A man for all sea­sons was at work in San Diego on Sun­day. Yet, he was not the only star drop­ping the ham­mer on oppos­ing NFL fran­chises in Week 8. Larry John­son sliced and diced the Sea­hawks in Kansas City; a quar­ter­back not named Car­son had a huge day in Cincin­nati; the melt­down of Ben Roeth­lis­berger con­tin­ued in Oak­land; and the Bron­cos defense faced Team Cho­sen One in Den­ver. It’s all a part of the Sun­day Wrap.  

San Diego 38, St. Louis 24

Fan­tasy Player of the Game: LaDain­ian Tomlinson

Let’s start with the king of kings at the run­ning back depart­ment. He has given us glimpses of the old L.T., with a good run here and an impres­sive recep­tion there in 2006. Yes­ter­day though, the Rams defense and fans every­where were treated to old school Tom­lin­son. In my opin­ion, what sep­a­rates Tom­lin­son from most of his coun­ter­parts is his effec­tive­ness in open space and suc­cess in the receiv­ing game. For exam­ple on his sec­ond touch­down run of the day, a 38– yard effort, Tomlinson broke through the line and with one defender close to him unleashed a wicked stiff arm that removed the hel­met of a Rams defender. From there, he took it to the house. In the receiv­ing area, he caught three passes for 57 yards includ­ing a touch­down. When he is in space on pass­ing plays, he can be impos­si­ble to deal with because line­back­ers can’t cover him. Tom­lin­son totaled 240 yards (183 rush­ing, 57 receiv­ing) and scored three times against the Rams. By the way, he tied for the sec­ond fastest to 90 touch­downs (he tied Emmitt Smith in 86 games). Even­tu­ally, we need to seri­ously con­sider this guy’s place in his­tory because he will be in the Hall of Fame. He is the best run­ning back in the NFL. Period. 

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We’ll have blog­ging through­out the day for Sunday’s action. Don’t be sur­prised if the fan­tasy num­bers take a hit in the east coast games by the way. It’s extremely windy at Giants Sta­dium in East Ruther­ford and in Philadelphia. 

7PM

• We will have a final recap of the 4pm and 8pm action later tonight. Then of course we will have the Sun­day Wrap tomor­row. Enjoy Panthers/Cowboys. 

6:06PM

• The Denver/Indy game is heat­ing up thanks to a pair of touch­down catches by Reg­gie Wayne. The for­mer Hurricane’s sec­ond touch­down was setup by a Jake Plum­mer fumble. What a sur­prise. You knew that was com­ing. Seriously, doesn’t Mike Shana­han under­stand that if he gets slightly above aver­age quar­ter­back play that he might win another Super Bowl. After all, this is the same guy that coached John Elway.
• The Charg­ers hold a 21–10 lead over St. Louis in the third quar­ter. Tom­lin­son is approach­ing 100 yards rush­ing with the pair of touchdowns. 
• The sur­prise of the 4pm games is tak­ing place is Oak­land. One would think that even a con­cussed Ben Roeth­lis­berger should be able to han­dle the Raiders. Nope. Instead, Roeth­lis­berger has reverted back to Jack­sonville Ben. The Raiders lead Pitts­burgh 13–6.
• The Browns lead the Jets in a snooze fest, 17–3. 

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1. Steve Smith vs. Dal­las– He caught one pass for 18 yards a sea­son ago against Dal­las before being ejected. That is not very likely to occur again.

2. Torry Holt vs. San Diego– It’s not the best of matchups for Holt because of San Diego’s front seven. How­ever, the sec­ondary for the Charg­ers is the main weak­ness and Marc Bul­ger will try to exploit it.

3. Andre John­son vs. Ten­nessee– This will prob­a­bly be the best matchup of the sea­son for John­son. He should con­tinue his break­out season.

