Game of the Year Preview - Renal Failure vs. What the Canuck?

There can be only one 5-0 team!

It's the biggest game of the year. The clash of the undefeateds. Renal Failure vs. What the Canuck? It's like the Super Bowl and the Stanley Cup had sex at the World Series and produced a baby swaddled in a Green Jacket. At stake is utter dominance of the HBFFL. Such an epic event of this magnitude deserves and in-depth preview and careful dissection.

Quarterback
Unluckily Renal Failure's QB machine Philip Rivers is on a bye this week. More unluckily is that backup Eli Manning has a heel injury and his status is unsure for Sunday's game vs. Oakland. In case Eli is scratched ten minutes before kickoff, the People's Champion has Shaun Hill on the bench as an emergency replacement, and his matchup against Atlanta doesn't seem too bad. The Manning on the What the Canuck? side, however, is healthy and has the weak secondary of the Tennessee Titans to throw on. Also Peyton always gets five points up front every week just for being Peyton Manning.

Advantage: Canuck wins the battle of the Mannings.


Running Back
The Ducky has Fred Jackson against Cleveland, who stops no one. The Wild Card (bitches!) of the League brings out the ultimate wild card in Maurice Jones-Drew with a sweet match-up against Seattle. It's close, but Jones-Drew is fourth in points among RB's, Jackson is sixth. But Jackson still has to deal with Marshawn Lynch returning to the Buffalo lineup and taking away touches.

Advantage: Renal rocks the power of the hyphen.


Wide Recievers:
RF starts Hines Ward and either TJ Houshmandzadeh or Jerricho Cotchery (not quite sure yet). Ward produces steady but not outstanding numbers, Housh finally woke up last week and has a good match-up against a weak Jacksonville secondary, and Cotchery's been solid this season but his numbers might decline with Braylon Edwards' addition to the Jets lineup. Canuck has T.O. and NY Steve Smith. T.O. has been bollocks so far this year and an injured Eli Manning may have an adverse effect on the big numbers NY Smith's been putting up lately. But if Eli has a big game, it's safe to say Steve Smith will too.

Advantage: Canuck has too much upside potential to discount.


Flex
Renal Failure's has Steve Slaton, but would play Pierre Thomas if he weren't on a bye. Aside from last week, Slaton has disappointed and Arizona has cracked down on the run this year. What the Canuck? starts the 5th leading scorer among RB's Willis MacGahee in the flex spot, but Cincinnati has also bulked up their run defense this year.

Advantage: Canuck runs bartertown.


Tight End
Canuck loses the 2nd leading scorer among TE's Antonio Gates to a bye week and has to start Marcedes Lewis in his place. Renal Failure starts the #1 TE in the league Dallas Clark, formerly the People's Scourge but now he's the People's Bonus because it's a super bonus when you have a tight end who has more points than all but three wide receivers. And the better Clark does, the more he eats into Peyton Manning's numbers.

Advantage: Renal ends up on top.


Kicker
Neil Rackers (21 points) vs. Rian Lindell (25 points), but Rackers was on a bye last week.

Advantage: Push.


Defense
Canuck is going with the Giants Defence (the socialist Canadian spelling) instead of his beloved Buffalo (betrayer!) against Oakland. Renal has the Eagles Defense(the manly American spelling, not to mention those 31 points in Week 1) coming off a bye week against an awful Tampa Bay team with a rookie quarterback starting.

Advantage: Renal stacks the line.


So it looks like it's a 3-3 tie between Renal Failure and What the Canuck? But the Yahoo! Matchup says The Wild Card is projected to win 93-89 over the Ducky (or at least it did as of Thursday night), but the Yahoo! computers have a favorable outlook on Eli Manning's health. Plus, you're dealing with the Wild Card here. You can't predict what the Wild Card will do. That's why they're the Wild Card.

Oh, and the People's Champion is skipping giving themselves a name this week for beating Team DuckGirl. But if the Macho Fantasy Football Donkey Wrestler wins this week against What the Canuck? he'll give himself two.

---Renal Failure has fear? A thousand times no! Well, maybe only 500 times this week.