Well, to the one or two of you who read this blog, I may have seemed oddly silent about the fantasy football season.  And there is a good reason for it:  my team sucks!  I’m not quite at the bottom of the league (that spot is reserved for the guy who had Vick and dumped him as soon as word of the dog fighting came out).  But, I’m very near there and could easily end up at the bottom the way things are going.

It all comes down to keepers.  We play in a league where we get to keep certain players from one year to the next.  My keepers appeared strong.  I was ranked number one in our preseason poll.  But, that is why they play the games.  Among my keepers I have Larry Johnson and Shaun Alexander, both of whom haven’t done so well after receiving monster contracts.  While not suffering from the typical Madden curse, Vince Young might as well have been injured for  how well he has been playing.  Larry Fitzgerald?  If he had some consistency at QB and a guy who was healthy, maybe he could do some damage.

Even the guys I drafted have not done well.  Travis Henry?  First he’s banged up and he’s likely soon to be suspended.

My bright spots are Peyton Manning (he’s not tearing up the league like Brady (damn the Patriots!  My brother, who is leading the league, has both Brady and Moss… I hate the Patriots, so much so that I even rooted for the Cowboys.  I feel dirty.) and TJ  Houshmandzadeh.  I have a couple of other nice surprises, but typically they are too inconsistent to guarantee a start and they typically have their great day on those where I don’t start them.

The bright spot for the season?  Well, even though I don’t have him, the season that Adrian Peterson is having is just awesome!  Think of how good the Vikes might be if they had a decent QB.  Peterson is tearing up the field even when everyone knows the Vikes can’t throw.  The future looks good for Vikings fans.  See, there is always a bright spot, if you look hard enough.  🙂

The 2007 NFL season starts tonight with Indy vs the Saints and that means the 2007 season of the NFL-Idaho Fantasy Football league also starts tonight!  Another chance to knock Juggernaut off his throne (he has won 5 of the last 6 championships).  I’ve been ranked number 1 in our coaches preseason poll, based upon my core team of Peyton Manning, Shaun Alexander, Larry Johnson and Vince Young.  I’m hoping the Alexander returns to MVP form and that Johnson keeps up his great form.  Manning should light up the field once again.  The biggest question mark will be Young, but I think he’ll be a fine number 2 QB.

Anyways, I have high hopes for the season.  Higher than I do for the Vikes, but maybe Jackson will be a pleasant surprise.  One can always hope!

On a lighter note, how about those Mariners? Doing pretty damn good so far. Not at the top of the division, but not far off either. A good series against the Angels and they could easily take the top spot. Here’s hoping for a strong effort for the rest of the season and a playoff spot!

Well, the Colts won the Super Bowl! Finally, a team I root for wins something. I’ve had poor luck with my favorite NFL team, the Vikings, and the other sports teams I like (the Marineres and the Sonics, though if they move to Oklahoma, I will have to find a new NBA team).

The game, as befit the weather conditions, was sloppy. A lot of turn overs by both teams. Manning wasn’t spectacular, but got enough done to win. On our fantasy football site, we’ve been talking about if he deserved the MVP. I personally felt others deserved it as much as he did (the Colts’ RBs, Addai and Rhodes, or the defense, or even Grossman 😉 ) but I am not upset with Manning winning it. The whole offense goes through him and, more than most teams, he calls the plays. He adjusts to the defense. So, that the Colts ran against the Bears more than they did against other teams is as much Manning’s doing as anyone’s, it would seem to me.

The most impressive thing to me is how the defense stepped up in the playoffs. They were horrid during the regular season, especially against the run, but they became a very different team in the playoffs, shutting down some pretty damn good RBs, especially my rookie keeper Larry Johnson.

I’ll admit that I’m so up on Manning because he is my keeper QB. So, I’m happy that he won the big one, maybe get some of those critics off his back. Maybe this is his Jordan moment, and he will dominate for a few years, winning a few SBs. But, it will take another one or two to get some critics off his back.

Grossman played as bad as many thought he might. I wondered if at some point they might pull him. I don’t know if that has ever happened in a SB, but he deserved to get pulled. If the Bears had a semi-decent QB, I think they could have won. I’m guessing Griese and Orton were sitting on the bench thinking they could have done better.

While not the best SB I’ve seen, I was at least happy with the result. Congrats to the Colts! Maybe next year the Vikes can do something.

I got one of my two wishes for the conference championships. I was hoping for New Orleans to win, but they couldn’t get it done. It’s nice for my friend Bob, as Chicago is his favorite team. But, at least Indy got past New England, in dramatic style, and that’s who I’ll be rooting for in the Super Bowl this year. Manning is my franchise quarterback in fantasy football, the star of team Blasphemy. So, I gotta root for him.