Week 7

It's go time. With four teams at 4-3 and two more at 3-4, the cream will start rising to the top as the crap flushes itself down the toilet. Halfway through the season, it might be the time to let some of your treasured stars go and make a few moves. Yes Shaun Alexander, Larry Johnson, Steven Jackson, Frank Gore, I'm talking to you!

Renegadez (2196) vs Team Rich (1468)
It’s hard to say which team is better. The 4-3 Renegadez or the 3-4 Team Riches. Team Rich should be better on paper, with Tom Brady and Carson Palmer, but they are suffering from a horrible receiving corps. Santana Moss, Roy Williams, and Devin Hester have had their moments but none of them are performing recently. The running game isn’t in good shape either as Shaun Alexander looks like he’s losing it and Rudi Johnson straight hasn’t played much – while Travis Henry could be headed to jail. Can Brady (646 points this week!) and Palmer lead the charge?

Rene’s team has been kind of lost in the shuffle all season. However, receivers Laveranues Coles (426 pts), Dwayne Bowe, and Roddy White (320 pts) have been very efficient. New Chargers WR Chris Chambers might soon become fantasy relevant so this should be the strength of the team. If Edgerrin James and Maurice Jones-Drew continue their pounding work, and more importantly, Drew Brees picks it up, this team is pretty solid.

Ask About Me (2066) vs StickIt2Em (1180)
While Ben continues to shine on the work floor, his fantasy team is in collapse. Matt Leinart, Deion Branch, Sammy Morris, Anthony Gonzalez, and Nate Kaeding all put up zero points (for various reasons). That’s no way to create a sustainable offense when half your team is missing. “Is you snorin' in my class? Wake up Mr. West!”

Will continues to pick up steam as this win pulls him out of the cellar, for the first time all year. How ‘bout that Earnest Graham? 447 points behind a huge yardage day and Will’s looking like a genius. Graham will have to keep this up because Will’s best player, RB Ronnie Brown, just got injured for the season. Ouch.

Dog Killers (2000) vs Call Me Mr. G (1779)
It might have been a different story for the third place Dog Killers if Jermaine had put in a serviceable quarterback while Philip Rivers was on bye. Instead, Jon pulls out another MNF victory behind Reggie Wayne’s 307 points. RB Adrian Peterson continues to shine (235 pts) for Jermaine but he’s going to need some support from Marvin Harrison and Steven Jackson (he's back this week, according to his blog), two big picks that have yet to establish their superiority this season. Are both lost causes at this point?

The Birds will have a tough time finding a captain to pilot their ship as Matt Hasselbeck is on bye and Trent Edwards, Joey Harrington and Marc Bulger are hardly scary for any defenses.

Redskins (2288) vs El Nino’s (2113)
With bye weeks wrecking havoc with lineups, this game was the best of the week. Would a tight end have helped out Hong? Undoubtedly. Losing by 175 points is something Antonio Gates certainly could have racked up. Sadly, he was on bye. What’s the excuse for not forseeing Gus Frerotte’s big day on the bench?

Chris has piloted his team from the bottom of the standings to near the top behind Peyton Manning (311), Brian Griese (344), and Willis McGahee (300). For him to continue winning, he’s going to need to find a running mate behind McGahee. There’s some big question marks about DeShawn Wynn, Julius Jones, and Derrick Ward. Hopefully, Thomas Jones can step up his game in the coming weeks. Both of these teams are at 4-3 and headed in the right direction.

Vultures (2040) vs Bad News Bruins (1651)
I don’t even want to write about Thomas anymore. Even with no LDT, he romps in another easy win. I’ll just refer to Bill Simmons’ article about “When should you start seriously thinking about your football team going undefeated?” If you’re playing Thomas, get fired up and win okay! Or I'll just handle it myself in Week 9...

Next Week: Will versus Rich, brother versus brother, evil versus evil.