 
An artist’s depiction of yesterday’s Cowboys game.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the first every Sunday of football should always have the Dallas Cowboys doing whatever that was they did yesterday afternoon. In fact, let’s start a petition to have them on Monday AND Thursday night as well. I mean, can we even say that the Cowboys actually did anything in training camp? This looks like the exact same team from last year, and I’ve already started decorating my house for the holidays seeing as how the Cowboys are already in mid-December form. True, as the sharp and always entertaining (in gouging your own eyes out sort of way) commentating duo of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman informed us, if not for all the turnovers, this would have been a close game. I’ve never seen something so beautifully and succinctly useless at the same time. If it weren’t for the Normandy landing and the eastern invasion of Russia, Germany had a pretty good World War II. And while the game was technically close without including large portions of events that happened during the game, I was left with this one burning question– What is it called when you throw to a receiver that had 12 people covering him?
Saints – 34, Falcons – 37
Matt Ryan – 31/43, 448 YDS, 3 TD and 3 CAR, 15 YDS. Matt Ryan owners who started him (especially the ones at my behest), I salute you.
Drew Brees – 29/42, 333 YDS, 1 TD, 1 INT and 1 CAR, 2 YDS. Just 333 yards? Are the Saints apparently a running team now? Or do I just suck at fantasy?
Steven Jackson – 12 CAR, 52 YDS and 1 REC, 0 YDS. Basically what you can expect from him, minus the year-ending injury. That happens later.
Jacquizz Rodgers – 6 CAR, 34 YDS, 1 TD. I’m so glad that someone named their child Jacquizz, and that this child became an NFL player, because the world needs to know about that name.
Mark Ingram – 13 CAR, 60 YDS, 2 TD and 1 REC, 1 YDS. Mark Ingram– giving fantasy players false hope for three years running!
Julio Jones – 7 REC, 116 YDS. A very Julio effort, but needs more touchdowns. And probably bacon.
Devin Hester – 5 REC, 99 YDS. Who taught Devin Hester that he could catch anything that wasn’t kicked to him?
Brandin Cooks – 7 REC, 77 YDS, 1 TD and 1 CAR, 18 YDS. Certainly looks like a capable NFL receiver!
Jimmy Graham – 8 REC, 110 YDS. See Jones, Julio, above. But even more bacon. Remember, money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you tons of bacon. And that’s pretty effing close.
Vikings – 34, Rams – 6
Matt Cassel – 17/25, 170 YDS, 2 TDs and 3 CAR, -2 YDS. This was probably the most Matt Cassel game ever.
Austin Davis – 16/23, 192 YDS, 1 INT and 1 CAR, 0 YDS. Siri, who is Austin Davis?
Shaun Hill – 8/13, 81 YDS, 1 INT and 1 CAR, -1 YDS. Looks like the Shaun Hill era has been put on hold. Only able to play one half, Hill missed the rest of the game with a quadriceps injury.
Adrian Peterson – 21 CAR, 75 YDS and 2 REC, 18 YDS. Peterson ran for 212 yards the last time this two teams faced. So I think we can state that the Rams strategy of letting Patterson destroy them instead worked amazingly well.
Cordarrelle Patterson – 3 REC, 26 YDS and 3 CAR, 102 YDS, 1 TD. So, is he a WR disguised as a RB or a RB disguised as a WR? Or wait, isn’t that just the same thing?
Zac Stacy – 11 CAR, 43 YDS and 1 REC, 8 YDS. Yes, I’m still onboard the Stacy train, and now that the Rams have zero-to-negative starting quarterbacks, I think you’ll see him getting fed pretty regularly.
Benny Cunningham – 5 CAR, 21 YDS and 4 REC, 30 YDS. There were a lot of things to like here, though in small increments. And while I believe Stacy remains the main guy, it never hurts to keep an eye on Cunningham. Or ham in general. Because ham is delicious.
Browns – 27, Steelers – 30
Ben Roethlisberger – 23/34, 365 YDS, 1 TD, 1 INT and 2 CAR, 8 YDS. HARF HARF BEN DO GOOD? HARF HARF. (That’s my best Big Ben impersonation.) Related: Coming back from 24 down to tie it, and then lose on the final possession is the most Cleveland thing ever to happen. Browns gonna brown.
