Sorry everyone, I know you normally get to see my purty rankings on Thursday morning but I decided – since I’m my own boss – to give myself an all-expense paid trip to my own house for Christmas dinner and time with my family and then a round trip ticket to the liquor store for some Islay so I could put my new whiskey stones to good use. I charged it all to the business card, of course, so as to get the tax write off. Mainly the reason you didn’t see me on Thursday morning is my round trip took longer than I expected seeing as I got home and had one glass, and then two glasses, and then three glasses and then I do believe I was mambo’ing with Uncle Ernie as he was wearing his adorable fedora – or lampshade, can’t remember – in the garage to a Bruce Springsteen mixed tape he had lying around. Seriously, folks, you can mambo to anything if you put your sloshed mind to it. But all this to say, I didn’t forget you but for a little while and in the interim we were visited by little Razzball Elves like Josh Carey, Zorboss and The Guru. Forget the three wisemen, check out those three wiseasses if you ask me. I don’t wanna talk about the Jolly Saint Prick. His name speaks for itself. Pretty sure he came down my chimney and stole my dvd player and some paper plates on Xmas…nevermind all that, you’re here for rankings. So what we have here is a failure to enunciate. I’m not actually feeling up Joseph Fauria in my title; sorry to ruin that mental image for you, lady readers. No, no, no. Say ‘you’ and ‘Fauria’ together really fast. If you wanna learn, follow these guidelines. I’m saying ‘euphoria’. Don’t you get it? Are you we Todd it? Whatever, with no Pettigrew, Fauria should be able to step in and produce against the same team I told you last week would get tiki torched by Andy Dalton. Add in the element of a less than 100% Calvin Johnson and Fauria could have a huge day as he’s already a red zone favorite for Matthew Stafford. Sure it’s a bit of a risk play but it’s week 17 and if you thought week 16 was weird, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Week 17 has a way of making Donnie Darko look like a silly romantic comedy by comparison when it comes to weirdness. You got people sitting earlier than expected, people starting you didn’t think even played for the team…the list goes on. Either way, if you’re playing for your championship during it, there’s nothing else you can do but enjoy the funkiness it provides and roll with the punches. In other places of ranking rankle merit, Andre Brown is making a surprise return visit to my top 10 for RBs this week. Totally a gut call here. After the Eli interception explosion of late and the Giants’ defense clicking on all cylinders since forever and at home, I think they try to grind the clock, rely on their defense to hold and let Andre the Giant deflate the ball on the ‘skins to wind down a miserable 2013. As you can see, I have DeAngelo and Ivory up in areas where no one is expecting them either. You take your matchups and you run with them is all I can say. That’s why Coby Fleener is where he is this week as well while we’re in the ‘he points at the matchups’ section of the rankings. On the wide receiver side, I have flipped the fly white guys in New England around as I think Amendola is a better field stretcher than Julian which plays better against Buffalo’s weakness in terms of the passing game. Defensively, the Cardinals are at home with something to prove as a team that could get bounced from the playoffs for no good reason other than they play in the toughest division in the NFC…heck, NFL if you want me to be honest. Kickers were dressed up as girl scouts and dropped in the middle of the ghetto. The ones who came back with the least amount of caps in their ass made the list…and the cookie sales leader got to be number one! But enough about Tagalongs and Savannah Smiles, let’s wrap the regular season up. Here’s the week 17 rankings for 2013 Fantasy Football…
