UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

Random Thoughts:

- Never, ever, in a million years, could I have seen the Dodgers sweep away the Cubs in three games!

And Cubs fans, please stop saying that the Cubs choked away the series. The Dodgers beat them, plain and simple.

- The weather here has been crazy lately! Late last week, it was chilly; we’re talking mid-70s with winds. Over the weekend, it was a tad warmer, maybe in the 80s.

Today, it was in the mid-90s, and it’s expected to be even hotter tomorrow! Even stranger, the day after, it is expected to be back in the mid-70s!

WTH???

- Shot-Online Update: I’m a Level 48 semi-pro, and yet I’m too afraid to try Cadeiger :P.

(One quick Shot-Online rant: You morons that are clogging the AH with your one-hit items are freaking annoying.

All of you, please go DIAF.)

- Week Five Fantasy Football Updates:

Going into Monday’s Minnesota v New Orleans tilt, I was trailing by 11 points in one league (with only Minnesota’s defense left), and I was up by 30 points in another league (and facing, gulp, Drew Brees and Adrian Peterson).

Then the punt block/TD happened, and I felt really good about the first league.

Then, inexplicably, New Orleans’ run defense started playing really well, practically shutting down AD to the tune of THREE fantasy points! Brees ended up with 13 points, thanks in part to two lost fumbles, and my opponent in the second league ended up with only 16 of the 30 points required to overtake me.

I figured that I was in big trouble in both leagues, and now I’m 2-3 and 2-2-1, with plenty of Fantasy Football left to play.

Some non-fantasy football thoughts from the past week:

- A win is a win is a win, but T.O. going T.O is still T.O., and I love it:

‘This was a great team win,’ T.O. said. ‘It was frustrating out there, but I kept with it. My teammates stuck with it. … God used me today for his glory. Reality is where glory resides. That’s all I’ve got to say.’

What???

First of all, how is holding off a pathetic, winless Bengals team a “great team win”? Second of all…WHAT???

I can’t wait for T.O. to drop a game-tying TD late in the fourth quarter of game, then proclaiming that the loss as a “bad team loss” while staring in the general direction of Tony Romo.

By the way, how would you like to be 4-1 and be in THIRD place in your division? I have a good feeling that the NFC’s Super Bowl representative will come out of the NFC East.

- Another game, another Ed Hochuli controversy. How his crew blew that obvious facemask penalty is beyond me. But can we stop blaming Hochuli for this one? This was not his call!!!

Look, part of sports is the human aspect of it; officials are going to make mistakes! Yes, that’s what instant replay is for, right? Well, why not allow instant replay to reverse non-calls too? If we do that, then where would we draw the line on what is challenge-able and what is not?

Besides, two missed calls in a five-game stretch is not exactly a compelling sample size to determine if a referee needs to retire. Also, what if the Jay Cutler fumble didn’t result in a Broncos TD? What if Reggie Bush did not fumble following the facemask? I’m not arguing that these outcomes would have made the blown calls right, but I will once again hammer the point that one cannot attribute the result of a SINGLE play to the outcome of a game!

- Where are the pro-Diva Favre Packer fans calling for GM Ted Thompson’s head? Is Aaron Rodgers hiding in a bomb shelter? Is Greta Van Susteren getting ready for a second interview, entitled “I Told You So!” with Favre?

(By the way, Packers fans, your secondary looks TERRIBLE. I just thought I’d throw that opinion out there before you mail out your expletive-laden hate mail to the Packers.)

- I guess Kurt Warner shouldn’t retire just yet.

Poor guy, though, to have to witness his teammate—Anquan Boldin—get seriously hurt because of a poor decision on Warner’s part. I immediately became a fan of the guy, and I still am, and I hope that this is not going to be his final season. I would love to see Warner take a team to the playoffs one more time.

(Fantasy football tangent: the goose-egg I got from Trent Edwards, thankfully, did not ruin me.)

- Sage Rosenfels, congratulations on winning the Colts’ Team MVP award. My goodness!

That was kinda cool, I guess, for you to try to channel your inner John Elway. However, you do realize that this was Week Five of the regular season, right?

And Colts fans, isn’t it amazing that you are two failed second-half rallies away from being 0-4?

- And finally…

My Rams did not lose this week! WOOHOO!!!!!

Tags: chicago cubs, choke, controversy, diva favre, ed hochuli, fantasy football, kurt warner, los angeles dodgers, monday night football, nfl, retirement, sage rosenfels, shot-online, sweep, t.o., weird weather by Peter
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On with it!

