DFL 2017 Week 12: Where's all the Playoff Berths?

Well, we're in week 12 and you know what that means.  With only two more weeks of regular season, the playoff race is shaping up nicely... Wait. What the hell?  Where are all of the play off clinches?  (Side note:  Congratulations to me for starting off this blog post with 5 sentences starting with the letter W. Rah!  Anyways...)

I mean, holy cow.  Is the league really that tight?  As a matter of fact, we are that tight this year.  There lies a scant 2 games between 3rd and 9th place.  So, that means that there is still a bit of a fight not only for playoff berths, but also seeding.  Cuz let's be honest.  This is what the first round is going to look like for whatever unlucky sod happens to sneak in in 8th place:

We can only hope that it's Kerry who pulls 8th seed so that she can
do here black magic and make Ben lose again...

I'm not going to make wild guesses about what's going to happen in the next few weeks though.  So, let's get to pick'ems!

Ben and Crutch both kicked some serious ass this week going 5-1.  Mike and Terri were on the same wavelength going 4-2, and Phil clocked in with a sad 3-3.  That means that we've got some ties.  Ben is now tied with Phil for first place, and the Gs remained locked in 5th place together.  This is how it currently stands:

Phil:  46

Ben:  46 (boo!)

Crutch:  32

Josh:  27

Mike:  22

Terri:  22

Patrick:  15

So, it looks like this is going to come down to it again.  Good luck, everyone.  Except Ben, obvs.

Ben.  BEN.

Let's put that particular bullshit behind us and move on to the games...

Patrick vs. Josh.  Josh came into this one hungry.  If he could pull a win and lay a significant beating on Patrick, Josh would climb past Patrick to second place.  But this was not to be, as Patrick chalked up the most points in the league this week.  Also, this win puts Patrick at the top of the league for Points Scored throughout the season.  Also, fun side note:  Patrick hit line up Nirvana this week.  Josh's team did admirably, except for poor Dak.  This is the second week in a row that he went negative.  It wasn't quite as epic of a meltdown as last week, but still not good.  I'm not saying that Zeke's suspension is hitting Josh hard, but this is how I found him this morning:

Kyle vs. Terri.  Man, when Kyle is hot, he's HOT!  Brady kicking ass, NE Def (finally) kicking ass, Jones Jr kicking ass, Lunch kicking ass.  That's not to say that Terri rolled over her.  4 solidly double digit performances clocked in on Terry's starters AND almost 50 points were left on the bench between two players.  This is the sort of game that you wanna see.  Not a lot of lame ducks, just a lot of good performances on both sides.   Congrats, Kyle, and tough break, Terri...

D vs. McClennen.  Well, somehow D managed to pull of a very decisive win, even with starting Cousins (who sucks) and Crabtree (who was both booted and suspended for fighting).  But when Jones and Ertz almost outscore the competition on their own, it's gonna be a good time.....  Enjoy it while it lasts, D.  You're crushing it!

Kerry vs. Crutch.  This was another pretty tight game and Kerry managed to beat expectations and pull in a W.   A big game too....  Kerry jumped up to 6th place and Crutch was pushed out to 9th place.  Also known as "So close, but not quite close enough for the post season."  Keep kicking ass, Kerry.. this might just be your year.

Mike vs. Phil.  I know, I know. This was supposed to be a big rematch.  We were going to do as much smack talking as we did in week 1.  Sadly, both of our teams have just been beaten to hell and back, and I think that Mike and just didn't have enough bravado to cover up our shit shows of teams.  So, not a lot of smack here.  Though I will say that it did come down to Monday night, which was nice.  Hopkins needed a scant 9 and change points on Monday night to pull in the second W for ol' Phil.  It just wasn't meant to be as Mike one this match up by 0.68 points.  Ugh.  Hurt then, hurts now.

Ben vs. Skoot.  I can't even for this one....

A chink finally appears in Ben's armor, but somehow he manages to reverse Ben it.  I mean, second lowest points in the week and he manages to play the worst points in the week.  Fucking hell, Skoot.  You had TWO players who were clearly out.  

You're killing me here!!!

Ugh... OK.  So, two more weeks in the regular season.  Y'all know what to do.

DFL 2017 Week 11: Don't call it a come back!

Hey motherfuckers.  Guess who broke their losing streak?

 I'll give you a hint.   It wasn't Skoot.  He's still squarely in losertown.  With my definitive (read 0.28 point) margin of victory, all should be prepared for my reign of glory to kick back in just like it was at the beginning of the season.  Like my son says:

Dab the haters....