Le’Veon Bell – 21 CAR, 109 YDS, 1 TD and 6 REC, 88 YDS. See, I told you guys not to worry. I can’t quite get full extension, so you’re welcome to pat me on the back.
Terrence West – 16 CAR, 100 YDS. So, remember those few minutes when Ben Tate was fantasy relevant?
Ben Tate – Was forced to leave the game in the second quarter with a knee injury. He had looked effective before leaving, but Terrance West looked even more effective, and I wouldn’t be surprised, depending on the severity of the injury, if we don’t see more of a timeshare here.
Markus Wheaton – 6 REC, 97 YDS. You know who told you to buy Wheaton? Smokey did.
Jordan Cameron – 2 REC, 47 YDS. Cameron was expected to return, but was forced out of the game with an apparent shoulder injury. He also missed time with a shoulder injury during training camp, and as of now, you should try your best to ignore who Jim Dray and Gary Barnidge are.
Jaguars – 17, Eagles – 34
Nick Foles – 27/45, 322 YDS, 2 TDs, 1 INT. First half: I haven’t seen Eagles fans this excited about a QB since Kevin Kolb! Second half: So how about that Foles guy, everybody? He’s gonna be something special! Also: Jacksonville gonna go get jax’d.
LeSean McCoy – 21 CAR, 74 YDS and 6 REC, 41 YDS. What, no touchdowns? Chip Kelly, this is not allowed. Innovate something!
Darren Sproles – 11 CAR, 71 YDS, 1 TD and 4 REC, 14 YDS. Tiny Darren is tiny.
Toby Gerhart – 18 CAR, 42 YDS and 2 REC, 15 YDS. So… yeah. Probably not one of those fantasy performances you’d expect to see from a starting running back, unless you’re a Ray Rice owner. Then again, I didn’t draft him anywhere, nor did I want to, so cool story… bro?
Jeremy Maclin – 4 REC, 97 YDS, 1 TD. It appears as though if Maclin survives the season, he should be pretty good.
Allen Hurns – 4 REC, 110 YDS, 2 TDs. Siri, while you’re looking up Austin Davis, please tell me who Allen Hurns is. To be honest, I’m teetering on what I saw here. Is he the next Kevin Ogletree? Maybe. I believe Marqise Lee and Allen Robinson are better receivers, but at this point, if you have, say, an Aaron Dobson on your roster, I’d put in a waiver claim just to see what happens.
Raiders – 14, Jets – 19
Geno Smith – 23/28, 221 YDS, 1 TD, 1 INT and 10 CAR, 38 YDS. Watching a Geno Smith drive is like watching a Tony Romo game consolidated down into a drive.
Derek Carr – 20/32, 151 YDS, 2 TDs, and 1 CAR, -1 YD. He kinda had flashes of looking like a real quarterback. Do the Raiders get to have those?
Darren McFadden and Maurice Jones Drew – 13 CAR, 26 YDS and 3 REC, 18 YDS. I combined their stats to try and make it look better, but to be honest, I think this actually makes them look incredibly worse.
Chris Johnson – 13 CAR, 68 YDS and 5 REC, 23 YDS 1 TD. This is probably who he is, a mediocre flex option, except for those random games (a total of three) where he just completely goes apesh*t on someone.
Chris Ivory – 10 CAR, 102 YDS, 1 TD. Probably the best handcuff-you-left-on-your-bench performance this Sunday. Bask in it.
Bengals – 23, Ravens – 16
Andy Dalton – 25/38, 301 YDS, 1 TD and 6 CAR, 3 YDS. Andy Dalton: Of questionable talent.
Joe Flacco – 35/62, 345 YDS, 1 TD, 1 INT and 3 CAR, 7 YDS. Flacco manages to throw one pass a game that justifies his employment.
Justin Forsett – 11 CAR, 70 YDS, 1 TD and 5 REC, 14 YDS. If you need a Ravens running back for one more game before Ray Rice comes back, this is your guy. I’m sorry.
Benard Pierce – 6 CAR, 14 YDS, 1 FUM. Benard Pierce: Terrible at football.
A.J. Green – 6 REC, 131 YDS, 1 TD. Still an elite receiver. Nothing to see here, move along.
Tyler Eifert – 3 REC, 37 YDS. After getting his elbow dislocated to a new time zone, it appears his elbow “popped right back in.” Appetizing. “He’ll still have to let the ligaments in there heal some before getting back on the field.” The Bengals are hopeful he will only miss a few weeks.
