DFL 2017 Week 8: It's Halloween. Boo!

Ya know...

There's a lot of bullshit going on around the league right about now.  Injuries, suspensions, trades, BYE weeks.  I mean, the list goes on and on.  But one thing that you can take to the bank is that you can't trust Ben.  Not now. Not ever.  Why do I say this?  Because of this little exchange with Ben (my opponent this week) on Thursday morning:

So... I was excited to finally break my winning streak.  Until I watched Ben's defense completely fuck over the Dolphins later that night.

Literally my face the entire game...

So, my losing streak (And the longest losing streak in the league) continues.... How are you doing?  Sigh...  But OK, let's not get into a pity party.  I mean, it's not like I'm Mike or anything...

Man... I'm on such a shit train that busting Mike's chops isn't even fun.

To the pick'ems!  Well, this is certainly a short section this week.  Only 3 people picked (Phil, Ben, and Crutch), they all went 4-2, and there were no "You're not my supervisor!" awards.  So, yeah, here's where things stand:
Phil:  33
Ben: 28
Josh:  19
Crutch:  17(up *4* places from last week!)
Terri:  15
Patrick: 15
Mike:  14

We've rounded the mid-season mark, and it looks like there's going to be a knock down, drawn out brawl for 3rd place.  So keep them picks coming!!

And now, the games.  There's a few blow outs, some bullshit, and another really close game.  So, some excitement this week and more coming up in the coming weeks.  Let's get into it!

Patrick vs. McClennen.  Patick came out swinging here.  Elliot and the Eagles D both put up 20 point games.  Thielen, Gronk, and Jeffery all saw double digits as well.  Oddly enough, Patrick didn't quite make the centurian club. McClennen, on the other hand...  Peaks and valleys man.  Peaks and valleys....  Three solid double digits performances, and then 2 players less than 4 points, a starting QB who went negative, and a starter on BYE.  No surprise that Patrick administered the beat down of the week.

Here's the thing for Patrick though.. He's primed to jump into 1st place.  Sadly, it looks like Zeke is about to take a 6 week break.  So, we'll see how that plays out.

D vs. Mike.  Well, shit...  looks who's on a 3 game winning streak.  D is making a move while just barely missing delivering the beat down of the week.  Mike, I dunno man.  Things are looking pretty grim right now.  Dead last place, and your kicker is who is scoring most of your points.  But hey!  at last you won last week, right?  But there's hope on the horizon.  I mean, you're not the ass last in points scored (looking at you, Kyle).  And hey the season is half over.  You're bound to have a good draft pick next year, right???

I mean, tomorrow's still gonna suck for you, but ...  sorry, I lost my train of thought.

Ben vs. Phil. 

Ugh.  But seriously.  Fuck Baltimore D and fuck Ben.  And this is coming from the guy whose defense threw down 20 points themselves!!!

Kerry vs. Scott.  Scott said "Hey, Kerry.  Let me give you a gift.  It's the gift of half o my starters are on BYE.  And the rest of my team isn't much to write home about.  Wait.  WTF?  Kelvin Benjamin was traded to the Bills?  Fuck.  Well, Good luck with that Skoot.  Anyways, Kerry was able to beat Skoot with just two players.... so good on ya, Kerry!

Pumpkin man is proud of you!

Kyle vs. Josh.  Well, last week, I encouraged us all to stop giving Kyle such a hard time and let him win a game.  Well, Josh stepped up to the challenge and just shit the bed.  So, Kyle, well done and savor your third victory of the year. 

BUT! and this is a big BUT!  Let's see how Kyle does in week 9.  AKA The Patriot's BYE week. 

Impress the league, Kyle!

Crutch vs. Terri  O boy... This was a close one...  0.9 points separated the Winner (Crutch) from the loser (Terri).  And you know what really sucks?  Terri's defense scored -1.28 points.  Outside of that, Terri hit Line Up Nirvana.  I mean, not to kick a woman when shes's down, but:

So, yeah.  That will do it for this week.  Tune in next week to see more insanity unfold...

DFL 2017: Short but Sweet.

Well, it's Wednesday night and I'm just getting the write up out now.  And you know what that means!

Sorry if this turns out to be a shit post, but I'll try to short at the very least.

Pick 'ems.  We had a great week.  Well, those of us who cared to vote had a great a week, at least.

