Going to jump right into some of my predictions from last week as what I want to talk about relates to one of the predictions I made.

Last week I thought things might be looking up, this week not so much.  Willie Parker is officially no longer the number one running back in Pittsburgh, that was a bad call.  Larry Johnson had some decent yards, but no touchdown so going with another bad call.  Ryan Grant also did not get a touchdown, but I think his performance was good enough to be considered a push.  And then Philip Rivers, only one touchdown and under 300 yd., that was a good call.  Overall record is 5-7-3.  I will get to my predictions for this coming week in a moment, but first I want to talk about how personal feelings can affect your drafting/managing strategy.

I think it’s pretty clear that there are some players in the NFL than I just don’t like.  In some cases, it’s a natural result of a rivalry with my Pittsburgh Steelers.  Take for example, any Baltimore Ravens.  I don’t know if it’s the influence of Ray Lewis, who I believe is a good linebacker and is also amazingly overrated, or the fact that we play them at least two times every season and they like to try and play football the same way the Steelers always have, with hard-hitting defense.  But every time I hear the Baltimore Raven talk, I inevitably come away disliking them even more.  Whether it’s the proclamations of “our dynasty starts tonight!”  which Ray Lewis and every other Raven repeated over and over again to the media in the week leading up to their first game with the Steelers last season (before losing to them three times the rest of the year) or the seemingly inexplicable comparisons that the media like to make between Joe Flacco and Ben Roethlisberger, every time I hear something about the Baltimore Ravens it always seems to be something I disagree with.  As a result, I despised drafting any Baltimore Ravens player on any of my fantasy teams.  I remember just this past draft breathing a sigh of relief when the team just before me drafted Willis McGahee because he was still on the board, obviously the best player and I did NOT want to be forced into position where I felt I had to draft him.  But, if you’re a diehard fan of an NFL team (defined as: if you have to choose between your fantasy team succeeding or your NFL team succeeding, you will choose your NFL team) then this is perfectly logical to you

However, in many cases, it doesn’t have anything at all to do with whether they perform well or not or how often they play Pittsburgh, there’s just something about certain players that rubs me the wrong way.  Take for example Philip Rivers.  As I’ve said before, I understand people liking him as a fantasy player.  He usually puts up good numbers, even in losing efforts.  But, there’s just something about the guy that I don’t like, to the point that I’ve never drafted him onto any of my teams.  I really don’t like players who cry and complain any time they lose, and I know, this is becoming a larger and larger group in the NFL.

What made me start thinking about this was watching an interview with Philip Rivers prior to the Monday night football game this past week.  Of course, leading up to the game the analysts of ESPN could not come up with enough words to describe how marvelous Philip Rivers is or how devastating the San Diego offense can be.  At least one analyst made it clear that after Big Brother Manning and Tom Brady, Philip Rivers is obviously the third-best NFL quarterback in the league.  “Better than Drew Brees?” another one asked.  “Yes, I believe so” was the response, which was followed by a long string of supposedly convincing statistics, all designed to show the greatness of Philip Rivers.  Then, during the actual interview, Philip had the following to say “I hate to lose more than I want to win”.  It was at that point that I was able to recognize that it wasn’t anything Philip Rivers did on the field that made me dislike him so much.  It was a general, basic makeup of his character. 

I have no idea about the personal life of Philip Rivers outside of football.  Is he extremely active in the community?  Does he give loads of cash/time to charities?  Does he love puppy dogs and bunnies?  I have no idea.  But, the simple statement of “I hate to lose more than I want to win” makes me think the answers are no, no and only if its good for picking up girls.  Maybe I’m wrong and he’s a great guy, I just have a feeling that we would see very basic things in vastly different ways.  Regardless, with that kind of mentality, I am now more certain than ever that Philip Rivers will consistently choke in any big-time game/national televised game and will certainly never win a championship in the NFL.

So, I feel like that was very cathartic.  Let’s see if it helps me in my predictions this week.  But going with Donald Brown as a great second running back option this week.  Also, Steve Smith (Carolina edition) has really been struggling this season, but he spoke out about how he feels he is no longer useful to the Carolina offense.  Normally when a receiver does something like that, he winds up in the end zone the following week, so I expect him to have his best game so far this season.

For players that are usually guaranteed starters that I expect to struggle, it’s a tough week.  There’s a lot of lopsided matchups, so I’m going to fall back to my old failsafe choice.  Take a quarterback that everybody thinks is great but I believe always chokes under pressure.  This week, going to go with the old Super Bowl Puker himself, Donovan McNabb.  Most people expect Philadelphia to refocus after that dismal performance against Oakland last week, I expect the bright lights of Monday night football to once again the better of Donovan against a team that they should demolish

Onto the power rankings! 

