What the F*** were you thinking?

So it’s playoff time Gusto – how are your teams shaping up??? I have to face Brady and Moss this week, so I’m hoping for big days from Maroney and Gostkowski. I can’t believe you’re going to the fricking game, lucky SOB… Anyways, onto this week’s debate. So I know you’re going to give me sh*t over my ranking for Eli this week, but if you read my QB notes, you’ll see that he has been a beast against PHI in recent games. He’ll finally break out of his slump this week… The only other QB with a big difference was Bulger , and you already covered yourself in saying that he’ll be 10^th if he starts (I had him 11^th, so no complaints there)…

So why do you continue to hate on Portis? He’s probable for tomorrow’s game, and has a fantastic matchup against a Bears defense that is allowing over 130 yards per game on the ground? He’s in for a 100 yard day easily… And with the Bills playing MIA, I was really surprised to see that you had Lynch/Jackson so low. I think either of these guys are top 20 with ease this week, depending on who starts (looks like it’ll be Lynch)… And finally, 22nd for Thomas Jones? Yeah, he finally scored, but it’s going to be hard to put up solid #’s when the J-E-T-S will be trailing by 14 after the first quarter to the Browns…

Onto WR’s…. Not surprisingly, your misguided man love for Megatron shows through once again. We debated this guy’s merits last week, and he responded just as I had thought. I have him as my “bench” this week, even though he looks like he’ll get the start. I’ll be surprised if he has more than 60 yards receiving, and he is way too inconsistent to be starting for any non-PPR fantasy team this week… What gives with Welker at 17? I realize how good PITT’s defense is, but they won’t be able to completely shut down the Pats on offense…

Alright son, I’ve said my peace for now….

My teams are doing pretty well, in 1^st place in my cumulative point league (way better than head-to-head by the way). Got a bye in my head-to-head league but lost last week to blow the #1 seed and some loot. Thanks for the advice on not picking up Miami or the Jets DEF. It’s my fault though, if I had only been a little quicker to pick up Chicago’s Adrian Peterson when Cedric Benson went down with an injury? The guy that snagged him must have had the NFL Ticket because I was picking up Peterson as Benson was on the ground. Oh well.

Eli Manning sucks right now - I don’t care what he’s done lately against Philly. Split stats (home, road, etc.) really don’t work when evaluating NFL players, only in baseball. He’ll be mediocre this week like he usually is in the 2^nd half of the season.

It’s not so much that I have hate for Portis as it is hate for Joe Gibbs. The veteran coach has run Portis into the ground and now he has nothing left into the tank. Portis has just two good games this season and has been awful over the last three with a measly 2.7 yards per carry average (57 rushes). Chicago is a good matchup and perhaps I should have him slightly higher than #18, but #6 is obscene. You will get burnt on that one no diggity.

I should have Jackson/Lynch a bit higher, agreed. Although Jackson is young and inexperienced so he won’t necessarily run wild against Miami. After all, Jackson’s best run of the game on Sunday (a 22-yard rush) came on the first play with the Redskins using just 10 defensive players to honor Sean Taylor. Way to take advantage of the situation Buffalo!!!!

Thomas Jones might be a tad high in my rankings, but Cleveland’s defense stinks and the only way the Jets have a chance to stay in the game is to pound Jones and Leon Washington.

You’ll be wrong about Calvin Johnson this week, guaranteed. He did play like crap last week, but so did the entire Lions’ offense. With no Roy Williams around, Johnson will easily get 60 yards as you set as the over/under.

My two biggest gripes are you having Jesse Chatman at #21 and Plaxico Burress at #21. You do realize that Chatman is hobbled with an ankle injury (lingering for weeks by the way) and the Bills have defended the run much better lately?

And don’t even get me started with Plaxico. He has no explosion right now with the ankle injury that he’s had all season. Plus, with Eli struggling so much lately, no Giants WR should be ranked in the top 20, let alone the top 15 as you have him this week.

As I mentioned with Jones, he might not get enough touches to make an impact due to the Jets playing from behind, but as you mentioned, isn’t there a good chance that they start working Leon into the running game more? If so, that will limit his carries as well…

With Megatron, you need to temper those expectations. Everyone thinks that all DET WR’s are going to go off with him out, but in his last 5 games, Williams averaged 4.6 catches and 62 yards per game, scoring in only 1 of the games. Spread that over McDonald, Furrey, and Johnson, and I just don’t see that big of a difference in any of their stats. I think Furrey benefits the most, but we’ll see….

