This is how he threw all game.

The toughest part of the Thanksgiving week of NFL action for us fantasy football addicts has to be the three days off between games. Sure, we have Thursday games every week, but that typically means that we have one or maybe two guys playing at most. When you have six of the NFL’s best teams playing on Thanksgiving, though, you’re talking half of an entire fantasy roster in some cases. That means if your players have bad games, you’re stuck staring at those piss poor stats for the next several days and wondering what the hell went wrong.

Even worse, you’re left breaking down the stats and scenarios for what you still need to win, and that blows, because your opponent probably still has seven or eight players left against you, and by Sunday morning you’re curled up in a ball next to your toilet, mumbling, “Please don’t kill me, Doug Martin… oh God, please don’t kill me.” And then, of course, he f*cking kills you.

Once again, pull up your chair, because we have plenty of fantasy football issues to work out in this week’s group therapy.

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Sadly, not photoshopped.

Suck for Luck. It’s a pretty simple phrase, right? I mean, it shouldn’t take a team of rocket scientists to comprehend that Stanford QB Andrew Luck is the top QB prospect in college football right now and his name rhymes with suck. Therefore, “Suck for Luck” isn’t exactly unique and I certainly don’t take credit for coming up with the phrase, and this certainly isn’t the only site that posts a “Suck for Luck” power ranking each week. (We’ve just been posting this one longer than the others, so thanks for that.)

I bring this up because I read a humorous argument on the Twitters last week between people taking credit for the “Suck for Luck” campaign, with one person going as far as to claim he came up with it when Luck was a freshman. I won’t point any fingers because this is frivolous and these people don’t deserve the attention, but I just wanted to take a moment to remind people that fans of the Indianapolis Colts and the Miami Dolphins actually have a reason to remain involved with their seasons, no matter what Dwight Freeney and Karlos Dansby think about it.

Let’s not ruin that by being douchebags about taking credit for something that a 5-year old could have created. If we can all agree on that, let’s get on with this week’s suck.

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While a 2-win record is hardly something to be proud of through Week 7, it has become the first actual dividing line between the pretenders and contenders for this “Suck for Luck” sweepstakes. At this point in the season, there are two clear cut contenders, one terrible team that isn’t in the hunt but may benefit well beyond just a first pick, one surprisingly bad team that we didn’t think would be looking for a QB, and one team that just sucks but will probably win a few more.

We’ll get to naming those teams is a moment, but I wanted to first discuss the latest hot topic surrounding our beloved hero, Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck. The question has been raised plenty – would Luck stay another year if he didn’t like the teams that would be drafting him at No. 1?

As we discussed last week, the answer is, of course, no. He graduates at the end of the spring and would be insane to stay another season for the sake of another degree and pass up $50 million. The new question beyond that is – would he pull an Eli Manning and force a trade if he doesn’t like the team that drafts him at No. 1? At first I’d say the answer is also no, because he doesn’t have a father like Archie Manning to be a d*ck on his behalf, but then Luck’s father, Oliver, is the athletic director at West Virginia, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he would be involved in his son’s professional future.

After all, Luck was influenced to stay at Stanford this season by none other than Peyton Manning. That fact should make Dolphins fans a little more depressed today, but I still don’t think Miami is a city or team that any rookie turns down.

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"And I was like, 'Die, 9ers fan!' It was great, you would have loved it."

When the Cincinnati Bengals selected TCU’s Andy Dalton in the second round of this year’s NFL Draft, it was a clear indication that the Carson Palmer era was over for them. Palmer demanded a trade but Bengals President Mike Brown refused to reward his franchise QB by sending him elsewhere to win. Thus, Palmer retired and Brown made it clear for the past six months that he was not going to trade the guy who took them to the playoffs a whopping 2 times.

And yesterday, of course, Brown traded Palmer to the Oakland Raiders. If his goal was to punish Palmer, Brown failed. Miami probably would have made a similar deal. Instead, Palmer winds up with the 4-2 Raiders, who are seemingly stocked with young talent on offense. Take that, crybaby!

“For the past six weeks I thought I was retired,” Palmer said after being introduced to media as a Raider on Tuesday. “Week 1 hit and I thought, I’ve got to look elsewhere and find what the next phase of my life might be. Then I got the text from Hue.

“I’m ready to go. I’m excited… I’m excited to be a part of this organization.”

(Via USA Today)

Palmer is clearly excited, as the 31-year old gets a fresh start to show that he’s more than just a guy who once won a Pro Bowl MVP. But Raiders coach Hue Jackson is beyond excited, as he grabbed the hyperbole gun and started firing bullets of awesome into our faces.

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"Haha, I'm toally gonna stay in school."

Now that “Suck For Luck” is a full blown ordeal – there’s even a Twitter account devoted to it – it’s very amusing to see the general NFL fan’s reaction to the idea that teams might tank some games to secure the guy every analyst this side of Mel Kiper’s phallic eagle swoop is calling the next John Elway.

It’s public knowledge now that both Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay and Miami Dolphins majority owner Stephen Ross have expressed interest in acquiring Luck in the draft. So the rational school of thought for the average fan – I’d probably estimate an I.Q. of 75 – is that two teams of professional athletes, who are boisterous, arrogant and proud, will waste an entire season of their professional careers so they can put their fates in the hands of a guy from Stanford.

There are two things about this, as a Miami Dolphins fan, that crack me up:

1) Why on Earth would Tony Sparano and his coaching staff kowtow to Ross, who openly courted Jim Harbaugh to replace him? Why would Sparano fill the cupboard with elite talent only to have it handed to Bill Cowher in the spring?

2) And do you really think that Brandon Marshall would keep his mouth shut if someone told him to flop on some plays? He’d be demanding trades and stomping his feet to the point that Terrell Owens would be like, “Dude, chill.” Besides, he looked just fine flopping on his own last night.

Now the Colts on the other hand, they seem like they would do it and not give a crap. After all, if any of their older guys complain, they can easily be traded for draft picks. I’m sure that thought is cemented firmly in Irsay’s mind. That’s why, as I was perusing Twitter during last night’s Monday Night Football game, there was a hilarious double standard at work.

If the Colts lose a game, they get to blame Peyton Manning’s injury and nobody thinks twice. But if the Dolphins lose, they’re just sucking on purpose to get Luck. I have some news for you all – Miami really is that terrible. It’s just funny that people seem more willing to allow the Colts to put Luck behind Manning, like they’re being dumped by Marisa Miller while preparing for their date with Kate Upton.

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If somebody tried to pull off this trade in a fantasy league, the other team owners would veto it so hard. The Oakland Raiders and the Cincinnati Bengals are close to a deal that would send Carson Palmer to Oakland for a first round pick in 2012 and a conditional pick in 2013.

It makes a lot of sense. Jason Campbell broke his collarbone and Andy Dalton has been better than Cam Newton, whether you’ve noticed it or not. Cincinnati is giving a new starting QB to a team it could be competing against for a playoff spot or in the postseason. The Raiders are giving up two high picks for a guy who’s been holding out, hasn’t been great for a while and has an arm that can go from John Elway to Steve Urkel in a heartbeat. ESPN notes that “both sides believed it to be a gamble worth taking”, which is funny, because I was hoping they’d made the trade ironically.

Palmer was willing to restructure his contract, which would pay him $6.9 million for the balance of this season, sources said. The Raiders have about $6 million left under the cap.

The next step for the Bengals should be for owner Mike Brown to hire a General Manager to make the picks for him. The next step for the Raiders should be printing up a few black and silver “quitter” jerseys. You know, just in case.