage.  Weird.

TRAGEDY: Fun fact: one of my favorite undervalued players, Pierre Thomas, did not catch a pass for the first time since Week 17 of 2009 against the Bucs (that's 32 consecutive games with a reception).  For a running back on a team with plenty of options that are continually swapped throughout the game (including Darren Sproles, who has been more integral to the passing game since he arrived last season), that's impressive consistency.  His career yards-per-carry is behind only Jamaal Charles, Felix Jones, and DeAngelo Williams among active running backs, and his career yards-per-reception is on par with the Sproles' and Ray Rice's of the world.

TREND: Vincent Jackson's inconsistency might have actually been Philip Rivers' fault.  He's grabbed at least 4 receptions in 5 of 6 games this season, after doing so in 8 of his last 21 games with the Chargers.  He has three 100-yard games thus far this year, after having four all of last season.  In those four games, he averaged 7 receptions for 147 yards, and scored 7 touchdowns.  In the 6 games immediately before or after a hundred-yard game, he averaged 3 receptions for 37 yards and scored zero touchdowns.

TRAIL MIX: Since the start of 2011 (22 games), the Saints have had 4 different players lead the team in rushing at least twice and 5 different players lead the team in receiving at least twice.  I thought this was impressive, until I realized that with the personnel turnover from year to year, this happens all the time.  Sean Payton, you disappoint.

Seder Slate for Week 7

This might sound weird, but I've actually been watching baseball the last few days!  No, not the stupid NLCS.  I'm not-at-all-secretly hoping that some sort of umpiring mishap causes the teams to tie, causing no team to advance to the World Series and the Tigers to win by default.  This year is a very easy one for me to decide which team to root for -- of the final four teams, only the Tigers haven't eliminated the Phillies from the playoffs since 2009.  Sure, I wanted the Orioles to win it all, followed by the Nationals, mostly because I figured that they might have been in for a letdown in 2013 had that come to pass.  But with those teams out, I'm all in on Los Tigres.  And anyone who can absolutely demoralize the Yankees en route to a series sweep is a friend of the people.

Oh, I was supposed to write about football?  Who cares, the Eagles are on a bye, right?

WHAT? Green Bay Packers at St. Louis Rams

WHY? Some interesting forces at play here.  The Packers are flying high after their offense came out of its funk, putting up 42 points (a season high) against the formerly-formidable Texans defense, with Aaron Rodgers throwing for 338 yards (also a season high) and 6 touchdowns (well yeah, a season high).  Rodgers' yards-per-attempt goes up from 8.3 to 9.3 when he plays indoors, and his TD/INT ratio moves from 3.5:1 to 10:1.  At the same time, the Pack are playing on the road for the third straight week after a disappointing loss and a big win, so there's a distinct chance that they have a bit of a letdown here against a Rams team that's actually 5th against the pass.

WHO? To me, whether or not this game will be close depends a great deal on how former first overall pick Sam Bradford plays against a middle-of-the-road Packers defense.  Bradford had the second-best passing game of his season last week against the Dolphins (albeit without throwing a touchdown pass), and ESPN's Total QBR actually places that game as the second-best game of his career behind a Week 12 2010 game against the Broncos in which he threw for 308 yards, 3 TD, and no interceptions.  He will have a tough time overcoming a terrible offensive line and Brandon Gibson and Chris Givens being his top two receivers, though.

HOW? As I was writing this section I couldn't come up with a good joke to put here.  So I figured I'd write the rest of the post and maybe something would come to me.  It didn't.  Sometimes, you just have to know when to fold 'em.

WHAT? New York Jets at New England Patriots

WHY? Do you really need a new reason to watch this game?  Big-market-teams?  Check.  Division rivalry?  Check.  All-time great quarterback?  Check.  Intriguing head coaches?  Check.  Tim Tebow?  Check.  Also, the Jets are coming off a blowout win against the (at the time) hot Colts, while the Patriots are coming of a tough road loss against the Seahawks.  With the Pats at home and attempting to stave off their fifth pair of consecutive losses since 2003 (during which time they've never lost three in a row), I could easily see New England absolutely destroying the Jets here.

WHO? The big matchup in this game from my perspective is between Antonio Cromartie and whoever Rex Ryan deems appropriate to be shadowed all day.  The Family Man has done his best Darrelle Revis impression since 24 went down, holding Michael Crabtree, Andre Johnson, and Reggie Wayne to a combined 8 receptions for 117 yards and no touchdowns in the last three weeks.  My guess is that he sticks to Brandon Lloyd, who was an exceptional deep threat in Denver (9.3 yards gained per target with 11 touchdowns in 20 games) but hasn't really been since (6.4 yards per target with 6 touchdowns in 17 games).  Wes Welker is too quick in small spaces for the long-striding Cromartie to effectively cover, and Aaron Hernandez plays in too diverse of offensive formations. 

