It's playoffs time! All that hard thinking of who to draft, who to pick up off the waiver wires, and who to start each week comes down to these last few games. In my Yahoo league, it's nice that the playoffs don't include the dreaded Week 17. That's usually the week where big fantasy players play little because their teams have nothing to play for. By starting the playoffs in Week 15 there are still plenty of teams still in contention (even if only mathematically) to keep things fair and exciting.

A thought came to me today while thinking about this column. The two hottest teams in the NFL are Philadelphia and New England. They've are on 10 and 9 game winning streaks respectively. Just to show you how removed fantasy football is from the real game New England has only received three Freaks. Adam Vinateri and Tom Brady each got one in Week 9, and the New England Defense earned theirs last week. To top that, no Philly player has gotten a Freak. With the three-headed running back and the wide receiving corps that has caught few touchdowns, that's understandable. But during a long winning streak you'd think Donovan McNabb or the Eagles Defense would have done something astounding. In both New England's and Philadelphia's cases the team is more than the sum of their parts.

I know this column is late. A wild work schedule where I'm dealing with fiesty, demanding Christmas shoppers made it really hard to get this in on time. In fact, this is going to be an abbreviated Freaks. So I'll stop wasting my precious sleeping time and get going.

There were three great QB performances this week. Payton Manning was so sharp against the Falcons. He racked up 289 yards and five touchdowns. Trent Green took advantage of the lowly Detroit Lions by throwing for 341 yards and three touchdowns. Then there is New Orleans' Aaron Brooks. He was amazing against the NY Giants by passing for 296 yards and five touchdowns. One of those was "called in" to Joe Horn (more on that later). Brooks gets his second Freak of the year by a measley seven yards.

If Freaks were awarded for historic achievement Curtis Martin would get one this week. His 174 yards against Pittsburgh gave him the distinction of being only the second running back in NFL history to start his career with nine straight 1000 yard seasons (the other being Barry Sanders). He also passed John Riggins on the all-time rushing list. But Martin didn't find the end zone--maybe he couldn't see it in the snow.

There was another back who ran for 174 yards Sunday. Cincinnati's Rudi "Rudi! Rudi! Rudi!" Johnson did that against the 49ers. He also scored two touchdowns. The Bengals won, they moved back into a first-place tie in the AFC North, and Rudi gets a Freak. It's back to giving lots of love to the Bengals. After years of horrible football, the Queen City might catch a case of playoff fever.

On Sunday night, the Saints' wide out Joe Horn dialed M for moron. A player deserves fines and verbal abuse for pulling off that cell phone stunt against the New York Giants. I'd call him worse, but SportsBlog.org is relatively family-friendly. You can always insert a more descriptive word with the appropriate letter. Note that the phone incident happened after Horn's second touchdown. He ended up catching two more. That means no Giants player was angry or cared enough to just drill the guy for showing them up like he did. No wonder Coach Jim Fassel got fired. His team has lost its pride. Without his amateur Sprint commercial, Horn had a monster--no, Freakish--game. Nine catches for 133 yards and a team record four touchdowns gives the Saints a Freak double-dip.

There were nice days for some top-flight (needed a Wright Brothers hook) tight ends. The Ravens' Todd Heap caught six balls for 93 yards and one touchdown. Denver's Shannon Sharpe caught eight passes for 96. This week's Freak goes to the man at the top of the mountain at his position. Kansas City's Tony Gonzalez caught six passes for 93 yards and two touchdowns.

There were two shutouts in Week 15, but neither the Cowboys or Jets are getting Freaks. This writer loves defenses that score touchdowns. So if a defense can keep the score down to a reasonable level and score they have an excellent chance at a Freak. Buffalo is out of the running. They ran a fumble recovery in for a score, but gave up 28 points. Carolina did much better by running an interception in for a touchdown while giving up 17 points. They also had four sacks and a fumble recovery. For that, the Panthers get the Defense Freak.

There was no real battle in the Kicker category. In another snooze-fest, Denver's Jason Elam wins by kicking three field goals (longs: 51 yards) and three extra points for 11 total points.

Brooks, "Rudi! Rudi! Rudi!", Horn, Gonzalez, the Carolina Defense, and Elam were Top Guns (see another aviation reference), but they were more than that. They should lobby President Bush to get a man back on the moon. Because from there, an astronaut could tell the entire universe that they are Freaks of the Week!