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1) LaDain­ian Tom­lin­son vs. Rams — Yep

2) Larry John­son vs. Sea­hawks — I’m not going to jump off the deep end after Chester Tay­lor destroyed Seattle’s run defense last week. John­son has played well, though, and is still a weekly starter no mat­ter what.

3) Willie Parker vs. Raiders — The last time Parker had a worth­less fan­tasy game, he responded with over 140 total yards and two touch­downs.
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1) Dono­van McN­abb vs. Jaguars — As matchup proof a player as the league has right now. Jack­sonville will chal­lenge him, but this offense hasn’t been stopped yet.

2) Pey­ton Man­ning vs. Bron­cos — The Colts have destroyed Den­ver the last cou­ple times their games have meant some­thing. They also put up over 40 points each time. Why mess with that?

3) Car­son Palmer vs. Fal­cons — Don’t look now, but Palmer and the Ben­gals offense is get­ting ready to take off.

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Andy and I dis­sect Week 8’s slate of games. We also exam­ine sev­eral impor­tant top­ics includ­ing why bowl­ing and Kyle Boller are related; why the shelf life of being friends with Derek Jones lasts all of eight weeks; the Edge’s lack of impact in Ari­zona; and the like­li­hood of Tiki Bar­ber scor­ing a touch­down before the World Series ends. By the way Gold­stein, despite your love of petite blondes who can­not count to five, I will not deprive you of view­ing a real woman.

Gold­stein. Jones. MVP. Week 8. It’s yours on FOX. Next.

If you are wrestling with any week eight lineup deci­sions and would like to know what Derek and/or I think about it, either leave a com­ment on this post or email us at or . We’ll either answer your question(s) here, through email, or on the show.

Also, if you lis­ten to our show, you know we always start with a ran­dom ques­tion that we answer. Derek and I want you to ask us ran­dom ques­tions, and we’ll answer one or more of them on the show. It’s good fun for all!

Week 7 in the NFL can per­haps best be trans­lated through an imag­i­nary game of Jeop­ardy. Humor me for a moment ladies and gentlemen.

THIS…IS…JEOPARDY!!!!

Alex Tre­bek: It’s time for Final Jeop­ardy! The cat­e­gory is the 2006 Fan­tasy Foot­ball Sea­son. The clues are Joey Har­ring­ton, Hines Ward and Chester Taylor.

(Music tick­ing in the background)

Ken, you wrote down your response rather quickly. I hope it’s cor­rect. Let’s take a look at your answer. (Crowd sighs) His answer is…Who are three guys that should have been on your bench head­ing into Week 7? I’m sorry Ken. That is incor­rect. You wagered…$7,000.

Nancy, you have a chance to win with the cor­rect answer. Let’s check it out. Who are the Week 7 lead­ers in pass­ing, receiv­ing and rush­ing respec­tively? That’s cor­rect and you wagered $10,000!

NANCY, YOU HAVE SLAYED THE GIANT KEN JENNINGS…YOU ARE THE JEOPARDY CHAMPION!!!!!

A mys­ti­fy­ing Week 7 in the NFL proved once again that noth­ing is a stone cold mor­tal lock. The Chiefs kept their heads out of the gut­ter long enough to beat the Charg­ers, thanks to Larry John­son; it was nearly a tri­umphant home­com­ing for the Super Bowl XL MVP in Atlanta; the Vikings showed Matt Has­sel­beck the door; and the Car­di­nals’ sea­son spi­raled out of con­trol. It’s all in the Sun­day Wrap.

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Andy and I will track the action dur­ing the Sun­day games through live audio blog­ging once again and will pro­vide you with updates through­out Week 8 con­tests. Plus, we will have cov­er­age of the titanic Cardinals/Raiders tilt. It should be bananas.

7:30PM

• As it turned out, hav­ing your wis­dom teeth extracted was nearly as enjoy­able as the Raiders/Cardinals fiasco. The only thing miss­ing from the game was the pain medication. Here’s the fin­ish on the 4pm games. We will have a run­down of today’s action in the Sun­day Wrap.  