HOW? Whip out that old camcorder and sneak a peek at the Jets' coaching staff during the game so you can get a heads up on their strategies and verbiage.  It's not like you'll get caught. 

WHAT? Detroit Lions at Chicago Bears

WHY? Well, last year these teams met in Detroit on Monday night, and they combined for 26 penalties for 198 yards.  It was ugly.  Somehow, the Lions managed to win by two scores despite having almost 20 fewer minutes of possession time.  Well this time around, the Bears are at home, coming off a bye, and the Lions are fresh off a game in which Matthew Stafford's heroic comeback masked the 7-for-21-for-91-yards first three quarters.

WHO? These two quarterbacks are very similar in the sense that they can go really hot or really cold from game to game, or even over the course of a single game.  Well, we've already discussed Stafford from an in-game perspective, but after a bit of digging, I found out that since he came into the league (which equates to about 2.5 years), he has had 7 games with a Total QBR of less than 20, and 6 games with a Total QBR of more than 80.  By comparison, since he joined the Bears in 2009 (about 3 years), Cutler has had 9 games with a Total QBR of less than 20 (5 of which less than 10), to go with 10 games of a Total QBR of at least 80.  Just to give a comparison, Matt Ryan, who has been good but not elite for a few years prior to this one, has had 21 >80 QBR games, compared to one single <20 game, since 2009.

HOW? Go colorblind, have your house swept up by a tornado, regain your color vision, meet up with some witches, hang out with some embodied metaphors, and then go through the ordeal of a lifetime to try and find this old guy who grants wishes.  Ask for a television.  

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears.  Oh my.

Week 6's Terribly Tabulated 'Tatistic

Last week, I opened this piece by writing about all of the fantasy implications of the Texans/Jets game, and how I was really rooting for an absolute demolition by the Texans.  How'd that go?

Picked the Texans -7.5.  Jets covered.

Down 19 points in one league with the Texans defense against Owen Daniels.  Lost by 25.

My mom is down 26 points against Matt Vogel with Arian Foster remaining.  Lost by 3.3.

Down 20 points in another league with Arian Foster and Shayne Graham.  Actually won by 17.

Arian Foster made a nice run at making me 2-2, but other than that, it was a pretty disappointing affair.  I guess I probably should have at least taken the points with the Jets to at least diversify my portfolio by a slight extent.  Learning experience.

Speaking of disappointments...

LIONS 26, EAGLES 23

TRIUMPH:  How about Jeremy Maclin making an appearance on the stat sheet?  Well it's pretty easy to have 70-yard touchdowns when the defense totally ignores you.  Other than the big touchdown, he did have 5 receptions for 60 yards, but the rest of his season has been filled with injuries and unimpressive stat lines.  If Michael Vick (or Nick Foles?) can stay upright long enough to complete a few passes, Maclin could have a nice stretch, but based on what I've seen of this offense thus far they just can't keep the ball consistently enough to produce anything consistent through the air.

TRAGEDY:  LeSean McCoy -- 14 carries, 22 yards.  Since becoming a full-time starter in 2010, McCoy has had fewer yards than that only once, and that was against the ridiculous 2011 49ers defense.  Also, he has had a single run of at least 22 yards in 13 different games since 2011 (and two more where his longest run was 21 yards), so this output is extraordinarily surprising.  The Lions were slightly above average against the run prior to this game (just over 100 yards allowed per game, but with one rushing TD all season allowed), but McCoy has been money in the bank for the last couple years, and he should be able to produce better than that.

TREND:  Script for a game in the Eagles' 2012 season: Inconsistent / turnover-prone offense flails around for most of the game while the defense keeps the opponent's score low (49 points allowed in the first three quarters of their non-Cardinals games).  Vick leads a scoring drive to take or extend the lead with no more than 7 minutes left in the game (this has happened in every non-Cardinals game).  Then the defense lets the opposing team drive down the field and at least have an opportunity to win the game (the Giants missed their field goal, but the Steelers and Lions made them pay, and the Birds have thus allowed 49 points in just the fourth quarter alone).  

