Groin Shot of the Week Candidates

Willis McGahee (28-116, 4 TD) - My 4-2 finish and a .500 season prediction for the Bills doesn't seem all that unlikely now. In fact, it is falling into the "probable" category with the trampling of the Seahawks. Is my 4-2 too conservative? Can we run the table? Are the playoffs still possible for the Bills? Whoa, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Its not every week we get to face a team with its, I believe, 5th, 6th and 7th string LBs and a terrible D-line to start with. Definitely drew the weakest link division to face this year with the NFC West. Nicely done Willis! Nicely done!

Jerry Porter (6-135, 3 TD) - Boo, hoo. Your WR is matched up against Champ Bailey, the best shut-down, cover, why even bother throwing to that side of field cornerback in the league. Yep, you'd better sit him this week. Upon closer inspection however, in recent weeks Chad Johnson had his best game of the season against...Denver! Peerless Price had his best game of the season against...Denver! And now Jerry Porter had his best game of the season (in a snow storm) against...Denver! Not that I want to revisit the Bailey-Clinton Portis trade again, but because ESPN likes to beat stories to death, Suzy Kolber asked Bailey about the deal to which, in part, he responded, "well, we're winning and they're losing." Admittedly Portis is not accomplishing much in the capital, but the Broncos have lost 3 of their last 5. I don't think the Redskins are losing because of Portis. When Denver loses I'm less certain Bailey hasn't been a significant contributing factor. Just something to chew on...

Kelly Holcomb (413 PaYd, 5 TD) - The second highest scoring game in NFL history! Do I even need to say anything else? Damn right I do! Sixteen team dynasty league I'm working towards the regular season league championship playing against the team with Mark Brunell and, you guessed it, Kelly Holcomb as his only QBs all season. In the first 11 weeks of the season my opponent's team scored a whopping 43 points from the QB position. This week - of all weeks - a cool 33. I wouldn't change head-to-head format in fantasy football necessarily, but this week I hate head-to-head. By the way, Holcomb is now 0-2 in career games where he has thrown for over 400 yards. In your face Kelly! (Ha. That feels a little better.)

Honorable Mention

Before I get flooded with email for not including Player X or Player Y, because there were a lot of great candidates this week, here are the honorable mentions we'd like to flip the collective fantasy bird to, assuming you landed on the wrong side of the ledger:

Peyton Manning - 6 TD? New fantasy rule proposal next year: cap fantasy scoring by player.

Carson Palmer - Don't try to get back in the good books this year Carson. Everyone has long since benched you.

Kerry Collins - Ditto Kerry.

Rudi Johnson - Doing his Jamal Lewis impression against the Browns, and doing it well.

Julius Jones - And the media scrutiny in Dallas quickly switches from, "Why did Parcells pass on Steven Jackson?" to "Who the hell is going to play QB for this team?"

Brandon Stokley and Marvin Harrison - Since I had Stokley and my opponent had Harrison, shouldn't I get more points since Harrison's were just pad the stats points?

Keary Colbert - Were you wearing Muhsin Muhammad's jersey the past few weeks?

Steve Heiden - Those who picked up Mark Campbell last week can drop him and pick up Heiden this week.

Shayne Graham - Keeping me alive in my survivor league. I call him the anti-Barlow, who is doing his best to get me kicked off the island.

Martin Gramatica - Is it the funny Panther blue that throws you off buddy?

Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals Defenses - Decided to take the week off.

Comments From The Couch

• MacGregor's Believe It Or Not: Top scoring team in the league going into week 12 (me) playing against the last place team in the league. Opponent starts Kerry Collins, Willis McGahee, Brandon Stokley and Keary Colbert. Yep, I really hate head-to-head format this week.

• To think years and years from now there are going to be highlights of that Browns-Bengals game shown, and every single time I'm going to be saying to myself, "What were the Bengals thinking with those God awful uniforms?"

• I'm starting to watch more games on tape rather then live due to family commitments, including last Thursday's Chicago at Dallas clash. It was like watching a car wreck. I couldn't turn away (a.k.a. hit the "stop" button). The thing I love the most is fast-forwarding through the commercials. Even I would draw the line at watching that disaster for 3+ hours. I'm not that much of a glutton for punishment.

• Steve McNair is back and looking good. No, wait a second. He's tossed for only just over a 100 yards and 3 TDs on only 12 pass attempts. Seems there was more wrong with the Texans than right with McNair in the early going. And then the Titans went right in the crapper and McNair is talking retirement after the game. That can't be good for team spirit down the stretch.

• Randy Moss is back and not looking good. No, wait a second. There is a great TD catch on a pass Daunte Culpepper never should have thrown, giving Moss owners - likely already burned twice this season for starts where Moss was used as a decoy - a sigh of relief.

• And Antonio Gates just keeps on rolling...

• The Eagles clinch the NFC East division in November. Impressive, but honestly, didn't they practically clinch the thing back in the off-season when both the Giants and Redskins hired "new" (or not so new...) coaches and the Cowboys decided Vinny Testaverde and Eddie George were still 16-game starters in this league?

• Ben Roethlisberger is on a downward trend in fantasy scoring since about week 5. Pretty soon the real football world is going to catch up and snap that win streak too, just the Redskins were not the right team for the task. Jacksonville on Sunday primetime perhaps? Not that I would wish this on Big Ben, but I'm imagining yet another fall-all-over-themselves fawn, gawk and love-fest by the Sunday night commentating crew, which sounds stupider and stupider as the game goes on when he completes only a dozen or so passes for under 200 yards.
  
  
• So we came into this fantasy season with the philosophy to draft RBs early and often; wait on QB. Now there are rumblings next year people will be drafting QBs early and waiting on RBs. Screw it. I'm just going to do the opposite what "everyone" else is doing. That's where the value is.
  
  
• Predicting what coaches are going to be fired isn't that difficult. I'm expecting openings in New Orleans, Cleveland, San Francisco and Seattle (barring some miraculous turnaround) to go with Miami. The difficult part is guessing who is going to fill these jobs. A person would have to be a real visionary to want to take over one of these messes the current administration is leaving behind.

• As mentioned above, I was taping some games Sunday. The problem with this is trying to make sure no one spills the beans on the outcome. Everyone here knows I'm a Bills fan. Right? Right? Let's just say I won't be making any more quick phone calls to my Mom before getting a chance to watch the tape.

And The Winner Is…

Very difficult choice this week. Willis McGahee actually won me $10 for week 12 top scoring RB award in my AntSports league, but screwed me in that other league. Jerry Porter meant nothing to me in fantasy games but damn, that was a primo performance. Kelly Holcomb didn't just kick me in the groin. He kicked me, dragged me down a dirt road, threw me over a cliff where I rolled to a stop only to get run over by an 18-wheeler. Am I being too overdramatic? Too bad, I'm picking him. Pick whoever you want. Are the fantasy playoffs here yet?