Mid-Season Report: Middle Division

If the season ended today...

Rednecks would snag one of the playoff's top seeds and a first round bye. Malleus would be tied with three other teams for the two wild card spots. Bill and Old No. 7 are on the outside looking in.

First half looks

Rednecks started 1-2-1 but have won their last three.

Tom Brady and MJD have been the most consistently good 1-2 punch in FLOF this year. Mason Crosby has been a solid kicker. Andre Johnson, Percy Harvin, and Eddie Royal have been a solid WR corp. Early on the issue was finding Demarcus Ware and Antrell Rolle help on D. Elvis Dumervil is fitting in well as Ware's front-mate, but no one has stepped up to help Rolle yet.

Malleus lost two of their first three then won three of their last four.

Malleus' RBBC of DeAngelo Williams and Thomas Jones and KBC of Stephen Gostkowski and Nick Folk are working well. Surprisingly not working so well is a starting WR tandem of Greg Jennings and Anquan Bolden. DB has also been a problem spot with 4 different players averaging less then 3.5 pts/gm and Daniel Manning averaging only 5. QB is an interesting position where another position-by-committee has been hurt by a couple bad games from Cutler. Ray Lewis has done a good job and leads a solid DF group.

Bill won two of his first three but have gone 1-2-1 since.

Eric Weddle leads a solid if unspectacular D for Bill. Olindo Mare has underwhelmed as the kicker. Perhaps the biggest concern is the second WR position. Larry Fitzgerald has been his usual self but no one else has scored more then 4 pts in any single game. QB looked like a problem early in the season but Carson Palmer has come on lately and could be returning to his pre-injury form. RB is a problem. If you take out Chris Johnson's 43-pt week 2 Bill RB's are averaging 6 pts/gm.

Old No. 7 have settled into a bad pattern: win 1, loss 2, repeat.

Matt Forte, Reggie Bush, and Ricky Williams are the coach-killers on this team. Forte is only one of them to top 10 pts so far, but he's also scored -1 total points in his last two outings. Romo and Flacco have both been up and down but both did well in their last outings. Figuring out who to start at QB and RB will likely cause Jason to lose some hair before this season ends. DeSean Jackson and Johnny Knox look like one of the better young receiver tandems in FLOF right now. David Akers is doing fine as the kicker. Justin Tuck and Asante Samuel anchor a defense that is holding its own.

My predictions...

Malleus finish as one of the hotter teams in the league, going 5-2 over the last half to finish 9-5 and one of two teams with a bye on the first round of the playoffs.

Rednecks do well but slightly worse, winning 4 of their last 7 to finish 8-5-1 and the first wild card.

Old No. 7 should finish the way they started: 3-4, which would result in a 6-8 finish.

Bill should be good for 2 more wins to end the season 5-8-1 and hosting the Toilet Bowl.