Andy Richardson

I really don't want to do commercials for NFL Sunday Ticket, especially because they keep raising the price each year. But still, multiple channels of football at the same time; you gotta love it. I split time between one or two key games and the Red Zone Channel, and every once in a while I go to one of the channels that's showing eight, yes eight, games at once. I sit really close so I can see all the little images, and I keep the Advil handy since it's really painful to watch TV this way. All for you, Mulder, I do it all for you....

1:00 p.m. EST. I'm watching Patriots-Ravens and the Ravens fumble the opening kickoff, reminding me of my discussion with a reader over whether to start the Patriots defense or the Raiders. Sorry. (Postscript: the Raiders end up with the same number of turnovers forced and two more sacks than the Patriots, hooray. Even though they get crushed at Houston, their defense was better in most scoring systems, which I guess shows why some purists hate fantasy football.)

1:05. Kansas City's Jamaal Charles has also fumbled the opening kickoff. That's not the way to earn more playing time. Nice play by Eli Manning to 3rd-down warrior Steve Smith to convert a third and 5. Then a play action TD to Smith two plays later. Does it bother the other Steve Smith that New York's version is doing a lot more with the name so far this year than he is? Anybody who accidentally drafted the wrong one isn't feeling so bad about it these days.

1:10. Willis McGahee carrying for Ravens, just killing those of us who drafted Ray Rice. But getting stuffed for a loss of 2, making us happy.

1:15. Kevin Smith scores for the Lions, mocking those of us who benched him based on his uncertain health.

1:20. Derrick Mason catches his fourth pass on the opening drive. Mason was sick all week. Ray Rice comes in and looks better than McGahee busting a run up the middle. Hope, hope. Next play though, fullback LeRon McClain is sent out to catch a pass that's nearly intercepted by two different Patriots. John Harbaugh hates fantasy owners.

1:25. Larry Johnson picking up big chunks of yardage on the ground against the Giants. Maybe there are some holes in that Giants run D, as Dallas' big game against them two weeks ago suggested. In New England, Mark Clayton nearly comes up with a touchdown reception. Ray Rice lines up as a wide receiver on a third and long. Flacco hits Mason with a laser for a TD; Mason shaken up as he nearly flips but hangs on somehow. Remarkable. And he's OK. Watching Flacco play, it's very clear that he's for real.

1:25. Spectacular rushing TD on 3rd and goal by Jay Cutler, who tries to hurdle a tackler near the goal line and is helicoptered, but gets in. Question his maturity if you want, but not his toughness. Big-time play. This is why I keep turning down offers for the guy in my dynasty league. Plus the offers are mostly terrible.

1:30. Donald Brown vultures a TD from Joseph Addai. Addai may as well get used to Brown stealing his thunder, it's probably the future.

1:30. Steve Slaton fumbles. After tripping over his own man in the backfield. Not good. I'll never be able to trade him now.

1:35. Brandon Pettigrew drops a touchdown. Guy's got some work to do. Next play he comes off the field, Will Heller comes in, and Heller catches a touchdown off essentially the same play. Matthew Stafford, coming of age.

1:40. Mario Manningham catches a long pass that glances off his hands, but he hauls it in on the tip. The guy looks like he's got a little bit of special in him....and as I write it, Manningham drops a ball slightly behind him and it's intercepted. Bust.

1:40. Beautiful TD grab by Chad Ochocinco. I've got him in a lot of leagues and debated trading for him in those I don't. His price keeps going up.

1:45. Washington losing at home to Tampa Bay. I'm thinking Peter King's statement last week that the team won't fire Jim Zorn because he holds three jobs (head coach, offensive coordinator, quarterbacks coach) will prove faulty. If they lose this game, he's done. (And if a guy doing three jobs is doing all of them poorly, isn't he three times as likely to be fired?)

1:50. Bengals defense scores a TD off a Jerome Harrison fumble. It's funny how even by not playing, Jamal Lewis comes further from losing his starting job. Arguably not playing makes him seem even better.

1:50. Back to New England. Tom Brady scrambles near end zone. If he pulls a Jay Cutler here, he will get broken in half by Ray Lewis. Next play though, he gets in on a quarterback keeper.

1:55. Bad week to be facing Steve Smith, who catches his second touchdown in a sea of different (and also, seemingly indifferent) Kansas City players.

1:55. Jay Cutler touchdown pass. Everyone who said he liked throwing to the tight ends was correct; unfortunately for Greg Olsen's owners, it appears to be Kellen Davis who's getting the most attention these days. (Ten minutes later, of course, Cutler rolls out and throws a touchdown to Olsen.)

