On the road to victory.....

Blogging at 60 mph with an obnoxious Eagles fan (Space for rent, not west Philadelphia born and raised) isn't much fun, but at least he's dropped to 0-2 now and with another shocking upset victory, and the loss for the Pumas, does this mean SxC is a top three team? The power rankings aren't out yet, but I'd have to say, as things sit right now the Sunshine have to be our new number one, with SxC coming in at the two slot and thanks to two weeks of dumb luck, the Black Hand has probably sprung into the third spot. But is it dumb luck or very clever roster management on the Hand's part? Let's examine their roster and then you can decide:

The Hand has two of the top scorers so far this year in Tony Romo (55 total fantasy points) and Chad Johnson (53 total points), pretty nice. Throw in Braylon Edwards (35 points) and those three guys have almost outscored the Amish by themselves this year. (For the mathematically challenged, Hand's big three have 143 points, the Amish as a team have 156) Let's go back and examine those numbers though, shall we?

In week one, Romo put up 39 points on a very suspect NY Giant's defense that ranks 29th in overall defense and is dead last in pass defense. Then, last week Ocho-Cinco and Edwards both blew up, in a game versus each other, going for 38 and 32 points respectively. Let's be honest here, we all know shootouts like the 51-45 Cleveland/Cincy game just aren't going to keep happening. Still the truth is much deeper than the past two weeks, its in strength of schedule and roster depth.

Let's start with strength of schedule. Romo in the coming weeks will face: Chicago, St. Louis, Buffalo and then New England. Only one of those teams (Buffalo) is not a top ten defense currently and of those three only Chicago's offense is weak, meaning the 'boys and Romo could be playing from behind a lot. Johnson fares better with his next four games, but only because he has a bye week. He gets to face Seattle, New England, a bye week and then Kansas City. So, two of 85's next four weeks are against top ten defenses and a bye week. Braylon draws Oakland, Baltimore, New England and then Miami, two out of four ain't bad? No, it's still bad.

Look at it this way: I've laid out a chart to show when the Hand's top players will be going against the best defenses for the next four weeks. According to which, this week will be his best chance to score points, because next week they all are playing top tier D's, week 5 Ocho is out and Edwards plays N.E. and then in week 6 Braylon is the only guy going against a less-than top ten D.

	Romo	Ocho	Braylo
Week 3	Chicago	Seattle	Oakland
Week 4	St. Louis	New England	Baltimore
Week 5	Buffalo	BYE	New England
Week 6	New England	Kansas City	Miami

And by the way, in case you didn't notice, Oakland and Miami are generally thought to have a good defense thats off to a rough start, so the only chump I see is a Buffalo D that got raped of their star linebackers over the off season. (I bet Takeo Spikes wishes he had stayed put right about now)

So, what can the Hand do? Look to his bench? Let's check it out. Behind Romo sits last year's Offensive Rookie of The Year, Mr. Vince Young. VY has a nice draw playing New Orleans this week on Monday Night, but then he's on a bye the next week and Romo is a good play for week 5 and then go back to VY for week 6. The real issue is the lack of a good bench WR. When Amani Toomer and Kevin Curtis are the big names on your bench, depth is an issue. So, right now to handle the situation optimally, Hand will probably play their Big Three when possible and settle when he has to. Probably something like this:

	Optimal QB		Optimal WR 1		Optimal WR 2
Week 3	VY v NO		Ocho v Seattle		Braylon v Oak
Week 4	Romo v Rams		Ocho v NE		Braylon v Baltimore
Week 5	Romo v Bills		Toomer v Jets		Braylon v NE
Week 6	VY v NE		Ocho v Cheifs		Braylon v Miami

And let's not forget the number of players the Hand has on bye Week 5, including the only tight end on their roster, Chris Cooley.

So, overall, while I think the Hand has a better chance at making the playoffs this year than earlier thought, they are still not a major player for the Vandelay Cup this year.

At least the trip ended well for me. There's nothing quite like watching Iggles fans abandon ship before the end of the 3rd quarter and cry all the way home.

Hail to the Redskins!