DFL Week 16: And there were great lamentations.

Well, it's the end of the road for two more teams this week.  Congratu-freaking-lations to the victors.  You bastards.  Does it make you feel like a big man to crush your poor commissioner's dreams of taking home the gold one year?  Tell 'em, Dawson:

What's next?  You gonna make Joey cry?  (Wait a minute, I've got a Dawson's Creek sad theme going and I didn't use this image?

Shit, Phil, get your head in the game...)

And while you're at it, why not just make the Docta sad too???

OK OK OK... Enough intro, we've got some football to talk about!

Big, big news in the pick'ems league... Crutch wrestled first place from Kookie this week by going 3-1 on picks, whereas Kookie only went 2-2.  Melanie also went 3-1, jumping her up to 6th, place, as RA Dave neglected to make picks this week.  Everyone else pretty much shit the bed going 1-3 this week.  So, it's all going to come down to week 17 for first place.  Ben's still got a shot at 3rd place, as well.  Needless to say, this is the tightest that the pick'ems have ever been.  Right on, suckas.

Though, and I hope that this isn't viewed as sour grapes, but I should have 4 more correct picks myself, which would put me in contention for gold as well.  However, to stop my losing streak (you may recall me bitching mercilessly about it earlier on in the season), I started picking against myself.  Since it worked week to week, I kept voting against myself.  So, I should be closer to 50.  But I stand by my picks as this stupid little ritual  sent me on a 5 game winning streak.  (When *you're* at week 10 with 3 wins under your belt, you see if you don't go all superstitious!  Yeah, I'm looking at you +Scott Belgrave and +Chris Kucharik.  (Son of a bitch!  Google has been telling me that I can tag people on G+ here, but I don't think that it work.  You lying bastards, Google!)

And now to the meat and potatoes.  Starting with the Championship bracket and then moving in to the Consolation bracket:

The Big Guns Game:  Melanie versus Patrick.  No idea what happened here.  Patrick's QB and WR threw down 30 and 20 points respectively.  Hmm... Wait, Melanie's threw down 29 and 20 points.  And they both had two more players well into the double digits.  O wait, I see what it is...  Melanie's DEF and K beat Patrick's DEF and K.  In fact... how much was that differential?   9 points...  Hmmm... how big was the points differential in the game?  9 points...  Does that mean... that K and DEF win games?  I think that this shows it pretty definitively...  (And how's this for some shit?  Patrick's backup QB thres down 25 points.  Seriously, you jerks, I was searching desperately for a QB this week, but there was none to be had...)  So, Melanie heads into the championship game.  Congrats, Melanie.

The Scrappy Underdog Game:  Missy versus Phil.  Well, this was a hell of a match up going into the week.  I had to make a bunch of changes in the roster to even stand a chance.  I picked up Dez Bryant (and the accompanying 32 points - booyah!).  Sadly, there were no QBs or DEFs to be had.  So, I wound up with Roethlisberger, which to be sure was a hail mary, and keeping SF DEF starting.  SF was going up against Seattle which any other year would have been fine.  However, Seattle had clocked in over 100 points in the previous two weeks, so it was a risk keeping in the SF DEF.  Sadly, both of these chances blew up in my face.  Then, Missy's team just went buck wild - Manning in at over 20 points, Chicago DEF at 29...  Just a good game all around for Missy, who BTW hit line up Nirvana with her entire bench totaling 4 points.  So, Missy goes on to face Melanie in the championship and once again we'll have a lady hoisting the gold in the DFL.

The Yeah, this makes sense that they are here game:  Mike G versus Ben:  Not a lot of big jump out players in this game...  Everyone seemed to do about as well as expected, except for Davis (on Mike G's Team) and Wallace (on Ben's team), who both walked away from the game with 1 point.  Really, the big difference maker in this game was Reggie Bush going crazy in Buffalo and pulling in 28 points.  Just to be sure that everyone hears that right, Bush pulled in more points than Peyton Manning.  He pulled in more points than Wes Welker.  Geez, More points than Ray Rice. So, congrats to Mike G for being one step closer to being the bitch of the playoffs.

Finally, the upset bowl:  Joy versus RA Dave.One more upset left in this game:  Everyone voted for Joy, and RA Dave somehow managed to sneak in a win.  Joy just had one kick to the ass after another here.  Her QB was knocked out in the first round (and BTW, bold move benching Rivers just out of spite), then the stud RB of the league, Arian Foster was benched due to an irregular heartbeat and Victor Cruz hardly even played because Shitty Manning decided that he wanted to be the honorary Romo of the year.  Meanwhile, the real Romo sat on RA Dave's bench racking up 32 points.  (WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE???)  So, Joy heads into the Bitch of the Playoffs game next week.

So, here are the match ups for next week:

Melanie versus Missy for the gold.  (Yep, that's right, a 6 seed might take home gold!)

Patrick versus Phil for the bronze. (Yep, that's right the 7 seed is going to be beaten bloody this week.)

Ben versus RA Dave for fun. (Both 5th & 6th will be good draft positions, so not exactly a lot on the line here.)

Mike G versus Joy for the bitch of the playoffs.  (Not quite so dramatic as the sacko, but it's something to be avoided.)