- How unfortunate that the great Chargers-Broncos game had to be marred by a terrible call by veteran official/guns of steel owner Ed Hochuli?  We should be talking about Broncos’ coach Mike Shanahan’s decision to go for the win (awesome, for the record, and I’m sure ESPN’S TMQ is going to make mention of Shanahan’s non-chicken decision!).  We should be talking about Darren Sproles and Brandon Marshall and rookie Eddie Royal’s TD and 2pt conversion hauls.

Instead, we’re talking about Ed Hochuli’s blown call, and so will I.

!) Let’s get this one out of the way now:  Hochuli got it wrong.  There’s no way that Cutler’s fumble wasn’t a fumble.  Sure, Hochuli had a bad angle on the play; he was standing behind Cutler, and might have been his angle blocked by Cutler’s left shoulder).  If that were true, though, then why bother blowing the whistle?  Let the play go, and then allow the replay official to demand a review of the play.

2) That being said, why can’t the play be completely reviewed?  Who is going to argue that the Chargers could not have recovered the fumble (and, of course, they actually did!)?  We saw indisputable evidence that the Chargers recovered the fumble, so why can’t the play be completely reversed?

I hope the NFL looks to reverse the “inadvertent whistle” rule, especially in the face of overwhelming evidence like we had here.

3) Charger fans, please stop with the “That call screwed us out of the game!” whining!  Had you guys not gone down 21-3 early in the game, you might not have been in the position to lose on a bad call by a referee.  How about stopping Brandon Marshall?  How about stopping Tony Scheffler?  I know!  How about stopping Eddie Royal ONCE?

What a strange season so far.  San Diego, Jacksonville, and Minnesota are 0-2; Arizona (???), Carolina (!!!), and Buffalo are 2-0; and the Colts should be 0-2.

- Speaking of the Colts, how are they NOT 0-2?  Adrian Peterson ran all over them in Sunday’s game, and yet all Minnesota could manage was five field goals?  You had a chance to bury the Colts early, and all you could muster was five field goals?

Even still, it took a furious rally—a huge reception/lateral, three tries at a TD dive, a fourth quarter TD, a 2pt conversion dive, a GREAT special teams play, and a game-winner by Adam Vinatieri—to pull this one out.

(Tangent:  Why is it that I’ve seen the replay of the Anthony Gonzalez flip to Reggie Wayne twenty times, but I’ve only seen the replay of the fourth-quarter, downed-at-the-one punt by the Colts’ special teams once?  If that punt goes into the end zone, who knows what might have happened?

Then again, who is surprised that a non-SportsCenter-worthy play was, arguably, the key to the game?)

And has anyone seen the Colts’ running game?  Yikes.

- So I guess the great Brett Favre isn’t enough to beat a Tom Brady-less Pats team, and I guess the Pats might be OK after all.  That pick Favre threw looked like vintage Brett Favre, if by “vintage,” I mean 2004-2006 and 2007 NFC Championship Favre.  And Matt Cassel is fitting the role of Trent Dilfer just fine, isn’t he?

Speaking of Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers doesn’t look half-bad, does he?  Granted, his second game came against the Detroit Lions, but still?  Dare I say that Rodgers looks almost better than Favre did last year?  I can’t wait for next Sunday night’s game:  Cowboys at Packers.  Whoa.

Other random thoughts:

- I guess Philly really is that good, even though they lost to the Cowboys tonight.

Speaking of Philly v Dallas…who opened the floodgates to all this scoring?  Philly and Dallas combined for 78 points.  San Diego and Denver combined for 77 points.  Green Bay scored 24 points in five minutes.  Freaking San Francisco and Seattle combined for 63 points!  Was this the NFL in 2008 or Tecmo Super Bowl?

I wonder what the over/under lines are going to look like for next week’s games, especially Dallas at Green Bay?  Sixty points?  Eighty?

- On the other end of that spectrum, I was actually kinda surprised that Pittsburgh and Cleveland managed 16 total points.  I was thinking it was going to be a weird, 9-8 game or something like that :P.

- I guess Kurt Warner’s not done.  Same with Jake Delhomme.  Vince Young might very well be, though.  Carson Palmer looks lost.  Marc Bulger might want to think about early retirement.

- Speaking of the Rams…they look absolutely awful, and as much as I would love to see a team finish 0-16, I can see the Rams backing into a victory against either San Francisco or an injury-ravaged Seattle team.  Kansas City might be able to do it, but they have games against Atlanta and Miami, so I don’t like their chances.  Cincinnati’s offense is too talented to go winless, as is Cleveland’s offense (besides, they play each other twice), and the same can be said for Jacksonville and San Diego.

I guess no one’s going winless this year.

Fantasy football thoughts to come next time.

Tags: aaron rodgers, adrian peterson, brandon marshall, brett favre, darren sproles, denver broncos, ed hochuli, high scoring, indianapolis colts, matt cassel, mike shanahan, san diego chargers, winless teams by Peter
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