Week 11 Preview: Into the Home Stretch

-Welcome to the Sweet Fancy Moses, Mr. Boss.-

The regular guy who writes these intros got injured, so I'm filling in this week! Sweet, Sweet Flacco Action! is proud to present the Week 11 preview. Go vote in the Candy Lineup poll! Get prepared to drink heavily and laugh it up, fuzzball, as Cole and RWPilk flounder and curse their general ineptitude in the ugly arena of fantasy football.

Cole

Current Standing: 8-2, 1st Overall

It's getting to that time of year. The trading deadline has passed without incident, and Matt "Khan" Forte is still on my team. I have faith in him though. He's a disappointment, yes, and I'll probably curse Lovie Smith out for the remainder of the sesaon. But he's already one up on Ronnie Brown, and you gotta figure the Bears will be running a lot more after the debacle that was Jay Cutler against San Francisco last week.

But I don't really have faith in the Saints' defense/special teams unit. Sure, their schedule is comically easy, but this is a team that gave up over 400 yards and 23 points to the St. Louis Rams. And yeah, they've gotten eight defensive touchdowns, but that's where most of their value lies, and let's face it: defensive touchdowns are by and large luck-based. You don't want to count on constantly being that lucky. Especially when the team in question has the luck of a New Orleans-based institution.

This week The Flabby-Armed Spanking Machine has a tough matchup against The Happy Pappys, the team with the second-most points in the league. The thing to do in this situation is to look for weak matchups. You know, like Brett Favre and Adrian Peterson going up against Seattle. And the Pittsburgh DST facing Kansas City.

Huh. This could be trouble.

RWPilk

Current Standing: 5-5, tied for 7th overall

Ah, I love browsing my team at the end of the week and finding out someone hasn't been practicing... and that I have no back up on the bench. Nothing to wake you up for the weekend like stumbling into the waiver wire drenched with sweat and fear. Enter: Jets TE Kevin Boss, the newest member of the Sweet Fancy Moses. Until there's some word on Todd Heap-- wait, you know what? Screw it. Heap can barely score over 5 points. Boss, you're in! Suit up and report back here in 5 for some Tony Danza jokes.

And, praise the lord, BYE weeks are over and done with. I wasn't hit hard any particular week, but just rather suffered a lot of close margin defeats with my reserve guy scoring "what do I do with the ball, again?" numbers. So, this is the first week I'm marching on to the field with the team I drafted, more or less, season ending injuries and gay-bashing suspensions not withstanding. Will it make a difference? I'm hoping so in these critical last weeks.

A little irony for you: If I beat my opponent this week, I help Cole secure his playoff spot. I wish I had the record to throw the game. Oh, I'd do it. I'm in a competition on a public forum here! What else am I supposed to do? Hello? Is this thing on?

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Week 8 Recap: It Still Stings

-Sweet, Sweet Flacco/Heap Action? Not likely, sucker.-

Just as the winds appeared to shift in Week 7 towards an RWPilk comeback, they're already shifting back in the opposite direction with a definitive Cole victory. Damn you, finicky winds! With your flippin' and your floppin'! Anyway, let's go to the authors now to see just what in the hell happened this week. Parental guidance suggested.

Cole

Current Standing: 6-2, tied for 1st Overall

Since I'm delusional to write this thing, let's go all-out delusional here. Let's attribute my team's bullish performance to Gi's trash-talking marathon Friday. Let's say her post provided fake bulletin board material, giving my team the edge it needed to record its second-highest point total to date en route to an 18-point victory.

Sure. Or, we could give the metaphorical game ball to my ever-faithful stable of running backs. To Ray Rice! May you continue to put up points despite a grueling schedule. To Chris Johnson! May you always display getting-away-from-the-cops speed. And to Matt Forte! May you play the Browns every week.

And let's not forget the Saints' DST, with a stellar 17 points this week and their sixth defensive touchdown. Where would I be without my favorite waiver-wire pickup? Probably not 6-2, I can tell you that much. It's worth pointing out that they have more touchdowns off interceptions than the Browns, Lions, and Raiders have passing touchdowns. (Source) Oh, hello, Calvin Johnson. Yeah, I'll deal with you later.

The only sour note was my acquisition and subsequent starting of David Garrard over Donovan McNabb. The Jaguars were supposed to have an easy matchup against the Titans, the Eagles were supposed to have a tough matchup against the Giants, yadda yadda yadda, I left 23 points on the bench.

So I still have a three-game lead, now with six games to play, meaning the unfortunate-but-still-comical epic collapse should be juuust around the corner. Next up is Queen of the Castle, fresh off a tight victory over Pilk. Fun fact: Queen of the Castle's entire bench was devoted to bye-week players last week. Weird.

RWPilk

Current Standing: 4-4, 7th overall

There seems to be a pattern going on in our league. There's always one miserable match where both teams do pretty terrible, and one just happens to win by being a little less terrible that week. Last week, Cole was in that game and lost. This week was my turn, and, oh, what a turn it was. This one really hurts people. This one was my bad.

After a waiver wire buffet last week, I also executed my first trade with Cole. He wanted QB Garrard (that he immediately put in for McNabb, say whaaa?!) and he offered me RB "I'm built of Legos" Westbrook's back up, McCoy. To be honest, I totally forgot about the trade and when I was alerted it was approved Sunday morning, I blew it off. I just had fixed my RB situation via said waiver wire... What's McCoy gonna do?

My waiver wire restructuring was a total bust. TE Todd Heap, some mook I'm now stuck with the rest of the year, scored one point. And, by golly, RB Darren Sproles, the guy I picked up before trading with Cole matched that score. McCoy, on my bench? Fifteen points. My loss deficit this week: 6 points.

Of course, it's easy to look at my trade gaff as the smoking gun here, but honestly, the rest of my time wasn't helping. Packers DST got destroyed, Brandon Marshall was off playing solitaire somewhere, and even Neil Rackers scored under 5 points. Ho-leeeee Christmas, you know it's a bad week when after the dust clears, even your kicker has a blue note.

I'm off to cry into some beers now.

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