Now, I know that that we'd all like to bask in my greatness, just for a little bit longer...  Actually, no.  Let's bask just a little bit longer:

mmm 0.28 points has never felt so good...

OK, moving on. I wanted to give a quick shout to an actual rising star:  our very own Kyle (Hi Billy Mays Here).  Last month he was but ass last.  Like, even lower than Mike.  But this week, he pulled a 4th victory in a row and that landed him in 4th freaking place!!  Now his position is a bit precarious since his overall points total isn't exactly dominating, but it's definitely an interesting Cinderella story in the making.

See what I did there?  A Cinderella Story?  And it's precarious?
Dammit, all y'all're gonna miss me when I'm gone!

And it ain't just luck.  Dude has made 17 transactions in November *alone*.  So, watch out if you're playing Kyle in the next few weeks and you put any credence into the hot hand fallacy at all.

Lots of good picks this week.  Ben went 5-1 (sigh), while Phil, Crutch, Josh, and Mike went 4-2.  Bringing up the rear is Terri who pulled in a respectable 3-3.  The result is that Ben continues to inch closer to first (dammit), Crutch and Josh stay tied for third, and Mike tied Terri.

Phil:  43
Ben:  41
Crutch:  27
Josh:  27
Mike:  18
Terri:  18
Patrick: 15

This week, we could have had Ben pull a "You're not my supervisor!", but he had to vote for himself.  Seriously, folks.  We need to start handing Ben some losses, just so that his picks can take a dive.

(As a side note, as of the time writing this, all of the contenders have locked in their votes.  So,I think that we've got some players this year.)

We'll start at the top and work our way down for the match ups.

Ben vs. Patrick. This was expected to be a slut fest and it was.  (EDIT:  Obviously, I meant "slug fest", but I decided to leave it because it's better this way.)  Both teams had the D leading in points.  Both teams had great performances at the flex spot.  But in the end, Ben's team just out performed at each position.  The good news for me is to say that Patrick can embrace his inner Cowboy fan and join the "If I had Zeke I would have won" chant.

Was that over the line?  That might have been over the line...

Terri vs. Josh  Well how about this upset?  And the beat down of the week goes to Terri this week.  But not like we'd expect.  She delivered the beat down of the week.  The super shitty thing here is that Josh's last minute change of Smith-Schuster for Allen cost him the game.  (It's like dad always said "Never trust a man named JuJu.")  Well, that an Dak and dem boys completely shitting the bed in SNF.

Take notes.  Dak' -7 points is a goo crash course.

Phil vs. Kerry.  (Side note:  Damn, it feels good to put my name first after all of this time.)  OK Yeah, I might have over sold this one at the top of the article.  Truth be told, the margin of victory is *razor thin* here.  0.28 points.  And it was all decided on Monday night football.  Kerry just had Wilson and the Seattle D to play.  And holy cow did they make it close!  One again, my team hit line up Nirvana because my bench pretty much had nobody on it, between injuries and BYEs.

Line up Nirvana face

Kyle vs. Mike  Yep.  Kyle is still riding the Pats train.  But it seems to be working for him , so who am I to say no?  Mike... man.. I dunno man.  To your credit it does look like you're still trying, but your team is fighting you ever step of the way.  I mean benching Ryan at Seattle to start Smith at New York makes a hell of a lot of sense.  Just didn't work out.  Next year, man.  Next year.

Crutch vs. McClennen.  First and foremost, let's congratulate Crutch here.  Solid game and respectable 70 points win, with a 30+ point margin of victory.  But McClennen, bubby, what are you doing here?  McCoy and Howard turned in solid performances, but then your TE and kicker are on the Jets.  And just getting around the part where you are starting two Jets players, the Jets were on BYE this week.  Add on top of that the fact that you started Washington against the hot Saints makes me wonder if you're not dipping into your Lagavulin a little hard.  But what really REALLY surprised me is that you actually did go into your team this week and tinker a little because you changed out MCown (another Jet) because he was on BYE (yay!) for Tom Brady's backup, which is ... odd.

D vs. Skoot.  Well, someone had to win this one, right?  And D did.  Well, more specifically, Cousins did.  Ugh, it pains me to say that the best player of the game was Cousins.  This pretty much sums up this game:

And that's about it.  Next week is week 12, so we're going to start playing the same teams that we started the season.  If you dropped a game or two at the start, now's the time to get sweet, sweet revenge.

See you tossers next week.

DFL 2017 Week 10: It ain't getting better...

