Bruno Boys Fantasy Football

After winning their final four games of the 2007 season to sneak into the playoffs, many Washington Redskins fans felt 2008 would be their year to win the NFC East and make a big Super Bowl push. At the start of the season, that looked to be the case, as Washington jumped out to a 4-1 start and at the half way point were sitting pretty at 6-2. However, the Redskins forgot that an NFL season doesn’t end at the midway point as they struggled during the second half of the season going 2-6, causing them to miss out on the playoffs for the seventh time in nine years.

Despite the late season meltdown, the Redskins had some key fantasy football contributors in ’08. Clinton Portis led all NFC East running backs with 370 touches and his 1,705 total yards were also tops in the division while fourth in the NFL. The team’s leading receiver was wide receiver Santana Moss, who through eight weeks led all wide outs in fantasy points. But, as the Redskins began to struggle so, too, did Moss. Despite finishing the season with 1,004 receiving yards and six touchdowns, the veteran had just 386 receiving yards and one touchdown over the season’s final eight games. The third and final fantasy option out of Washington was tight end Chris Cooley. His 83 receptions and 849 receiving yards were both career highs, but his one touchdown reception was a full five shy of his previous low. Still, Cooley acted as a TE1 as he had 10 games of five or more fantasy football points.

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Heading into 2008, the last time any team other than the Indianapolis Colts sat atop the AFC South at season’s end was back in 2002, when the Tennessee Titans beat out the Colts for the division crown with an 11-5 record, one game better than the Colts’ 10-6 showing. Thus, it was only fitting that the Titans were the team to end the Colts’ streak of five straight division titles in 2008, besting them yet again by one game as they rolled to the best record in the AFC at 13-3.

The Titans’ 13-3 finish was somewhat surprising. After all, the team was considered by many to be only the third best squad (behind both the Colts and Jacksonville Jaguars) in their division at the beginning of the year, and then, lost starting quarterback, Vince Young to a knee injury in the 4th quarter of their week 1 match-up. With Kerry Collins, a man who had thrown just 1 TD in a combined 10 games during 2006 and 2007, set to take over, things looked a bit bleak for Tennessee.

But, Collins ended up being the perfect fit for the club. The veteran didn’t win many games with his arm, but he didn’t need to. With a superb rushing attack and a strong defensive unit behind him, Collins simply had to manage things, and he did a fine job doing so. Completing 58.3% of his passes, Collins threw for 2,676 yards with 12 TDs to just 7 INTs. In limiting his mistakes, he paved the way for the defense and run game to do their things.

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Close, but no cigar. That pretty much sums up the 2008 Buccaneers. First, they appeared to be front-runners to land veteran QB Brett Favre only to watch him go to the Jets. Then, after winning the NFC South in 2007, a 9-7 record in 2008 failed to win them their conference. Wild Card hope remained, though, that is until an embarrassing loss to the Carolina Panthers on Monday Night Football in front of the whole country, pretty much kept them out of the playoffs as it was the first of four straight losses the Bucs had to end the season. Fans salivating at the idea of a home field advantage Super Bowl were left highly disappointed and concerned about their team.

2009 marks the beginning of a new regime in Tampa. Soon after the regular season, head coach Jon Gruden, was fired along with GM Bruce Allen. And after having announced his intentions in mid-season, longtime defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin left to join his son in Tennessee.

Now, former defensive backs coach Raheem Morris takes over, along with new defensive coordinator Jim Bates. Bates is planning to make a transition from the Bucs’ standard Tampa Cover 2 defense to a defense that’s based more on power than speed. Depending on how quickly the players adapt, this could re-energize the D.

Offensively, there is no starting quarterback yet but there is a very heated battle between front runners Luke McCown, Byron Leftwich and first-round draft pick Josh Freeman to see who it will be under center come week 1. The emergence of Antionio Bryant and the recent addition of Kellen Winslow should give whoever wins the job some decent targets to throw at.

Meanwhile, signing Derrickk Ward will place an emphasis on a strong running game. If Earnest Graham and Cadillac Williams can stay healthy, the trio could be pretty potent.

Needless to say, there’ll be a lot of changes, new faces and a good share of question marks for the Bucs heading into 2009, but it looks like Tampa has amassed an impressive array of weapons to challenge the NFC South in the upcoming season.

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Every NFL team has played 32 regular season games over the past two years. To show how repugnant the St. Louis Rams have been in that period, close your hand and make a fist. Now, open it up one finger at a time and count. Unless you’re Antonio Alfonseca, you counted to five, which is exactly how many victories the Rams have managed the last two seasons.

