Division Preview 4 of 4: The Shitbirds

Aaron, Jordan, and Deewaan have already staked their claim as preseason darlings in their divisions. Who will be the fourth?

Tiebreaker this year is "most faces punched."

HEFTY: I've been playing fantasy for about 15 years now. Drafted two or three teams most years. I can't ever remember drafting a lesser running back duo than LeGarrette and DeAngelo. They're underwhelming in every way possible. The strange thing? I'm not worried about it one bit. LeGarrette has me hypnotized with thoughts that he'll be a 15 TD guy this year. The guy is a mentally unstable bulldozer. I watched the Oregon facepunch video like ten times the other day. I love him. DeAngelo has at one point in his life been a 20 TD guy. I'm not saying he'll come close this year. But I like him as a #2, especially when I've got his platoon buddy Jonathan Stewart. Hopefully Ron Rivera settles on a favorite, something John Fox could never do.

The Vick pick is certainly risky, but guys who put up 60 point weeks make that risk easier to stomach. I love my WRs, as I said before, they're all high-volume target and catch guys. I am completely glass-half-full on my team this year.

I know that LOOKS like Dez Bryant, but really, I just snuck in a picture of me taking a leisurely jog to change things up. This site can't be football players all the time.

DAVIS: You know, for a guy who finished 5th in scoring last year, Brees was frustrating to own. He only gave one monster game, when I was counting on a few. Consistent as they come though. Ray Rice is a perennial favorite of mine, especially the way he piles up catches out of the backfield. Beanie Wells, while still awful, at least doesn't appear to have any competition for the first time in his NFL career. Dez Bryant is in my team's division in the NFL and fantasy this year which scares the bejeezus out of me. He's ridiculously skilled. Kenny Britt doesn't play the Eagles this season, so there go half of his points. Plax will get his share of red-zone chances, not sure how many catches overall he'll get though. I was all ready to congratulate Adam on his TE-K-D ranks of 1-1-3 , until I realized I'm rolling with 2-3-2.

Pylon!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAH MY LEG!!!!

RYAN: X marks the spot where horrible first round picks are made. Arian Foster tweeted his hamstring's MRI yesterday and apparently the people who know these type of things say he can't play for a few weeks. The problem with these injuries are that they nag, and you have to rest them. Tough break, neighbor. Luckily, your RB2 is Knowshon Moreno, and he missed 3 games to a hamstring injury himself last year. Wait, that's not lucky at all. That's a fragile backfield. Have the antacids ready up until kickoff every week while you wait to see if these guys are playing. Mike Wallace is a pimp, but Reggie Wayne ties into my Peyton concerns and I think he'll have a down year too. Steve Smith finished 70th in WR scoring last year, and has Cam Newton throwing to him now. He's not a fantasy starter anymore. And I'm not breaking any news to Ryan, but the bench players here are all either old, hurt, or just kind of suck.

YOUR 2011 SHITBIRD DIVISION CHAMPIONS: No repeat for Ryan this year. In fact, no playoffs either. The smart money's probably on Davis here, but I've never made a smart bet in my life. Hefty takes the division.

