Week 8

Week seven was possibly one of the worst single weeks for fantasy football in recent history.  Multiple running backs went down with injuries (Darren McFadden, Earnest Graham, and Willis McGahee), Santana Moss is out 5-7 weeks, and numerous quarter backs had atrocious games.  The league got to see how Tim Tebow is a “winner”, at least until next week when he has to play with a back up running back and against someone that doesn’t suck quite as bad as the Dolphins.

A couple of other random notes before we get into the week eight discussion.

• North Dakota State retained the Dakota Marker Trophy for the first time in about a decade.  NDSU has struggled to win against SDSU at Coughlin Stadium and hasn’t in the past five attempts, until Saturday.  Still undefeated, #3 NDSU will be welcoming #2, and conference rival UNI to the Fargo Dome this Saturday for what is the biggest regular season game in probably the last 15 years.

• I don’t want to gloat, but the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science flag football playoffs started on Saturday and in an epic defensive battle our motley crew upset the #3 seed to move on to the next round.  Nothing says fall like flag football playoffs.

• Very impressed with Bluegrass in Highland Park.  Great servers and a very impressive beer selection.  Food was great, atmosphere was great and it really made for a pleasant Friday night.

• Word is the New England Patriots are going to be attending Terrell Owens workout.  Excited to see him and Ochocinco back together.

• WVU has been told that it will be accepted into the Big 12 which is a good deal for WVU to jump into a stable all-sport environment.  What amazes me is that WVU with its location has managed to continue to be a fairly powerful sports University.  I have to think that this is going to make it tough to continue the backyard brawl.  However, I don’t think anyone knows how these conference shifts are going to shake out and they are far from over.

Week 7 – How close was I?

1-1 this week. For the year 13-9 not bad, not good.

                        Predictions                              Actual

SD @ NYJ          24-26                                   21-27

Den @ Mia          10-17                                   18-15(OT)

Miami @ New York Giants

The Giants get a much needed break coming off of bye going against a banged up Miami team.  Miami lost a heartbreaker (if you can call still being winless heartbreaking) to Tebow led Denver in OT.  The Giants are still firmly on top of the NFC East at 4-2, ahead of Washington 3-3, Dallas 3-3, and Philadelphia 2-4.  Miami on the other hand is still winless and has so many issues, now included are the talks of firing head coach Tony Sparano, that this game should be over by halftime.

Key Injuries: Brandon Jacobs RB (NYG)

Predication: New York Giants 35 – Miami 13

Washington @ Buffalo

Washington has had a rough couple of weeks with the poor play of Rex Grossman and now last week losing Tim Hightower for the season and Santana Moss for 5-7 weeks.  Buffalo sat at home last week on bye and if you are a Bills fan you would hope that they gear up for the last half of the season.  Fred Jackson and Ryan Fitzpatrick have led a completely revitalized offense and hopefully the defense can get healthy with Kyle Williams and Shawne Merriman (edit: Merriman is shut down for the season on the IR as of Tuesday afternoon.  The Achilles flared up and it isn’t going to let him continue this year.) currently dealing with what could turn into nagging injuries.  Also in the works are some money deals for Fitzpatrick, Stevie Johnson, and Fred Jackson, in that order.  Not the way that I would probably do it, but here is hoping that Jackson stays healthy and keeps putting up numbers just to stick it to them and earn some well-deserved cash.

This game may be closer than it looks, tough to say where the offense comes from on Washington’s end, but the Buffalo defense without Kyle Williams has been lacking.  Also a few things to consider:  First this game is in Toronto where Buffalo does not win, and second teams coming off the bye this year are bad.

Key Injuries: Tim Hightower RB (Was), Santana Moss WR (Was), Chris Cooley TE (Was), London Fletcher LB (Was), Rex Grossman QB (Was), Shawne Merriman LB (Buf)

Predication:  Washington 17 – Buffalo 28

New England @ Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh played at Arizona and was in control the whole game.  These two teams/fan bases hate each other (although I think Pittsburgh fans hate just about everyone) and I think this is a challenge to predict.  New England has so many weapons on offense and I don’t think they have anyone that can cover Wes Welker or their two tight ends long enough for their blitz packages to get home, and if that happens Tom Brady is going to have a field day.  On the flip side, I am fairly certain that the Patriots could put three guys on Mike Wallace and he still would catch 100 yards and multiple touchdowns.  I feel like this is going to be a very close game but I give the nod to Belichick coming off a bye week.

Key Injuries: Jerod Mayo LB (NE), Hines Ward WR (Pit), Casey Hampton NT (Pit), James Harrison OLB (Pit)  

Predication:  New England 31 – Pittsburgh 30

Bye – New York Jets

Email me at l_presser@hotmail.com

Twitter @ldpsci

Questions? Comments? Quemments?  Tweet or email me, and until next week, the dude abides.