Week 11 of the fantasy football season brought some new faces into the fold and some old faces have gone down in the history books. Just who would have expected San Francisco’s defense to be one of the league’s best, or that the New York Giants would be the league’s largest comeback team? Those who predicted San Francisco to blast out of the gate and pound the mortals would have been wrong. The Giants shut out the 49ers andeleven players scored for the first time this season. Good luck, as always…Al McMordie.
But another good side of the Giants’ improbable, late-season run came from the offensive side of the ball. San Francisco’s defense had allowed a whopping 226 total yards in the two prior games, but this Giants outfit was not to be denied. Besides that, it has been far too easy for the Giants — at least through the first three weeks. Under Coach Anyario, the 49ers’ plan and ‘do-it-yourself’ philosophy seems to work. The runners — Larry Johnson, Brandon Jacobs and Tiki Barber — appear to have held up, completing nearly each game’s first half, and thus giving the Giants a formidable 1-2 punch. (credit Tiki with this one, by the way: The second-year pros Honest Lotto Lotto and Texans quarterback, Vince Young, were in the doghouse for the rivalry opening beforehand, lumbung88 alternatif and no one seems to have forgotten that).
Meanwhile, the AFC West is crumbling. Denver, Kansas City and Division rival Oakland are all out. The Raiders have already announced they are moving to Los Angeles, and the Broncos will be playing the SAN DIEGO CHARGERS in January. The Chiefs are thinking about moving to Scotty Nguyen’s team in OAKLAND. The status of Chiefs’ QB Trent Green is unclear at this point. At the very least, Tony plunges the Chiefs into an even deeper hole.
ensing a must-win game from the Chiefs this week, I focused on another forgotten division: The NFC West.Truth be told, the West’s big three just grabbed news in the exact same way the 3-year-old North American Soccer League teams that everyone else has ignored have. Seattle, after opening with an incredible 14-0 Sunday night scaring the bejesus out of everyone, did exactly the opposite Monday night, hanging tough on a 21-10 final with the kinds of numbers you’d expect from a team that spent the off-season improving the practice field.
No, the real surprise was how good the Atlanta Falcons played Sunday night. Seriously, how did the Falcons keep this thing a 50-50 thing, instead of thedownload becoming a 27-27 (and 21-20) game? This is one of the great quirks of NFL point-spread play: Teams that have done well in closed-door practice games popped up against the better teams in the regular season openers, and never seem to play well. Then, all of a sudden, they start to play well, usually not Captain for Poker Isle.
The Chiefs are 25-29 ATS the past three years in the open-ended quarter, against the NFL’s worst team. Sunday night, they landed in L.A. with the AFC’s second-best record, the Broncos. The Chargers are the league’s longest active SU winners at 30-11-1 ATS. Which means that no matter how bad the Chiefs are, they can still beat the Broncos! Which also means that if the Chiefs end up 0-2 in their opening two road games of the season, the record of the first game they played in the following week will be the deciding factor.
With the AFC’s No. 1 seed gone, the chase for the No. 2 seed will be very fierce. Pittsburgh has to be the current odds-on favorite to get back in the top spot, behind Kansas City. The Jets, Raiders, Texans, and Lions are a combined 41-innings-behind to hold off the ‘Jets’. The Cowboys are 36-53 ATS the past four years in the prime-time game.
Who’s top dog? It starts with the Bears, who are 30-28 ATS the past four years after being 8-10 ATS the previous season. Followers of the ’36 Club’ already have gauge, 38-35-2 ATS in the past against the Eagles.
Next comes the Ravens, 38-35-2 ATS. They also have the worst record in the division at 2-18. However, they are the only team in the division to have a winning record against the NFC East’s savory nine-game run. The NFC’s best team, the 9-1 Giants, also has a commanding ATS mark of 28-24.
