DFL 2017 Week 3: Nobody knows what the hell is going on.

Yeah, it's still early in the season, and things are kinda up in the air, but seriously.  What in the FUCK is happening this year?

It's even more confusing if you don't know what Lazy Town is.  Actually, in retrospect
it's probably less confusing if you don't know about Lazy Town.

Let's see what's happening in the NFL in week 3, shall we?

• 80 damn points scored in Thursday night football
• The Jags completely murder the Ravens (I mean, Baltimore *is* the murder capital of the East Coast, but still)
• Buffalo beats Denver (and you can shut your gob right now, Skoot.  That's strange by any measure...)
• Cleveland almost won.
• The Eagles had to kick the longest field goal in team history (and only 3 yards shy of the all time longest) to beat the god awful Giants.
• Cincinati forced GB to take them to overtime before they remembered that they were the freaking Bengals.
• And it all finishes with this image:

I mean, it was before the National Anthem, and he was completely in
damage control mode, but still!

And lest we forget the individual players, let's take a look at this insanity:

• Gurley topped the charts at nearly 30 points.
• #2 overall Russell Wilson.  Russell Fucking Wilson outscored everyone except 1 person in the league this week.  
• #4 and #5?  Keenum and Bortles.

I should have known though.  I should have known...  You know why?  The #7 highest project QB in the league this week?  Jay FREAKING Cutler.  Higher than Prescott, higher than Siemian.  Yeah, this guy:

Now, on the plus side, Cutler didn't let it go to his head and spent most of the game in negative points realm, only to finish with 5 points overall.  But you know what?  He still finished higher than Flacco, Rivers, Carr, Siemian, and Cam, PUT TOGETHER.

G-Whiz, what a rough week!

Let's start with the steaming turd of a game that I used to call elimination league.  Now, I will just call it a stupid waste of time.  It was a bloodbath this week.  Everyone took a strike except for Ben, RA Dave, and Marie.  None of which even have a strike yet.  They all picked Green Bay, because that was a gimme, right?  Well, it was a gimme that barely eeked its way out, what with the game going to overtime and all.  I think that the only reasonable explanation for the perfect seasons in this shit show are that all three of them are witches.  If only there was a way to determine if someone is a witch...

We could... build a bridge out of them?

So, joining Kyle in the "Well, at least we don't have to make picks anymore" club is Crutch, Skoot, McClennen, and I.  Yes.  That's right.  in week 3, almost half of the league has been eliminated.

Pick 'em, Pick 'ems, Pick 'ems, Pick 'ems!  Again, all over the place this week.  Mike and Patrick going pickless, but on the plus side Crutch entered into the fray and scored a whopping 1-5!  Ben and Terri split their picks going 3-3 apiece, while Josh made an impressive 4-2 picks.  I'm still on top this week going 5-1.  So, here is where we stand now:

Phil: 13

Josh: 9

Ben:  8

Mike: 5

Terri:  5 (aww.. the love birds keep the same count!)

Patrick:  5 (Though now that I've made the comment on the last time, seeing Patrick also with 5 is weird.)

Crutch:  1

With the way that things are going, maybe we'll get to double digit correct picks by week 6!  

And again, this week we had the upset of the week, where every single person picked a team, and that team lost.  So, well done, Terri for not letting the bastards grind you down.

Now, let's get into it...

Phil vs. Patrick.  This is the game that always makes me sweat year to year.  And Patrick sure as hell didn't disappoint.  He threw down 4 double digit performances, leaving only Carr and Elliott to oppose my razor thin lead going into Sunday night.  As it turns out, Carr completely shit the bed (and, you know, it makes sense - the Redskins and all - what?  O I just don't get it any more...) and Zeke did well, but not enough to snag the victory.  So Phil remains undefeated for the moment.  Anyone else still with a perfect season on their hands?

Ben vs. Crutch.  For the new folks in the league, we have a phenomenon here called "Pulling a Ben" where you score the second highest points in a given week and lose because you're playing the high scorer.  Uncannily, it happens at least once per season to Ben.  What happened here was the exact opposite of that.  Ben scored the second lowest points in the league this week and still won because he was playing the lowest scorer.  Maybe we should call it "Pulling a Neb"?  I dunno.  But Ben somehow limps his way to also going 3-0.

Terri vs. Mike.  From the lowest to the highest.  Terri completely *destroyed* her husband here.  I asked her on facebook whether she was going to throw the game as a birthday present to Mike, to which he replied "Ha!  She's not going to give me this game, I'll take it myself!"  Sadly, it looks like he's taken it right in the butt.

