The 40ft Post: The Leftovers

So it's 11:38am on this disgustingly gelatinous Saturday morning.

My belly is filled with the greatest leftover creation ever developed by the geniuses at Kraft.

(For the record, fill a casserole dish with turkey, green beans, potatoes, broccoli, gravy, and then top the whole mess off with Stovetop Stuffing and then bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees. It's a pot pie for the kind of people who don't own a bathroom scale and have given up ever seeing their feet again.)

It's also raining, I've caught my wife's cold, and we're five movies into a Harry Potter Marathon.

Not sure if I've ever been happier.

And I once was the only heterosexual male in a dance troupe filled with daddy issues.

Anyway, assuming you too have made it unscathed through Black Friday, it's time for a couple of shots of DayQuil, and a deep dive into what is left of your fantasy football team.

Or what's left on the waiver wire.

Which, if you too, like me, follow such things closely, know that even the good people at Kraft would be clueless on how to make a meal off these ingredients.

In one of my leagues, New Orleans is the Top Defense available.

You people are hoarders and should be ashamed of yourselves.

One of my opponents this week is seriously holding on to Adrian Peterson.

Mike.

Though . . . to be fair . . . I'm still holding on to AJ Green (who I know in my core is done) and Matthew Stafford. But that's because if Wilson goes down, the next best QB on the wire (I shit you not) is Tolzien.

And Wilson CAN get hurt in the last few weeks before and during the playoffs.

I'm also looking at the same team and realizing that I'm rooting for two Giants. Jennings and Tye.

Fantasy Football really messes with your moral compass.

You go into it thinking you're Dumbledore and 11 weeks later you're thankful just to be a Weasely.

Though, to be fair, Weasley makes it alive through the sixth book.

And if that's a spoiler for you, I don't know what to say other than Darth Vader is Luke's father, the Bad News Bears lose the final game, and Old Yeller gets shot in the end.

Shot dead.

Not AJ Green who may come alive in a few weeks . . . dead, dead.

And why is it that I have such crap luck with Hand-Cuffs? I've been holding Gillislee ever since Week 3 and every time McCoy gets hurt, Gillislee gets worse hurt. It's like holding on to the kind of relationship where you get mad and then she gets mad that you're mad. And then you feel bad about getting mad and she gets even madder because you're not the kind of man who can't stick up for himself.

It's like spending a fortune in flowers only to be rewarded by unenthusiastic make-up sex.

Or what I like to call "The Percy Harvin Effect"

Or the "Sammy Watkins Syndrome"

Or the "Christine Michael Conundrum"

Mike.

I could go on and on I guess, but there's about to be a full on wizarding duel and I'm really hoping Serious Black makes it through this time.

THE BIG NEWS

Colin Kaepernick is playable in fantasy leagues.

I'm just going to leave that there.

INJURIES AND BAD DECISIONS

Karlos Williams is suspended 10 games for drug use and I gotta say, that makes me feel bad. I mean I can't relate, no one has ever offered me millions of dollars just to stay in shape and not get stoned, but could you imagine waking up after a three day bender and realizing you threw away your life just by making the kinds of mistakes that 20year olds make?

But I guess you can't re-litigate the rules.

Unless you're Donald Trump who INSISTS that coal is clean (it isn't), tax breaks for the rich will trickle down (they don't), and Mexicans are bad for the economy (don't even look at the price of guacamole at Chipotle in a Post-Wall America, because you can't afford it).

In saying that, I hope y'all had a good Thanksgiving and there wasn't too much strife.

And a shout out to my buddy Jeremy's dad who said "I don't know if joining the protests will achieve anything, but I'm seventy four years old and I think it's time for me to get arrested."

And if you needed another push toward the liberal agenda, just remember that a majority owner in the Kraft company is married to our current Secretary of State.

Try the leftover casserole.

It's delicious.

FANTASYLAND:

Teddy's Stump Speech (8-3) 2nd place.
Cheney's Shotgun (7-4) 5th place.
Trump's Twitter Game (8-3) 1st place.

I'm running out of time here, but I just wanted to take note that on a single team last week (Cheney), I lost AJ Green, McCoy, Prosise, and Zach Miller in the span of 45 minutes, and still eked out a win over Grandpa Pudding Pop.

How you ask?

