DFL 2013 Week 12: It's like unicorns are exploding into rainbows...

Beautiful.  This week was just beautiful.  Not only did my winning streak continue this week, but Terri lost, which popped me squarely into second place.  And, though Skoot didn't lose because he had his Kookie BYE, *I* would have beaten him, had we played (which, I really haven't been able to say all that many times this year).  And as an added bonuc, Crutch shit his pants in the pick'em league, keeping it a tight race.  How's that make me feel?  Tell 'em, Dennis:

Kudos if you get why I called him Dennis.

So, let's get into it with the pick'ems.  Ben and Skoot lead the way going 4-2.  Phil and Terri are next with a 3-3 performance.  And Crutch and Mike G shit the bed with 2-4.  (OK, technically, RA is the playing the part of the Golgathan going 0-1. Pro tip for you, RA Dave: This season is not the season to be putting all of the eggs in the RA Dave basket.  Though to be fair, that game (McClennen vs RA Dave) was split right down the middle on the picks.)  The ass face this week was Patrick who somehow managed to pull off a win against Terri.  And let me just say that I'd be glad to take a strike on voting for Terri every week from here on out...

So, that leaves Crutch still in 1st place (with a greatly diminished lead of only 2 now), Ben and Skoot in second place, and Phil and Terri hanging in 4th place.  Keep 'em coming, boys!  This year it's coming down to the wire.

Yeah, people can even make one of the best television series in history nerdy.  Deal with it...

I'm gonna keep this relatively short this week, as it's Thanksgiving week and that comes with some accoutrement (work deadlines before the break, crazy cleaning in anticipation of family arriving, starting the next book of Game Of Thrones... you know, I'm swamped).  Y'all're busy people too, so I think that a short write up will be a point in the "What are you thankful for?" conversation anyways.

Crutch vs Phil (D&D Bowl, Baby!)
This was a tight one. I had a total of 0 points on my bench due to injury and a shit ton oe BYE weeks.  I had to pick up Big Ben to fill in for the injured Rodgers and Curtch's Phil Rivers went gangbusters.  *IN* freaking Kansas City.  WTF, fate?  Not cool to make this one come down to Monday night.  Anyways...

Phil pulls in potentially his first lineup Nirvana award.  And that's sad when I have a starter with 0.08 points, another with 1.5 and yet another with 3.  Eesh.  Maybe I'll just take the lucky bastard award too.

Crtuch walks away with the manic-depressive mantle.  Of his 9 starters, 4 of them scored less than 5 points.  3 more also didn't hit double digits.  So, It was all Rivers and Houston to keep this one close.

RA Dave vs McClennen (The Well, someone's gotta win Bowl)
This was a pretty bad game.  On one corner  you've got RA Dave who has hands down the most moves of all, but just can't find t he right player.  In the other corner, McClennen hasn't changed his line up in like a month.

RA Dave, I give you the Robert Evans medal of freedom.  Dude just doesn't know how to quit.  The thing that's really gotta hurt here is that if he had started Danny Woodhead in any of the possible positions he could have, it would have changed the game from losing by less than 2 points to a 10+ point blow out.

McClennen - No, I was wrong... *You* get the lucky bastard award.  Somehow you still managed to pull out a win, even though 4 players pulled in goose eggs (2 players just shut out, 1 empty slot, and another on BYE).  Yes, Ben, it looks like he's going to get into the playoffs....

Ben vs Missy (The Let's keep it close bowl)
Valiant scores on both sides of the scoreboard and a game within a point and a half?  Rah!

Ben - You get the fucking finally award.  Here's a pic:

Don't worry.  Allie and I are tight.  She'd be proud that her work  made it into the write up.

So, yeah.  This is what it feels like to beat fully 3/4 of the league with your score and actually be playing one of those teams.  Enjoy the feeling.  It feels good, dunnit?

Missy gets the "Who needs a QB?" trophy for having her QB barely being on the top half of the scores on her team. As a side note, how does a pass heavy team like Indy rack up 40 points and their QB pulls in less than 10??

Patrick vs Terri (The upset bowl)
Everyone picked Missy to walk away with this easily.  And I mean everyone.  Pat's Mom called me to say that she didn't have faith that her son was going to put this one away.  But you know what?  That's precisely how he do.