1.      MM of M (1) – they lose their first game of the season (you’re welcome everybody) but hold on to the number one spot..  They have one of their worst weeks so far, but they had three significant performers either on their off the week or injured.  Overall, it would seem that they still have the best roster from top to bottom, but that can change on any given week and there is a team directly behind them pressing for the number one spot

2.      Mopar’s Marauders (3) – the meteoric rise of the Marauders continues.  If the monkeys had not been so successful earlier this season, the Marauders probably would have jumped up to the number one spot this week.  But, that’s not the way the power rankings work.  Still, it seems that no matter whom this team starts, they get points.  We’ll see what next week brings, but right now it looks like going to be very hard keeping the Marauders out of the top spot

3.      Dreaded Mercenaries (2) – I thought this might be a difficult week for the Mercenaries with Dallas being off, and that proved to be true.  They only manage 62 points and lose their game.  You know it’s a bad week when the score for your starting quarterback is negative four.  They only slide down one more spot, but if Dallas continues to struggle, this team may be on its way out of the top five

4.      Amateur Pharmacists (7) – they keep on scoring and shoot into the top five.  Right now, the Amateur Pharmacists are indeed firing on all cylinders and might be the most dangerous team in the league at this moment.  They  really don’t have an obvious weak spot and there’s no reason this team won’t be challenging for the top spot in the next couple of weeks

5.      Team Eagles (5) – they hold steady at number five.  The return to form of golden boy Drew had to be a welcome sight, but the absolute disappearance of Willis in Baltimore, and really the disappearance of all the running backs for this team kind of balances out that return.  If Anquan could stay healthy (anybody else find it suspicious the range of injuries he has had this season after making it clear how happy he was with his contract?)  then this team might be able to overcome the difficulties they are having at running back.  The golden boy is keeping them competitive, but will that be enough in the long run?

6.      The Bloodsuckers (6) – they get a bazillion points out of their wide receivers and zero, as in absolute zero, out of the running backs and it costs them the game.  They’re just has to be a trade out there for this team, but depending upon what happened this coming Monday night, they may have waited too long.  If McNabb doesn’t bounce back, then there are going to start to be questions about Philadelphia.  And if that happens, McNabb loses a lot of trading power.  This team is a decent running back away from challenging for the top spot

7.      Evil Midnight Bombers (4) – did the Bombers really not start a player at quarterback last week?  Or was that just some sort of software issue?  Either way, they dropped out of the top five for the first time and the team that I once had solidly in the number one spot is now struggling to stay in the top half

8.      Farva’s Shovelheads (8) – they hold steady at number eight, but Greg Jennings is killing these guys.  I mean, against Detroit, your quarterback has a big day, and none of them go to the guy you had pegged as the number one receiver.  They showed that they can still score points, but they have lost five in a row now and it seems like there may be too many questions surrounding this team for them to get into the top five

9.      Damages (9)  – yet another team that holds steady from last week.  The apparent end of the Willie Parker era in Pittsburgh is a huge concern for Damages.  In this point, this team barely has a legitimate number two running back, let alone a real starter.  If they can find a trade partner and get a decent running back, they can definitely move into the top half.  As it is, they may struggle to hang on to the top 10

10.  Heavenly Rampagers (10) – a big victory this week and Brady absolutely explodes, but even Tom can store you 51 points every week.  When one player scores more than half of the points on your team, regardless of how many points you scored overall, it’s not a good sign for the long-term successfulness of your team.  Still, Brady shows you can still score and if the rest of the team picks it up, then this team might make a push for the top half

11.  Mr. Al Davis (13) – another point explosion, and another week where the majority of their points come from two players.  But, it’s two completely different players than it was the week before.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a fantasy team have such a lopsided number of points scored by such a small percentage of their roster two weeks in a row and not be at least one of the same players.  It doesn’t seem to be like the sort of thing can continue, but there’s no way I can stop from moving them up a couple of spots.  They still have no quarterback, but if somebody new keeps stepping up, but I will just have to assume that Mr. Al Davis is using his psychic vampire powers and rank them accordingly

12.  Legion of Doom (11) – what the…?  We score over 100 points, win another game, and knock off the undefeated, number one ranked team and we drop a spot?!  Who does these rankings anyway???  Still, things are looking up a little bit, but with the performance of everybody around my team, the only logical move was dropping down one spot

13.  Team Falk (12) – they once again scored decent points and this time start a complete lineup!  Unfortunately, they still lose their game and dropped one spot in the rankings.  It’s good to see that they are still fighting, it’s just going to be difficult for this team seeing that they have to deal with the underperformance of both Tomlinson and Roy Williams this season.

14.  OffInThe Shower (14) –  they lose a game, to the team directly behind them, but they hang onto number 14.  They desperately need a quarterback if they are going to make any kind of legitimate run.  Brandon Jacobs has to find the end zone again eventually, so overall I still think this team probably has the strongest roster of the bottom three teams, but they need a little bit of help to really make a move

15.  Gaul Village Asterix (15) – they get back on the winning track, but I still don’t think they have enough talent on their roster to make any major news of the power rankings or as far as overall points.  However, they have shown the ability to win games head-to-head, so as long as they remain active this team has a solid shot at the playoffs

16.  Team S (16) – MISSING PERSON ALERT!  They have a complete starting lineup this week, but it is the exact same lineup as last week.  There’s really no way to tell, but at least up to this point it hasn’t made any difference since they haven’t won a game yet

And there we have it, another exciting week of football.  It’s hard to believe that we are almost halfway through the regular season of the NFL already.