Steve Smith – 7 REC, 118 YDS, 1 TD. Man, who would’ve guessed the offensive combination of Joe Flacco, Gary Kubiak, and a 60 year-old Steve Smith would be anything less than a powerhouse? (Ignore the fact that Steve Smith face-masked himself into the endzone off an 80-yard catch.)
Bills – 23, Bears – 20
Jay Cutler – 34/49, 349 YDS, 2 TD, 2 INT. Jay Cutler? More like Jay Sulker, amiright? Packers fans that haven’t touched Facebook since Thursday afternoon magically found their smartphones after this game.
Fred Jackson and C.J. Spiller – 23 CAR, 113 YDS and 6 REC, 24 YDS, 1 TD. Combined, because this is probably what you’ll be getting the entire season sans any injury. Then just replace one of them with Anthony Dixon. So what you have here, essentially, is one complete running back, but divided by two, and then divvy’d up onto your fantasy team to be multiplied by your tears of frustration.
Matt Forte – 17 CAR, 82 YDS and 8 REC, 87 YDS. Looks like another top-5 season in the making.
Alson Jeffery – 5 REC, 71 YDS. Wondering what happened to Jeffery towards the end of the game? According to Marc Trestman, Jeffery suffered a hamstring injury, but he seemed to downplay it… “Alshon was prepared to go in there at specific times. I’ll just leave it at that.” Okay? It was reported he was walking without any limp, but unfortunately I couldn’t find out if there were any bizkit’s involved.
Martellus Bennett – 8 REC, 70 YDS, 1 TD. I may have underestimated his fantasy relevance. Then again, the Buffalo Bills did win this game, so crazier things have happened.
Washington Football Team – 6, Texans – 17
Ryan Fitzpatrick – 14/22, 206 YDS, 1 TD and 4 CAR, 10 YDS. I liked him better when he sang for the Spin Doctors.
Robert Griffin III – 29/37, 267 YDS and 3 CAR, 2 YDS, 2 FUM. RG0-1.
Arian Foster – 27 CAR, 103 YDS and 2 REC, 17 YDS. I refuse to believe Foster can do anything 27 times without pulling something.
Jordan Reed – 1 REC, 4 YDS. Trying to do his best impersonation of Rob Gronkowski, Reed will be heading for a MRI on his hamstring. He suffered the injury when trying to hurdle a defender early in yesterday’s game. So he essentially injured something while jumping… nothing about this surprises me.
Niles Paul – 4 REC, 86 YDS. If there’s an extended absence for Reed, there might be something here in Paul. There are probably better options available on the waiver wire, but this is very league dependent.
Titans – 26, Chiefs – 10
Jake Locker – 22/33, 266 YDS, 2 TD and 6 CAR, 14 YDS. A good sign, and I feel myself quoting myself very soon. Hey, look at that! “I’m not saying he’s a top-15 QB, seeing as how I have him at a QB19 right there in parenthesis, but it’s no secret that the offensive scheme he’s now a part of feeds off of high-accuracy short and mid passes, and with the majority of his running backs and receivers having yards-after-carry potential, well, let’s just say I’m one of those crazy people who thinks that if the team’s offense does well, so will the quarterback. TOO CRAZY.”
Bishop Sankey – 6 CAR, 25 YDS. Not terribly surprising, as ball control issues have a nasty effect on how many times you get to touch the football.
Jamaal Charles – 7 CAR, 19 YDS and 4 REC, 15 YDS. This… so much this:
Justin Hunter, Nate Washington, and Kendall Wright – 13 REC, 168 YDS, 1 TD. Just divide that line by three and you pretty much have their end-of-game line. I think both Hunter and Wright will get a higher volume, but I’m worried that this is the best they could do with what appears to be just a terrible Chiefs defense.
Patriots – 20, Dolphins – 33
Ryan Tannehill – 18/32, 178 YDS, 2 TD, 1 INT and 3 CAR, -2 YDS. I do think we see an improved Tannehill this year compared to last season. Did we see that improvement this game? My definitive answer to this question is– maybe?