I had Chatman at 21 with the assumption that he’s going to play this week. I’m totally stealing from CBS here, but BUF allowed 134 total yards to WAS RB’s last week, 154 total yards to JAX the week before, and have allowed 5 rushing TD’s in their last 3 games. You call that improved? And as is the case with the CLE-NYJ game, the only way MIA is going to have a chance to keep it close is to pound the ball….

I figured you’d bring up Burress. Obviously since I like Eli this week, I’m going to like Burress as well, although as you’ll see in this week’s Start/Bench, I also like Toomer. If Eli plays well, then Burress has good games. I’ll either get completely burnt on these two rankings, or I’ll look like a genius, which is far more likely anyways…

I’m going to do something a little different here and take myself to task for one of my rankings. I had Crayton at 31, and should have him about 6-7 spots higher at least. Not quite sure why I had him that low, but if we did ranking updates (next season), I’d bump him up a few. And you didn’t give me the reasoning for Welker’s low ranking, so I’ll just assume that you realize that you were totally wrong…

My point with Calvin Johnson is that the Lions have scrapped the running game lately outside of the Thanksgiving contest against Green Bay so the ball has been in the air a lot. Roy Williams is out so that means more targets for big-bad Calvin. I am not sure if he’ll go off, but he will easily get over the 60 yards you predicted and might score too. Plus, the Lions will probably trail for most of the game because the Cowboys are the best team in the NFC, forcing Detroit to throw early and often.

What crack is CBS Sportsline smoking and why are you paying attention to them? I am looking at the box score from last week’s Buffalo-Washington game on NFL.com, the official site of the NFL by the way, and Portis had 25 carries for 50 yards and two catches for 10 yards while backup Ladell Betts had zero rushes and two catches for 14 yards. Unless I am a complete idiot, that’s a total of 74 yards from Washington running backs, not the 134 you speak of. Jason Campbell and Santana Moss had some rushing yards but they’re obviously not running backs and had minimal yardage anyway.

Buffalo gave up over 100 yards to Fred Taylor two weeks ago, but most of that came on one long touchdown run and they COMPLETELY shut down MJD, who had nine carries for negative seven yards until a garbage 17-yard score in the final two minutes. The Bills stopped Laurence Maroney entirely in the first half of the Pats game. The stats are skewed because they allowed a lot of garbage yards to Heath Evans and Kyle Eckel late in the game so I say they’re improved. Bottom line, Jesse Chatman won’t do much against Buffalo for a variety of reasons.

I purposely avoided mentioning Welker because I didn’t think a seven-spot difference was a big deal. I think ranking him at #17 is about right since he had an off-game last week and the Steelers have the best overall defense in the league. I am not expecting them to completely negate New England’s playmakers, but either Welker or Moss will have a quiet game.

That’s all I got buddy, I’ll give you the last word this week. Have a good one playa.

I’m done debating Megatron – you’ll be wrong again... In terms of the stealing from CBS, I didn’t actually take anything but the note about the 5 TD’s in 3 games, as the rest of the research was done by yours truly…. And considering that I tried to do math at 5AM this morning, obviously I didn’t do too well! I promise I won’t do any more research that early in the morning, as I was clearly off my game, although I still think Chatman will have a good week if he plays… And as far as the BUF-JAX game, I don’t want to hear it about one long TD run, as you could say the same thing about your pimping for Ryan Grant last week – 94 yards and TD’s look great on paper, but when you take away the 62 yard TD, 13 carries for 32 yards and 1 TD doesn’t look so good….

As for Welker, seeing him out of the top 15 was a surprise, as even though PITT will put up a good fight, he’ll probably see a lot of short to medium passes thrown his way, which will add up pretty quickly, especially in PPR leagues…

Can I borrow your red Giants jacket from high school for good luck this weekend? It's very rare that I'll root for that little byach Eli, but this is one of those weeks... One last thing; there are some enjoyable "prequels" to "The Wire" posted on Amazon.com. When you get a chance, check them out. The Prop Joe one is amusing, as well as seeing Omar as a youngster... Actually the one with McNulty and the Bunk is good too, so I guess I recommend all of them! Did Jay tell you about the time he had a few beers with the Bunk in NYC? Good stuff...