1:55. Mike Sims-Walker TD. Tennessee's pass defense is hopeless.

2:00. TD for Steve Slaton. Hallelujah, I'm trading him this week.

2:05. Semi-drop by Manningham. OK, so he's inconsistent.

2:10. Another TD for Slaton. OK, if I trade him, I'm trading him for a LOT. Picked a good week not to bench him.

2:15. Flacco sandwiched between two pass rushers. Ugly. Have I been the voice of doom for yet another player? No, but his left tackle Jared Gaither is hurt on the play. Apparently a neck injury, the kind of thing you wonder why it doesn't happen more often. (He ends up being OK.)

2:20. Browns TD pass! Anderson to rookie Mohamed Massaquoi. Eric Mangini on the sidelines looks as happy as a lark. Not exactly Mr. Stoic there, but in fairness, he doesn't get to celebrate much. Of course, it's reversed by instant replay, but they score on the next play anyway.

2:25. Jaguars doing a number on the Titans. Up 20-3, and they score TDs on back to back plays -- or rather, it seems that way. The first one, a pass to Jones-Drew, is erased by an illegal pick play. The next one is dropped by Mike Sims-Walker....or is it? Booth review surprisingly said he held it long enough. Bizarre that the Titans have struggled so much in this game. They're headed for 0-4.

2:30. Kevin Smith scores again. My apologies if you benched him because of our worries about his shoulder injury. Won't make anyone feel any better, but I benched him too. Sure seemed like he wouldn't play. (He did play with a harness on, by the way, so there was certainly risk of him being removed at any time.) But, that risk doesn't seem so bad if you're the one who left that scoring on the bench. Poor yardage totals, but you hate to bench 2-TD guys.

2:40. Flacco is picked off in the red zone, New England's first interception of the year. Sorry, reader. Watching the play, it's clear that Joe Flacco thought Mark Clayton was going to do one thing and he did another. I'm guessing it was Clayton who ran the wrong route; we'll see what they say after the game.

2:45. Johnny Knox opens the second half with a kick return touchdown for the Bears. Fast, dangerous -- the Bears have about three different players capable of coming up with a return TD; that's why they're high in our rankings every week despite having some clear defensive issues right now.

2:55. Derek Anderson intercepted at goal line. Not clear who he was throwing to; there were two Browns in the area but neither had any chance of catching it. Wrong route? Bad throw? Both? Ugly play regardless. Anderson is not a fantasy savior.

3:10. Lot of guys losing their cool this week. First John Harbaugh, barking about a questionable illegal contact call. Then Braylon Edwards, who apparently thought the Bengals were too slow picking themselves off Cleveland's only healthy running back.

3:15. End zone throw to Edwards. Not close to him. Next play, Anderson just runs it in. He's better at that than the whole accurate throwing thing.

3:20. Jay Cutler stumbles near goal line. Bears settle for field goal. Ravens get sack, fumble, TD recovery against Patriots. Lotta fantasy points on that one play for those of us who had the Ravens D.

3:20. Andre Caldwell fumble gives Browns the ball back. Jerome Harrison is actually starting to run fairly well out there. Looked bad early, but better late. Funny: red-zone announcer says "Decision time for Eric Mangini." Is there a less inspiring phrase these days than, "decision time for Eric Mangini." (By end of game, it's clear I owe Jerome Harrison an apology. Jamal Lewis won't be keeping him on the bench if and when he's healthy.)

3:25. Patriots march down field. Ravens sell out on a blitz and almost get there. Almost. Easy Brady to Randy Moss TD, showing the risk of blitzing a safety with Moss on the other side of the field.

3:35. Breakaway run by Ray Rice. Nice catch by Rice. Not much heard out of McGahee this week. And....as I say that, McGahee comes in for a play from the 13 out of a passing formation, and catches a touchdown. There's just not a lot of consistency to what the Ravens are doing with their backs.

3:45. Another big return from Josh Cribbs for the Browns. They're going to beat the Bengals, which just goes to show that the idea of a letdown is real, especially when it comes to teams used to losing like the Bengals.

3:50. Meaningless final few minutes of Giants-KC. Dwayne Bowe appears to drop a touchdown, may have been interfered with. Nope. The flag appears to be waved off. Won't win any points with the head coach this week.

3:50. Titans score a touchdown to pull within 30-15, then go for 2 (and get it) to make it 30-17. Now, I'm not a math whiz, but why go for 2 there?