Patrick gets the "Just be quiet and do your job" gold watch for not doing anything particularly well, bust just waiting for his opponent to screw up.  Well done, sir.

Terri, whose feet were up nonchalantly thumbing through a magazine, only said "Oh, I'm sorry... Were we playing a game this week?  I was just waiting until the playoffs started."  She's the one to beat, fellas.

Melanie versus Mike G (The middle of the pack bowl)
Not a lot going on here. a 5-6 team versus a 6-5 team, and them both coming out of the match up with a 6-6 record.

Melanie and Mike G both get the sticking to your guns award.  Melanie for not dropping a player to pick up a substitute kicker (but I mean, could *you* part with Kris Durham?) and Mike G for sticking with RG3.  Damn, man.  You've got Foles.  Use him.  RG3's sophomore slump surely won't end before the end of the year.

Skoot vs Kookie (The Yeah, no surprises here bowl.)
First versus last.  And it came out as expected.  Well, not exactly.  Skoot had 2 players benched at the last minute and another go negative.  Eesh.

Skoot - you get this:

And Kookie - you got this:

And that's about it for me for now.  Time for a few last minute chores before Thanksgiving.  Also, congratulations go to the league... only 1 trade this year before the trade deadline. Though to be fair, Mike G did make me an offer I could refuse.   Which I did.  (And I still stand by it.)

DFL 2013 Week 11: It just got real, son.

Wheeee!!! We're into week 11 and I'm rested from write up BYE week.  Thanks to Skoot for covering for me last week.

Big week this week.  Two huge milestones:
1 - Our first playoff berth emerged this week.  Skoot is now guaranteed a place in the post season.  But don't fret, y'all.  That just means that we get to give him the beat down in the playoffs.  It hurts more there.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  He's got a 5 game winning streak, and he looks unbeatable. But here are some things that you might not know:  Manning is starting to crack (between the ankle injury and the nasty schedule coming up) (For some reason, I thought that Skoot had Manning the greater, but that's Terri.  Nevermind.   Skoot's going to rock the shit out of the rest of the league. Dammit.)  AND he smells funny.  That is to say that Skoot smells funny.  Not any of the Manning clan.  Those boys smell like lilac for some reason.
2 - Two people jumped into quad digits this week.  Skoot and Phil.  We can effectively skip busting on Skoot, as we've already covered that subject.  As for Phil, you are correct to tremble in your boots.  He is fucking unstoppable.

As for the rest of the league...  keep trying.  I know that it feels like the DFL can feel like this sometimes:

Bonus:  His name is Chi-Chi.  Best case scenario:  That name means bewbie.  Worst case?  "pretentious and over elaborate refinement."

But if you try really hard, you can end the season like this:

But perhaps I babble on too much.  Let's get to it.

First off... as Ben mentioned in an email comment and I predicted two weeks ago, the elimination league last week, with everyone picking Tennessee.  Really, folks?  Well, congratulations for what it's worth, Marie, Ben, and Joy.  A three way tie makes this whole thing seem rather silly, doesn't it?

Next up!  Pick'ems.  Not much excitement last week (that is to say, week 10). Terri and Phil went 5-1, and everyone else picking went 4-2.  Big thanks to Missy for screwing up everyone's picks.  And come on, Crutch!  Don't lose!  You're killing the whole league.  We're not mad; we're just disappointed.

The pick'ems this week (week 11) were equally tight.  Crutch, Skoot, and Terri went 4-2, while Phil and Ben went 3-3.  Also, as a side note, Crutch screwed us all again this week.  Everyone picked him to win and he went and lost AGAIN.  I mean, he must be doing this to spite us.  Nobody is that bad, right?  Another going against the grain was Terri losing to Ben.  Granted, by all rights and measures Terri *should* have won this game.  (Well, I guess that there is one measure that she shouldn't have - and that would be final score.)  So, we can't get too mad at her, right?