Josh got the most right picks this week at 5-1.   Phil, Ben, an Crutch all tied at 4-2.  So, that means that the current status looks something like this:

Phil:  29
Ben:  24
Josh:  19
Terri:  15
Patrick:  15
Mike:  14
Crutch:  13

Also, as a side note here.  Ben actually pre-voted all year, which is why he's so consistently getting points.  The mildly infuriating part of this is that I'm assuming that he just picked who Yahoo! would predict would win based on pre-week 1 line ups.  That doesn't eve make any sense considering how many injuries, suspensions, and overall lack of performance there has been this year.

So, come on guys!  Rally and beat Ben's stupid ass this year.  And by that, of course, I mean beat Yahoo's stupid projections.

Patrick vs. Skoot  Again, this week we see the top scorer playing the bottom scorer.  Patrick just went to town on Skoot.  Of course, Zeke putting in 31 points and Carr throwing down another 25 certainly didn't help Skoot's situation.  In picture form:

Dead things should be dead, Skoot.

Josh vs. Kerry.  This was kind of a slugfest.  Both Qbs in the 20s.  Both Kickers in the teens. But the real winner is Josh.  Though, more specifically, the big scorer is once again the Jacksonville D.  With them putting up 20 points this week, that means that they have had scored at least 20 points in three games, and double digits another 2 times.  Just pray that when you have to play Josh, Jacksonville is on BYE.   (Which would be next week.  Congrats to you, Kyle, you lucky bastard.)

D vs. Phil.  Well, D was due for a big week and he got it here.  D threw down some major double digits and Phil just couldn't keep up... Though I would like to point out that I do have the most points FOR and the most points AGAINST me in the league.

McClennnen vs Terri.  Once again, there's another close game.  Like, less than a point close.  I'm too lazy to go back and check, but this is an insane number of tight games this year.  Maybe more than any two other years combined.   So, well done, McClennen.  Not just on the victory, but also on giving Terri a glimmer of hope and then tearing it away. 

Mike vs. Crutch.  Crutch, fresh from his total beating of Phil last week decided to take a nap this week.

Well, half his team team did.  The other half stormed the field for double digits.  It wasn't enough though....  Mike rode Jordan Reed and his 2 TDs to a victory this week.

Ben vs. Kyle.  Last, and certainly least was Ben's narrow win over Kyle.  Ben scored just over 62 points, but lucky for him, Kyle scored just less than that.  That's the current leader of the league there, folks!  Throwing down an impressive almost 62 points.  Kyle's got some trouble this upcoming week as Lycnh is out because he pushed a ref, and Bryant is out because he's shooting his mouth off.  This has been a hella rude introduction to the league for Kyle. So, I say that we all let him win a game... say, next week?  What do you guys think?

Alrighty.  Enjoy folks....

DFL 2017 Week 6: Ffffffffuuuuuuuu...

...  Well, I think that you know where this is going.  So, I'll spare you the details.

Did anything happen this weekend?  Like, in the NFL?  Anything at all?  Oh, right...

Or to put it another way:

Or, more specifically for me....

Ugh, but enough about me and how my season is pretty screwed at the moment.  Let's talk about elimination league, shall we?  I think that the whole season can be summarized thusly:

Sloooowly, carefully, make your picks, do your best.  A few people get knocked out here and there, then finally, there's two remaining.  And what do they do?  The both pick the same heavily, HEAVILY favored team, and they are both knocked out with the upset.  Like I always say, never pick nationally televised games.  Cuz then you wind up with the G men beating an 11.5 point spread and leaving the Broncos stunned.  Both Ben and Patrick picked Denver.  So, both Ben and Patrick are eliminated.  So, nobody wins.  And don't give me that tie jibba jabba.  Ties are for losers.

It's kinda like  we all lost this season, isn't it?

And speaking of losers, let's look at the elmination league...Only 5 people made picks this week.  3 went 4-2 (Phil, Ben, and Terri) while 2 went 303 (Mike and Josh).  Not great here, guys.  Although, we do get to give *another* "You're Not My Supervisor" award this week.  This time to Crutch.  Well done, Sir!

5 people picked against Crutch, and 5 people were wrong.  That does seem like a pretty good segue though...