TRAIL MIX: The quarterbacks in this game had some of the more inefficient 300-yard games you'll see.  They combined for 50 completions on 91 attempts for 622 yards (just 6.8 per attempt, which is right around Christian Ponder's average), 3 TD, and 3 INT.  If you exclude the Maclin TD, it's an even worse 552 yards on 90 attempts (6.1 per attempt, or between Mark Sanchez and Matt Hasselbeck).

JETS 35, COLTS 9

TRIUMPH: So maybe the Jets weren't some Division I school that somehow managed to get a gig with the big boys, huh?  Shonn Greene demolished the Colts' defense, rushing for 161 yards and 3 touchdowns on 32 carries (5.0 per rush).  For some perspective, before this week, Greene had six games with at least 5 yards per carry and just 9 touchdowns scored since the start of 2010 (that's 37 total games), to pair with 14 games of at most 3.5 yards per carry.  Not to mention that he has only had two other games with more than 22 carries in that span.  Suffice it to say, I'm not convinced.

TRAGEDY: Wunderkind Andrew Luck followed up his emotional comeback victory against the Packers (and, interestingly enough, his worst ESPN Total QBR of his past three games) with an uninspiring 22-for-44 for 280 yards (6.4 per attempt), 0 TD, and 2 INT.  He's been pretty impressive thus far this season (albeit without the RGIII-ness), and with an upcoming schedule of Browns, Titans, Dolphins, Jaguars, Patriots, Bills, Lions, Titans, he should be just fine.

TREND: Donnie Avery might be the most inefficient use of a quarterback's energy of any player in the league.  In five games, Avery has been thrown to 47 times (a rate that's right on par with AJ Green and Larry Fitzgerald, for reference).  He has just 21 receptions for 258 yards and a touchdown.  By comparison, Danny Amendola, who mostly runs short routes and has played just barely more than 4 games, has 49 targets resulting in 32 receptions for 395 yards and 2 touchdowns.

TRAIL MIX: I think someone needs to reconsider the NFL Passer Rating formula.  Mark Sanchez completed 11 of 18 passes for 82 yards (4.6 per attempt, lower than Greene's rushing yards per attempt), but threw 2 touchdowns and no interceptions, so his QB rating was 109???  That means that if Sanchez went an entire season like that, his 176-for-288 season (61%) with 1312 yards would have been just barely worse than Drew Brees' 5500-yard 2011 in which he posted a 71% completion rate in 660 attempts.

BRONCOS 35, CHARGERS 24

TRIUMPH: O hai Antonio Gates!  I wrote about you last week saying that you were utterly useless for the first month of the season, and now the one time I don't need you to score points for the team I have you on, and I'm playing against you in another league, you go off.  Sigh.  Ten times thrown to with six receptions for 81 yards and 2 touchdowns, all season highs.  First four games played: 12 fantasy points.  This week: 20.  I think that the rest of the season will be somewhere in between this game and the previous ones, but I'm feeling pretty comfortable that we've seen his best this year.

TRAGEDY: And yet, Philip Rivers managed to have an awful game while Gates went off.  The 25-of-41 for 242 yards to go with 2 touchdowns, 4 interceptions, and a fumble that was returned for a touchdown put him in a much worse class than that lucky Andrew kid.  A 2.6 ESPN Total QBR (which goes from 0 to 100) puts him below Jay Cutler's Week 2 against the Packers (11-27, 126 yds, 1 TD, 4 INT) and Mark Sanchez' Week 4 against the 49ers (13-29, 103 yds, 0 TD, 1 INT).  This is just Rivers' 5th game with a Total QBR of under 25 since they started keeping the stat in 2008, but it's his 3rd in the last 22 games.  He has had 18 games with a QBR of at least 90 in that span.

TREND: The Broncos have to be as dramatically dichotomous team between the first half and the second half as any team ever.  After being outscored 24-0 in the first half and then outscoring the Chargers 35-0 in the second half on Monday night, the Fighting Peytons have now been outscored by an average score of 16-7 in the first half and have outscored their opponents by an average score of 21-7 in the second half.  They have only been tied or better after 2 quarters against the Raiders, who they beat 37-6, and they've only been tied or worse in the second half against the Patriots, who played even with them down the stretch.  Manning has 3 TD and 4 INT in the first half this year, and 11 TD and 0 INT in the second.

TRAIL MIX: Coming off a very long layoff due to a serious injury and going to a new team whose home stadium is outdoors at age 36, Peyton Manning is on pace for a career high in yards and his second-best touchdown season (to his then-record 49 TD season in 2004).  Ho hum.