The 2nd football aspect of the weekend was my college pick ‘em pool, which I’m still doing what I would consider to be between mediocre and just better than mediocre. After week 2 or 3 I was in 2nd or 3rd place in the pool, but I slipped to 6th last week with a pretty crummy series of picks. To be fair, there wasn’t much separation between the guy in 2nd place and the guy in 7th place, but it was still disheartening. My picks on Saturday were mediocre again in my estimation, but they were at least good enough for me to move from 6th to 5th place and to gain 2 points on the overall leader, so that’s something. I likely need a couple of stellar weeks of picks in row to creep back into contention though, so we’ll see what happens.
On Sunday, I took some solace in the fact that the Redskins hung on to win (Krissy’s Giants escaped with a win as well to set up a 1st place tie atop the NFC East between the Skins and Big Blue). There isn’t really any way to sugarcoat the fact that it was truly an ugly win. In short, Sexy Rexy gave his best “bad Rex” impression, barely completing half of his passes for about 150 yards, a TD, and 2 picks. 1 was a pass to Santana Moss that should have been caught, so he gets a pass on that one, but the 2nd interception was an ugly, classic Grossman play where he threw the ball directly to a Ram linebacker dropping back into pass coverage. Fortunately, the Skins’ D and the Rams’ offensive ineptitude bailed Washington out, and they held on to win 17-10. Judging from reading the Washington Post, most people are treating yesterday’s win basically like a loss. Yes, the Rams are enough of a mess that a good team should walk into St. Louis and pound the Rams into submission (ala the Baltimore Ravens the week before). The Redskins aren’t quite there yet, so I’m not going to get to high or too low over this 1 game. The Skins had chances to blow the game wide open in the 2nd half, and Rex’s turnovers prevented them from delivering that knockout blow. I was happy enough to walk out of St. Louis with a win, a 3-1 record, and a share of 1st place in the division heading into the bye week. Despite Grossman’s poor play, the running game (more on that in a minute) and the revamped D seem to be progressing nicely.
Can we revive this and change the color scheme to burgandy and gold?
A good team would have blown the doors off the Rams. For the Redskins, who I think have made vast improvements but are still a middle-of-the-road team this year at best, winning on the road by a touchdown against any opponent is something of an achievement. Even with their fast start, I still think this team will wind up somewhere around 8-8 by year’s end. The running attack and defense will keep them in games all year, but it’s going to be tough to truly be good when you have to really rely on Grossman (or John Beck, who will probably get a chance as well before this season is over) to a win a game for you. If the Shanahans really think their system is good enough that even Rex Grossman can man the controls, they are probably fooling themselves…I think they know he’s just a stopgap no matter how arrogant they seem or what kind of coach-speak they use. Through 4 games, I think Sexy Rexy has shown what kind of quarterback he’s been perceived as his whole career. In week 1, Grossman played very well even counting his signature move (the sack-fumble), and the Skins won handily. In weeks 2 and 3, he was his normal inconsistent self, sprinkling in great plays and awful ones at about the same rate, and Washington split those games. In week 4, “bad Rex” reared his ugly head, but the Redskins won anyway because their defense played great, the running game was working, and the quality of the opponent was pretty weak. Those 4 weeks are about par for the course for Rex and the Skins in my opinion. If the defense continues to play well and they get a couple of breaks along the way, they could potentially work their way to 10 wins and a potential playoff berth. If not, this team will be what I expected anyway…an improved, although not-quite-there-yet, team that is at least moving in the right direction with some continuity in their system and an influx of young talent. As they head into the bye week, this isn’t the worst situation to be in though.
Now, back to that Redskin running game…Ryan Torain, who hadn't played a snap all season as far as I can tell, got the bulk of the carries yesterday afternoon. This doesn’t bode well for my fantasy team in general, as if the Shanahans truly do go with a “whoever’s hot” approach to their 3-headed monster in the backfield going forward it pretty much makes Hightower unplayable. Now, Torain has a penchant for getting injured and fumbling, so it probably wouldn’t make sense to just dump Hightower outright, but it’s certainly not a good sign. Anyway, while it’s not good for my fantasy team in general, it definitely didn’t do me any favors this week. I inserted Hightower in my starting lineup to the tune of 2 points. Had I had a magic 8 ball that told me to pickup and start Torain, who rushed 19 times for 135 yards and a TD out of the blue, I would have gotten 24 points…ouch. Adding insult to injury, Green Bay put up 49 points on the hapless Broncos, and Jermichael Finley and James Starks combined to give me a mere 11 points…how does that happen? So, even though I got the monster day from Vick that I needed (35 points), I somehow still came up short. That leaves me 1-3 on the year with a fantasy team that I am still convinced is not all that bad, and yet week 4 in the NFL left me reeling…oh, and the last little tidbit from the weekend in football: came up a little bit short in our NFL pick ‘em pool with 4 losses (Krissy had 5 losses I believe). It looks like the winner will have at worst 3 losses after Monday Night Football. At least we had the Skins and G-Men, or else Krissy and I would have been 0-for-the-weekend in terms of football…but if we had to pick I think those would be the wins we would want the most.
So glad that I started Hightower this week...wait, what?
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