Bruno Boys Fantasy Football

Who saw that one coming? Peyton Manning makes a critical mistake and gets intercepted for a pick-six. You can’t put all the blame on Peyton, though. You have to give credit to the other Payton - New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton. He made a brilliant call with the onside kick at the start of the second half, and that really turned the tide in the Super Bowl. The Saints won the Super Bowl, thus officially ending the 2009 season. It seems like only yesterday we were making our draft cheat sheets with Matt Forte in the top 3. How times have changed. Before too long it will be time to start making our cheat sheets for the 2010 draft.

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A lot of times going into the Super Bowl, people without teams to root for will simply wish to see a good game instead of picking one team over the other. That is, of course, unless that person has money on the game or if you’re still in the running for a championship in a fantasy football playoff challenge bracket. The Bruno Boys Playoff Challenge saw 308 entries try their hand at beating the Bruno Boys, and a lot of them succeeded, but only one can be the champion. From all of us at Bruno Boys we congratulate the entry Jints Do It by B. Higgins, as the winner of this year’s playoff challenge. That entry finished as the only one with more than 500 points, checking in at 502. Having to set the entry for the conference championship games and the Super Bowl at the same time, Jints Do It featured players exclusively from the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints, four of which registered double-digit points totals, racking up 99 points for the Super Bowl alone. Many were close though, so let’s take a look at how the top 10 finished.

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Super Bowl Sunday is a day filled with excitement for football fans all over the world. It is a day that we spend with family and friends watching the two remaining playoff teams trying to reach the pinnacle of their sport. It doesn’t happen every year, but this year we get to watch the two best teams in the NFL when the Peyton Manning led Indianapolis Colts face Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints.

These two teams dominated the 2009 NFL season. The Colts started the season 14-0, and there is a good chance they would have gone undefeated this season had head coach Jim Caldwell not decided that it was more important to rest his stars in order to get ready for the playoffs rather than trying to top the Miami Dolphins’ 17-0 season of 1972. The Saints also had a very good start to the year, as they won their first 13 games of the season before stumbling against the Dallas Cowboys’ in Week 15. These teams were the No. 1 seeds in the AFC and NFC playoffs respectively. They both have explosive offenses and it should make for a very entertaining Super Bowl.

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With the countdown to the Super Bowl continually winding down, the water cooler talk has picked up. From the die hard fans to the casual observers, everyone seems to have an opinion as to what’s going to happen come Super Bowl Sunday. Granted, some insight is a bit deeper than others. For the record, I do not think that the New Orleans Saints will come out on top because of a potential proposal from Reggie Bush to on-again, off-again girlfriend, Kim Kardaschian should they secure the win. But, hey it’s the Super Bowl and anything can happen. With that said, the Bruno Boys Staff shares with you our Super Bowl previews. And, we ask that you, Bruno Boys Nation, vote in our poll and share your predictions as well in the comment section below. Come the final whistle on Sunday, we’ll then see who was on the mark and who was way off.

Bruno Boy Whooley’s Super Bowl Prediction - Saints (27) – Colts (35)

The 62 total points may seem like a lot, but with the over / under currently sitting at 56.5, is it really that preposterous? Let’s not fool ourselves, these two teams are playing for the Lombardi Trophy not because of the smash mouth football they play, but because of the way they light up the scoreboard. In fact, in this post-season, both squads are averaging 25+ points per game, with the Colts posting 25 a contest and the Saints, a whopping 38.

With that said, I think it’s Peyton Manning and Co. that come out on top in this one. The Saints squeaked by in the NFC Championship Game despite giving up 475 total yards of offense to the Minnesota Vikings. The reason? The Vikings coughed the ball up a staggering five times. While it’s very likely the Colts near the Vikings’ 475 total yards, don’t expect them to bail out New Orleans with anything close to five turnovers. As such, Peyton will prove once again that he can win the big one.

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So this is it. It all comes down to this, the New Orleans Saints vs. the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl. For most of us fantasy owners, it’s finally a time to not worry about stats and fantasy rankings, and just sit back and watch the biggest sporting event in the nation. For some of us, we’re still playing for something in our playoff fantasy leagues. I hope you loaded up on Saints and Colts or you’re in serious trouble. Let’s take a look at how the Saints and the Colts made it to the grand stage.

