Week 7 Apercu

Seven for seven. Seven weeks and seven different Weekly High Score Champions. The level of parity that we are seeing in the league this year is spooky. I guess it is fitting that Halloween is this weekend. Timmy leads the way with five victories after barely edging out sprouts by one point, and eight teams currently stand with three victories each. Also, only 73 points separate the highest scoring team, the Coors Light Drunk Guys (638 pts), from the lowest scoring team, my Scottish Rebels (565 pts).

Speaking of my Rebels… BOOYAH!! My boys finally put it all together, and led by big games from Tony Romo, DeSean Jackson and the Saints defense I broke the 100-point barrier for the first time this year!! Hey now!! Those three players accounted for 60% of the 126 points I scored this week. So that means that the only teams yet to be the Weekly High Score Champion are: American Bad Ass, Tailgate Approved and Frito Pie. It would not surprise me to see one of these teams on top for Week 8. Just preferably not Tailgate Approved. LOL! What do you know, Jensy?!?!

We are now more than halfway through the fantasy regular season, so it is time for some mid-term grades. The grades are based on overall team management, keeper performance, and just my overall impression. More below. Also this week I’ll check in on defenses and get back to some political ranting. But first, some quick observations…


THAT IS HOW YOU DO IT!
- Miles Austin, WR – Lords of Lumberg – 32 pts – For the second time in as many weeks that he has played, Austin is the top point scorer for the week. (The Cowboys had a bye last week.) In those two games, Week 5 & 7, he has tallied an amazing 72 points! This week, he had only 6 catches, but racked up 171 yards and 2 TD’s!
- Carson Palmer, QB – Tailgate Approved – 29 pts – Palmer smoked the Bears for 5 TD’s in their 45-10 rout. Never thought I would be reporting about the Bengals routing the Bears. Strange times…
- Ricky Williams, RB – Midnight Maulers – 27 pts – You would’ve thought that there was a bong waiting for Ricky in the end zone with the way that he was running! He had 3 TD’s and 80 yards on only 9 carries, an impressive 8.89 yards/carry and 0.33 TD’s/carry.
- Cedric Benson, RB – sprouts – 27 pts – Benson rushed for an impressive 189 yards against his former team (da Bears) and is your current NFL rushing leader, with 720 yards! (33 yards ahead of Adrian Peterson).
- Tony Romo, QB – Scottish Rebels – 27 pts – Romo’s big day can be attributed to a magical man by the name of Miles Austin, see above.
- Vernon Davis, TE – Lords of Lumberg – 27 pts – I heard that on Monday Alex Smith dedicated a song to Vernon Davis, The Flamingos “I Only Have Eyes For You”. Seriously, did Smith complete a pass to anyone but Vernon Davis?
- Shonn Greene, RB – Free Agent – 26 pts – Leon Washington broke his leg, and Greene filled in like a champ, racing for 144 yards and 2 touchdowns. Anyone need a runningback?


WTF?!
- Steve Breaston, WR – Frito Pie – 2 pts – Breaston was averaging just over 80 yards a game coming into this week, but only managed 23 yards in spite of more playing time due to Boldin’s injury.
- Visanthe Shiancoe, TE – American Bad Ass – 2 pts – Not much space for Visanthe this week against the Steelers defense.
- Hines Ward, WR – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 0 pts – Ward had a streak of 168 games with a reception coming into this game, and barely kept it alive with one catch for 3 yards. That is significantly less than you would expect from a guy who was leading the NFL in receiving.
- Brent Celek, TE – Tailgate Approved – 0 pts – This guy was such a non-factor that there aren’t even any game notes about him on the Yahoo site.
- Kellen Winslow, TE – SOFA KING GOOD – 0 pts – He had only two catches for nine yards. Jet lag maybe?
- Chicago, DEF – American Bad Ass – -1 pt – For two weeks in a row, Jason has managed to have a team on his active roster score negative points.