Crutch vs. Phil.  There was a 13 point spread going into this game.  Nobody expected Crutch to win.  (Not even Crutch - he voted against himself.)  There was a good chance that there was going to be a beat down of the week, but not the way that it went down.  Crutch score the most points of the week, Phil scored the least.  So, yeah, complete and thorough beating here. 

Just call Crutch Peter.  I know that I'm sure going to call him a dick.

Terri vs. Skoot.  Well, this was projected to be a close game and it damn sure was.  (Oddly, not the closest game of the week though...)  So, remember how we tried to pull D/ST down at the start of the year??  YEah, nobody told this game.  The lower scoring D hit almost 15 points, and the other almost doubled that.  Then, pretty much the only others to score were on Pittsburgh; Bell for Skoot and Brown for Terri.  In the end, Terri squeaked out a victory by just shy of 4 points.....

Ben vs. Josh.  This was supposed to be the biggest game of the week.  It was supposed to be a slug fest where both teams hitting new point highs....  It was not.  Ben squrely won this one because the Baltimore D went ape shit crazy on Chicago.  Plus, Newton being back in form didn't hurt much either.  The results of this game popped Ben from 3rd place in the league to first, and Josh from second to fourth.Still lost of time left in the season, but this shook things up pretty good...

Erm... not like that...

D vs. Kyle.  Finally, a game with properly scoring defenses!!!  OK, the Pats D did hit double digits for Kyle, but don't tell Skoot.  Each team had three offensive players hit double digits.  The big differentiator is that Kyle's plays that didn't hit double digits, REALLY didn't hit double digits.  Fun fact about this game:  Both teams had QBs on the bench that outscored the starters. 

So, like, there's that....

Mike vs. McClennen.  Let the trumpets sound!

Mike's done it!  He's snapped his 5 game losing streak!  He's on a roll now!  Really, that's the big news out of this game.  Everything else is window dressing.  (Sorry, McClennen, but let's not take away from Mike's moment.  This might be the only one this season...)

Patrick vs. Kerry.  *This* is the game.  Yeah, it was the lowest scoring game, but it was close.  Patrick was able to barely eek out a win with just a 2 point margin.  But in Patrick's defense, this was his heavy BYE week and his bench gathered together and put up a meager 3.80 points.  Not to be outdone, Kerry's team only had 4.99 points on her bench.

And that's about it.  There's a lot of injuries, some BYEs and even a suspension or two to get through next week.  So, keep your eyes peeled and benches warm.  See you bastards next week.

DFL 2017 Week 5: BYE BYE BYE..

Well, I forgot to mention it, but do you know what kicked in fully this week?

That's right!  BYE WEEKS! 

As a side note, sorry about the boy band gif, but I was contractually obligated to include one this year, and the one above seemed a lot less disturbing than this monstrosity:

Anyways.... Did anyone notice the BYE week?  Like Mike (who had a grand total of 0 points on his bench due to BYEs and injuries), Terri (who had 3 starters on BYE), Crutch (who had a grand total of 0.03 points on his bench - wait.  Cross that.  He only had 1 guy on BYE - his team just sucks), and finally D (who couldn't even start a full roster due to BYEs).

On the plus side, it looks like a lot of teams got their whole BYE weeks done at one shot.  So, we can see how this strategy plays out in the next few weeks.  Anyways....

Elimination League.  4 out of 6 players dropped this week.  Pittsburgh, with their FREAKING 7 POINT SPREAD!, knocked out both Terri and Marie.  Mike chose Buffalo and was shown the door, and RA Dave just didn't pick.  That leave only Ben and Patrick left swinging with a strike apiece.  As a side note, Patrick, you know who Ben is going to pick every week... just pick a different team, and you'll win the gold!

Pick 'Ems.  Truth be told, I was not expecting this much shake up this week.  Patrick Bingo'ed, Ben and Phil both went 5-1, Ben had a respectable 4-2, Mike went 3-3, and Terri pulled in 3-2 herself.  Josh didn't make ANY picks this week , which threw him down to 4th place.  But with Crutch's great week, he's right back in it.  Here's where we stand:

Phil:  21
Ben:  16
Patrick: 15
Mike: 11
Terri:  11
Josh:  11
Crutch: 9

Tuco, what do you think of the race for the elimination league cup?