Hey!  Remember last week how I was all hopeful that October was going to be the end of all of the pain?  Didja check the scoreboards this weekend?

Spoiler Alert:  It wasn't pretty...

Both Skoot and I take *another* loss this week, in perhaps the stupidest game of chicken to see who can have the longest losing streak in the league.  I'm going to guess that he blinks first.  

But here's the thing.  It's not that 3/4 of my top draft picks are out (and the last one is a WR whose QB is out).  No, no.... The worse thing is Ben.  You might think that my terrible writing style made me forget to finish that sentence.  It did not.  I will retype it to emphasize what I just said.  In fact, you know what?  I'm going italics with this.  Ben is the worst.

Where to start unpacking my shit show of an old roommate?  Well, let's take a look at his bench.  He's still carrying Luck.  You know why?  To spite me.  No, seriously...

Editor's note:  I actually hit line up Nirvana this week because my bench scored
a grand total of 0 between injuries and BYEs.  (And I had to drop starters to do so.)

But that's not all.  Check this.  See how Ben forgot to swap out his TE this week?  Well, turns out, that was actually intentional:

Does my warning against hubris slow him down?  Nay!  It only makes him double down, like a mini-Trump:

Then what happens?  What happens????  Not only does Ben win, but he gets the highest points total of the week, AND locks in the first playoff berth of the year.  

Screw that guy.  Amirightguys??

OK... but let's segue from ranting to actual reporting, shall we?

Pick 'ems!  Only three entries this week.  Ben went 5-1, Phil 4-2, and Crutch 2-4.  So, that means that Ben is officially in striking distance with 7 weeks left.  Again, fuck that guy.  But in happier news, Crutch did manage to scrape together enough points to be tied for 3rd right now.   (And if the season ended right now, he'd be ahead because he's got more overall picks than Josh does.)

Phil  39

Ben  36

Crutch 23

Josh 23

Terri 15

Patrick 15

Mike 14

Also, yet ANOTHER You're not my supervisor.  Everyone picked Skoot to beat Crutch this week, but Skoot decided that perhapsa shitty team was the better part of valor and nosedived...

Guess that we can't put it off any longer...  Let's get to the games.

Ben vs. Terri.  We all know what happened here, and nobody is happy with it.  Least of all Terri, because she just pulled off a Ben AGAINST Ben, because she scored the second highest points this week, but she played the highest point total.  And one more quote from Ben, just in case you don't realize what a pile of dicks he is:

Josh vs. Mike.  This was projected to be a hella-close games and it certainly turned out to be!  Josh *barely* eeked out a victory over Mike by less than a point.  (As a side note, I cannot believe how many games have come down to less than a point this year.  it's uncanny!)  So, once again, Mike lives up to his namesake and remains firmly in last place.  But barely so...

Kyle vs. Phil.  Another close one here!  Kyle pulls in a much needed win to hopefully keep his post season alive with a small margin of victory of 3 points.   And if I may take an aside here, I currently have the point points for AND the most points against.  I'm pretty sure that I've had this all season, but I know that I've had it for at least 5 weeks.  September (when I last tasted victory) seems so far off....  I remember those halcyon times!!!

Jesse, No!  Be nice..

Crutch vs. Skoot.  Finally, Crutch's team is coming together.  4 players went double digits, and somehow he pulled off a pretty decisive win, even though he only scored 67 points.  On the other hand, I've been giving Skoot a hard time for not setting his line up the last few weeks.  And what happens?  He hits line up Nirvana and can't do a damn thing with it.  

I mean, like, not  really.  Set your line up, man!

Patrick vs. D.  And speaking of forgetting to set line ups.   Geez guys.  What happened here?  3 players (total from both teams) were started who didn't need to.  and to top it off, D started the Buffalo D against NO.  I mean, really?  

Kerry vs. McClennen  I mean, usually married games are more fun than this.  On the plus side, both teams did start a full line up.  But on the minus (and more pertinent) side, LOWEST SCORE OF THE WEEK.  And for extra shame for McClennen, that would be the beat down of the week that he just got there.  For this shameful performance from both of you, there will be no gif.

Just a static image.  Think about what you've done.

I would say good luck next week, but really, what do I know?  If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go cry a little...

DFL 2017 Week 9: October's over - what a shithole!

Ugh... well, we're just about to enter into double digit weeks.  But before we get there, let's take a moment to reflect on what a shit hole October was.

We'll start with the obvious.... I haven't won a single game in October.  (And the only other one to accomplish this crap hole of a feat has started 3 players on BYE on each of the previous two weeks.)  Who doesn't like to see their good pal Phil win a game here and there?

