By JIMMY D / Peterson has Heisman moment, Jimmy has blond one | Jimmy's archive

It was the kind of game you have in college.

Hundreds of yards rushing, touchdowns galore, high fives all around and, of course, adoring smiles from the cheerleaders.

But usually, they are against some sissy cupcake defense in your division that every other running back has demolished this season.

They call them ‘Heisman’ moments. Reggie Bush had games like at USC, running for 260 and 294 yards in his final few games. Darren McFadden (321 rushing yards among the 542 Arkansas dropped on South Carolina) had such a game on Saturday.

Adrian Peterson, the Oklahoma Sooner alum, saved his Heisman moment for the pros.

The Viking tailback churned up 296 yards on the ground against San Diego, winning a game singlehandedly for the second time this year for mediocre Minnesota.

Jimmy mentions this - not because he figured you didn’t know – because it underscores the importance for football keeper poolies to try to lock this guy down. It was also a chance to alert the same keeper poolies to McFadden, who won’t win the Heisman Trophy this year, but might be the best pro prospect in America.

During Saturday’s game, he passed five rushers on the all-time SEC list (Emmitt Smith and Carnell Williams among them) and became just the second SEC back to rush for 1,000 yards as a freshman, sophomore and junior (Herschel Walker was the other).

It was strange to look at the fantasy scoring totals for Sunday and see the magnificent days Drew Brees had (445 passing yards, three TDs and no picks) and to realize he still had just more than half the fantasy production generated by Peterson.

Stranger still to compare Brees with Jamal Lewis, who managed just 37 yards on 20 carries for an abysmal yards-per-carry average. But among his runs (none of which was longer than five yards), he scored four times for Cleveland in their win over Seattle (which was one of Jimmy’s upsets of the week).

Lewis had 33 fantasy points and Brees had 27. Peterson earned 46 for his lucky owners.

Jimmy has ‘blond moments’

No offense intended to blonds, but the expression ‘having a blond moment’ is a colloquialism for doing some ditzy or dumb or not fully engaging one’s brain before acting or speaking.

Jimmy has been having a lot off those moments in his hockey league, where his Jackals are a joke. He earned his reputation by shrewd drafting and sage deal making in hockey pools. So far in 2007, that reputation is in tatters.

The Jackals lost 10-0 last week in the head-to-head Yahoo! league. While that is humbling enough, he lost to the Cape Breton Cougars, managed by a poolie who is not exactly renowned for being the sharpest tack in the fantasy drawer.

But after Jimmy’s 14 skaters managed four goals all week (three by Marian Gaborik) and just six power-play points and after his trio of puck-stoppers proved themselves to be more puck-sieves managed a single win, a GAA of 3.37 and a save percentage of just .880, it was time for drastic measures.

As such, it was time to hand the reins to 11-year-old Jimmy jr. Time will tell if this is a situation like in The Bronx where crackpot George Steinbrenner passes the torch to crackpot son Hank.

But for now, other than picking Alexei Kovalev and Joe Corvo off waivers, that was the best Jimmy could manage in his pool managerial swan song.
Kovalev and Corvo are both blonds, so maybe that is where we need to start.

Early hoops hoopla

It’s early and you are always crossing your fingers and toes hoping for a healthy season from former Raptors Tracy McGrady and Marcus Camby, but what a start for each of them!

Camby is throwing in a pedestrian 9 PPG, but is averaging a staggering 19 rebounds and 4.3 blocks per game for Denver! With Iverson and ‘Melo running like crazy, there will be lots of rebound opportunities for Camby, who had a healthy 2006-2007 season.

In Houston, McGrady is leading the league in scoring with 32.2 PPG. He is chipping in with four assists and four boards per contests, but he is another health risk.

More injury risks are leading the three-pointer category, with Boston’s Ray Allen and Memphis’ Jason Richardson leading at 4.5 per game.

Again, it’s early, but great returns from these players (none of whom are on Jimmy’s hoop Jackal roster, of course).
Stay busy, stay lucky.

Jimmy D