Dumb-ass luck, I say.

Sounds about right, Mike replies.

But I'm still in the running for the playoffs in every league, I'll take dumb-ass luck anywhere I can get it.

CRAZY STUPID PREDICTIONS WEEK 11

Cameron Meredith unleashes the Garbage Time Cutler Kraken.
NOPE.

The Packers drop Christine Michael because he looked so much taller on his Facebook Page.
NOPE.

Frank Gore makes me proud to be a believer.
YEP . . . THEN A WEEK 12 NOPE

Ken Dixon becomes the lead man in Baltimore.
DEAD HEAT

Out of the three major lineup decisions I make this week (QB, RB, LB), I will be right on two of them and the third won't cost me the game.
PERFECT SCORE, WILSON ROCKED, LAVONTE WET THE BED, AND PROSISE WENT DOWN AS JENNINGS WENT OFF. STILL WON.

CRAZY STUPID PREDICTIONS WEEK 12

Watkins surprises the hell out of everyone.

The third string QB for Chicago makes Meredith a bigger star than Hoyer ever did.

Cleveland surprises the Giants by wearing clown make-up and they still lose.

New Orleans becomes a top ten defense because I ridiculed them

The Jets beat New England and Frankie gives up ever watching football again because he's never been this happy and wants to go out on top.



Shit . . . Serious Black is dead. Again. When will he ever learn to duck?

I wonder if Kraft has a recipe for snap peas and pumpkin pie slices?

I bet they do, and I bet it's delicious, because they're not the kind of people who would fill the Environmental Protection Agency with folk who think Global Warming is a fraud perpetuated by the Chinese.

May your Week 12 be filled hopes, dreams, dumb-ass luck, and the best leftovers this side of the waiver wire.

The 40ft Post: The Read Option

So Week 11 is upon us folks.

Not that I need to tell you that, though there is a certain Packer Fan in one of my leagues that has refused to drop Eddie Lacy.

It's time brother . . . it's time.

Christine Michael will be grabable tomorrow morning. Go get him.

This time last year I was staring down the long road of play-off ineligibility, hoping to retrieve at least some dignity, and maybe pull off an upset that will hurt the chances of my arch nemesis(s).

If you do not have at least several arch nemesis(s) in this game, you are not playing the right way at all.

Like at all at all.

You should be growing enemies the way my brother grows butter-nut squash.

Large, tasteless, and prolific.

I have hoped that I would grow my enemy base with this blog alone, though from the reports, I think I've only truly offended Peter, who is very sensitive about his Giants, and let's face it . . . that's low hanging fruit.

Uncle Frankie is unflappable when I tease the Jets. Steve is pricing Cowboys jerseys but won't pull the trigger until 2018 where he'll know once and for all if Dak is the real deal. Adam's love for the Texans is ethereal, and Dad hinted that he might be rooting for the Jaguars this season, but hasn't mentioned it since August, and he has yet to pick Victor Cruz off the waiver wire.

There's not much pain and vitriol I can stir with any of that.

I've tried to elicit some hate mail from Mike, but I have this sinking suspicion that he's rather above the fray. You can envision him in a smoking jacket, on a leather chair reading the Wall Street Journal, and possibly using a monogrammed handkerchief to clean the smudges off his monocle.

I really wanna go after Grandpa Pudding Pop and his undying love for the Patriots, but they keep winning and there's nothing more important in the life of a Patriot Fan than being able to say "I told you so."

They're those kinds of people. Every match is a grudge match.

I'm going up against him this week, while he and the family, no kidding, will be at the Patriot-Niner Game in Santa Clara tomorrow. The point projection looks pretty even, but there are a hell of a lot of game time decisions I gotta make and I'm feeling a little nervous about the pure magic of my UC Davis Tank Top.

Not quite as nervous as my brother who is going to be sitting next to rowdy Patriots fans at a Niner game, but nervous none-the-less.

Which brings me to the sorta point I was going to start with, which is where we are now at in the Season 2016.

See, in the first few weeks, you're just kinda hoping that all that research has paid off and your first few picks are doing what they're supposed to. It's kind of the evaluation portion of our fake little game. Those that are waiver wire savvy love this part.