The reasons for their rottenness are myriad, but much of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of former GM/Vice-President Jay Zygmunt, an accountant who fancied himself a football man. He and former head coach Scott Linehan were the architects of the disaster, but thankfully for Rams’ fans, Linehan was fired four games into last season, and Zygmunt was forced out at the end of last year. Now, a new regime led by GM Billy Devaney and head coach Scott Spagnuolo has offered fans in St. Louis a modicum of hope. They likely won’t make the playoffs this year, but there is, finally, a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

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Seattle struggled throughout last year with injuries, namely at the quarterback position, leading to a 4-12 record. Starter, Matt Hasselbeck, only played in 7 games, totaling 1,216 yards, 5 TDs, and 10 INTs, while only completing 52.2% of his passes. Filling in for Hasselbeck, Seneca Wallace was a bit better, but not spectacular, passing for 1,532 yards, 11 TDs, and 3 INTs, while completing 58.3% of his passes.

With the quarterback play pretty much MIA, the receivers went missing too. In fact, the guy who led the team in receptions and receiving yards was rookie tight end, John Carlson, who had 55 catches for 627 yards, and 5 touchdowns. As for the wide outs, Bobby Engram had 47 catches for 489 yards and 0 TDs, with Deion Branch tallying 30 catches for 412 yards and 5 TDs and Koren Robinson hauling in 31 catches for 400 yards and 2 TDs.

Due to the struggles of the passing game, the team’s running game took a bit of a hit.  Julius Jones came over from Dallas and only managed 698 yards and 2 TDs on 158 carries. Maurice Morris partnered with Jones, but got a meager 574 yards and 0 TDs on 132 carries. T.J. Duckett, another offseason addition, added 172 yards on 62 carries. He did exactly what he was brought in to do, though, which is score in the end zone, as he had 8 rushing TDs on the year.

While the offense failed to show up last season, Olindo Mare made the most of his chances when Seattle got into field goal position. Mare made 88.9% of his field goals for 102 points. He only missed 3 field goals all season long and would have been a top kicker had he had more opportunities. The Seahawks hope to get Mare those extra opportunities in 2009 as they expect a healthy Hasselbeck to be under center and have brought in TJ Houshmandzadeh to give him more toys to play with.

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After finishing the 2007 season with a very disappointing 5-11 record, San Francisco 49er fans had higher hopes heading into 2008. The high hopes were largely a result of the team bringing in an “offensive genius” in new offensive coordinator Mike Martz, who was supposed to help the offense make drastic improvements and help turn quarterback Alex Smith into the player the 49ers expected he would become when they drafted him first overall in the 2005 NFL draft. But, things did not quite work out as expected as Smith injured his shoulder in training camp, leading to a trip to the injured reserved. This left Martz with two journeymen quarterbacks, J.T. O’Sullivan and Shaun Hill to work with.

The result was a rough start to the season. After seven games, San Francisco was just 2-5, leading to the in-season firing of head coach Mike Nolan. Nolan was replaced on an interim basis by assistant coach Mike Singletary.

Singletary’s reign did not get off to the best start. Not only did the 49ers go on to lose their first two games under the new head coach, but Singletary, also, had an altercation with tight end Vernon Davis that left many people wondering if Singletary was the right choice to take over the team. Singletary, though, would silence his doubters. After losing his first two games as head coach, Singletary and the 49ers won five of their next seven games finishing the season with a 7-9 record, leading the Niners to sign Singletary to a 4-year deal.

While the team would have loved to finish the year at .500, there were plenty of things to be excited about come season’s end. None more important than the fact that team may have found a potential starting quarterback in Shaun Hill. Hill, who would start the final eight games for the 49ers, led the team to a 5-3 record in those games while passing for 2,046 yards with 13 touchdowns and eight interceptions. In doing so, Hill has earned himself a chance to compete with Alex Smith for the starting quarterback job in 2009.

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Although the San Diego Chargers only went 8-8 during the regular season, they once again made the playoffs, largely due to their 5-1 domination of their weak division rivals. Things weren’t easy though as the team had to deal with injuries to defensive leader, Shawn Merriman, who missed 15 games on the year, and stud running back, LaDainian Tomlinson, who wasn’t his dominant self (though it is worth noting that even in a down year, LT notched 1,536 total yards and 12 TDs.) Still, the team rallied together with solid contributions on both sides of the ball as they scored 92 more points than they gave up.