(And of course, Crutch versus Kookie for both coolest nickname AND pick'ems.)

That's about it this week.  I'd wish you all good luck, but you wouldn't know what to do with it.  (I know that I certainly don't....)

DFL Week 15: Are you ready for some Playoffs???

The playoffs are in full swing and we definitely are keeping things interesting this year.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say, I'm about as surprised as this kid:

Coupla upsets and a slumbering giant wakes up?  Hells yeah, we're ending this season right.

However, before we get into the good bad and ugly of it, I wanted to let you know that there is a new highlight player this year.  Veterans of the league may remember one "Noname McPeePeePants", whose real name escapes me a the moment.  See, I was playing Kookie a few years ago and it came down to Monday night.  He had just Tony FUCKING Romo and one receiver (McPeePeePants) left to play.  Dallas was sucking eggs the first half, so I thought that it was a no-brainer to win it.  Well, turns out Romo turned it on in the second half and McPeePeePants got the game winning touch down, which gave Kookie the win.

Why am I telling this story?  Well, in my other league, in the semi-finals, I had a 9 point lead going into the Monday night game.  Only Chris Buthole (Johnson) remained.  I figured that I  had a decent shot to win.  Butthole did nothing that night.  25 yards of rushing the entire night.  O wait.  There was on highlight in that entire game.  Butthole running 95 freaking yards to score a touchdown.  Must have been a trick play, right?  Only if you go to the Joe Paterno school of play calling which states that no matter what down, no matter location o the field, the most surprising play is to take your stuf RB and run him up the middle.  Which is what Butthole did.  Son of a ....  (Ironically, the guy that I was playing also had Tony FUCKING Romo on his team, but I was raging so hard at Butthole, that I hardly even noticed.  But it bears saying Tony FUCKING Romo.)

(And don't give me too hard of a time when I wander... I only have 2/3 of the games that I normally have to write about this week.  I get paid by the word.)

OK enough of that.  I'm back in this league.  So, the games were pretty exciting, no?  We'll get to that in a minute.  First off, let's talk about pick'ems.  Gentlemen, we have a dark horse emerging coming down the stretch.  Crutch, going 3-1 picks managed to tie Kookie for 1st place.  (Kookie only went 2-2.)  (Technically, the tie breaker goes to Kookie since he's got a higher correct percentage, though I don't really agree with that.) By going 2-2, I put some distance between myself and Ben (who went 1-3).  Also, high picks were Mike and Melanie with 3-1, and RA Dave lost a position by only going 2-2 this week.  Only 8 picks left and it's definitely coming down to the wire!  Keep 'em up, boys!  (And girls, of course...)  (Technically, And an I are still in it for first, but it's a long shot.)

We'll start at the top and work down...

First off, the 1 vs 8 seed:   Melanie versus Mike G.  Though Mike put up some pretty good bravado last week, he failed to knock Melanie out of the playoffs.  With only a 14 point spread, it was a lot closer than Yahoo! suggessted.  Both teams had solid starting line ups, though it probably is worth mentioning that Frank Gore, who was benched on Mike's team, also go an asterisk this week for recovering a fumble in the end zone.  (What's up with these asterisks?  Two in as many weeks!)

Next:  4 versus 5 seed: Patrick Versus Ben.  Patrick *finally* snaps his losing streak this week to advance to the semi-finals.  Everyone except his DEF performed admirably, though his DEF was going up against the #1 ranked Atlanta Falcons, who were charged up from last week's loss the the Panthers.  Ben finally got bitten for starting a Detroit QB, and the rest of the team just did "eh".  (To add insult to injury, Ben's benched kicker scored 20 points.  Sadly, even if Ben hit line up Nirvana, he wouldn't have beaten Patrick this week,e even if Patrick went the opposite and started his worst line up.)  Oddly, the 40 point beating wasn't the beat down of the week.

Beat down of the week came in the closest projected game of the week:  3 Seed versus 6 seed:  RA Dave versus Missy.  Missy quietly destroyed RA Dave by just her entire team going buck wild.  Dave's team just went "Bleh".  And speaking as the person who will be playing the winner of this game, let me say "Thank you, Missy" for taking Tony FUCKING Romo out of my path to the playoffs.  What's that?  She's got Butthole on her team?  DAMMIT!!!

Finally, The 2 seed versus the 7 seed:  Joy versus me:  I did it...  I took down the reigning champ.  After getting destroyed by her in our first match up, eeking out a 1 point victory in our second, I laid into her for a 30 point walloping.  What happened?  Well, BOTH of our QBs hit -1 points.  BOTH of our DEFs had around 30 points.  The real difference was my Kicker went buck wild (Joy's was shut out) and Andre Johnson decided to actually play.