In the mid-weeks, you're dealing with injuries, bye weeks, shoring up your weaknesses, crossing your fingers that you're strengths are what they seem to be, and the tough decisions really fall when you have to admit that your guy isn't pulling his weight (for me it was Marvin Jones and Jerrick McKinnon.) You're not thinking about playoffs.

But now, I'm afraid to say, you fall in one of three categories. Top of the charts with a full head of steam, middle of the pack with the taste of glory and defeat making a sort of beef lemon stew in your mouth, or down at the bottom where the best you can hope for is the pain and aguish on the faces of those you're drinking with.

And in each of those categories, you've got too many options. Your team is all healthy, the waiver wire is empty, no one's on a Bye Week, and you've got some decisions to make at the line of scrimmage.

One little mistake, one little QB controversy, one little zig where you probably shoulda zagged, and the ghost of Grandpa Pudding Pop is going to send you automated texts from now until the Super Bowl that says just one thing: 

"I told you so."

Like, is it time for a Marvin Jones resurgence? Probably not, but who knows. Both Jennings and Prosise showered me with quite a lot of love last week, but which one is gonna be my best flex option this week? Jennings has got some pedigree as a late season bloomer, and Prosise can't seem to be covered anywhere on the field, but Seattle felt so comfortable with a healed Rawls that they threw away a perfectly good running back.

And the projections are not helping at all.

How many times have you screamed at the TV because ESPN says Fleener is not on the fantasy radar when he goes off for 60 yards and a TD, while Lance Kendricks lines up like a flaccid penis?

The LA Rams really need a metaphorical fluffer to help with half-time adjustments.

Hell . . . maybe they need a literal fluffer.

Keenum's adorable wife might not like that, but it's not like he's ever going to see the field again.

Wait . . . where was I?

Oh yeah . . . projections . . .

It's really hard to make projections, and it's even really harder not to buy into the professional expertise. There are people who are paid actual money to pretend to do that.

They are the people who constantly tell you that Gronk is a good buy in the first round. That Beckham is a better pick than David Johnson. That Brees in the 4th round is a bad idea when you can get Bortles in the 10th.

Predicting the future is no easy thing.

Like, if you were to predict what I'm going to be doing for Thanksgiving break, and you DIDN'T include shopping for fencing gear, teaching my son how to play Bad Religion songs on the bass guitar, and narrating a four hour audiobook using my best Johnny Cash impersonation . . . well . . . you'd be wrong.

You might predict I will drink beer, watch football, and eat turkey, but that's not where championships are won.

Take for instance my epic match with Grandpa Pudding Pop (BullyDOG)

The projection says it is my 202 to his 204. If I go with Prosise instead of Jennings, I drop a point, maybe no big deal, but still. And if I load up a Tennessee Line Backer and bench Lavonte David (who has been sadly killing me softly) I drop another three. A few little tweaks like that and the projections will be something more like 195 to 204, and though its really not that scary . . . it sure feels scary.

But you have to run the read-option. Walk up to the line of scrimmage like a man (or woman . . . whatever your ideal image of confidence is), look at what your opponent is set up to do and make a decision.

Some will be right . . . some will be wrong . . . and sometimes it rains.

All right, this has gone on a little long so we'll short note the usual segments:

THE BIG NEWS:

Christine Michael is as welcome in Seattle as Mike Pence was at a Broadway show. 

(If you missed that reference, our VP Elect went to see Hamilton and was booed at. Apparently he's not popular with homosexuals, black people, women, non-christians, and white people who read things)

INJURIES AND BAD DECISIONS

Gronk will not be making the trip to Santa Clara. I will be deleting any Fantasy Football Ap that puts him in Top Ten next year.

FANTASYLAND:

Teddy's Stump Speech (8-2) 2nd place.

Trump's Twitter Game (7-3) 1st place.

Cheney's Shotgun (6-4) 5th place.

Odd couple of games last week. None of my teams did badly, in fact, none of them came under the projections, I just happened to go against teams that lit up the scoreboard. Except the Frankie/Steve love connection. Them I beat fair and square, just not enough to move the needle.

Teddy is only three points from the Top Spot. Every win counts, but it will take some serious suckage to push me out of the playoffs.

Cheney is holding on by a thread, but unlike the real Cheney, his heart is strong, and unlike Iraq, loaded with weapons of mass destruction.

