The Sandlot

About some football. The Bills, the NFL in general and my quest to bring home my first fantasy championship.

The Bills- Well J.P. has once again been benched. Unfortunately, this move came a week too late. I wouldn't call myself a Losman hater. I wanted to see him succeed and lead the Bills back to the playoffs and back to being a respected team in the league, I really did. This is his 4th year in the league, 3rd as a starter. While it usually takes many years for a QB in the NFL to become very good, you can always tell that some guys have it and some guys don't. Sadly, it seems Losman doesn't have it. He still looks like a rookie. He makes poor decisions, holds the ball too long and always looks panicked when he drops back to pass. Couple that with untimely turnovers and little passing production what you have is a mediocre to bad QB who occasionally looks good because the people around him (lynch and the special teams) make plays that get the Bills some victories. J.P. was injured vs the Pats (sprained knee) early in the season which afforded us a sneak peak at Trent Edwards, the rookie Buffalo drafted in the 3rd round of the last draft (a move I questioned at the time.) Edwards showed more in the 3 games he started than Losman has in his 4 years. He made good choices in the passing game, looked comfortable and the offense actually resembled a real offense. J.P. on the other hand, regressed significantly compared to last year. Am I saying Edwards is the next Manning and the future of the Bills...no. But he is a step up from Losman and could be a good starter in the league with more playing time.

As for the Bills season, losing the Jacksonville really killed almost any possibilities they had of making the playoffs. Jacksonville now has the tie-break advantage in the wild card race (if they don't win their division outright) and they will need a lot of help from other teams losing plus winning the rest of their games to sneak into the second wild card spot. It would have been interesting to see how the Bills season would have been minus all the key injuries they sustained on defense. All the off season moves to shore up the O-line seemed to have worked out reasonably well so if they can get a good receiver to line up aside from Evans and possibly a decent tight end they should be good on that side of the ball. Defensively, who knows. Even despite the injuries they've played pretty well considering they're starting 3rd stringers and practice squad guys. They still need to work on the pass rush from the D-line though.

The NFL- Its been a wacky and wild season. On one hand you have the Pats quest for perfection and on the other, the Dolphins quest for imperfection. After 12 weeks of play the Pats are 11-0 and the Dolphins 0-11. So much history to be made. Then there's the Packers who have 1 loss with Favre playing like he's a kid again. The defending champ Colts were unbeaten but injuries have started to take its toll and they lost 2 straight but still lead their division by a game over the Jags whom they play this week. The big shock of the year has been the Browns who finally found a QB themselves and managed to have their offensive stars remain healthy. My predictions: Pats vs Packers in the Superbowl, a rematch. The pats perfect record and one last stand for Favre.

Fantasy Football- You may or may not remember when I wrote this. Well I'm 10-2 right now, first place in my division and the league. The next best record is 7-5 shared by two teams (the other division leader and the 2nd place team in my division) Here's the place where I proverbally jerk myself off for drafting such an awesome team and making some sweet trades and waiver wire moves. Because I did. I drafted what turned out to be the top 2 fantasy QB's (Brady and Romo) traded Romo though cause I needed a RB but have since acquired the #4 Qb Derek Anderson via trade as well. My first round pick Addai is the #4 fantasy back whom I picked at #6. Of the 3 guys ahead of him, 1 was drafted before my pick, 1 later in the same round and the other a rookie who wasn't even supposed to start and wasn't drafted till like round 6. I survived the injury bug which hit every one hard this season and managed to squeak out some close victories. There's only 2 weeks left in our season then playoffs begin. I have secured first in my division and with that a first round playoff bye. At worst right now I can finish 4th, which would suck because I'd get no money. Even if I lose the 2nd round playoff game I could still place 3rd provided I won the last game but hopefully I'll just get first and be $300 richer.

Now hopefully nest update will be a guest piece. I won't say by whom or about what but it should be good.