Tom Brady – 29/56, 249 YDS, 1 TD and 1 CAR, 3 YDS. I don’t need to say anything. Tom Brady has taken care of it for us:
Julian Edelman – 6 REC, 95 YDS and 2 CAR, 21 YDS. Edelman was the second leading rusher for the Patriots, and only needed 15 more yards to pass Shane Vereen for that illustrious title. Really says a lot about the Patriots running game. In that, it doesn’t exist quite yet.
Rob Gronkowski – 4 REC, 40 YDS, 1 TD. I don’t see anything on the injury report, so I’m just assuming the report is wrong.
Knowshon Moreno – 24 CAR, 134 YDS, 1 TD. So I think it’s safe to say that this is no longer a tandem and that the Lamar Miller hype-train might be derailing for the 84th time. Frankly, I stopped riding on it the 37th time, but 36 trips doesn’t look much better than 84 trips. Well, I mean, it does, but that’s a lot of train rides is what I’m saying. CHOO CHOO, whatever.
Panthers – 20, Buccaneers – 14
Derek Anderson – 24/34, 230 YDS, 2 TD and 3 CAR, 10 YDS. Despite Anderson showing us he’s the real deal (italicized, since I really have no other way to highlight sarcasm at this point in time… gotta work with the technology we have, ya know?), Cam Newton, who was held out of the game, is expected to play in week two.
Doug Martin – 9 CAR, 9 YDS and 1 REC, 7 YDS. Couldn’t finish the game due to a left knee injury. With a line like that, I would have listed it as a left-ego injury.
Kelvin Benjamin – 6 REC, 92 YDS, 1 TD. I had some kind of Bob Marley “We’re Jamin'” joke, playing on Ben”jamin”‘s last name, but it never came to fruition. But you get fruit, so there’s that. You actually don’t get any fruit. Sorry.
Greg Olsen – 8 REC, 83 YDS, 1 TD. Only 75 REC, 788 YDS, and 8 TDs to go to meet my wild ‘n’ crazy projection… you can do this.
49ers – 28, Cowboys – 17
Colin Kaepernick – 16/23, 201 YDS, 2 TD and 5 CAR, 11 YDS. Can’t quite tell if Kaepernick looked really good, or the Cowboys defense is just really bad…
Tony Romo – 23/37. 281 YDS, 1 TD, 3 INT. On the bright side, he did throw for 281 yards. So there’s that, I guess. So… when does Rick Perry send in the National Guard to take over and manage the Cowboys?
Carlos Hyde – 7 CAR, 50 YDS, 1 TD. Looked so much like a beast with a football, Andrew Luck was jealous. He should not be on waivers anywhere.
DeMarco Murray – 22 CAR, 118 YDS, 1 TD and 3 REC, 25 YDS, 1 FUM. He didn’t get injured? What? Oh, but he did fumble. Okay, well, it’s always one or the other…
Dez Bryant – 4 REC, 55 YDS. Was taken out of the game for a bit because of “dehydration”. That’s a nice way to put “nausea from the Romonobyl fallout”.
Colts – 24, Broncos – 31
Peyton Manning – 22/36, 269 YDS, 3 TD.  If you ignore the forehead, Manning’s face is actually very proportional.
Andrew Luck – 35/53, 370 YDS, 2 TD abd 5 CAR, 19 YDS, 1 TD. Hodor. Hodor? Hodor. Hodor. Also, hodor.
Montee Ball – 23 CAR, 67 YDS, 1 TD and 2 REC, 16 YDS. Not particularily inspiring… I mean, it’s pretty clear how I feel, and it’s not like I want him to fail (unless it’s against the Chargers), but I still didn’t see any of the hype that’s been spread like wild fire among my peers. Let’s see how it continues to play out…
Ahmed Bradshaw – 3 CAR, 15 YDS and 5 REC, 70 YDS. My officially anointed “prized-sleeper-that-I’ll-be-completely-irrational-about” this year, I liked what a saw, despite a game in which the running game just wasn’t there. He found a way to get production, and like I said, if he’s healthy, he’s the best running back on the team, and it’s not close.
Trent Richardson – 6 CAR, 20 YDS and 3 REC, 31 YDS. LOL.
Julius Thomas – 7 REC, 104 YDS, 3 TD. Essentially devoured the surrounding environment.
Reggie Wayne – 9 REC, 98 YDS. Declared himself “120% healthy”, which seems like a not real number. Perhaps he hasn’t recovered from math yet?