Trump's an enigma. (Go figure) He packs the one-two punch with Brees and David Johnson, but everywhere else it's a coin toss. 

The problem with him is that he's won too much. (Oh, the irony). Which means Waiver Wire priority has been super low (I don't get who I want no matter how fast I pull the trigger), there's a seven player bench, so the waiver wire was slim to begin with, and the league is set up in divisions, so even though he's top dog, he could statistically fall from grace in a single game.

Though spiritually, I'm very excited that the REAL Trump has been given his Twitter privileges back.

That shit is gold.

Or whatever substitute they use for gold on those casino bannisters.

For instance, after his running mate was booed, Trump tweeted that the cast of Hamilton should show more respect.

Yeah. Read that again. 

So much rad right there.

Unless of course if you're gay, black, female, non-christian, or a white guy who knows the definition of irony.

All y'all are screwed. That's my projection.

(Imagine me saying that in my best Johnny Cash impersonation.)

Here's some other projections:

CRAZY STUPID PREDICTIONS WEEK 10

Russell Wilson gives me a 40 point game.

48.52 to be exact. The QB controversy continues.

Rashad Jennings proves his back half is his best half and I leave that without commenting further.

Not for three quarters, but then BAM, he may be a keeper.

David Johnson leaves the field 10 minutes into the 49er game, not because of injury, but because he's already ran for 207 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Chip and Company held him down pretty well to 101 all purpose yards and a single TD. Which . . . I don't know why that could possibly sound sad, but it does.

The Muscle Hamster returns to glory and I make chinchilla jokes with mouthfuls of spicy bird flesh.

Not a lot of room to run, but you don't need room on first and goal. 2 TDS, 33 yards. But if you're looking for a good time, Buffalo Wild Wings has great staff, decent hot wings, and the Elysium Space  Dust was very tasty.

One of you catches yourself singing "Put on a Happy Face" in the shower . . . Mike.

We'll probably never know, unless someone cares to admit it . . . Frank. 


Just remember though, if you are going to sing show-tunes, make sure you pay some respect to a man who thinks you can pray the gay away.

You can't BTW. You can't pray the gay away.

But it's finally nice seeing Trump come to the aid of the mentally disabled.

CRAZY STUPID PREDICTIONS WEEK 11

Cameron Meredith unleashes the Garbage Time Cutler Kraken.

The Packers drop Christine Michael because he looked so much taller on his Facebook Page.

Frank Gore makes me proud to be a believer.

Ken Dixon becomes the lead man in Baltimore.

Out of the three major lineup decisions I make this week (QB, RB, LB), I will be right on two of them and the third won't cost me the game.



All right . . . that's enough for me . . . may you finish Week 11 with hope, confidence, a capable fluffer, show tunes in your heart, and that you're too drunk for the existential crisis to sink in.

Goodnight, and good luck.

The 40ft Post: Bye, Bye, Birdie

Gray skies are gonna clear up.

Unless you're cynical or a catastrophist. Or have a pre-existing condition.

Put on a happy face.

Tony Bennet's voice has been singing that tune in ads for Michelobe Ultra all season long. Every time it comes on I challenge my drinking buddies to name the musical it came from.

They look at me bleary eyed, doubtful, and mildly annoyed.

"It's from Bye, Bye, Birdie!" I exclaim with a certain amount of joy.

They shake their heads and look down at their feet, except Mike, who knew that already and purses his lips and counts to ten.

I'm fun at parties . . . I swear.

I was actually in that musical once upon a time. Conrad Birdie was the roll, and I was terrible in it. Not just terrible, but I was also in my early twenties, dressed in a gold spandex jumpsuit designed for someone much smaller than me, and it was a children's theater production . . . so I was terrible . . . and super, super, creepy.

The front row saw more of my testicles than should be absolutely legal.

But to give a historical perspective . . . the year was 1997 . . . Bill Clinton was president . . . repealing the Glass-Steagal Act . . . Signing the Defense of Marriage Act . . . and showing more of his testicles than needs to be seen by young girls too.

They were simpler times.

Anyway, for football purposes, we are just about out of BYE Week hell (my teams have been feeling the heat), and tomorrow there are tentative plans for the first annual pilgrimage to a place that serves Hot Buffalo Wings along with a good selection of beer, which means that we will be sacrificing all kinds of chicken parts to the gods of early morning hunger.