5:45PM

• Andy and I dis­cuss the sad events of the 4pm games. Well, as they relate to the Cards/Raiders game anyway.

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1) LaDain­ian Tom­lin­son vs. Chiefs — Never doubted you for a sec­ond, Mr. Tomlinson.

2) Clin­ton Por­tis vs. Colts — Why do some peo­ple think a guy named Booger will change Por­tis’ abil­ity to suc­ceed Sunday?

3) Kevin Jones vs. Jets — Am I sip­ping the kool-aid? Maybe, but the Jets have allowed a league high 12 rush­ing touch­downs. Jones should score at least once.

4) Fred Tay­lor vs. Tex­ans — Tay­lor should be push­ing 100 total yards by halftime.

5) Ron­nie Brown vs. Pack­ers — Take away week five and Brown isn’t hav­ing the worst year.

6) Brian West­brook vs. Bucs — The knee is still a worry, but the Eagles need to win this game.

7) Julius Jones vs. Giants — The NFC East has been home to plenty of points, and this game should fol­low suit.

Willie Parker vs. Fal­cons — Last week, Parker got two touch­downs from inside the 10 yard line. That’s music to the ears of Parker owners.

9) Tiki Bar­ber vs. Cow­boys — If you are in touch­down heavy leagues, Bar­ber has been quite the bust this year. I know you all know that. But Barber’s been in the league for a long time and I’ve said just about all I can say about him. Oh…and he looks like Shaun Alexander.

10) Rudi John­son vs. Pan­thers — John­son has strug­gled over the last cou­ple weeks, but the Pan­thers do give up yardage on the ground.

11) Willis McGa­hee vs. Patri­ots — This is some­thing of a gut pick. I feel that McGa­hee is due to have a good game, and I think a touch­down is in the offing.

12) Lau­rence Maroney vs. Bills — Maroney ran well against Buf­falo in their first meet­ing, and he should do even bet­ter Sunday.

13) DeShaun Fos­ter vs. Ben­gals — After get­ting noth­ing against the Ravens, I feel as though Fos­ter is a sleeper pick this week­end. He had two straight 100 yard games com­ing into last week, and the Pan­thers stick with him even when he struggles.

14) Larry John­son vs. Charg­ers — Yes, this is a low rank­ing, but as you see, it’s still a top 20 rank­ing. He’s going to be a starter in most leagues, but tem­per expectations.

15) Car­nell Williams vs. Eagles — The Eagles run defense has been the oppo­site of stout over the last few weeks. With Williams run­ning well, he’s a safe start.

16) War­rick Dunn vs. Steel­ers — Just as last week, I don’t like his chances, except I have to acknowl­edge that if he gets a sliver, he can take one a long way.

17) Tatum Bell vs. Browns — A bit of a sneaky start in my opin­ion. The Browns run defense hasn’t been great, and Bell has been con­sis­tently okay all year.

18) Chester Tay­lor vs. Sea­hawks — Not quite a sur­pris­ing sit, but get­ting close. Tay­lor has the unfor­tu­nate task of run­ning against a staunch Seat­tle run defense.

19) Edger­rin James vs. Raiders — Okay. Hear me out. It’s the Raiders. Alright then.

20) LaM­ont Jor­dan vs. Car­di­nals — Okay. Hear me out…

21) Mau­rice Jones-Drew vs. Tex­ans — Tay­lor should be push­ing 100 total yards by halftime.

22) Corey Dil­lon vs. Bills — Dil­lon is quickly becom­ing an after­thought in the Patri­ots future plans.

23) Reuben Droughns vs. Bron­cos — Not the right time to start Droughns.

24) Mau­rice Mor­ris vs. Vikings - Did I men­tion how not good Mor­ris is?

25) The Burger King vs. McDon­alds — I had Burger King the other night and it was good. Take that Joseph Addai. You’re not mak­ing this list.