Indianapolis Colts 30 vs. New York Jets 17
This one had upset city written all over it in the first half. The New York Jets, oddly enough, put together their best fantasy stat line in the game that they didn’t win. Both Braylon Edwards and Jerricho Cotchery went over 100 yards receiving, including an 80-yard bomb to Edwards from Mark Sanchez. OK, so Edwards only had two catches in the game, but when one of then is an 80-yard TD, that’s all you need. Dustin Keller hauled in another score to go with his 63 yards receiving. Where was this passing production in the regular season when fantasy owners needed it? Sanchez threw for two touchdowns and 257 yards passing with an interception. Not a bad day at all for a guy who was putting up horrendous fantasy numbers. Unfortunately for the Jets, and probably a big reason why they lost this game, but Thomas Jones and Shonn Greene just barely got over 40 yards rushing each. The running game was their bread and butter all season, but the bread went stale in this game. As for the victorious Colts, they didn’t need Reggie Wayne or Dallas Clark to get the job done in this one, although Clark did have one score. But it was the Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie show in this one. Garcon had 11 catches for 151 yards and a touchdown, while Collie had 123 yards receiving and a touchdown, as well. Wayne had three catches for 55 yards on “Revis Island.” Peyton Manning threw for 377 yards and three touchdowns to put together another solid fantasy day, but who would have expected anything else? Joseph Addai rushed for 80 yards, but couldn’t get in the endzone. He should be in line for a nice night in the Super Bowl after the day Adrian Peterson had against the Saints.

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The Conference Championships are over and done with as the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints, both the No. 1 seeds, will represent their respective conferences in the Super Bowl. As per usual, with football being played, another batch of story lines need to be examined. In Whooley’s Weekly Words, I, Bruno Boys Whooley, tackle just a few of the more interesting items to catch my eye from the weekend. This week, I’ll be discussing the legacies of two of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history, Peyton Manning and Brett Favre.

Peyton Manning - A Football Savant

Tony Dungy’s departure from Indianapolis this off-season and all of the changes that resulted from it stirred up whispers among the NFL community as to whether the Colts could continue to play up to the Championship level that has come to be expected of them. Seeing as the team is currently finalizing plans for a trip to Miami and the Super Bowl, we think those whispers have been answered.

A big reason the Colts are still a Championship caliber club has to do with Peyton Manning. Manning earned an NFL record fourth MVP trophy this season. Yes, part of the reason the award was bestowed upon him had to do with his final stats as the QB threw for 4,500 yards, 33 TDs, and 16 INTs during the regular season; however, the bigger reason Manning took home the hardware is the fact that despite all the changes that occurred in Indy this past off-season, one thing stayed the same - he was the man behind the center, and that my friends is all the stability the Colts need. No player means as much to their team’s success than Manning does to the Colts. Take him out of the line-up, and there is no way we are discussing Indy as we head towards Super Bowl Sunday. In fact, without Manning, I’m not even sure we would have mentioned the Colts throughout the playoffs at all.

Manning is a special player with a God-given gift to read defenses much like Bobby Fisher was able to read chess boards. Sure, the Jets caused Manning some headaches and confusion during the first half of this past weekend’s AFC Championship Game, but as Manning has shown time and time again, it’s only a matter of time before he’s going to figure things out. And, that’s exactly what he did this past Sunday. With Darelle Revis blanketing stud wide out and Manning’s favorite target, Reggie Wayne, the Colts’ QB looked elsewhere to get the job done, leading to 100+ yard days for both rookie wide out, Austin Collie, and second-year man, Pierre Garcon and a 30 to 17 win for the Colts.

While it’s hard to feel sorry for anyone preparing for a trip to the Super Bowl, there is one man I wouldn’t want to be right now and that’s New Orleans Saints’ defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams. Because, really, at this point and time, is it even possible to shut Manning down?

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There are times when the NFL playoffs fail to deliver but the AFC and NFC conference championship games last weekend certainly didn’t fall into that category. In the early game we saw the New York Jets go up early on the road, only to see the Indianapolis Colts score the final 24 points of the game for the win. Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning was on point as he threw for 377 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. The second game of the day featured the New Orleans Saints and the Minnesota Vikings, and even though it felt like the fourth quarter lasted two hours the way the two teams went back and forth and all the key plays had us on the edges of our seats.

So the final round of the Fantasy Football Playoff Challenge encompasses the conference championship games and the Super Bowl, but we’re going to recap how the last two games went anyway. There’s two weeks until the Super Bowl kicks off anyway, so we’ve got to do something.

Here’s the top 10 following the conference championship games:

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The week that’s arguably called the best week for the NFL playoffs saw three blowouts and one upset. The New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts quieted the critics who said they would pay for benching their stars in the final two weeks. It’s shaping up to be a tremendous conference title weekend next week. Hoepfully you’re still in the thick of it in your playoff fantasy leagues, and hopefully you didn’t play any of the Dallas Cowboys. Let’s a take a look at the fantasy recap from the divisional round.