MID-TERM GRADES
Lords of Lumberg – Record: 5-2-0, Points Scored: 619, Moves: 13
Timmy has the league’s best record and has scored the third most points. His keepers are awesome (Peterson and Slaton), and at this point he is in the driver’s seat! Best move: Adding Miles Austin.
Grade: A

Frito Pie – Record: 4-3-0, Points Scored: 594, Moves: 2
Rachel has made the fewest moves of any team, yet leads the North Division standings. Having Peyton Manning as a keeper has been huge, but it looks like the risk/reward trade-off of having Brian Westbrook has become more risk than reward. However, having LeSean McCoy ready to fill in was a very smart move.
Grade: A

Coors Light Drunk Guys – Record: 3-4, Points Scored: 638, Moves: 4
Shawn has scored the most points in the league, yet somehow has a losing record. Twice he has lost to the Weekly High Score Champion (Week 4 vs. Joe’s Pats and Week 6 vs. Lords of Lumberg). So that is just more bad luck than anything else. His keepers are looking brilliant (Brees and Wayne), and I don’t expect that he will stay will a losing record for long.
Grade: B+

Tailgate Approved – Record: 3-3-1, Points Scored: 606, Moves: 10
Jens has one of the best WR duos with Andre Johnson and Larry Fitzgerald, but Steven Jackson needs to step it up and play like a keeper. Also, it’s probably getting to be about time to move Kurt Warner to the bench.
Grade: B

Joe’s Pats – Record: 3-4-0, Points Scored: 621, Moves: 12
Conventional wisdom says not to load up too many players from one team, but that goes out the window when you’re talking about Tom Brady, Randy Moss and the Patriots Defense. Joe has ridden those three to the second most points scored in the league thus far.
Grade: B

Midnight Maulers – Record: 3-3-1, Points Scored: 586, Moves: 4
On paper, Jamie’s keepers look as good as gold. On the field, however, not so much. Tomlinson has yet to score more than 10 points in a game, and Gore has been battling injuries since Week 3. However, if these two guys get healthy, the Maulers will be dangerous.
Grade: B

American Bad Ass – Record: 3-3-1, Points Scored: 582, Moves: 8
Jason carries the dubious distinction this year of having the lowest weekly point total, coming in Week 5 when he only put up 36 points. That hurts. But so far Aaron Rodgers has been a quality keeper, and DeAngelo Williams has put up some big numbers despite being on the Panthers.
Grade: B-

sprouts – Record: 3-4-0, Points Scored: 583, Moves: 6
Russ has the top scoring QB (Schaub) and the 2nd place RB (Benson), and still has Maurice Jones-Drew and Chris Johnson. But unfortunately, he also has T.O. who makes Matt Forte look like a 2006 version of LT. However, sprouts can put up some big numbers and is a team that you don’t want to have to go up against.
Grade: B-

Scottish Rebels – Record: 3-3-1, Points Scored: 565, Moves: 13
Matt Forte is a bust. Period. My tight end has outscored him by 30 points. The best move I have made so far this season was moving him to the bench.
Grade: C

SOFA KING GOOD – Record: 3-4-0, Points Scored: 572, Moves: 16
James has the most waiver/add-drop moves of any team, yet is tied for the bottom record. However, he is still only one game behind the North Division leader. Of James’ 16 moves, his best was adding Mario Manningham and dropping Patrick Crayton, but he might want a do-over on dropping Carson Palmer for Ahmad Bradshaw.
Grade: C


DEFENSE UPDATE
There are still two defenses, after seven weeks of play that have not broken the 43-point barrier set by the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 1. They are the Tennessee Titans (42 pts) and the Jacksonville Jaguars (39 pts). And to show that NFL has a sense of humor, those two teams are slated to play against each other in Week 8. It could get ugly.


