Merlin's Magic: Week One

Well, one week down, let’s take stock of where we are and what we have learned. This year, I am not that concerned with wins and losses, I am looking at development.

The Chiefs dodged a major bullet in week one. My biggest fear was that we would get blown out, damaging the psyche of a young team and setting us back a few weeks in development. We got very lucky in week one. Before Brady got hurt, they were moving the ball at will against us. We got saved by a nice strip by Surtain and a gift fumble from Moss. Had Brady played the whole game, we may have been looking at a 35-10 debacle.

The Pollard hit was not a cheap shot. He apologized because he knew he hurt Brady, not because it was a cheap shot.

DVD, nice to see you show up. Nice catch and run. I am sure you wish you had a once more speed on that one. Close, very close to taking it to the house.

D-Bowe, did you come down with a case of the drops, maybe from hugging your dearly departed cousin on the way out the door? I don’t expect this to continue. He is too good a talent.

Brodie, Brodie, Brodie. You are developing nicely, but availability is the most important ability. If you can’t show more durability, your days are numbered. Let’s expand on the QB situation. I am open to bringing in someone. This is not so much an indictment of Brodie, but more an indictment on Thigpen. I don’t think he is close to being ready for an NFL game. The way I would play this is to bring in whoever (update: looks like it’s Ingle Martin) and have him compete with Huard. Next year, I am looking at keeping Brodie plus either Damon or whoever else. Then, I look to draft another QB somewhere in the first five rounds. I still believe Brodie can be a good NFL QB, but he has to stay on the field. Of course, this situation is very fluid and subject to many revisions.??

Turk really brought it. Nice to see some plays from him. The D-Line played pretty well considering the line they were up against.

Flowers and Carr are looking good. Their development is going to be fun to watch.

Pat Thomas, did you find a hole to crawl into when they were showing Cassel faking you out? I hope you are mad, because you should be. Let’s see how you respond.

Phat Albert looked good. I like the left side of the line, not the right side. Pass blocking was pretty good, run blocking wasn’t.

LJ needs a hole to run through. He doesn’t create his own hole. If this line gets going, LJ will be a beast again.

Chan‘s offense was limited. Can we start attacking downfield? I still think our O-Line development is the major hangup.

After the game, I was watching the Browns/Cowboys game. Now, I really dislike the Cowboys. However, that offense is what I want ours to be. Our top three skill players, LJ, D-Bowe, Tony match up quite well with Barber, TO, Witten. The biggest difference is their excellent O-Line. If we had a line like that, Brodie would do very well and wouldn’t be hit like he keeps getting hit.

Will we start hearing about Herb Taylor working out at RG or RT?

Brett Favre. I keep saying it, I am so sick of Brett Favre. ESPN must orgasm every time they do a feature on him. In fact, I coined a new word to describe it. Heretofore, I will call these events: Favregasms. There were at least three such Favregasms on countdown this past Sunday. Please guys, just get a room already. Maybe Pee Wee Herman can help you… handle this problem.

AA Fantasy Football League

Week one of the AA FFL started and a couple of notes on that…

My team, the Maine Bears acquitted themselves well despite being saddled with a neophyte owner.

Next up for the Bears, the Pigskin Strokers. First of all, great name. Secondly, that team is deep. Nice job, Jesse.

How does it feel to….

Get a monster day from your running back, Willie Parker and yet lose the head-to-head match-up with Michael Turner?

Have your defensive player, Bernard Pollard, knock your #1 draft pick, Tom Brady, out for the year?

Put up the 3rd highest point total for the week… and still lose?

Have your starting defense, Seattle, be dropped by over 20,000 Yahoo fantasy teams after week one??