The big story, though, in San Diego in 2008 was quarterback, Philip Rivers. The young arm took a huge step towards becoming one of the better quarterbacks in the league as he threw for over 4,000 yards for the first time in his career, passed for 34 touchdowns and threw just 11 interceptions. 2008 also marked his 3rd year in a row that he was able to start in all 16 games. If Rivers continues to grow and Tomlinson and Merriman come back healthy, this team could dominate in 2009, clinching a playoff berth well before the last week of the season like they did in 2008.

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The Pittsburgh Steelers had a terrific 2008 season, capped by a 27-23 win over the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII in head coach Mike Tomlin’s second year at the helm. However, despite the team’s success, the offense left much to be desired as the Steelers did not rank higher than 17th in any major offensive category. Luckily, the Steelers’ boasted the premier defense in the league. The unit ranked first in points allowed, total yards allowed and passing yards allowed, while finishing second in rushing yards allowed, as they carried the team throughout the season.

Number wise, Ben Roethlisberger finished the year with 3,301 passing yards, 17 touchdowns and 15 interceptions. His favorite target continued to be Hines Ward, who led the team in receiving with 81 catches for 1,043 yards and seven touchdowns, while Santonio Holmes had 55 receptions for 821 yards and five touchdowns. (Holmes, also, made the spectacular catch over three Arizona defenders in the corner of the end zone that clenched the Super Bowl for Pittsburgh.) Meanwhile, Willie Parker rushed for 791 yards and five touchdowns on 210 carries; splitting time with Parker was Mewelde Moore, who had 588 yards and five touchdowns on 140 attempts.

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To say the 2008 season was a roller coaster ride for the Philadelphia Eagles would be an understatement. After going 5-5-1 over the first 12 weeks of the season, the Eagles had to turn it up a notch over the final five weeks in order to keep their playoff chances alive. Riding the hot hand of previously benched Donovan McNabb, the Eagles did just that as they won four of their final five games to backdoor themselves into the playoffs. Needing to beat the Dallas Cowboys in the final week of the season, a fired up Philadelphia squad scored early and often en route to a 44-6 win and a meeting with the Minnesota Vikings in the Wild Card round.

The playoffs where no different as Philadelphia took care of Minnesota in the Wild Card round and the New York Giants in the Divisional round to set-up a meeting with the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC Championship game. This marked the fifth time in 10 years that head coach Andy Reid has taken his squad to the NFC Championship game, but for the fourth time, they failed to reach the Super Bowl as they lost a shoot-out by the score of 32-25.

The three biggest fantasy football contributors were McNabb, Brian Westbrook and rookie DeSean Jackson. McNabb finished the season with 23 touchdown passes to just 11 interceptions, and his five total TD’s during the fantasy playoffs paid dividends to owners. Westbrook was able to finish the season as a top-10 running back, but his statistics were skewed by four big games. Other than that, Westbrook played more as a RB2 and his nagging injuries forced fantasy owners to hit the panic button throughout the season. The biggest surprise was Jackson, who took advantage of injuries at the wide receiver position to haul in 62 receptions for 912 yards and two touchdowns. Jackson was taken as a late round flier in most fantasy leagues only to see himself being used as a low-end WR2 by season’s end.

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After finishing the 2006 season with a dismal 2-14 record, the Oakland Raiders have made strides, improving their win-loss record from both 2006 to 2007 and 2007 to 2008. The problem is that even in doing so, the Raiders still had just 5 wins last season. In fact, the team hasn’t surpassed the 5-win mark since 2002.

So, what part of their game was lacking in 2008? How about all of it? On the defensive side of the ball, Oakland gave up the 9th most points per game (24.2) and the 6th most yards per game (360.9) in the league. Perhaps a team with any semblance of an offense could have weathered that storm, but an offensive dynamo, the Raiders were not.

Quarterback, JaMarcus Russell, who played in 15 games during his sophomore campaign, amassed just 2,423 passing yards, 13 TDs, and 8 INTs. While the TD to INT ratio isn’t that bad, the rest of the numbers are, and they are a big reason the team ranked dead last in passing in the NFL last season.

The ground game fared a bit better with Justin Fargas, Darren McFadden, and Michael Bush combining for 1,773 rushing yards, helping the Raiders finish in the top 10 in rushing yards in 2008. However, the team did tie with the Kansas City Chiefs for the 4th fewest rushing TDs on the year with nine.

If things keep going this way, Oakland may be better off suiting up some of the members of the infamous “black hole” than the guys that they currently trot out onto the field week in and week out.

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