Revisiting my NFL Season Prediction post

First and formost, the Redskins won this week and I am shocked in the best way possible. RGIII played great and the defense played well, but not necessarily great. I'd say that the defense got lucky more so than played great since Drew Brees was clearly off on Sunday. RGII beat my prediction of him throwing for 200 yards with a TD and an INT by a landslide. His line ended up going for 320 yards with 2 TDs and NO INTERCEPTIONS! That's stellar for a rookie debut. Congrats to him because the hard work paid off!

Now that I'm past my own team's play this weekend, the only other team I would like to talk about also happens to be in my "just formed after week 1" NFL season prediction. If you recall, my original post on how the season will end was basically full of nothing. But now that I have gotten a chance to watch a week's worth of games I think I'm ready to go out on a limb (it's still early in the season) and make a prediction for the Superbowl. Like to hear it? Here it goes...

The San Francisco 49ers will represent the NFC in the Superbowl. Point blank period, defense wins championships, just ask the Patriots. The 49ers went into Green Bay and basically shut Aaron Rodgers down completely. That's all I needed to see. And as crazy as it may sound, I think Alex Smith is the key to their season even more so than the defense. If Smith goes down who is his backup? That's all I have to say about that. But back to my main point, this team is stellar defensively. No one can run the ball on them, their LBs are stout, they pressure the QB with 3 or 4 man fronts, and their secondary is full of hitters and ballhogs. That's a recipe for forcing teams to pass, putting pressure on QBs, and forcing turnovers through the air, or just forcing teams into plain-ole 3-and-outs. If they stay healthy on defense and Alex Smith stays healthy, I've got them in the Superbowl this year.

In the other conference, I'm finding it a bit tougher. My gut is telling me that this is the year that Houston will make it to the big show but I can't rule out the Ravens. They're going to be hungry this year because of what happened to them in the playoffs last year. Not to mention, what better way to send Ed Reed and Ray Lewis into retirement than with a Superbowl win where they go out on top, their QB finally breaks-through (though I'd argue he did that in last year's playoffs), and every in Baltimore's favorite running back (Ray Rice) gets a chip? So I'm gonna roll with either the Ravens or the Houston Texans in the Superbowl against the 49ers.

Who will win you ask? Well, if the 49ers play the Ravens, I think the Ravens will win. The Ravens defense is just as gritty as the 49ers defense and I think the Ravens have an edge offensively over the 49ers, especially at the QB position. But if the 49ers play the Texans, I think the 49ers will win. I'm going to hate to see my favorite RB in the league (Arian Foster) lose in the Superbowl if it happens, but I think the 49ers would impose their will on the Texans more so than they could against a seasoned veteran team with playoff experience like the Ravens.

Stuck in the horns of a Fantasy Football Dilemma

I'm in 3 fantasy football leagues this year, 2 ESPN and one Yahoo! I'm doing pretty well in my Yahoo! league (second place going into the playoffs) and one of my ESPN Leagues (#1 ranked). In my other ESPN league however - the one I enjoy the most and the one with my good friends - I somehow limped into the playoffs in the 8th spot. The playoffs started last week and I managed to pull a GIGANTIC upset and knock-off the #1 ranked team. Funny thing is, I wasn't even paying attention and didn't realize it was the first round of the playoffs because I was out-of-town all weekend lol.

But here's my dilemma for the second round. I'm going this round with a QB problem. Here are the 3 QBs I'm carrying on my team:

Ben Roethlisberger: Ben has been performing decent enough for me to start him every week since I acquired him in a trade earlier in the year.

David Garrard: I picked him up off waivers last week or the week before. I'm not a big fan of Garrard because he's one of those "thin line" guys. As in, there's a thin line between when he'll perform average-to-okay and when he'll perform horrendously. But to his credit, he's come on over the past 5 weeks as the Jags have started to surge/strengthen.

Kerry Collins: I picked him up this morning off waivers SOLELY BECAUSE HE'S PLAYING THE TEXANS! The Texans defense is ranked dead-azz-last in the NFL and Collins is a proven (but sometimes shaky) veteran with Kenny Britt, Randy Moss, and Nate "I'm a deep threat only" Washington at his disposal. Not to mention Chris "Pinball" Johnson who can take a screen all the way at any point.

So here's what I need to figure out...

WHICH ONE OF THESE GUYS SHOULD I START?


Ben is playing the Jets. The same Jets that appear to be showing their true colors in that they can't keep up the scoring enough to consistently win against good teams. The problem with the Jets is not necessarily defense even though they've been losing, so I expect them to play solid defense against the Steelers and limit Ben's yardage.


Garrard is playing the Colts. The last time these two teams played Garrard 150+ yards and 2 TDs, not a bad performance at all. I can definitely see him putting up these types of numbers again and I have the Jags winning this one.


Kerry Collins is playing the Texans. Again, they (the Texans) are ranked last in the NFL in passing defense. They give up the most passing yardage and passing TDs. Oddly enough, the Texans are solid against the run (ranked 6th). Because the Texans can put up points with anyone in the league I'm expecting this to be a shoot-out with lots of passing yards. Again, this theory of mine is the sole reason I picked up Kerry Collins and even if he does well this week (and I make it to the next round) I'll still be dropping him and going back to my "Ben Garrard-Roethlisberger for the Win" plan since Ben has the Panthers and Browns the next two weeks and Garrard has Washington and Houston.

I know lots of people consider their matchup (who the other team has playing) when considering who to start. I never really understood that approach and I don't use it. I just try to put the best possible team of starters together each week and let the chips fall. But this week, I'm having a tough time deciding on a QB. I need to get through this week with as many points from the QB position as possible. If you were me, who would you start?