Then, there's the undisputed leader of the league, Ben.  I mean, really?  Dude is still sitting on Luck, even though he might never play in the NFL again.

The longest streak of the league belongs to one Mr Patrick Mulligan McPoyle Hutton.  And to top it all off, the dude with the most moves in the league is not only a newbie, but also #3 in the standings.  Yeah, it's Josh.  Now, normally,I'm in favor of names that can be used as verbs (see:  my name), but this is what comes up as the first GIS for "Josh":

Ladies and Gentlemen (and Skoot - whatever the hell you are), we need to correct this situation stat.  We've only got 5 more weeks of regular season.  Let's please hand these jabronis some losses, shall we?

League Pick'ems.  Well, we sent off October appropriately with the Pick'em League.  With a big ol' fuck you.

Only 4 people made picks.  Josh and Crutch went 4-2, Ben went 3-3, and I had a season worst of 2-4.  That leaves the standings at:

Phil:  35
Ben: 31
Josh:  23
Crutch:  21
Terri:  15
Patrick:  15
Mike:  14

So, we do have a few individual tight races going on.  Get in there and pull ahead of your partners.  Except you, Ben.  Here's a little advice, straight from all our favorite element: neon

And we got not one but two YOU'RE NOT MY SUPERVISOR awards to hand out this week:  Terri completely upset D and Kyle messed up Kerry is unprecedented fashion.

As Kyle outscored the rest of the league, I think that this is as good of a place as any to start....

Kyle vs. Kerry.  Well, Kyle's Patriot heavy team had to have a BYE week some time. So, Kyle had to scramble to find a team.  And holy fuck, did he ever!  Team high score, highest score of the week, AND beatdown of the week!  (In fact, he beat Kerry down so bad that the point differential in the game was more than almost half the the teams in the league just scored.)  Looking at Kerry's score, I thought "Man, she didn't set a line up this week!  Come on!"  Well, she did.  Fournette was benched for violating team rules at the last minute, Dickson just didn't get looked at all game, and somehow Walsh missed all three gimme field goals.  And those were just the players who goose egged!  Another didn't even hit 1 point another fell short of 3.

Josh vs. Phil.  Well, for a game that was predicted to be so close that it hurts, this was sure a pisser. It was pretty evenly matched.  The big differentiatior was on Alvin Kamara who just went crazy.  Cuz you know, people named Alvin so often do well in the NFL.

This numb nuts is the guy who won it for you, Josh.  I hope that
you're happy with yourself.

Patrick vs. Crutch.  Son of a ....  Well, Patrick took this one, extending his winning streak even farther.  The kicker is that Zeke was able to play at the last minute.  That means that Patrick snuck this win under the RADAR.  If Zeke's suspension was upheld, then Patrick would have scored 8 less points (assuming that he played his best RB), and Crutch would have pulled the win instead.  So, Patrick, congratulations on winning this one by the hair of your chinny chin chin.

Do you remember Green Jelly?  I remember Green Jelly.

Ben vs. Mike.  O.  My.  Gosh.  (Look at her butt)  Speaking of close games, here's another.  Ben *barely* wins this game by a point.  Not overly surprising, except that Ben is in first place and Mike is in dead last place.  AND Mike hit line up Nirvana.  So, Ben keeps his strangle hold on first place, while Mike continues to languish in last.  It was a noble try, Mike.  And one to be saluted.  Really, the only thing left to do at this point.....

Quit your job as a stripper and become a mildly entertaining
Youtube sensation.

McClennen vs. Skoot.  Well, McClennen, you got a gift here.  With Winston getting knocked out early, McCoy thinking that he was back in Philly, and starting the Cin DEF, you scored a lackluster 57 points.  The good news is that Skoot was distracted by shiny things and forgot to set his line up (again).  So, 3 players on BYE, one that is too old and was just released from the team, AND one that was traded a scant 48 hours before game time all totaled 0 points.  The remaining 3 players did OK though.

Terri vs. D.  Ugh... AKA, well, shit.  Someone has to win, right?  Terri had a terrible game at 45 points, but that actually more than doubled her opponent.  I've seen some sad games, but this had got to be top 5 saddest games ever.

But yeah, we're in the short rows now.  Right now, there is a *5* way tie for 5th place (based on record alone), and there's only a 2 game difference between 1st and 3rd place.  So, it's a lot tighter than it has been in the past.  October is over, so let's go and kick some ass here folks!  Upsets from here on out!  Who's with me??

Oh, screw you guys, then.