3:55. Running play for KC near goal line. Larry Johnson is tackled by the entire Giants defense and a KC cheerleader. Next play KC goes play action, which doesn't work because no one believes KC would actually try another running play. Next play, diving TD by Bobby Wade.

3:56. Matthew Stafford hurt. Knee brace. Like I said, he's coming of age as an NFL quarterback: getting injured.

3:57. Bengals trying to win the game. First and goal, 3 minutes left, you give the ball to Benson, right? No, two broken up pass plays, then a shovel pass to Brian Leonard.

3:58. Marcedes Lewis touchdown. I called it, yay me. I mean, I didn't pick him up and start him or anything, I just thought he was a decent play given the matchup. So never mind.

3:59. Palmer TD to Ochocinco. Amazing! And amazing sideline reaction by Browns DC Rob Ryan. He literally gives a head thrown back, exasperated, "ARRRGGG!" look. Even more amazing, or less so because it's the Bengals, they botch the extra point.

4:05. 3rd-down pass from Derek Anderson would pick up a first and put Browns in field goal range...but it bounces off Robert Royal's face. Ouch. Browns punt. Game goes to overtime.

4:15. Beautiful fade for potential game-winning TD from Flacco to Clayton. Clayton can't pull it in; nice coverage there. Pass to Mason. Broken up. One chance left, Flacco makes another perfect pass to Clayton....who flat-out drops it. Hit him in the chest. Wow. Still, I"m going to try and acquire Flacco in one of my leagues this week.

4:30. Browns-Bengals overtime. Bomb to Massaquoi, but broken up at the end. Could the Bengals play to a tie for the second straight season? Anderson has Mike Furrey for a first down in Bengals' territory, and misses him. It occurs to me that the worst thing about a game ending in a tie is not only that nobody wins, but that you watch a really, really long game.

4:40. Bengals get the ball back. Browns using Mike Furrey as a defensive back (which is what he used to play for the Rams). Breaks up a pass to Andre Caldwell, who gets hurt on the play. Chris Henry comes in and immediately makes a first-down catch. Then another to Coles. Two minute warning...I actually wasn' t aware that overtime had a two-minute warning. Interesting.

4:50. Bengals look like they're going to punt on 4th and 10 from the Browns 41, and Carson Palmer looks ticked. Maybe, just maybe, he talks his coach into going for it; they do, and he keeps it to pick it up. Clutch.

4:55. Bengals kick a game-winning field goal that looked like it missed from the angle CBS used. Game over, big win for the Cardiac Bengals. Good night, everybody.

Random notes from the late games: Jets-Saints: Mark Sanchez is a rookie, and will make mistakes. Probably needs another wideout, too. Jets D is for real. So too is the Saints' D. They're good. ... Cowboys-Broncos: Grudgingly, I'll admit that Denver's defense is legit. Not that the Cowboys are an offensive juggernaut or anything. I'm not a Tony Romo apologist; he played poorly, for most of the game. But at the end, he made the big fourth-down completion to get Dallas into scoring position.... and then the final two plays are to Sam Hurd, who's covered by Champ Bailey (who knocks both away). I mean, really? THAT'S where you're going with the ball? I realize the Cowboys have no good wide receivers (they really don't), but couldn't you look for one who's NOT covered by Bailey? ... St. Louis-San Francisco: I got 47 points from the 49ers defense in one league. I don't know if that's a record, but it's got to be close.

Monday, Monday: I make no secret about the fact that I like Brett Favre, still. Oh sure, the guy has had a few bad games and made a few missteps (like retiring) here and there, but I still root for him. I used to frequent a Packers fan board, but haven't rooted for them since last summer and so quit all that. Especially because the main Packers fan sentiment seems to be anti-Favre, and there's some joking about how Vikings fans are now rooting for a guy they used to hate -- with seemingly little awareness of the irony of Packers fans now rooting against a guy they used to love.

Anyway, I'm thinking it will be a good, high-scoring game tonight, assuming that the Packers can keep Aaron Rodgers from getting crushed by Jared Allen (which might be a poor assumption). I know the idea is that the Vikings will lead with Adrian Peterson (and well they should), but I won't be surprised if Favre goes out and throws 2-3 TDs, either. Nobody likes to be told they can't do something anymore, that they're not loved anymore. Sometimes that stuff doesn't matter on the football field -- sometimes they actually can't do what they used to. And sometimes they can, at least for one night, anyway.

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