Instant Accountability

One of the things that always bothered me with regards to "expert fantasy analysis" is that holding yourself accountable for your recommendations on a week to week basis is virtually non-existent. Here at THIMD, instead of giving you a recap of the games that you already saw highlights of, will give you a breakdown of all of our Start/Bench picks for the week, good and bad.

New England 49, Miami 28

Start: Marty Booker - 3 Catches, 28 yards. So as you'll see, this prediction is just one in many terrible picks for the 1PM games! Even though Lemon threw the ball 37 times, no receiver had more than 56 yards receiving, in what could have been one of the biggest blowouts in history had the Pats showed mercy in the 2nd half...

Bench: Kevin Faulk - 6 carries, 28 yards rushing, 1 catch for 7 yards. Hopefully he was on your bench...

New Orleans 22, Atlanta 16

Start: Marques Colston - 3 catches, 45 yards. At some point fantasy teams are going to have to realize that this guy might have been a fluke last year, a la Michael Clayton of TB a few years back. This might have been the week...

Bench: Alge Crumpler - DNP.

New York Giants 33, San Fransisco 17

Start: Brandon Jacobs - 18 carries, 107 yards rushing, 3 catches for 16 yards. Monster game for Jacobs, who may have been benched by many teams after reading player updates in the morning...

Bench: Vernon Davis - 4 catches, 22 yards. BUST. That 1st Round pick the Pats got for next season is looking pretty good right now...

Washington 21, Arizona 19

Start: Jason Campbell - 95 yards passing, 1 INT, 0 TD's, 7 yards rushing. And they still won? Less than 200 yards of offense for the Skins this week in what looked like a pretty brutal game to watch...

Sit: Anquan Boldin - 8 catches, 29 yards, 2 TD's. I'm no math major, but that's about 3.5 YPC. Boldin owners in non-PPR leagues are very thankful for the 2 TD's, as the numbers were just ugly otherwise...

Detroit 23, Tampa Bay 16

Start: Kevin Jones - 15 carries, 76 yards rushing, 1 TD, 6 catches, 34 yards receiving. Here's one that I actually nailed correctly! I won't get too cocky though, because...

Bench: Earnest Graham - 19 carries, 92 yards rushing, 13 catches, 99 yards recieving. WOW. I really missed this one badly. The only downside was no TD's, but in a PPR league, he had an absolute monster of a game...

Buffalo 19, Baltimore 14

Start: Quinn Sypniewski - 4 catches, 33 yards. If he only had that TD I was hoping for... I told a guy in the league I run to drop Kyle Brady for Quinn, as I thought that Brady's biggest upside was about 10 yards receiving and a TD, where Sypniewski had 12 catches the past 3 weeks (it's a PPR league). So he dropped Brady, and sure enough, Brady catches 3 passes for 10 yards - and a TD. Oh well...

Bench: Marshawn Lynch - 27 carries, 84 yards rushing, 1 TD, 3 catches, 14 yards recieving. I was right about the poor yards per carry (3.0), but didn't expect the Bills to play so well, which gave Lynch the opportunity for good #'s this week...

Tennessee 38, Houston 36

Start: Lendale White - 27 carries, 104 yards, 1 TD, 4 catches, 22 yards receiving. Another one I actually nailed almost exactly. Career game for White, and the buy low window for him has now closed... What a wild game though!

Bench: Kevin Walter - 6 catches, 97 yards, 1 TD. I thought I had this one nailed as well - 0 catches through 3 quarters. Then Houston had one of the greatest comebacks in history, only to fall short with time expiring (and Rob Bironas' 8th FG of the day)...

The final #'s for the 1PM games:

Starts: 3-4-0
Bench: 2-4-1 (not counting Crumpler, who would have been terrible...)

Total: 5-8-1

We'll be back after the 4PM games have finished for Don's picks. Time to hit Dunkin' Donuts for Coffee #2 (GO SOX)!!!

And, we're back! Onto the 4PM games (i.e. Gusto's picks):

Kansas City, 12, Oakland 10

Start: Damon Huard - 177 yards passing, 1 INT, 0 TD's, 2 carries for -2 yards. Probably not what you were looking for as a fantasy starter this week. At least they won...

Bench: Jerry Porter - 1 catch, 59 yards. A long catch late in the 3rd Quarter was all Porter could muster, with Ronald Curry getting the eventual score. Nice call Gusto...

Cincinatti 38, New York Jets 31

Start: Thomas Jones - 19 carries, 67 yards. Poor Eric Mangina... Karma struck him firmly in the ass for ratting out the Pats. Let's see what Division I-A team he'll be coaching in 2009... As for Jones, he had another extremely underwhelming performance, averaging 3.5 YPC with no catches, despite the fact that the hapless J-E-T-S put up 31 points.

Bench: Rudi Johnson - DNP.

Dallas 24, Minnesota 14

Start: Patrick Crayton - 2 catches, 19 yards. I think Gusto meant to put Jason Whitten here, who had 10 frickin catches for 86 yards (yeah, my opponent had him this week)... Crayton is still too inconsistent to be nothing more than a borderline #3 WR this year...

Bench: Chester Taylor - 10 carries, 47 yards rushing, 3 catches, 19 yards receiving. We'll call this one neutral, the only one of the week so far. 66 total yards from a guy splitting carries against a good Dallas rush defense isn't horrible, but isn't great...

Chicago 19, Philadelphia, 16

Start: Reggie Brown - 3 catches, 44 yards receiving, 1 carry, 12 yards rushing. At least he had an extra point with the 12 yards rushing. Not good...

Bench: Cedric Benson - 17 carries, 46 yards rushing, 1 catch, 19 yards receiving. Adrian Peterson only had 4 carries, but had almost half of Benson's yards rushing. If he doesn't have a big game in the next two weeks, Peterson will be the waiver pickup of Week 10...

Seattle 33, St. Louis 6

Start: Shaun Alexander - 19 carries, 47 yards rushing, 1 catch, 18 yards receiving. It might be time to stick a fork in him, folks. See Benson's #'s above - almost exactly identical. Is Shawn Alexander now Cedric Benson?

Bench: Marc Bulger - 225 yards passing, 3 INT's 0 TD's. It looks like the #1 pick is down to St. Louis, Miami, and the Jets. Awful, awful, awful performance by Bulger, who lost two fumbles on top of the 3 INT's!

Denver 31, Pittsburgh 28

Start: Brandon Marshall - 6 catches, 77 yards. No TD, but solid #'s from Marshall in what turned out to be an unexpected shootout between Cutler and...

Bench: Ben Roethlisberger - 290 yards passing, 2 INT's 4 TD's, 1 fumble lost. I don't like seeing all those turnovers, but any fantasy owner will take close to 300 yards passing and 4 TD's from their QB...

Starts: 1-5-0
Bench: 3-1-2 (not counting Rudi)

Total: 4-6-2

We'll be back on Monday with Gusto's Upgrade/Downgrades, as well as a short recap of our rankings for Week 7...