Skoot vs. Kyle.  Well, Skoot needed this win more than anyone else.  He was staring down an 0-3 record, but that just wouldn't stand.   (That's the sort of thing that only the lowest of the low *cough* Mike *cough* can properly stomach.)  So, Skoot came out swinging.  Thursday night, Gurley threw down 30 points himself.  Then, Mariota, Baldwin, and Bell all had 15 point games.  Even with Brady pulling in 30 points on his own, Kyle just had to sit there and take it.

(Also, side note.  Kyle took Witten from my off the waiver wire.  So, I burst into his office this week and called him a Judas.  But I guess that Witten's almost 1 point made that a bit of an over reaction on my part.  Sorry, Kyle.  My bad!)

Josh vs. McClennnen.  I think that Josh's matra this weekend was "FINALLY!"  FINALLY, Dak has a good game.  FINALLY OBJ isn't too hurt to play.  FINALLY McCaffrey gets some play time.  FINALLY Jacksonville's D performed.  OK,scratch that last one.  Who could have seen THAT coming?  Anyways, Josh was able to throw a 30 points beating McClennen's way, sending McClennen to 11th place.

Big D vs Kerry. And here he is........ Cutler in the starting line up.  Accompanied by Maclin who didn't even hit a single point, Henry who didn't en get looked at, and the Seattle D who just got manhandled by the Titans.  D, knowing that he needed a win to keep in top half of the league, brought his A game and won by a solid 20 points.

That's about it for this week.  What does next week hold?

Seriously, who freaking knows?

DFL 2017 Week 2: Tiny, tiny margins here, fellas.

Ho-ly Crap.  Did y'all see this shit this week?  Half of the game this week had a tiny, TINY margin of victory.  How small?

A lesser man would have felt inclined to make a penis joke here, but I'll
just let the image speak for itself.

Josh saw how close his game was on Monday morning and asked if that was normal.   I'm pretty sure that we have had all of a half dozen games in the history of the league that have been within a point of each other.  So, this really is an interesting week!

An interesting, academic week for all of us to enjoy!

OK, to be fair there are three teams out there who aren't so much "Hey, look at this anomoly!" so much as they are:

Sorry, Terri, Patrick, and Skoot.

Anyways, let's take a look at how things went.

Elimination League!  Two strikes doles out this week, both for not actually making a pick.  One to Skoot and one to Kyle.  Of course, this means that Kyle earn the dubious distinction award for going out in week 2.  Well done, sir!  On the plus side, that'll give you more time to do whatever it is that you do....

Pick 'Ems....  Well, the same 6 from last week picked again this week and the results... well they were all over the board, as would be expected when all of the games are so close.  Up top, Phil went 5-1, then Mike and Ben hit 3-3, Josh, strangely only make 5 picks and went 3-2, while Patrick did a paltry 2-4.   And lest we forget Terri, who also made picks, but goose egged, so might have well not have even tried.  Ouch.

So, that leaves us with the following standing:
Phil 8
Mike 5
Patrick 5
Ben 5
Josh 5
Terri 2

One thing to note is that not one person picked Josh to win this week.  (I mean, Josh didn't even pick himself... come on, man!  Have some confidence!)  But still, Josh prevailed.  Well done, sir!

Now, are you ready for the crazy?  I mean crazy, crazy?  Cuz here we go with the head to head match ups.

Yeah, Nic Cage levels of crazy sounds about right...

We'll start from the blow out of the week and work our way down to the smallest margin, shall we?

Kerry vs. Mike. Beat down of the week, friends!  Kerry bounces back from a devastating week 1 and throws a terrible beating onto Mike.  Kerry, with 3 players on IR (still on her bench - you know that you can change up players, right?  I'm just asking because your dear husband didn't know that for almost his entire first year...) rides the rookie Fournette, Anderson, and Boswell to victory on this one.  Highest points of the week and beatdown of the weak, both going to Kerry.

Big D v Big Crutch.  Big D decides "You know what?  Crutch was so nice to spot a player last week, that I'm going cut his a break and spot him 2 players"  Brown didn't play and while Crowell did play, he's a RB on the Browns, so who knows if he actually played or not?  Crutch, who is already breaking his "Let's not touch anything and see how far that goes" theory actually had a decent game, but just couldn't quite get all of the pistons firing at the right time.

Ben vs. McClennen.  Somehow, Ben won this game without being bothered to actually put up 60 points.  Somehow McClennen's team just took a collective shit and lost the game, pretty decidedly.

