Last week: 1-1 straight picks; 1-1 vs. the spread
Overall 4-2 straight picks; 4-2 vs. the spread
After a sizzling hot 3-out-of-4 Week 14, I got back to my usual 50 percent. In my defense I picked the Gamblers before Todd went and picked up Billy "the Bastard Child of Archie Manning" Volek.
| (AFFC No. 4) CAROLINA KILLERS (5-8, 845 points) vs. (NFFC No. 2) JELLYPOP FIGHTERS (8-5, 1,100 points) |
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The Storyline: The Tech Bowl (front lawn of the NCSU Student Center) hosts an improbable matchup of two Cary-ites. Look down the rosters and you'll see lots of guys nobody wanted to draft or were signed for a mere quarter. All-Time Head-2-Head Results: It's all tied up at 3-3. The lone 2004 matchup came way back in Week 1, and the Fighters breezed to a 75-45 win. Postseason History: The Killers are the 1997 Tech Bowl champs; Jellypop got his in 2001. The 2004 Tech Bowl will be their first postseason meeting. The Line: Jellypop Fighters by 17 |
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| Options | Who Has the Advantage? | Options | |
| QBs | D. Brees, M. Hasselbeck |
Jellypop ... Either Drew Brees or Matt Hasselbeck would be a nice option for almost any team this week, but the Fighters have quite possibly the two hottest quarterbacks in the league right now in Trent Green and Billy Volek. The matchups look good for all four of these guys this week. | T. Green, M. Vick, B. Volek |
| RBs | C. Martin, N. Goings |
Killers ... A couple of Pitt products have been lights out lately for Hodges -- especially "Saint Nick" Goings, who is trying to carry both the Carolina Panthers and Carolina Killers to glory. It's a good thing for the Fighters that Giants QB Eli Manning is showing signs of life; he was absolutely killing Tiki. And now that Chris Brown can't "toe" the line anymore and Derrick Blaylock is a has-been, Jellypop is looking shaky in the backfield. | T. Barber, D. Blaylock, D. McAllister, A. Smith |
| WRs | C. Johnson, I. Bruce, J. Porter, N. Burleson, L. Coles |
Push ... The Grinch made a pre-Christmas visit to Toddsville and left a lump of coals in T.O.'s place. Not that McGee is hurting too much, what with super-free agent Drew Bennett laying waste to secondaries across the NFL. On a side note, just as memories of Ed McCaffrey and Wayne Chrebet are fading like the Jayhawks over the final few weeks, Bennett and Brandon Stokley step up to become "White WRs: The Next Generation." No white guys on Steve's team, but Jerry Porter is coming off a three-TD performance, and Chad Johnson and Nate Burleson can also put a hurtin' on a defense. | D. Driver, D. Bennett |
| TEs | E. Johnson, J. Wiggins |
Jellypop ... Beam me up, Scotty, there is no life here ... oh, wait, sensors are picking up a faint life form. It appears Jeremy Shockey scored last week! Reason enough to give Todd the edge here. | J. Shockey |
| Ks | M. Stover, K. Brown |
Jellypop ... Usually, even the kicker rejoices when the team gets an invitation postmarked Indianapolis that reads, "Please join us for a shootout at the RCA Dome this Sunday," but Stover could only muster four points against the Colts. Lawrence Tynes (LT, anybody?) gets about six extra points every game. | L. Tynes, N. Kaeding |
| Ds | Seahawks, Buccaneers |
Push ... The two defenses you would expect to see starting -- the Bucs and the Bolts -- could very well be on the bench. The Seahawks are at home and seeing visions of sugarplums because Josh McCown is coming to town. On the first day of Christmas the Titans will give Jake Plummer one middle finger. He will promptly shower them with a holiday assortment of easily picked-off passes. | Chargers, Titans |
| Prediction: For all of you fantasy owners who are bemoaning the status of your team right now and have been stingy with your free agent quarters, think where you'd be with the likes of Drew Brees, Billy Volek, Nick Goings, Drew Bennett and Nate Burleson. For the price of a Bojangle's biscuit, you too could be competing for a Tech Bowl title! With T.O. on the shelf and Chris Brown officially done, doesn't this just have the feel of something that was meant to be? I mean, there has to be something to the Killers' Cinderella run, right? Maybe not ... consider Jellypop has outscored C.K. by 29 and 16 points in Weeks 14 and 15, respectively. Trees will tap dance, elephants will ride in the Indianapolis 500, and Orson Welles will skip breakfast, lunch and dinner before the Killers find a way to beat Jellypop. (This is, for all you non-Wolfpackers among us, a slight variation of a line by Washington Post columnist Dave Kindred back in 1983 prior to the NCAA national championship. Kindred's line ended with "... before State finds a way to beat Houston." Wink, wink.) | |||