Grade The Trade: 9/23/07

Adam Davis and Jordan Yingling announce a 6 player deal. The trade will send Peyton Manning and Patrick Crayton to Jordan, who will send Jay Cutler, Cedric Benson, Chris Brown, and Hines Ward to Adam.
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From Jordan's Perspective - The long and short of it: Jordan unloads Jay Cutler and picks up a bona fide stud quarterback in Manning. The price he paid to get him was three starters (Benson, Cutler, Ward) and a throw-in running back (Brown), but Jordan has cemented his quarterback position for the remainder of the season. Making this trade makes Jordan a much more complete team. He already had Shaun Alexander and Marion Barber at running back, so giving up Benson and Brown doesn't sting too badly. He's already got Reggie Wayne and Calvin Johnson (who may be banged up after Sunday's game), so losing Ward isn't all that detrimental. Getting Crayton back may prove to be a good move so he can play the matchups at WR3. All in all, when you get a guy like Peyton back, you probably made a really good deal.
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From Adam's Perspective - The guys Adam got back here will be compared to Cadillac and LaMont for the rest of the season. It's inevitable. We said one deal was unfair and the other was fair. Hopefully we did a good job of deciding between the two. Having said that, Cedric Benson is a good, not great fantasy back. He's stuck on a team where the quarterback is completely ineffective, so opposing defenses can key the run. On the flipside, though, his defense is arguably the league's best (last night notwithstanding), so in theory, he should have many chances to run the ball throughout the course of a game. He's certainly head and shoulders better than whoever Adam was using in the past, so this is a major upgrade.
Chris Brown is a stiff in my opinion. He may have led the league in rushing yards after Week 1, but he managed only 34 yards the next week. The problem with Brown may be similar to Benson's: opposing defenses aren't scared of getting beat by the passing game. Vince Young, while he's definitely a playmaker, doesn't command the full attention of an NFL secondary, and that can draw extra guys in against the rush. Besides, Brown is in a platoon with LenDale White, who was the more effective back in Week 2.
Hines Ward is certainly a threat at wide receiver, although a knee injury may cause him to miss some time. Pittsburgh seems to be more comfortable with their passing game this year, and if healthy, Ward is a definite starter on Adam's team.
The biggest improvement however, may be the addition by subtraction of Peyton Manning. Adam can also plug in Tom Brady every week and not worry that he's making the wrong decision. Whereas playing the matchups between the two could have left a lot of points on the bench every week, Brady over Cutler is a much easier decision to make than Brady over Manning.

The Winner: Slight edge goes to Jordan Yingling.

Postscript: Last week's Davis trade fiasco could have probably been avoided. I blame Bill Belichick. All you heard in the world of sports was about gaining unfair competetive advantages and I let these stories sculpt my opinion of what I believed was a seedy deal between seedy brothers. I understand that Adam's options were somewhat limited. I know the last thing he wanted to do was sit Brady or Manning on the bench for another week and start Musa and Chester. I still stick by my guns in vetoing that trade and allowing this one, but I apologize if anybody feels like I ruined their season. So, if you're still raw about it next time I see you, free beer on Hefty.

Grade The Trade: 9/20/07

Adam takes a dump all over the rest of the league with this ridiculous trade.

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BREAKING: Adam Davis and Paul Davis (Hmmm...that's weird, they have the same last name) announce a 4 player deal. The trade will send Peyton Manning to Paul, who sends Cadillac Williams, LaMont Jordan, and Jason Campbell to Adam.
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From Paul's Perspective: Let me get this straight. You trade three of your backups for the best quarterback ever to play the game. OK, I think we're done here. But just in case we're not, let's dig into this one a little bit. The fact that Paul traded Cadillac Williams (6th round, 70th overall), LaMont Jordan (9th round, 99th overall), and Jason Campell (13th round, 147th overall) for Peyton Manning (1st round, 8th overall) is CRIMINAL. If these two had announced before the draft that Adam was giving his 1st Round Pick to Paul for his 6th, 9th, and 13th, we would have rioted. So what's the difference 2 weeks into the season? If this trade does hold up (and I hope it doesn't...), Slimmy now adresses his one major weakness, Philip Rivers at QB. His team now starts Manning, LJ, Portis, The Bengal Twins, and Andre Johnson (when healthy). Simply put, I and 9 other of my leaguemates will be dancing in the streets if LJ blows out an ACL.
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From Adam's Perspective: I honestly have no idea where to start. Idiotic is the first word that comes to mind. Conspiracy is the second. What the eff? You really just traded your first pick of the draft for two running backs who WERE THE BIGGEST BUSTS IN FANTASY LAST SEASON and a throw-in black quarterback. Honestly, were any two running backs more disappointing last year than Caddy and LaMont? (Ok, Ronnie Brown, you can put your hand down...I'm trying to prove a point...) What makes you think this year will be any different? The first two weeks of the season? Here's a fact: Dominic Rhodes is back in two games, so LaMont Jordan is going to take another nosedive. Cadillac Williams doubled his 2006 touchdown total in last week's game. He's not a 10 touchdown guy! He's a 5 touchdown guy maybe. You can say that Jeff Garcia is moving the offense more effectively than Gradkowski did last year, but a tiger can't change his stripes. Caddy's not the kind of reward you'd expect to get back for trading the BEST QB EVER. Listen, I know I made fun of your backfield last week. Musa Smith and Chester Taylor can make a man do strange things, I get it. But flushing your season down the toilet so you can pick up two middle-of-the-pack running backs is stupid. You should have rested on your laurels, waited for another shitty week out of Brees, Bulger or McNabb, and pounced. You want to know how many guys are 100% happy with their current QB situation? Here's the list: You, Me, Rich. The. End. There are 9 other owners who are probably having some second thoughts about taking the wrong guy. So what do you do? You completely puss out and trade with your brother. Gay. I'm mailing Anthrax to the three guys you're getting in this trade. You don't deserve anything in return. You pussed out. You could have traded with Craig! You know, the guy with Vince Young and three of the best receivers in football? I just think you took the easy way out. I would have felt much better about this if there was at least a major family holiday that just happened. If this were Thanksgiving, I could tell myself, "Oh, Adam just drank too much and ate too much turkey. He probably got a little woozy and Slimmy talked him into a trade that a five year old would have turned down...Ah, well, boys will be boys!!" But no. You gave away Peyton Manning for three guys most teams could have found in their couch cushions. You suck. Faggot.