And here is where the crazy starts to kick in.  I'm going to put in the margin of victory in each of these games.  Why, it makes Mike and my championship game from a few years ago look like a normal score!!!!  (I hesitated posting this write up now, for fear that there could be a stat correction and a game could be reversed....)

Phil vs. Terri (0.15 point victory).  Well, my second rivalry game did not disappoint.  I did NOT think that it was going to be that close.  Of course, having my TE go out after his first reception didn't help all that much.  But on the plus side, Jimmy Graham also didn't do anything eithe, so it kind of comes out in the wash.  :)  The kicker here (and please pardon the beautiful pun) is that Terry's kicker was in field goal range with time left on the clock and the Lions opted not to kick the field goal, which would have been a gimme and put her over the top.  Thanks, Detroit!

Kyle vs. Patrick (0.13 point victory).  Oh man.... this one has to hurt a bit.... Patrick had Carr and Gronk playing and they exceeded the already high expectations.  BUt it wasn't quite enough, even with Kyle's goose egg on TE.  Not surprisingly, these teams kinda mirrored each other down the stat block. (Outside of TEs, of course.  Man, a lot of TE talk this week.)  But Kyle just happened to get a hair more points, and snagged the victory.

Josh vs. Skoot (0.02 point victory)  Yes, you read that correctly, Josh absolutely squeaked by in this game.  Easily, the closest game that we've ever had since we implemented partial points a few years ago.  The most delicious thing here is that Josh was starting Dak and Dak was really pushing it at the end.  Which means that he threw a pick 6 on the last drive.  I just can imagine Josh jumping out of his seat waiting for the points update to push to see how close it was going to be.

So, pretty even league so far.  Nobody's running away with points scored or points against.  Coupla 2-0 teams, coupla 0-2 teams.  This week was hella interesting, can't wait for next week!  (Well, I guess I actually can.  I'm playing Patrick and that fucker is like my kryptonite..)

DFL 2017: Week 1's gonna be Week 1...

So, I'm not sure if you were paying attention, but Week 1 was...  I mean... just ....  I know that week 1 always has a bit of fuckery to it, but this year, I mean.....  What the hell?  Pat lose, Browns almost pull out a win, Johnson is out for the season, Zeke is most likely in for the season.  Really, there's only one thing to say to week 1:

I'm pretty sure that this is going to be a theme this week.  So, if your constitution is delicate enough to be offended by naughty language (McClennen), then I suggest that you bail out now.  (Actually, wait.. don't do that.  I judge my self worth by how much traffic these posts get.  So please don't go nowhere.)  And remember. I'm saying this as someone who actually won AND got the highest points in the league AND was playing an arch-rival.  So, please, before we get too deep into again, I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart, seriously, to week 1:

OK enough dicking around.  If I make this intro any longer, I'm seriously going to need to get some dik diks in here.  And now I done it....

Seriously, this this is called a dik dik. And that's as big as they get.  (To be
fair though, that room is pretty cold.)

OK, so, elimination league. Four strikes handed out this week.  Phil and McClennen took a strike by trying to sneak the Texans in there, but JJ just couldn't get it going.  Like not even a little.  Against thre freaking Jags.   Crutch took the easy pick with NE, and took a strike for it, and Kyle tried the very risky and yet to pay off method of not making a pick this week.  So, 4 strikes on the board.  And 4 contenders to pull in the dubious distinction award for losing in the second week.  So, you know what?  I'm changing up my address to Week 1:

Yeah, I'm going there and not looking back.

Now, with all of the fuckery in the league, you'd think that SOMEONE would luck into some good picks this week.

Somehow, Patrick and I limped into first place this week by going 3-3.  Patrick, Mike, Terri, Ben, and Josh all went 2-4, and are tied for 3rd place.   The good news is that even if you missed week 1, we all pretty much did too.  So, plenty of time to catch up!

The biggest "I'm taking my ball and going home" this week goes to McClennen who didn't get a single vote for him and he still managed to luck out a win.  Well, not so much luck out a win as his opponent got food poisoning the night before and didn't actually take the field.  But you know what they say?  Winning by default is still winning.  You know what they also say (to week 1)?

Ugh..Well, it's probably time to get to the main event....  The games!  We'll start at the top of the stack and work our way down.... Who ever could be at the top at the end of week 1?  Holy crap!  It's me!

