ROUGH RYDERS: Week Seven

Last week our beloved Rough Ryders tallied their highest score of the season thus far, and still managed to lose to the Vocal Removers. This week, they tallied their lowest score of the season, and still defeated Buggylicious. Such are the strange and unpredictable ways of fantasy football. It also helps when your opponent's fantasy team has three of it's starters inactive for their games.

Indeed, the beloved Rough Ryders scored about 85 points less than they did last week, but we can't chalk that up solely to LaDainian Tomlinson being on a BYE. Instead, we must simply chalk it up to the vagaries of athletics. Even the best of athletes and teams have "off" games, and sometimes, in terms of fantasy football, several players on one team can have "off" games at the same time.

For example. Cowboys QB Tony Romo didn't have a horrendous outing, but he certainly didn't have a great game. Just a good enough game to help the Cowboys defeat the Vikings. 12.63 fantasy points is about half of his season average thus far. That's the way it goes.

Likewise, Bengals' WR Chad Johnson had a pretty good game by most standards, except by Chad Johnson standards...This may be a trend because #85 has been a bit unhappy lately, getting into arguments with his QB on the sidelines, and grousing a bit to the media. The result of all this? Carson Palmer apparently now considers TJ Houshmandzadeh his #1 target. A wide receiver can't get pissy with his QB and expect to get the ball fed to him all game, every game. Nice job, Ocho-Cinco!

Then there's Patrick Crayton. It's tough to tell how well he's going to do from week to week, and all season it's either been feast or famine. This week, it was famine, supplemented by a fumble. This is what happens when you're the third, possibly fourth, receiving option, on your team, and can't seem to catch or hang onto passes the few times they're thrown your way.

Chiefs' TE Tony Gonzalez had a huge game last week. This week, not so much. Again, such are the strange and unpredictable ways of fantasy football.

How about "The Rack", Neil Rackers...Rackers typically puts up good fantasy numbers for me, but this week, he had few FG opportunities, not to mention missing his first PAT of the Cardinals/Redskins game, which led to the quote of the week from FOX announcer Howie Long: "Neil Rackers was voted 'Sexiest Player' in the NFL last year, and apparently the angriest as well." Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Chicago's team defense didn't fare too well, fantasy-wise. The Bears still beat the Eagles, holding them to 16 points, but aside from a couple of sacks, there were no fumble recoveries or interceptions, and the Eagles successfully kept the ball away from return man extraordinaire, Devin Hester the entire game. So rather than the usually 20 fantasy points, the Bears' defense managed only 6.

And as a unit, my two DBs and two DLs didn't really contribute much either. I won't waste any time or effort commenting on them, except to say, "Roy Williams, you never, never, ever deliver when you need to deliver."

There were a couple of bright spots on our beloved Rough Ryders this week, however...

Bills' RB Marshawn Lynch continues to play well, if not stellar. He is the only bright spot on a woeful Buffalo offense, and so far this season he accounts for four of the teams five total touchdowns. Five touchdowns in six games. It doesn't get much worse than that. Anyways, Lynch provided 18.8 fantasy points, which is slightly better than his average.

And then, there's the Lions' Kevin Jones, who finally started his first game of the season after slowly recovering from a foot injury. Just Another Team had dropped Jones earlier in the week for reason I'm not sure about, except to say that Just Another Team is a pretty good fantasy team, and perhaps Jones didn't figure into the plans. Anyways, I picked up Jones from the waiver wires late in the week, and spot started him in place of LT, and damn if KJ didn't lead our beloved Rough Ryders in fantasy points this week. Such are the strange and upredictable ways of fantasy football. KJ will remain on my team the rest of the way, even if he doesn't start...Better to have him sitting on my bench than starting for somebody else.

And that's about it for this week. Our beloved Rough Ryders won again, but the victory lacked drama and suspense, and the team, as a whole, definitely underperformed. I would imagine things will improve this week, but of course, anything can happen. That's why they play the games.

Hotcha!

Hank