Hakkapeliitat / ‘99ers - week 10
This week’s twin games were a brace - a pair of victories. A pair of victories entangled via a single player - Arizona Cardinals’ Tim Hightower. The running back had been on a scoring roll lately, and facing the porous San Francisco Fortyniners’ defense on MNF, I was pretty sure that Hakkapeliitat is in for a beating (the opponent fielded the rookie) and my niners unnecessarily extend their margin (where I was expecting big points). That never happened, the SF defense swamped the Cardinals’ running game and I actually won both of the games
The Hakkapeliitat victory was a much tighter game. The usually reliable Green Bay offense shut down, and the trio of Rodgers/Jennings/Driver scored twelve points altogether. The newest pick in the team, Tennessee Titans tight end Bo Scaife (replacing Zach Miller) scored, well-recovered Marques Colston did not (but brought in a bagload of points from yardage), but in the end it was the New York Jets’ defense that won the game. Forcing five turnovers, and returning one of them for a touchdown cemented my choice - and the fact that St. Louis does not field a very good team this year. The bye season, and Willie Parker’s continued injury woes meant that the team was stretched to a limit - the upcoming weeks will be earlier when the teams will all be on the field.
The ‘niners game over Herwood Punishers got an excellent kickoff in the thursday night game. Bronocs’ Eddie Royal put in 160+ yards and a score, netting a neat 22 points. With Drew Brees and Jerious Norwood (excellent pickup from last week’s droughty set of byes) playing well, the game was settled on early. With Jason Witten nursing a broken rib on a bye, I had to pick up a new tight end - and like Hakkapeliitat, the niners lucked out: Giants’ Kevin Boss scored again from an Eli Manning pass (saw them play last sunday, was impressed, and surprised that he was still a free agent). Chicago’s defense had a mellow night in their loss to Tennessee, a single sack is a very minor harvest from the usually very aggressive team.
Bring on week eleven.
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