Monday, October 04, 2010

Football

A few thoughts:

The Bears: That wasn't a game, that was more like a birthday party for the Giants, and the Bears QB was the pinata... And by Bears QB... I mean Cutler, Collins, AND Hainey.  Was the offensive line even there or did they just put out a welcome mat for the Giants? 

I'm in a fantasy football league with one of my brothers, a couple of my nephews, and a few of their friends.  My QBs on my fantasy team are Carson Palmer and Derek Anderson.  As a vote of confidence for my favorite team, the Cleveland Browns, I benched Palmer and played Anderson.  BAD decision.  Even though my Browns came through and beat the Bengals (23-20).  Palmer at least showed up for his game.  I don't know what happened to Anderson but a 41-10 loss did not help my fantasy team that much.  Luckily I had/have some other players who came through for me and as of last night my fantasy team was defeating my opponent for this week.  I haven't checked to see how MNF might change the score just yet.

Last Sunday the Browns lost to the Ravens, but running back Peyton Hillis (the off-season "present" the Browns got in their "gift exchange" with Denver for Brady Quinn-- thus far it appears the Browns got the better end of that deal) burned the Ravens for 144 rushing yards.  I checked and noticed no one in my league had picked up Hillis, so I snagged him... He came through for me yesterday-- 104 rushing yards against the Bengals!  The Browns may be 1-3 this season but their 3 losses have been much closer than their losses last season.  They're playing better and more competitive.  They are "re-building" but they've been re-building since 1999 when they came back into the league...  I'm hoping that with Mike Holmgren being the "architect" of the "new" Browns that some of this re-building finally takes.  The only QB the Browns have had since they came back into the league in '99 who has inpired any confidence in me was Kelly Holcomb.  I think one of the biggest mistakes the Browns have made was letting Holcomb go when they brought in Jeff Garcia.  Holcomb gave the team some semblance of consistency.  He wasn't a great QB, but he was more consistent than Tim Couch had been and in hindsight he was more consistent than Garcia, Dilfer, Frye, Anderson, or Quinn ended up being.  I also think Tim Couch could have been a much better QB had he been given a chance to develop.  When Ty Detmer turned out to be a bust in '99 Couch was rushed into the starting position before he was ready to be a starter.  I think rushing him into the role did him a tremendous disservice.  The Browns could have recovered from that mistake with Holcomb but then they made the aforementioned 2nd mistake of trading away Holcomb and perpetuating the revolving door of QBs.

3 comments:

Jay Noel said...

Hey, I too picked up Payton Hillis and he was a nice replacement for Adrian Peterson on a Bye week. I actually have Forte, and he's been OK at best. If Hillis keeps this up, I think I'll have a powerful 1-2 punch with Forte as a back up.

drewzepmeister said...

So far my fantasy team has not gone too well. I have Jay Cutler (the best QB I could find that wasn't taken). He went down in last night's game. Being 1-3, my team needs some major renovating.

On the bright side, the Packers are 3-1

Perplexio said...

Phoenix: I've got Hillis and Arian Foster (Houston Texans) as my running backs. Foster has been lighting it up for me all season! And he was auto-drafted, I didn't go out of my way to pick him. I also have both Mosses (Randy & Santanio) on my fantasy team. And as much as I love Cleveland given their struggles, I went with Phil Dawson as my kicker. They're known to get within FG range often rather than trying for TDs... and Dawson is one of the most accurate long distance kickers in the league... on a team like the Browns he gets PLENTY of practice! I've seen him nail 55 yard FGs with consistency.

Drew: I always put QBs first in my draft order just to be safe and I forget who I originally had as my backup but I dropped him in favor of Derek Anderson... Given yesterday's shellacking DA probably wasn't a wise choice. If you can get him, you might want to get Kevin Kolb... With bruised ribs Vick will probably be out at least a week and getting Kolb might buy you some time to find someone better/more long term. There are only 10 teams in my fantasy league so I might have to do some "shopping" for a new back-up QB... Perhaps Kyle Orton (I recommend him if he's available in your league). After what Cutler was put through yesterday Orton iss probably glad he got traded to Denver.