Phil vs. Mike  Yeah, this was what I usually look forward to all season.   A chance to face off against Mike, my sworn nemesis.  And through careful planning and perfect execution, I was able to properly whoop Mike's ass with a completely satisfying win.  Oh wait.  Never mind.  Both of our teams crapped their pants, it's just that after my team did so, Hunt scooped them up and said "Don't worry, fellas, I'll carry you to victory...."  Ugh... a win is a win, right?  (Actually, in retrospect, Mike did score the most in the league except for his opponent, so that is a nice way to end this game, I reckon - I'll see you in week 12)

Battle of the Ds.  Again.  Not a lot of high fives going around here.  Just a sad, sorry game, with the exception of the Rams D going nuclear on an Luckless Colts O.  Ouch....

Patrick vs. Josh.  Not exactly high scoring but damn was it a close one!  The Ds were the high scorers on both side of the game here.  It was awfully nice of Patrick to spot Josh a kicker, but it didn't matter, as Keenan Allen couldn't quite get the needed points to give Josh his first DFL win.  Well done, Patrick!  That is some top shelf trolling you got going on there!

Ben vs Skoot.  Man, just not a lot to say about this game....  Ben won, Skoot lost....  I Guess that it's interesting in that they both almost hit line up Nirvana, but that's not even quite true...

Crutch vs Kerri.   This game, again, had the winner just spotting the loser an empty position.  So, Crutch, you crazy bastard.  Well done, I like your style.  Kerry, on the other hand might have just been given the biggest crap sandwich ever.  I might remind you, that this was her first fantasy football game ever.  And what did she get out of it? A crushing loss AND 3 (count 'em 3!!) players on the IR.  Including the overall #1 draft pick.  I've not seen such bad luck in my life! O right... and one of her players goose egged on her.  So, there's that too...

Terri vs Kyle.  OK, now *here* is a turn around for you.  Going into the game, I thought that there was no way that Kyle (with 3 starters from NE) was going to lose.  But here's the thing, when you are a single team heavy, if they have a bad week, YOU have a bad week.  A lesson learned hard by Kyle.  And well done, Terri!  Even though you were outscored by a good 2/3 of the league, you still backed your way into victory here.

So, that means that none of the newbies have actually won a game yet.  Eesh.  In all honesty, FF is like 80% luck. So, come on guys!  Get your head in the game...

Also, lest I let a juicy bit of gossip go here...  We have a crazy lead on the number of moves.  And keep in mind that this is all before the completion of game 1.  Kyle, has made a solid *8* moves so far.  And the way that he did it ... c'est magnifique!

In the span of 9 minutes on Friday afternoon, this was how the moves went down:
Anderson -> Witten -> Fleener -> Hooper -> Cook -> Fleener (again) -> Diggs -> Jones -> Jones Jr.  And check out the points progression:
2.8 ->  11.9 -> 10.7 -> 12.12 -> 4.7 -> 12.12 (again) ->  18.82 -> 1.3 -> 8.5
So, this means that Kyle has *really* good instincts on the whole, but a lot of indecision.  I guess what I'm saying is that I'm totally watching Kyle's moves and picking up someone in his inevitable chain next week....

But that's all behind us now.  Let's look forward to week 2. I mean, there's no way that it could get any worse, right?

DFL 2017: Let's get this party started.

Well, we're less than a week out from kicking off the 2017 season and I'm more exited than a disgraced Canadian public official!

Cuz using Rob Ford as the first gif of the year isn't a bad omen, right?

(Side bar:  Lemme just say.  There are a shit ton of Rob Ford dancing gifs out there.  I'm just sayin'...)

Anyways, on to business.  So, remember a few weeks back, I said that if you want to win something, then the elimination league is where you need to be?  Well, never you mind that now, because brother, that league is packed!  In addition to 10 of the 12 coached from the DFL, we've also got a few returning alumni, namely Marie and RA Dave.   I had intended to skinny things down a little bit this year, so when I renewed the league, I intentionally didn't hit any buttons to send out invitations.  Well, I guess that it does so anyways.  One last evil, stupid Easter Egg that Melissa left on her way out...

I was intending to have a picture of evil Melissa laughing, but this is the worst
picture that I could find of her.  Say what you will about her management style,
the woman is simply photogenic!

So, it;s going to be a knock down, drag out fight this year, as always.  Though there is one thing that we can all agree on:  Please don't let Marie win.  We've had quite enough of that for the time being, thank you very much.

But we'e not here to talk about the elimination league, are we?  I mean, we're not even here at all.  This is just me rambling in my underpants sitting sadly in front of my computer.

You sick bastards.  Did you really want me to have an undies pic?
(PM for details...)

Not at all!  Let's get down to business and talk some DFL!!

I'm gonna guess that only about half of you will get this reference.  Skoot, 'splain please.
Cuz I know that you know....