Where does that leave us going into week 12?  Well, Crutch is nicely ahead with 41 picks.  Then, there is a *4* way tie for 2nd place at 37 points.  Mike G is still kinda in it in 6th place with 34 picks, but is he really?  (The commish half of me says "Yes!  Of course!  Keep going Mike!  You're doing fine!"  The smack talking competitor in me says "Leave him!  He's dead to us!"  And the kid in me says "I love Frosted Mini-Wheat!"  So, you know, do whatever you need to with that.)

And now... on to the league!  It's going to heat up with these last three weeks of the regular season.  Places 4-9 are within a game of each other.  Top 8 advance into the playoffs.  So keep it up.  And now that I've gotten my Kookie  BYE, I'd like to invite him personally to wake up!  Start mixing it up, +Chris Kucharik !  You too, McClennen, but you're not on G+, so I can't tag you.  The perfect defense!

As a side note... really tight games this week.  The beat down of the week was delivered by me to Kookie by a huge 22 points.  Yeah, that was sarcasm... We've seen 70 point+ blow outs.  So, thanks to everyone for keeping it exciting.

That's as good of  a place to start as anywhere else...  The Golden Star Helmet bowl: Phil vs Kookie.

Phil pulls in "Use The Ginger!" award for putting in Dalton for the injured Rodgers.  (Though as a funny side note, Rodgers did reference Skoot's most favorite quote when asked whether he's play this next Sunday "So... you're saying there's a chance!")

Kookie pulls in the "Blackmon's my BOY! (but not in a racist way)" tiara.  He's been starting Blackmon  since he got hurt in week 8.  Good on ya for sticking by your man, Kookie.

In the saddest game of all, we have Crutch vs McClennen.  The sponsor for this game is crushing depression:

Crutch threw down an impressive almost 50 points.  McClennen handicapped himself by not putting in a tight end and starting a dude on BYE.  Ouch.  

So, Crutch, I award you an "It gets better" t shirt.  It's a bald faced lie, but at least you're rockin' it on the pick'ems.

McClennnen  get the "I freaking love Cincinnati" hairbow....  almost 30 points from your DEF?  Oh.. they were playing Cleveland.  Yeah, that makes sense..

Heartbreaking game of the week?  RA Dave versus Missy.  RA Dave's only pulled in 3 victories this year, and the game was only separated by 3 scant points.

RA Dave sadly hit lineup nirvana.  So, he get the blue ribbon of participation.  Thanks for playing big fella!

Missy gets this saddle.  It must be hard riding LeSean McCoy that hard to victory.  This should help a little.

Ben, you get the "Mah Boy!" award for taking down Terri against all odds. Nobody voted for Ben, but he still managed to beat Terri, throwing her unceremoniously out of second place.

Terri...  Not much I can say... Is this the end of Manning's rocking season?  You get the Senator Palpatine cowl because we're going to be watching your season with great interest.

In the tightest game of the week, Mike G pulls out an impressive 1.5 point win over Patrick.

Mike G gets the award for picking the correct of the two most frustrating QBs in the league.  RG3 vs Foles.  Week to week... who's going to go belly up?  Well, this week he chose... wisely.  Well done, Sir.

Patrick gets the golden get out of jail free card here.  Again, on week 2 of a new baby, he can't really be expected to put in the right players.  Sadly, he chose right across the board... almost.

And the last game of the week is dubbed the "What the hell happed to the QBs?" bowl.  Newton with a 23+ point game and Brees didn't even make it to double digits?  Oi! (But on a side note - Congrats to the Cats for pulling it together on the national stage against the Pats!  Good on ya!)

(And did you see the point projections?  Like half a point spread!)

Melanie - here is your Peaks and Valleys award.  Top player on your team?  23 points?  Lowest player?  -1.  And everything in betwixt.  Well played, and still in contention for the playoffs.

Skoot gets the Peeks and Valleys award for getting a look at the pain that's gonna start happening.  Everyone.. seriously.  Let's band together and agree not to let Skoot get another victory for the rest of the season.  Kookie - it's up to you.  Dammit...

DFL Week 10

Good Morning Fellow DFL'ers, Since Phil is out this week after a freak shaving accident in which he is still swimming around in his own feces hair, I have volunteered to try and phil the void. (yeah! you see what i did there ? I know you're super proud of my punny-ness phil! I'll be here all week)

But before we get started I have a very important question for you.  Are you aware that Phil is THE official moral authority against plagiarism ? Did you know that if he sees you burning a CD as a 'backup' for yourself, that he will literally 'unscrew your head and shit down your neck' ?