As a side note, we almost had ANOTHER "You're not my supervisor" week, but Patrick wisely picked Kerry over Ben. One one hand, it would have been nice to have bingo'ed there, but since Ben did lose, he falls to third place.  So, it looks like the crown goes back to where it belongs...

Well, for now at least...

That's probably a good enough segue, right?  Right.  Let's talk games....

Phil vs. McClennen   This was a surprisingly big game on both sides.  A few interesting points here.  First, both benched QBs outscored the starters (cuz like Wentz should pull more in than Rodgers, and the same with Hoyer over Winston).  Second, both Kickers scored 10 points.  Third, the defenses were within 0.02 points of each other.  Who said that Kickers and Ds win games?

Josh vs. D.  This one could have been a blow out.  This one *should* have been a blow out.  Like I mentioned earlier, D didn't even have enough starters not on BYE to field a full team.  That's kind of a shame because Watson went crazy, Crabtree (who was out the previous week because of a bruised lung AND had EJ Manuel throwing to him) blew the doors off the barn, and Ertz has a stellar game.  So, who knows?  With a little massaging, D might have been able to win this one?  ACtually nevermind.  Josh started Dak (who scored 25 points) and the Jacksonville D (who humiliated the Stillers for almost 30 points themselves).

This is kinda how I imagine Josh's team this weekend...

Kerry vs. Ben.  So very sweet.  Kerry handed Ben his first loss this weekend.  Well, more properly, Fournette handed Ben this loss (with the assist from Seattle's D), because that's pretty much the only people who scored anything at all in this game. But a 20 point win is a 20 point win, and kicking Ben into 3rd place is all worth it.

Well done, Kerry!

Patrick vs Terri.  Well, Patrick pulls in the win here, even though while going through his players I kept thinking "Wow... how did he get shut down?"  Terri actually had twice the number of double digit scoring player than Patrick.  But Patrick didn't have anyone going negative.  Terri had a real shitty choice of Defenses this week.  One was going up against undefeated KC, the other was going up against Dallas.  Somehow, even with Dallas scoring 31 points, Terri made the wrong call.

Kyle vs. Crutch.  Wow.  Closest game of the week.... for the 10th ranked team vs the 11th ranked team.  Probably the most painful stat of the week comes from this game.  If Crutch had started Tyrod Taylor instead of Big Ben, he would have won.  And Tyrod Taylor only score 0.03 points...  Meanwhile, Kyle continues his boom and bust cycle with the Pats.  Seriously, man.  I get sticking by Trady and Gostkowski, but the Pats D? 

Oddly, someone linked the other side of this gif to me earlier in the week.

Skoot vs. Mike.  Wow guys.... this ... this was not a good game.  Lowest scoring of the week, sure,but by god!  Nobody did anything!  Two starters goose egged.  Granted Mariota was benched at the last minute and Engram plays on the god awful Giants, but still.  On Mike's side, Smith ALMOST pulled in half the points.  On Skoot's side, Benjamin and Vinatieri combined to score ALMOST of Skoot's points. 

Don't make Pennywise sad, guys!

And that's about it for now.  We're 5 weeks in and still nobody has grabbed a triple digit game.  So, I guess that we did a good job with the points rebalancing at the beginning of the season?  I guess?

DFL 2017 Week 4: Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

Well, here we are...  4 weeks in. The NFL seems to be actively flipping off all of our best prognosticators and for what? 

Pictured above:  The NFL.

Yeah, I'm a day late in the write up.  But it took a little while for me to wrap my head around things.   Yup.  That's right.  The good times are finally over.  Not only did my undefeated record get killed.  It did so by less than a point.  To freaking Skoot of all people.  I mean - really.

It's OK.  You can admit to it.  We're all feeling sad this week.

Really, I think that the only way that we, as a league can heal from this is to rise up and beat down the only undefeated team still remaining.  That's right.  It's time to initiate a total beat down of Ben.

I mean, really, how great would this feel?

And lest you think that I'm just being petulant here, I would like to point out that I *lost* this week getting an A as a weekly grade.  Ben won last week with a grade of F.  What do we think of that, Jeff?

Thanks, buddy.  I knew that you had my back...

OK I'm probably getting a little ahead of myself.  Let's take a look at the elimination league....