The Winner: Paul Davis by Technical Knockout

By the way, I had a good bit of Crown before I wrote this. So you can ignore the faggot line. The rest of it I'm pretty sure I'd admit to when sober.

Can We Please Draft So I Have Something To Blog About?

I bet you can't guess which letters I did myself!!!

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I posted this in recognition of the Brothers Davis, who were recently called out on their lack of quality team names. Well, they changed them alright. To even less funny or comprehensible names.

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Lil Jon Denver's Skeet Chuters?????

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Hawaii McLovin?????????

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I would like to open up the comments section below to see if we can't come up with two new names for the Daviseses because this is getting sad. I'll get the ball rolling, and you guys add on. Hopefully we can come up with two winners.

Mock Lobster: Adam Davis (Pick #8)

Cut that meat!

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Mock Draft Pick #8: Adam Davis selects Peyton Manning, QB, Ind

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2006 Passing Statistics: 362 completions, 4397 yards, 31 touchdowns

2006 Rushing Statistics: 23 carries, 36 yards, 4 touchdowns

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Adam was already the most likely guy to take Peyton Manning in the first round, but having the eigth pick pretty much sealed the deal. It's right about the cutoff point where most of the sure fire backs are off the board, so Manning would be a pretty good value pick here. Manning has never missed a start as an NFL quarterback, which is an amazing statement in itself. In fact, while you were reading that last sentence, Donovan McNabb tore both his triceps and pulled a quad. Manning is also extremely consistent. He's never thrown for fewer than 26 touchdowns in a season, and holds the NFL single season record for tossing 49 TD's in 2004. Manning is a goofy bastard, there's no arguing that, but by the time he retires, there's a good chance he could be remembered as the greatest quarterback to play the game. With the usual suspects (Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark) still around in the passing game, plus first round pick Anthony Gonzalez, there's no reason to expect anything else out of Peyton but another league leading season.

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And if the situation called for it, he'd kill a snitch.

Get To Know Your Leaguemates: Adam

...ARE ALLOWED TO DRY HUMP TALKING BEARS!

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Adam's Fast Facts:

1. Owned a maneating fish named Oliver in college.
   
2. Planned his wedding day to coincide with the greatest Penn State game of our lifetime, which meant none of us could go. Thanks, douchebag.
   
3. Is the only person in Penn State's history to take Forestry classes, and not attempt to grow marijuana in his apartment.
   
4. Was voted "Most Likely To Draft Chris Henry Even Though He's Suspended For Eight Games Because Some Crappy Spreadsheet Told Him To Do It" by a group of his peers.