Did you know that he's actually on the board of directors for copyright infringement ? Did you know he's friends with Lars Ulrich and will "cap yo ass" if you are found "in violation of Phil" ?

For years Ben and I have fought the good fight and tried to bring Phil to his senses. Come to the dark side of the force. But he cannot be stopped. For God Sake, the man was a holier than though Paladin in his D&D campaign (Thanks McClennen!! that helped a lot). So Phil, I know when you read this post, you're gonna shit yourself when you get to the bottom....of the post. I know we might not be friends anymore after this. I know I will have crossed a line and that you will send your pack of angry Rau wolves after me to that state in the NORTH we call Maryland. But I can't help myself. I have a problem clearly and I can't stop. But i digress....lets talk football and we'll get back to this shortly....

Well Week 10 was fun wasn't it ? :)

CLE Rocks (Kuchi)  vs. It's Not Detroit (Melanie)
You know what's good ? Winning. Winning is always good. But do you know what's even better than winning ? I'll tell ya. Its Melanie winning despite having the 3rd worst score in the league this week. Which really means that there was only one other team you could have beaten since Melanie was utterly destroying her husband this week Poor Kuchi. One of these days buddy you're gonna notch a 1 in that W column. But until then, you get the official Crap on a Stick award for literally being a big giant poopy turd. 

The Artist Formerly Known as Ben vs. TwitterHashTag Boy

In the battle of the symbols this week (because God only knows what both of their team names will be next year ).(Ben if you decide to find a way to make your team name even more unpronounceable...sigh...oh i dunno..like for instance... ....no not the word blank, but actually a team with no actual name ...i swear, Phil or I are gonna have to ORTH the shit out of your house. Just sayin.... And Mike ol' buddy, i'll give ya props, at least you had the courtesy to spell out your team name (i secretly hope you name your team 'SmoothieKing' or 'PrivateDancer').  Mike, you get the Almost There award for almost floating into 8th place this week for the playoffs.  

Ben, you get the Shaft award this week for literally having the 3rd most points in the league and only have 3 wins.

GG Purple Cobras (David) vs. The Mud Turtles (Terri)

Ever have one of those days ? The Purple Cobras had one of those days this weekend and found themselves outscored by more than double their own points. Shit was hard to swallow. All i can say is this.

Terri obviously gets the 'Kicking Him While He's Down' award for....well...you know.

Knightly Yardage (Crutch) vs. ScoobyDoobyDoo (Missy)

Well Crutch, you had it all had but Missy had to go and ruin your day by 18 points this week. In any other week, you woulda won but apparently the Rams DEF decided to come out of the woodwork this week and score a ....wait for it....34 point win. Needless to say. never had a chance. Now go shake hands with missy and take your joint smoke a peace pipe award to make it all better.

WrathPhil vs. The Derailers (Chris M)

Phil, you get the one lucky son of a bitch award this week as McClennen failed to put in...a whole friggin team. to each of you I shout...FAIL. No Soup for You. No trophies this week.

Crap on a Stick 2 (Scott) vs. Cagenado (Patrick)

And in the battle of northern agression this week between the mason-dixon line (yes phil, yes, it's technically between MD and PA, fine fine), Skoot and Patrick duked it out with the Sticks of Crap prevailing to retain the lead over Terri by points for 1st. Patrick gets a pass though this week because he had a baby. And I hear pooping those things out can be 'almost as painful as breaking an arm' so he was probably delirious and not up to speck. And for that you get the 'Preggers award' this week

---

So yes, back our discussion of Phil and his non-cd-burning-copying-napster-downloading-non-plagiarism self. I would like you all to know that I've found him out. As they say, the jig is up buddy. This so called original blog you have is the 2nd of it's kind! !!! .  Folks, i give to you the original 'Shenanigans and TomFoolery' blog.

