2011 fantasy recap, week 15

Sunday saw a host of wild upsets, but none were bigger than the Chiefs' win over the undefeated Packers and the Maryland Racial Slurs victory over the first-place Giants. But which of those was the bigger choke job?

** Vegas: Giants were 7 pt favorites, Packers were plus 13.5 pts.
BIGGER CHOKE: Packers
** Offense: QB Aaron Rodgers had two TDs, QB Eli Manning had 3 INTs.
BIGGER CHOKE: Giants
** Defense: Packers = 19 pts to a bad team, Giants = 23 pts to a bad team.
BIGGER CHOKE: Giants
** Significance: Packers lost perfect season, Giants hurt playoff chances.
BIGGER CHOKE: Push
** Location: Giants were at home, Packers were on the road.
BIGGER CHOKE: Giants

Verdict: The Packers lost a chance at immortality, but Eli's boys are the ones left gasping for air after that choking fit. Seriously, they lost two to the Deadskins this year. That's just embarrassing.

QB: Drew Brees, 45.38 pts -- started by Joel
RB: C.J. Spiller, 35.17 pts -- started by ChampMike
WR: Calvin Johnson, 35.27 pts -- started by NewMike
TE: Aaron Hernandez, 25.20 pts -- started by me
K: Ryan Succop, 14.00 pts -- on the wire
DEF: Seattle, 32.00 pts -- started by Bobert
D: John Abraham, 13.00 pts -- on the wire

Brees needs to average a whopping 153 passing yards over his last two games to break the NFL single season mark (Dan Marino, 5,084 in 1984. C'mon, I cite this stat every other week. You should have memorized it by now). For reference sake, in his last 32 starts, Brees has only passed for fewer than 200 yards once, and 19 times has thrown for more than 300 yards.

Eagles QB Mike Vick also has a chance to break the single-season passing record, if he can collect a mere 2,410 passing yards over the last two games.


2nd place: Curtis Marsh, -2.00 pts -- on the wire
2nd place: Minnesota, -2.00 pts -- on the wire
1st place: Denver, -4.00 pts -- on Bobert's bench

Second week in a row Eagles CB Marsh makes this list, thanks to his second turnover on a punt return. For the season, he now sits at -3.60 pts, making him the league's worst fantasy performer to date. He has scored two times worse than the second-place player, Bears backup backup QB Josh McCown (-1.52 pts). And, with limited on-field action likely after those two mistakes, he may hold the title at year's end.

For the record, Marsh sits a mere 447 pts behind the league leader, Packers QB Aaron Rodgers. Although, Marsh's team won this weekend...

The Eagles beating the Jets 45-13 wasn't even the most absurd fact to come out of that game on Sunday. The shocker was that the Jets are now 0-9 all-time against Philadelphia, the most losses for any team in NFL history against another opponent without a win. Here's a few reasons for that domination:

** Bad timing by the Jets. In the eight other time the teams met, New York was fielding a sub-.500 team. The Jets have never had a winning season when they're lost to the Eagles.

** Good luck by the Eagles. Five of the nine meetings have been decided by less than a touchdown, and two of those were one-point Philadelphia wins.

** Bad football by the Jets. Out of 31 teams in the NFL, the Jets only have a winning record against nine of them. That includes newcomers like the Texans (5-0) and the Panthers (3-2).

** Also, New York teams stink. Everyone knows that.

Thanks to that win, the Eagles still mathematically have a chance to win the NFC East (actually, just typing that phrase is incredibly stupid) but they'll need everything to fall in place to get it. They need to beat Dallas next win and win their finale against the Maryland Racial Slurs, plus have the Giants win their last game against the Cowboys but lose their contest next Sunday.

And to make matters more difficult, they'll have to go on the road next week for their game. They'll play at the New York Jets home stadium.

Which just happens to be their home stadium too.

And that's just stupid.

Throw in the fact that the game is in Jersey, and you get the New York Giants playing an extra home game in a stadium that isn't in New York state. And if you think about that too long, your face ends up looking like Eli Manning's.

The Lions, at 9-5 after their dramatic win over the Raiders Sunday, are on the cusp of their first playoff appearance in 12 years. But it has actually been 20 years since the Lions' last playoff victory, a 38-6 romp over the Dallas Cowboys. Here's a look at just how long ago that was:

** The Lions team was led by Barry Sanders, a good young RB in only his third season in the NFL.
** At the time of the game, the Patriots had zero Super Bowl wins and Tom Brady was a high-school freshman.
** That Cowboys team was led by the young trio of Troy Aikman, Emmitt Smith and Michael "I eat children" Irvin, none of whom had yet won a playoff game.
** A few weeks earlier, Falcons QB Brett Farve made his pro debut with a 0-for-4 performance.
** At the time of the game, people thought of the Lions as a good team that had a chance to win the Super Bowl, not as a running joke.

After dozens of anagram insults I assume that I've hit nearly every single cowboy, but a quick search of my files shows that I've never analyzed the name of pro-bowl tight end Jason Witten (who goes by his middle name, instead of his actual first name).

That got me thinking ... Maybe it's because, unlike his peers, his name just doesn't shout evil. Maybe he's the one good guy on a team of sadistic phonies. Maybe I've been wrong about this whole column all along.

Cowboys Dallas TE Christopher Jason Witten
Coy jester pin stabs children. Ows. What a tool.

Or maybe I just overlooked him. Stabbing kids with pins? Sounds like a Cowboy to me.

Week 15 standings

Maybe it's Ant's savvy coaching, maybe it's the fact that I left 46 pts on my bench, but with just two weeks left Ant has taken over the top spot again. Paul and Joel are locked into an epic battle for last place too, but it looks like everyone else is all but locked in their final finish spot. But, much like the Eagles, right now no one has been mathematically eliminated from winning the league.

** I'm still four back of Dad in the weekly picks, thanks to the Steelers playing like crap on Monday night. Maybe they should have left the lights off. It couldn't have made Big Ben play any worse.

** There is nothing funnier than the "Eli Manning, Citizen Eco-drive: Unstoppable" wristwatch commercials on a day where dopey threw three picks in an upset loss.

** For the record, the Eagles are also undefeated all-time against the Houston Texans (3-0). When realignment rolls around again, they might want to see if they can get into a Jets-Texans-Rams division.

** Pro-Bowl voting ended last night. I hope you got your votes in for WR DeSean Jackson, because it might be the last game you get to see him wearing Eagles colors before he storms off to another team next season.