New Orleans Saints 45 vs. Arizona Cardinals 14
This game was projected to be a offensive shootout, and it was…for one team. Drew Brees put together another tremendous game on Saturday, but the Saints didn’t need him to do it all through the air. Reggie Bush rushed for a score and also returned a punt for another TD. It’s hard to predict when Bush is going to go off or do absolutely nothing. He’s become a pretty big boom-or-bust fantasy option. Bush finished with 108 total yards with his two scores. Brees threw for three touchdowns with 247 yards passing. The three TDs went to three different receivers - Marques Colston, Devery Henderson and Jeremy Shockey. Colston also led all receivers with 83 yards. Even in the playoffs, Brees continues to spread the wealth around to all of his receivers. Colston is your best bet for any WR production in the final two rounds over the rest of his teammates in the receiving core. Pierre Thomas led the Saints in carries, but only had 52 yards on the ground. It’s hard to say whether you should go with Thomas or Bush for the final two games. Any injury updates on Thomas may help answer that question this week. Kurt Warner may have played his final football game, and didn’t throw a single touchdown in his possible finale. Warner threw for 205 yards, 77 of which went to Larry Fitzgerald. Obviously Warner’s poor performance takes out Fitzgerald from any success. Really, the best performer for the Arizona Cardinals in this game was Tim Hightower of all people, who totaled 87 yards with a score.

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The Divisional Round has come to a close here in the NFL. As per usual, with football being played, another batch of story lines have come to be examined. In Whooley’s Weekly Words, I, Bruno Boys Whooley, tackle just a few of the more interesting items to catch my eye from the weekend. This week, I’ll be discussing the success of the New York Jets, while also taking a look at Matt Leinart’s future.

With Identity Established, Jets Continue to Roll

A road match-up with the San Diego Chargers looked likely to bring the New York Jets impressive 2009 season to an end. After all, the Chargers’ were the hottest team in football going into the playoffs on the coat-tails of an 11-game winning streak marked by strong play on both sides of the football. But, what many failed to notice was that the Jets were playing some solid football of their own. After beginning the season 4-6 after ten games, the Jets caught fire, winning five of six to close out the year, earning them the final playoff spot among AFC teams.

Why the stark turnaround? Simple, New York discovered its identity. While rookie Mark Sanchez has shown he has the tools to be the franchise’s quarterback of the future, the Jets realized to win in the now, they would have to rely not on Sanchez’s arm, but on the legs of running backs, Thomas Jones and Shonn Greene, all the while letting their defense do the dirty work by holding opponents in check. No game exemplified this better than in Week 16 when the Jets handed the Indianapolis Colts their first loss of the regular season. Granted, many remember that contest for the decision of Colts’ head coach Jim Caldwell to rest his studs despite a chance at perfection, but in focusing on that side of the story, the play of the Jets went under the radar, perhaps a big reason they’ve been so undervalued here in the playoffs. Had we paid attention then, we may have foreseen the team’s current playoff run.

In securing a 29 to 15 win in that Week 16 contest, New York handed the ball off 44 times for a total of 202 yards, 105 gained by Jones and another 95 added by Greene. Sanchez, meanwhile, threw just 19 passes for 106 yards. Going up against Indy, a mere 106 passing yards wouldn’t seem like enough to get the job done, but when your defense holds the high-powered Colts, a unit that averaged 26 points per game this season, to just 14 points, you’re going to have a chance to win no matter what.

The Jets win over the Colts in Week 16 firmly entrenched their status as a smash mouth football team, an identity they have now ridden to four straight wins, including a shocking upset over the Chargers this past weekend. Going into Indy, can they make it five straight? A month ago it may have seemed unfathomable, but now it’s not such a stretch. Should the Jets take care of business yet again, Jim Caldwell may not regret giving up on the Colts’ chance at perfection, but he will curse not taking advantage of an opportunity to end the Jets’ season back in Week 16.

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It was expected to be a great round of games this past weekend as the Divisional Round lineup featured the league’s eight elite teams and some incredible players. Unfortunately, three of the games weren’t games at all as the Indianapolis Colts, New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings all rolled at home. The San Diego Chargers, however, didn’t enjoy the comforts of familiar grounds as they were upset by the New York Jets.

Amongst all this hoopla the Bruno Boys Playoff Fantasy Football Challenge is taking place. After some real high scores last week the scores this week were down across the board. Here’s a little recap of some of the Divisional Round action and who some of the top teams are heading into next week’s conference championship games.

After two weeks, the current top 10 looks like this:

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