http://www.sebastianvonbuchwald.com/

So keeping that in mind, I say to you "Good job Phil. Welcome to the dark side of the force". I am proud to have you finally come over and join the rest of us who are all horrible people. And with that I now can give you this. Merry Christmas everyone! For those of you that have Android-based phones or tablets this is like 2 seconds to pull. For Ipad's I have not found a way yet since it forces you to have to go through Itunes but if someone can shed some light here , greatly appreciated. Anyways. For those of you that read ESPN or watch The League, ,you will probably recognize the guy on the left. He is the senior fantasy analyst at ESPN and has led one hell of a life that brought him to that point. The book is fantastic and I highly recommend looking into its. 50% of it is about Berry's upbringing as a kid in early fantasy leagues in Texas throughout the 80's, 90's , his time at Syracuse University and then to Hollywood as a writer for shows like Married with Children and Crocodile Dundeee. So 50% isn't even about fantasy football. The other half are all real life stories of real leagues around the nation that do some of the most screwed up stuff to gain advantage/win etc. in their respective leagues. You'll find yourself laughing at almost all of them.

ePub | mobi


And that's it for me. Hope you enjoyed it. Later -Scott

My timing....

Inspired by this image:

and partially out of being pissed that I've gotten to the end of the episodes of Sons of Anarchy that are steaming on Netflix, I decided to shave today.  I started the day like this:

And I ended the day like this:

Needless to say, I suck at No Shave November.

DFL 2013 Week 9: Like a Boss.

Awwww.... yeah.  So, how's this for one hell of a week?  I'm playing my two most bitter rivals in my fantasy leagues, and I'm trying to snap a 3 game losing streak in my third league.  How do I pull it off?  Like a boss!!  Going into the Monday night game, I need Rodgers to essentially take a shit on the field.  That way, I'll seal the game in the other league, where my opponent was starting him.  What?  What?  What's that? He didn't even hit a single point? Hells Yeah!! He was completely shut down by the Defense!!!  Wait... what's that?  He broke his collar bone?  So, he's out for the foreseeable future?  Well, shit.  High fives for everyone this week anyways.  Three wins is three wins.

The penultimate guy is the rest of my season.

Something tells me that the rest of my write ups will be significantly less cheery from here on out...

Starting with elimination league, as is tradition...  a pair of matching picks (for two weeks in a row, I might add - Ben and Joy) and Marie standing by herself.  With the cheese.  And not metaphorical cheese.  Really honest to Wisconsin cheese.  Sadly, not a single one of them took the last strike this week.  Which means, 3 teams are still going to be slugging it out in week 10.  Holy cow, guys.  Well done.  (And I am going to guess that all three of them pick Tennessee in week 10.  Titans, I swear to all that is is potatoes, if you eliminate all of them this week, I'm going to be most disappoint.

See?  That one was an intentional typo!

Pick 'ems!  Pretty tight week this week.  Terri was the high scorer going 5-1, which puts her right back into the race.  Crutch was the second highest, pulling in 4-2, which solidifies his first place position quite nicely.  Everyone else went 3-3.  No change in the rank from last week.  Though it is interesting to note that with Terri's jump, the difference between the second and sixth place is a scant 2 picks.  Now, if we can just get Crutch to forget to make his picks one of these weeks, we'll all be sitting in butter.

And that leaves us with the gamey games!

We'll start with the beatdown of the week.  McClennen invoked his Kookie BYE this wee.  True, Kookie had 3 starters on BYE this week, but McClennen did manage to put down the third highest number of points this week.  Also, McClennen hit line up Nirvana.  So, he really made use of the Kookie BYE week.

McClennen gets the Patience Award for sticking with Thomas Ruprecht Brady through 8 painful weeks to watch him re-emerge in week 9 with a 30 points game.

Kookie gets ... you know what? I'm going to bail on his award this week... I'm not sure that he's reading any more and I don't want to attract his attention until week 13, the week after I play him next.  Dammit, I want my Kookie BYE!!

(Also, a fun fact... Kookie has mathematically eliminate himself from the playoffs this year.  So, the good news is that he can really go for broke and start with some crazy trades. :) )

Next up, the points bowl:  Patrick versus Melanie.  Holy cow!  Were any of you keeping your eyes on this game?  They put up the 2 highest scores this week, both exceeded projections by well over 10 points, both hit line up Nirvana, and it was a tight game, and it was a huge upset.  Great game guys!