Hence the title "Bye, Bye, Birdie."

It's a double entendre.

And not an excuse to talk about my testicles being squeezed together in shiny gold for a live audience.

I do enough of that for a living now.

Not joking . . . ask my fan base.

Anyway . . . enough . . .

THE BIG NEWS

Gee whiz . . . there's so much to choose from . . . where shall I begin?

How about Travis Kelce being fined $24,309 for throwing his towel at an official?

In fact, thanks to late hits, horse collar tackles, and one first fight, the NFL racked up about $200,000 in fines last week.

Which is likely the same cost of a single Michelobe Ad.

See how I brought that back around?

It doesn't look like anyone's spreading sunshine all over the place.

I'm laughing right now because the only other adult in the Bye, Bye, Birdie cast was a friend of mine, and we constantly changed the lyrics of that song to reflect our filthy filthy minds.

I can't repeat them here.

But it certainly wasn't spreading sunshine.

And it wasn't a frown being brushed off, and nobody was sticking out their noble chin.

INJURIES AND BAD DECISIONS

Pot is legal in California everybody. It won't be ready for retail until 2018, but you can smoke up all you want, right now, Josh Gordon in red and gold.

How high am I right now?

Not as high as Doug Martin owners, Dion Lewis stashers, and Tony Romo believers.

Actually, Romo probably won't see the field this season. But neither will Jesus Christ, and he's got a hell of a following.

See what I did there? Another Double-Entendre.

Cough, cough.

FANTASYLAND:

Teddy's Stump Speech (8-1) 1st place
Cheney's Shotgun (5-4) 5th place
Trump's Twitter Game (7-2) 1st place.

You might look at those stats and think I know what I'm doing. Three winning teams heading out of the Bye Weeks, in contention like a playa.

You'd be wrong . . . you'd be so vastly wrong.

Not quite as wrong as the liberal media and their polling data . . . but more like a 40 year old Dick Van Dyke pretending to be married to an 18 year old Mary Tyler Moore . . . kinda wrong.

Dick was in the original cast of Bye, Bye, Birdie . . . that's why that reference is both funny and on message.

See the reason you're wrong is that I am due for an epic melt down, and there are some contenders out there who are gunning for me, with their steely little eyes and their tiny little hands (Mr. Gold), they've got Waiver Wire priority and benches filled with replacement players.

I am, however, going against Mr. Steve in two leagues and there may be a possibility he melts down before I do, but in one of those leagues, Cheney's Shotgun, I have five of my benched players on BYE, and the one that is playing this week is Christine Michael, who I'm betting is going to lose touches to CJ Prosise, who I've got loaded up instead.

Here's the thing with that decision. Seattle is playing The Patriots. Both have excellent but beatable defenses and excellent but beatable offenses.

Michael is injured. Prosise is not.

Coach Pete Carroll has said that Prosise will see a lot of game time this week.

The Patriots are weakest against RB's catching out of the backfield . . . Prosise's forte, as you will . . . and it's a PPR league.

Everything points in the right direction.

But I've been CJayed before.

I've been CJayed so hard.

Slapped with more than a happy grin . . . I must say.

And if you'll remember from a few blogs back, being "CJayed" is the euphemism I use instead of saying that "a player just didn't live up to the hype."

So if I'm CJayed this week, it will be my own fault, I know the danger.

Maybe I should "pick out a pleasant out look" and "wipe off that full of doubt look" and "put on a happy face"

But I know my game.

Getting CJayed is my game.

CRAZY STUPID PREDICTIONS WEEK 9

Oakland beats Denver in the best prime time game of the year.
CALLED IT . . . CALLED IT!

Stafford becomes the only QB to throw for 350 yards against Minnesota.
I WAS OFF BY A MERE 131 YARDS. THAT'S NOTHING TO THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE.

Frank Gore has his second 100 yard performance.
60, BUT HE DID HAVE 2 TDS.

I forget to wear my lucky tank-top Monday Night, McCoy and Gillislee are useless.
HOLY, BLOODY, CALLED IT, WE WENT TO A MOVIE AND I DIDN'T DON MY TANK!