Let's get this out of the way for posterity's sake, here's the draft order:

1. Kerry *
2. Skoot **
3. Kyle
4. Terri
5.  *
6. Josh
7. McClennen *
8. Crutch* 
9. Phil
10. Mike
11. Ben
12. Patrick

* Denotes autodraft, for adult reasons.

** Denotes autodraft because they are a child and forgot all about the draft, even with like 5 reminders.

And here's how Yahoo! rated the draft results:

1. Kyle : A
2. Skoot:  A
3. Kerry: A
4. Phil:  A-
5. Patrick:  B
6. Crutch: B
7. Josh:  B-
8. Ben:  B-
9. B-
10. Terri:  B-
11. McClennen: C
12. Mike:  C

Now, I used to think that Yahoo! would just give high rankings to people to teams that draft who lined up with what Yahoo! recommended.  But here we see that one person who autodrafted was ranked 3 with an A (Kerry) and another who was ranked second to last with a C (McClennen) and they both autodrafted.  (And let me just say, Yahoo!, that must have been a wonderful morning in the McClennen household when the newbie is ranked way high and the seasoned veteran is down in Mike territory.)  So, now I have no idea where they get these rankings from.  So, to the rankings, I have one thing to say:

Though maybe I shouldn't be so harsh. I mean, I *was* ranked in the upper echelon.  

The big highlight of the draft for those of you who weren't there is that Ben picked himself up a whopping 3 QBs, one of which is questionably good (please, God!!!) and two are horrible.  Sadly, we weren't able to convince him to also add Cutler to round out this terrible, terrible situation that he finds himself in.  I even said "Hey, you can always drop someone tomorrow!" in the last round, but he was unconvinced.  Ironically, he was the first to make a move a scant 20 minutes after he draft was over.  So, right on, sir!

And now we come to perhaps my favorite part of the year...  A part where I get to weigh in on something and I sound completely authoritative because I get to throw my opinion around like an olympic athlete.

Without further ado, here's the power rankings for best team names this year.  OK, maybe a little more ado.  Holy shit, you guys made this hard this year.  Everyone had a good name.  Hands down, best name year that we've ever had in the league.  So, well done!  OK... un-ado now.

"UnShun" rolls better off the tongue, but un-ado works too..

12) Skittlerific.  Yeah,I get it.  Beast Mode is back.  So, I guess, it's good.  But you teased me with the name change and left me unfufilled.  For shame, for shame....

11) No Sack.   Points for the football reference, but you didn't really do much with it.  I'm not sure whether this is a double entendre or just a prayer that your QB doesn't get roughed up....

10) DefenceIsOverrated.  That's bullshit, and you're evil for even thinking it.  Defenses win games.  You know it, I know it, everyone knows it.  No points if you were trying to be ironic.

9) TouchdownForWhat.  I think that you were really close to getting a laugh on this one.  The only problem is that someone else already made a touch down pun team name, and they did it better (IAlwaysTouchdownThere).  So, you got scooped, son.

8) IWILLWINEventually.  A little on the nose, and a lot desperate.  But I've gotta hand it to you for just sheer determinism.  Good luck, sir.  Though this year might not be your year.  (Mostly because I'm still in the league...)

7) Hi Billy Mays Here.  Well, you certainly win for the non sequitur this year.  Probably wouldn't have gotten this high rating, should you had not also changed your profile pic and DEFINITELY wouldn't have gotten this high if I didn't have a man crush on Billy Mays.  Well played, sir. Well played indeed!

6) Comin' Up Philhouse!.  Dammit.  I really thought that punning my name in the team name would have landed me higher than this, but I got out done this year.   Eh, top half isn't bad, I reckon.

5) Mr McGiblets.  The League.  God, how I miss thee!  Well, everything except the last season.  But overall...  Also bonus for the profile pic change.

4) TERRIing Up The Field.  A name pun, with the bonus of being relevant to football.  Now, THIS Is how it's done, folks!

3)  Big-D.  Way to work a dick joke in there.  And with the added irony of drafting not one but two middling Ds?  Well, sir, I like your style!

2) Amari 2600.  Dude, I don't know if you look up punny team names every year or if you just come up with them in the off season, but goddamn!  Every year you get to the top of the list with your team name AND the accompanying profile pic.  Sadly, this year, you've been dethroned by:

1) Brady Gaga.  Pun?  Check.  Football related?  Check.  Photoshopped Profile Pic?  Double check. 

And that's it!  Let's all tune in on Thursday to watch... o god damn it.  We have to start the season with the chiefs getting slaughtered by the freaking patriots?  Come on! I mean, I know that TNF is shit, but do we really have to start THIS shit?

On one hand, football. On the other... the pats...