Patrick earns the Don't Be Like Phil lesson/trophy.  I also picked up and started Locker in my other league  And I'm betting that you looked at Foles like I did and said "Nah.....  Foles sucks.  He'll never produce"  Then 7 freaking touchdowns later, we both look the fool.  That was one hell of a game for Foles.  O wait.... it wasn't a game.  It was 3 quarters.  Doggone!  Anyway, well done Patrick

Melanie pulls in the Insult And Injury lemon papercut award.  Even though she was projected to have 10% more points than Patrick had, not a single person picked her to win.

And speaking of crowd picks...  They say that the more people that you have picking something, the closer that you'll be to the truth of the matter.  Not the case in this next game:  RA Dave versus Mike G.

In the battle of the Slightly Odd, but nonetheless nicknames, *everyone* picked Mike G to win.  Not so.  RA Dave gave Mike G a good thrashing.

RA Dave takes home the Jason Nesmith award for Never giving up, never surrendering.

Mike G gets the True dat award for summing up the game nicely in the smack talk:  "what hurts is t y hilton had a great night but it only got me within 10 points".  Truth.

 Here's another tight game:  Crutch versus Terri. This one was within a few points as well.  Man, these BYE Weeks are at least consistent in the screwing that they are handing to us.

Crutch is hereby awarded the "Dammit, Arien" token.  Foster just had to gain pretty much anything this week and it would have meant the game for Crutch.  Dammit, Arien.

Terri gets a few awards this week.  Go ahead and just pick one:

• I don't need no Manning! award, for doing just fine in the one week that she would most likely lose.
• Dammit, Golden! trinket for not having Golden Tate go buck wild and still winning the game.
• Flacco?  FLACCO? for picking up Flacco and having his have a decent game.  Almost doubled the projections.....

Dun Dun DUNNNN!!!!!  Game of the week.  A bit lower scoring than I was figuring.  But at least I called it.  Ben just barely misses a win.  Or as Ben put it "Also, fuck you for calling my ff game so depressingly accurately."  Hey, man... at least your QB is still healthy....

Ben  once again gets the "Thank You, Sir. May I have another?" paddle for once again getting so close to victory and just letting it slip through his fingers.  If  he had started either of his benched players not on BYE, he would have won the game.

Skoot gets the Hubis award for not playing a TE.  I asked him about his empty TE slot and he just scoffed. Yeah, just like Count Strahd.  He said "What?  ME?  Pick up a TE?  I've got the dream team, baby.  Ben's a little bitch and I'm going to woop him thusly."  Well played, Sir.  Well played indeed.

Also, Skoot found himself a nice little bug.  Skoot had Dalton to see how he did on Thursday night.  When Dalton Romo'd, Skoot was able to drop him after the Thursday night game, but before the Sunday games.  Fortunately for him, hilariously for me, and frustrating for Ben, Skoot picked up (and started) Stacy.  You know.  The guy who score 20 points for Skoot out of freaking nowhere?  Yeah, that guy.

Finally, we come to the game I've been waiting all year.   Me versus Missy....  The grudge match to settle all grudge matches.  Did it help that I have 4 top shelf players on BYE? It did not.  But Missy once again showed her witchy ways.  I (barely) took home the victory, but my starting QB will be out for at least a month with a broken collar bone.  AAARGG!!!

Missy  gets the ... well... hmm... I dunno... I'm trying to lay an award at her feet that will convey the proper sense of humiliation at losing when I couldn't even get a single point out of my QB, while at the same time highlighting her trying but failing miserably...  This is a hard one... Ah!  Got it.  You get the healthcare.gov award.  You should be able to see it in 4-6 weeks.

Phil gets the simple victory.  For that is all that I really want.  It's taken me a year to get here, so I'll just savor it while I can.

Mike G gets a *very* stern warning to keep his hexes to himself, thank you very much.  Seriously, take a look at the smack on my game.  More smack here than when Batman loses his shit on Robin:

And that's about it for this week.  After such an intense week, I'm going to take a week of the write ups off.  Skoot will be filling in for me next week, as I have been messing with his league on his boards.  So, he totally owes me.

Enjoy!