IT's properly named this week, as lots of strikes were handed out.  Ben and Josh took a strike because somehow Buffalo rose up against Atlanta, Marie took a strike by picking Jacksonville over the Jets.  (And lemme just say, kudos to Cudoc here.  That's ballsy trying to get a win with the Jags, even if it is against the Jets.) And last by not least, RA Dave took a strike by not picking.  Wait.  Did RA Dave AND Marie take a strike last week after I specifically called them out?  Do I have magic powers of making things happen through force of will?

Eh, worth a try...

Anyways, that means that Josh joins the "free time through no longer picking" club.  Welcome,sir!  That also puts all of the remaining players (Ben, RA Dave, Mike, Terri, Marie, and Patrick) at one strike each, going into probably the hardest week to pick that I've ever seen. 

I mean, seriously.  Take a look at the match ups.  We might just end this season
next week...

Pick 'ems....   Tightly clustered picks this week.  Josh was the lowest going 2-4, while Ben and Patrick both pulled in a respectable 4-2.  Phil, Mike, Terri, and Crutch all went even stevens at 3-3.  So, that leaves us looking like this:

Phil:  16
Ben:  12
Josh:  11
Patrick:  9
Mike:  8
Terri:  8
Crutch:  4

And once again, we have a sweep upset.  Every single of the picks went to McClennen over Kyle.  And every single one of those picks were wrong. So, that means that every week one team has been totally voted against and that team totally wins.  Or to put it another way:

Not entirely unexpectedly, McClennen has gotten this honor half
of the weeks so far...

But now, ;et's get to the meat and potatoes, shall we?  We'll go from top to bottom here:

Ben vs D.  Well, this game was predicted close and supposed to go the other way.  Nevertheless, Ben, for some reason, started Eli Manning.

I mean, well done, Ben.  But that's an insane move that somehow paid off...  With three other players kicking in double digit games, not only did Ben keep his record perfect, but he also administered the beat down of the week.  Well done, you magnificent bastard...

Skoot vs. Phil.  This was the only game where both teams exceeded expectations.  Sadly, Skoot exceeded just a bit more than I did and he walked away with a margin of victory of just under 0.75 points.  Though lemme just say this, Skoot.  With Gurley and Bell on your team, you really should have better than a 2-2 record.  Especially since 1 of those wins was kinda stolen...

Kerry vs. Terri.  OK, we all knew that this week would come and that that rhyming of the match up would just be too much.  So, let's all just chuckle to get it out of our systems.

OK we all good?  We all good. 

Big QB Games here.  BIG games.  Unfortunately for Terri, that's about the only player on her team to show up.  Kerry had two other double digit players, including her D, which outscored all of Terri's players.  For some strange reason, Kerry benched Cutler this week.  I mean look at his raw athleticism as he lines up at the bottom of the screen for this wildcat play:

Cutler describes himself as nailing this play.  No, really.

Patrick vs. Mike.  Patrick dominated this game.  Zeke is finally getting back to form, AJ Green knocked it out of the park, and the other Elliot is showing that he's pretty much got a golden leg.  Well done, Patrick.  Oddly in this game, neither actually started a QB.  Yes, the slot was filled, but combined the QBs scored less than 5.  The other news coming out of this game is that we still have our only other perfect team.  Mike is still siting winless.  To commemorate this, he has aptly changed his team name from IWILLWINEventually to Iwon'twinagain.  (And the real kicker here is that every benched player save one scored double digits this week.)  Damn, Mike...

Do you, like, need a hug, man?  Terri - you're on deck.

Josh vs. Crutch.  Josh dominated this game.  And I say that as derisively as I can.  I mean, Josh only threw down 63 points.  Crutch, on the other hand.... Dude I have no idea what is going on here.  On paper you should be kicking some ass.  But really, this is kinda how your season is going:

Yes,I know that this is arena football, but that's about where
Crutch is right now...

McClennen vs. Kyle.  With a whopping winning score of 55 points, you've gotta know that there was some serious under performing going on here.  Kyle is still going all in with the Pats, and when they have a bad week, he has a bad week.  And McClennen... well,I think that he is just happy to play.  Some people might think that these two teams are no longer in contention.  However, they arrogantly can respond:

So good luck heading into next week, chums!  Looking at the BYEs and the schedules, I think that we're all going to need some luck to get through...