SO HOW CLOSE ARE THE STANDINGS?
Several times I have mentioned how close the standings are this year and just how unprecedented it is to have so many teams with identical records (or nearly identical) at this stage of the season. Compare that to 2007 when there was quite the divide by this point:
Midnight Maulers (6-1)
Scottish Rebels (6-1)
Joe’s Pats (5-2)
American Bad Ass (4-3)
Coors Light Drunk Guys (4-3)
Sofa King Good (3-4)
Killer Load Toads (2-5)
Chief Dredd (2-5)
2 Fantastic (2-5)
EarthWindFire (1-6)


POLITICAL RANT
“Corporations don’t pay taxes… Individuals pay taxes”
Lately there has been a lot of talk from politicians about going after health insurance company profits and using those proceeds to pay for the healthcare reform. Oregon senator Ron Wyden (D) is particularly in favor of this approach and in a recent interview said “We need to hold these insurance companies accountable.” The only problem is that corporations don’t pay taxes…individuals pay taxes. Any increase in corporate taxes is passed along one way or the other to individuals. Don’t believe me? Here is a real-life example:
Currently we pay for an individual health plan for Rachel from Blue Cross/Blue Shield. This plan was purchased on the open market, as Rachel’s job doesn’t have any health benefits. The monthly premium we pay for her plan is $143.00. In the mail yesterday I received a notice from Blue Cross/Blue Shield that the premium had been increased to $183.00 per month. A letter included explained the increase. Here is an excerpt:

Governor Kulongoski signed HB 2116 into law August 4, 2009. HB 2116 creates, among other things, a tax on medical insurance premiums as partial funding for increased access to healthcare. Effective October 1, 2009, the bill calls for health carriers to remit one percent of the ‘gross premium amount’ paid by their insured members to the State of Oregon.
Funds generated by the premium tax will help expand healthcare access for the uninsured, including the expansion of the Oregon Health Plan to 35,000 uninsured, low-income adult Oregonians, as well as 80,000 uninsured Oregon children through a new program called “Health Care for All Oregon Children.” What this means for you is, premium bills will be adjusted to reflect the addition of the tax beginning with bills due for October 2009.
Sincerely,
Bonnie Hass
Director, Customer Service

So you can see that these narrow-minded politicians thought that they would be taking money away from the “greedy” insurance companies, but all they are doing is forcing the insurance companies to increase their rates to consumers. Along with meeting their normal expenses, corporations have margins that must be maintained in order to meet shareholder and board member goals. As taxes go up, corporations have to find new ways to maintain their margins. This is done either by increasing prices to consumers or cutting expenses. (Btw – “Cutting expenses” is corporate speak for “cutting jobs.”) See, corporations don’t pay taxes… individuals pay taxes.
Now, on to these “obscene” profits that are supposedly being made by corporations… In spite of what politicians would have you believe, corporations do not just sit on mountains of cash. That would not make good business sense. Quite the contrary—corporations use excess cash to grow their own businesses, through the hiring more employees and the building new factories or offices. Or if internal growth isn’t the goal of the corporation, they use excess funds to invest in standard investment vehicles (stocks and bonds) or to directly invest in another company. All of these activities have direct positive benefits to the economy and to society. But as taxes go up on corporations, the ability for them to engage in any of these activities dwindles.
The end result of increases in corporate taxes are: higher prices to consumers, no pay raises to employees, no new job hires, or worst of all, layoffs. Who suffers in any of these scenarios? The individual!! The normal tax-paying American!! That is where the brunt of any tax increase is felt. Corporations don’t pay taxes… individuals pay taxes.
Don’t be deceived. When you hear your politicians talk about going after “obscene” corporate profits, tell them to go fuck off. What they are really talking about is increasing YOUR taxes, and taking more of YOUR money. Bottom line about tax increases – Money is freedom. The more money you have, the more freedom you have to do what you want to do. Tax increases take money from you, and thus take away your freedom. Don’t let politicians steal your freedom under the guise of corporate taxes.


FUN WITH SPELL CHECK
When running spell-check, the suggested replacement for “Ochocinco” was “Chicano”. I don’t know why, but I found that to be quite amusing.


BEST BENCH
Not even close this week… When you have the top scoring player overall on your bench and the top scoring tight end on your bench, odds are you are going to have the best bench of the week. So this week’s Best Bench goes to…. The Lords of Lumberg!! Timmy could have improved his point total by a solid 55 points this week, with three roster changes: M. Austin for D. Bowe (25 pts), V. Davis for T. Gonzales (24 pts) and C. Ochocinco for W. Welker (6 pts).


Week 8 is another tough week with six teams on byes, so make sure you have your rosters set!!