I mentioned in a previous blog that no owner in our league has ever won with Peyton Manning, since Manning burst on to the scene in 1999. Manning has never guided a FFB team to the finals in our league, despite his remarkable career.

Manning holds NFL records for consecutive years with over 4,000 yards passing, as well as most total NFL seasons with 4,000 plus yards passing. But, he remains a curse to anyone who proudly strolls out of our annual draft with Manning in toe.

This year, the team who drafted Manning is 3-6 and will surely end with a similar fate. Five QB’s have outperformed Manning. QB’s Jay Cutler, Kurt Warner, Drew Brees, Philip Rivers, and Aaron Rodgers have all done better. Only Drew Brees was drafted early out of that bunch. Manning is only two points ahead of RB Clinton Portis, the first non-QB top performer in our league.

Not once has Peyton Manning put up more than 30 weekly FFB points this year. The other five aforementioned QB’s have managed that 15 times combined. Six times they have posted over 35 points. The Manning curse continues in 2008.

Many owners in our PPR league this year went top heavy with WR’s in the draft. The feeling was that WR’s have caught up with RB’s in value, in recent years. Not so fast. In our league, 11 RB’s have outperformed the first WR on the list, Anquan Boldin. Only then does it begin to balance out. That is a notable trend, and one that this writer predicted pre-season. RB’s Clinton Portis, Marion Barber, Matt Forte, Frank Gore, Chris Johnson, Adrian Peterson, Steve Slaton, Brian Westbrook, Michael Turner, LaDanian Tomlinson, and Ronnie Brown have all outscored the first WR. Three of them are NFL rookies.

WR Reggie Wayne is #63 on the top performers list. You must go to #74 on that list to locate Terrell Owens, and to #84 to locate Randy Moss. It really has been the year of the mid-round quarterback…

“I’m shocked, I’m devastated, I’m humiliated, I’m battered.”
In my other league, I voted for PALIN/ McCain. Sarah Palin so excited my base. She was the beam of light in my tired, worn-out, generally negative, infantile, past century Grand Old Party. Where can I go now? Where have all the flowers gone? There’s nobody left in New England. No Tom Brady, no Randy Moss, no Red Sox, no Yankees, no senators, no representatives. What century can I dwell in now?
I only see a mountain of debt. I only see a constant bread line for major companies, for financials. Didn’t our president tell us it was just a few “dark economic clouds in the sky?” Didn’t McCain tell us that the “fundamentals of the economy are sound?" I only knew how to stay within the lines in my other league. I never knew how to venture outside the lines. I remember that movie…’The Village’…
I always voted for fear over hope in my other league. I understand fear. ‘Hope’ is too fearful of a word. I’m afraid of hope in that league. I proudly voted for fear twice. It’s all I know. I’m too set in my ways to ever change. They are all making fun of me now in my other league. I’ve never won in my other league. The stock market keeps dropping in my other league. How can so many voters be so wrong? Can’t they see what they just did?

I might have to uproot to Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, or Texas to play FFB now. In the red-state South, they will eat all the tired old red meat that I like to swallow. They aren’t vegetarians or silly vegans, like up in the Northeast.

I’m not doing well in my other league right now. I’m so grateful for this league, though. I helped elect Barack Obama in this league. It feels fresh, it feels healthier in this league. I won the trophy last year in this league. I’m 6-3 and in second place in this league. I think I’ll be just fine in this league. I might just quit that other league.

The nine game interim head coach audition began last week for Mike Singletary in San Francisco. I’m following this because I followed Singletary’s entire career. Drafted by the Chicago Bears out of Baylor in 1981, he was soon nicknamed ‘Samauri Mike. Singletary became the intimidating and intense force behind the dominating 1980’s Bears’ defense. Television cameras would zoom in on those ’Samauri’ eyes behind his helmet. Analysts would comment on those piercing , focused , driven eyes. 12 years and 172 games later, he became Hall of Fame Mike Singletary. He became motivational speaker Mike Singletary.
I saw those same eyes in that press conference after last Sunday’s 49’er loss to Seattle. This was San Francisco’s fourth straight loss, and they keep getting uglier. Those eyes can only make decisions now. That drive, that intensity, that passion, that warrior grit, is woven into the fabric of just a few.
Mike Singletary is that kind of coach who would test a player’s metal by putting the player in a room with a fly swatter, a sledge hammer, and a fly. He wouldn’t want the player who would kill the fly with one flip of the fly swatter. The player who busted up the room with the sledge hammer, trying to kill that fly, would be Singletary’s kind of guy.
Singletary is only the second defensive Hall of Famer to ever become a head coach in the NFL. That is amazing in itself. 21 Hall of Fame players have become head coaches in the NFL. Their combined record is under .500. Mike Ditka’s 121-95 overall record is by far the best. Singletary helped Ditka to that success.
“ I’m not looking to re-invent the wheel, “ Singletary offered the media , his first day on the job, “ but expectations will be high.”
Most sports have demonstrated that, with few exceptions, the elite on the field don’t have enduring coaching careers. I will put Mike Singletary in that mix. He has thrown TE Vernon Davis and QB J.T. O’Sullivan directly to the doghouse, or was it the S.P.C.A.? Publicly, to the media..
Bill Walsh, the master motivator who turned the sickly 49er’s organization around in the 1980’s, never sacrificed his lambs in public. He had Joe Montana, and later, Jerry Rice .RB Frank Gore won’t get it done by himself. I will follow these next eight games with interest. I don’t think it will be pretty.