Steve forgets to set his clock back and spends an hour alone at the bar being goaded into 22 ounce servings of Miller Highlife by a girl with a spray tan and a Lone-Star tattoo, because she too is a Cowboy's fan, and he certainly doesn't look like the kinda guy that would drive a Toyota Echo.
NOPE . . . BUT WE DID GET A FREE SAMPLE OF BBQ CHICKEN PIZZA . . . WHICH WAS NICE.

CRAZY STUPID PREDICTIONS WEEK 10

Russell Wilson gives me a 40 point game.

Rashad Jennings proves his back half is his best half and I leave that without commenting further.

David Johnson leaves the field 10 minutes into the 49er game, not because of injury, but because he's already ran for 207 yards and 3 touchdowns.

The Muscle Hamster returns to glory and I make chinchilla jokes with mouthfuls of spicy bird flesh.

One of you catches yourself singing "Put on a Happy Face" in the shower . . . Mike.


Now if any of that happens, or you find yourself laughing out loud this week, share this with your friends on Myspace . . . and remember that gray skies ARE gonna clear up . . . and the only thing we have to fear is clowns.

The 40ft Post: What do the Polls Say?

I'm sure you know by now that there is an election going on right here in the United States.

Even Uncle Frankie is planning to vote, though I'm pretty sure it's more because of the possibility of recreational marijuana than to stop a self proclaimed demagogue from having open access to the biggest military in the world.

Priorities.

You probably may have guessed by my left leaning essays, that I'm not a likely Trump supporter.

Though, truth be told, that wasn't always the case. In fact, I wrote a piece for a political website in August of 2015 that Trump was the least completely icky primary competitor.

I'm not quite sure I continue to stand by that, but Ted Cruz still gives me the Heebie-Jeebies.

The article has since been pulled down, but I still have a copy of it . . . and boy was I right on the nose about the emblematic rift of Republican continuity. "This is what the vitriol has wrought" I said.

Please clap.

The reason I bring it up here, in a fantasy football blog, is because chasing fantasy points is all about prediction, strategy, luck, and I am, by my very nature, terrible at all of those. A quick poll of all my years in fantasy will tell you so.

"How can you be terrible at luck?" Mike asks, because he's intelligent and pragmatic.

"AJ MF Green, Mike." I sigh.

"AJ MF Green indeed." he replies.

Another case in point: My brother loads up a back-up Tampa Bay running back and gets the two greatest weeks Jaquizz Rogers is likely to ever have.

I do the same thing, and I get Antone Smith for about 26 minutes of mediocre play.

I also happened to forget to wear my lucky tank-top on Thursday, which was clearly my bad.

Will not happen again, even if my wife teases me about my ever graying patch of chest hair. 

The college girls at the bars with too much make-up trying to sell me pints of Rolling Rock don't seem to mind.

That's an interesting digression. I don't know if you've been spending any of your Sunday mornings in bars, but if you haven't, there's this weird (and sort of grotesque) practice of paying college-age girls to promote tasteless beer. They wear matching uniforms, pass out key chains, and if you order what they're peddling, you get a souvenir pint glass or some such.

I guess it works . . . otherwise it wouldn't be a thing . . . but I find it a little uncomfortable . . . mostly because I've been happily married for over a quarter of my life . . . and I drive a Toyota Echo which conveniently disqualifies me from opportunities of casual sex.

Though . . . to be perfectly fair . . . there was a patch in the 90s where I drove a '64 Galaxie and dated a Bud girl, so I'm being a little disingenuous.

Had I predicted my fate then . . . I would have been way off. Thankfully, I had a good strategy, and a whole lotta luck.

And that's what it comes down to as we enter Week 9. Normally I'm sitting here at my desk, saddened by yet another lost season and hoping that I will maybe win at least one bragging rights victory.

This is where I would mention how I beat my brother last week . . . but I'm a much bigger man than that.

However, and we'll get to this in detail later, I am #1 in two leagues, and still within playoff reach in the third. The polls are looking good.

THE BIG NEWS:

So Mr. Percy Harvin is going to suit up again for the Bills. I don't know how closely you've watched his career, but it's been fascinating. 

I had him back in his Minnesota days when he was just on the cusp of a super year when injury struck.

I had him again with Seattle and totally lost my playoff bid when he had two TD's called back. In fact, I followed the numbers that year and discovered I would have taken top dog if just one of those TDs had been made official.

