If you’re like me, for the next 22 weeks, Monday mornings are miserable.  You’re coming off a weekend of glorious football, and lord knows what else (for me, the weekend included a ridiculous amount of beer from Sam Adam’s Harvest Collection), and now you’re back at work.  It’s a rough life.

But, the good news is we’re only hours away from Monday Night Football, and only six days away from doing it all over again.

So while we wait for Jets-Ravens (and Chargers-Chiefs, I guess), here’s some random thoughts on what we saw yesterday.

• The most popular discussion this morning, besides how your fantasy team performed, is that of the Detroit Lions TD/no TD.  Bears fans love it, Lions fans hate it.  Most other NFL fans hate it.  But the most overlooked aspect of this play is the 25-yard TD that all owners of Calvin Johnson lost for their fantasy squads.  In most leagues, that’s 8.5 points that the owner lost.  In PPR leagues (for the record, I hate PPR leagues), it’s 9.5 points.  Whatever the case may be, it’s a ridiculously high amount of points to lose.  I wonder how many Calvin Johnson owners are going to lose by less than 8 points this weekend.  Because let’s be serious, neither the Lions nor Bears are contenders this year anyway, so that call didn’t drastically change the NFC.  But it probably changes a lot of fantasy races.
  
  

  The rules clearly state that it wasn't a catch. Sure looked like a catch to me.




• My colleague, MIB, will probably boast shortly about the Washington Redskins, since he was slobbering all over them this preseason.  I have news for all Redskin fans, and Shanahan/McNabb bandwagon jumpers… the team looked bad last night.  The Cowboys looked worse, and that’s the only reason they won.  Washington’s defense looked pretty solid, but I think that was more a result of the Cowboys offense being completely anemic, other than Miles Austin.  Shanahan & McNabb did not combine with Clinton Portis to give Washington a lethal offense… and yes, I know these things take time, but it’s not going to happen this season.




• Another offense that looked bad was my NY Football Giants.  Eli was over-throwing all afternoon, the receiving corps dropped 5 passes, and the running game sputtered.  But yet, they still managed 31 points.  Why?  Because Carolina is bad.  Real bad.  Much worse than I anticipated.  I hope Panther fans are ready for the Jimmy Clausen era.
  
  

  Hakeem Nicks exploded onto the fantasy scene yesterday.




• I said it this August, but Pittsburgh is going to be good this year.  Their defense is for real, and so is Mendenhall (although he actually had a bad day yesterday).  Roethlisberger is going to come back with a chip on his shoulder, and this team is going to compete for the AFC crown when all is said and done.




• The Bengals, on the other hand, are already dead.  They abandoned Cedric Benson yesterday, and he is what makes their offense go.  TO & 8-5 getting the exact same number of targets?  I hope that’s a coincidence, because if Carson Palmer is thinking about things like that to keep his WR’s in line and happy, then he’s going to fail.  And where were his WR’s on that last-play hailmary before halftime?  In the locker room?  Really?




• Maybe Pete Carroll knows something that I don’t know.  If I were a gambling man, I would have wagered heavily on the 49ers to beat up on Seattle yesterday, and the exact opposite happened.  It took one day for my opinions of the NFC West to change completely, but in that craptastic division, I can already see a 7-9 Seahawks team making the playoffs.




• Aaron Rodgers looked disappointing yesterday, and the entire Eagles offense looked worse.  I hope that town is ready for a QB controversy, because it’s coming.  And Donovan McNabb is going to be laughing the entire time.
  
  

  I could hear Donovan McNabb laughing from 200 miles away last night.




• This week’s fantasy team that makes you want to jump off a bridge is brought to you by my buddy Jeff.  Kevin Kolb (0.9), Andre Johnson (3.3), Michael Crabtree (1.2), Percy Harvin 1.4), Jamaal Charles (MNF), Jonathan Stewart (1.2), JerMichael Finley (4.7), David Akers (9), and Philadelphia’s Defense (7).  With one player left to go, his K & D’s 16 combined points are almost 70% of his total scoring.  I don’t even have the heart to make fun of him.  That’s just sad.




• And this week’s team that you wish you had features Peyton Manning, Chad Ochocinco, Miles Austin, Hakeem Nicks, Arian Foster, Matt Forte, Dallas Clark, John Kasay, and Seattle’s Defense.  Somewhere in fantasy land, somebody started this team.  I wish it were me.




• The four players most likely to be picked up this week due to their big week one’s are Michael Vick, Brandon Jackson, Brandon Lloyd, and Mark Clayton.  If Vick becomes the Eagles starting QB for any extended stretch of time, he becomes a Top 10 Fantasy QB, and he deserves a spot on your roster just for that potential.  Jackson only has value is Grant is out for any extended period of time.  As it is, I probably wouldn’t go after him unless you have Ryan Grant on your roster.  Lloyd & Clayton are worth taking a shot on, because they appear to be their QBs favorite targets in week one.  Lloyd’s big drawback is that he also has Eddie Royal and Jabar Gaffney catching balls for his team, while Clayton’s drawback is he is a St. Louis Ram, with a rookie QB, and he posted those numbers against Arizona.  Still, if there is no transaction maximum in your league, and you have a roster spot to play with, I’d take a shot on these guys.
  
  

  Can Orton make Brandon Lloyd a fantasy factor? Or Royal? Or Gaffney?




• Finally, there were a lot of bad commercials yesterday, but the one great one (at least to me) was the Manning Brothers commercial NBC only aired once for next Sundays Giants-Colts game.  I’m sure most of America is sick of the Manning Brothers, but I’m an Eli-homer, and I actually find all of Peyton’s commercials to be hysterical and awesome.  Unfortunately, every clip of the commercial I can find online cut out the last scene, which makes the commercial.  In that missing scene, you can hear Peyton, trapped in the closet, freaking out because there’s a spider in there.  Hopefully you saw it last night.  If not, here is the rest of the commercial: Manning Bowl II




• Lastly, ERP is going to be doing a weekly Power Rankings.  They’ll be coming out on Wednesday of each week, starting with this Wednesday.  As of now, it’s just Doozer, MIB, and myself.  Ideally, I’d like to have 5 or 6 people participating in this.  But I want it to be the same people every week.  If you want to commit to submitting to yours truly a complete list, 1-32, every Tuesday, then get in touch with me, and I’ll give you the details.  If you don’t know how to get in touch with me, my email is at the top of the screen.