I've been a Seattle hater ever since.

I was a Seattle hater before, but I've also been one ever since.

My prediction is he has a couple of nice looking catches, and then gets hurt during the Bye week.

My strategy is to stay the hell away from him. (maybe I'll take a flyer in one of my WR-less teams.)

My luck says I'm going to go against the guy (or gal) who grabbed him up, and I lose by one TD.

INJURIES AND BAD DECISIONS

Well we all know who is down. Except those of us with Shady McCoy. He could go in, he might not, he could set up a timeshare with Gillislee which does no one any good, and there's a fourth option there somewhere that I can't even begin to wrap my head around.

And what the hell is going on with all the Joshs this year?

Josh Huff just got tossed off the Eagles after being arrested with a 9mm and a baggie of pot.

Josh Gordon stoned, Josh Brown reviled, Josh McCown made of glass, Josh Lambo blew two kicks for a loss to Denver and I'm really expecting the Niners to start kicking the tires on Josh Freeman.

He's a free agent this year after the Colts dropped him in the 2015 season. Yes . . . he did in fact play for them last year.

He wasn't good. 15 completions, 149 yrds, 1 Td, 1 Int, 7 sacks. 49 yrds rushing. I think those numbers should now be called "The Kaepernick Stats."

But speaking to the Niners . . . I heard a radio program that was saying they should really consider picking Huff off the waiver wire.

Apparently the polls say the Niners need receivers, and since, thanks to Frank's voting record, pot is gonna be legal in this state in January, they should probably go get Josh Gordon too. With Freeman under center they could have an all Josh team.

Not you, Josh Brown, domestic violence is still illegal, you Keystone Light drinking douche-bag.

FANTASYLAND:

Teddy's Stump Speech (7-1) 1st place

Trump's Twitter Game (6-2) 1st place

Cheney's Shot Gun (5-3) 5th place

Well . . . the injury bug . . . which I've been lucky enough to avoid most of the year . . . is starting to bite.

However, it's biting everybody, and this stretch of Bye Weeks hurts all around. But every contest is going to be close . . . except for Cheney . . . he's probably gonna get beat pretty hard . . . especially if the McCoy problem isn't ironed out by Monday night. But he'll still have a winning record and his place in the standings won't move much either way.

Did I mention that my Cheney beat my brother's WolfHunter last week?

Of course I didn't . . . I'm way too much of an adult to point such things out.

But we are in the final stretch. Time to start looking for guys who can take us to the play-offs and beyond. Someone's gonna reach for Harvin.

Probably me . . . because I enjoy atypical punishment . . . and Marvin Jones is breaking my heart all around the world.

CRAZY STUPID PREDICTIONS WEEK 8

This was a terrible week for predictions BTW . . . proving my earlier point.

Every Packers receiver is Fantasy Gold!
NOT, especially not with Cobb and Montgomery killing my hopes for a Trump win.

Philly's D lights up Dak Prescott, proving every analyst wrong and making Steve hate me a little.
Nope.

Bibbs is the new Booker
Super nope.

I win at least one match-up this week.
This one's true.

I don't agonize over my Stafford/Wilson predicament, and I choose right, but I still lose to my brother because of a guy name Jaquizz MF Rogers.
This one was pleasantly untrue as well. Because I won.

CRAZY STUPID PREDICTIONS WEEK 9

Oakland beats Denver in the best prime time game of the year.

Stafford becomes the only QB to throw for 350 yards against Minnesota.

Frank Gore has his second 100 yard performance

I forget to wear my lucky tank-top Monday Night, McCoy and Gillislee are useless.

Steve forgets to set his clock back and spends an hour alone at the bar being goaded into 22 ounce servings of Miller Highlife by a girl with a spray tan and a Lone-Star tattoo, because she too is a Cowboy's fan, and he certainly doesn't look like the kinda guy that would drive a Toyota Echo.



All right, that's enough for this week. I hope you win all your matches (unless you're playing against me of course.) I hope you all go vote on Tuesday.

Elections don't get much more terrifying than this one is, especially considering that I had to explain to my mother-in-law Prop 60, which is about condoms in pornography.

That was a helluva conversation.

Which about wraps it up.

(read those last three lines again.)