Looking forward, in the Semi-finals, we've got Melanie versus Patrick (both higher seeds in the quarter finals), and Missy versus Phil (both lower seeds in the quarter finals).  Couple of things to mention:
1 - Yes, yes, yes, there are two other games going on in the consolation bracket.  However, I'm guessing that the managers playing them probably wont'be putting too much work in this week, so I'm not going to  hype it too much.  (Yes, I will still include them in the write up this season.)
2 - Missy versus Phil is the same match up that we had in the championship game a few years back.  Missy won because Akers missed a 40+ yard field goal.  LACES OUT, DAN!!!
3 - My winning streak against all odds is still rolling.  Come on inertia principle of luck!  (I think that if I win this week, I'll be tied for the longest win streak of the season.  You don't want to stand in front of that, do you, Missy?)
4 - At least we have more guys still in contention than we usually do at this point.  Go Patrick and Phil!
5 - On the plus side, Melanie versus Patrick looks like it's going to be a pretty tight game.  ON the minus side, Missy is set to give me one hell of a beating.  Do I get bonus points for knocking the back to back champ out of the playoffs against all odds?  Yeah, I didn't think so...

Good luck to everyone still in it.  But mostly to me.  :-)

(Also, as a heads up this week, due to the holidays, there are neither Thursday night nor Monday night games this week.  There is one Saturday night game though...)

DFL Week 14: End of the Regular Season.

Well, this is the end of the road for the bottom 4 teams this week.  Sadly, there wasn't a miracle, so the top 8 from last week got into the playoffs this week and the bottom 4 remained, well, the pitts.  So, before I get into the specifics of week 14, let's say goodbye to the bottom of the barrel, as it were:

In 9th place, AKA "King of the Losers" is Crutch, who headed the team Crotch's Penetrators this season.  This was his first season with fantasy football.  All in all, not too bad.  Almost went .500 this season and had well over 1,100 points.  Hail to the King, baby!

In 10th place, Terri, who managed "Team Sweet T", ends her first season in the DFL.  (I think that this was her first FFL experience as well, but I'm not sure about that.)  Again, not too bad.  Almost winning half of her games this year.  Plus she hung in there until the end, snagging a win this week.

In 11th place, Kookie, who was Olympic Cry-Babies, met expectations.  With his 31 moves this year, he made a valiant mid-season come back, only to be shut down in the last 4 weeks.  But really, this is 1 position  higher than he usually finishes.  So... onward and upward, right?

And finally in 12th place is Skoot, AKA PointFiveDonkey.  Skoot autodrafted and though the team that he drafted wasn't awful (Yahoo! put him squarely in the middle of the pack), the entire NFL seemed to turn against him.  Injury after injured plagued his team.  Though, truth be told,  he didn't seem to worry about it too much, as he had the 3rd least moves overall.  Also, he winds up with the first pick of the draft next year.

As for the last three playoff spots?  They went to Missy (ScoobyDoo), Phil (Philthy Bastards), and Mike G (Lint Lickers).  Though it probably should be noted that Mike G didn't even get to .500 this year.  We'll call him the Seattle of the DFL.  (The Seahawks were in contention for a wildcard slot a few years ago and they didn't hit a .500 record either.  *Spoiler Alert* they were also eliminated before the playoffs really began as well....)

So, let's get to the re-capping, huh?  (BUST A CAP!)  Pick'em this week.  Just awful.  I mean...  Really really horrid job, folks.  The best pick was Mike G, going 3-3.  Everyone else got 2-4.  Now, in all reality, we can't beat ourselves up too hard when both the Panthers and the Eagles win.  It seemed kind like bizzaro world out there this week. The only real fall out of the week is that Mike jumped up to a tie for 5th place in overall picks.

And since we're at the end of the regular season, I should congratulate Kookie, Crutch, and myself for pulling in Gold, Silver, and Bronze respectively for the regular season pick'ems.  However, like I said in my write up last week, keep those picks coming, because I believe that we have three more weeks of picks until the final official crowning is to take place.

Now, the games!  Lots and lots going on here!  So, let's dive right in!

Streak Bowl:  Ben vs Phil:  Ben had 4 wins in a row coming into the game, Phil had 3, marking the two longest winning streaks in the league.  Somehow Phil walked away with the victory here.  Eli is finally starting to look like his old self, Sproles somehow woke up and Boldin got lucky enough to see the endzone twice.  Yay!  More importantly, Jenning forgot to play and Pettigrew got hurt early in the game.  So, even with Peterson being a beast, it just wasn't enough.  (Ben got the last laugh though.  Through crazy random happenstance, Ben and I both tried to pick up Mike Wallace at the same time, and he was faster on the draw.  How was Wallace still available in week 15???)

The Power Bowl:  Joy vs Melanie.  The top two ladies in the league went head to head this week and Joy put the beat down of the week on Melanie.  (56 points... none too shabby, though it certainly is not the league record 74 points....)  Sadly, Melanie did pull down line up Nirvana with her 62 points.  Yikes! (Then again, that's kinda what happens when your DEF plays NE in December.  Geez, Melanie!!)  And speaking of DEFs, let's got to the record-breaking DEF.

The Can we continue the slide into obscurity bowl:  Skoot vs Patrick.  Patrick hasn't gotten a win in a month now.  About the time that he locked up his playoff berth.  Though Patrick's team put up really good numbers (he would have beaten fully three quarters of the league this week with his numbers), Skoot took home the pie by starting this Seattle DEF.  They scored  a record breaking 43 freaking points.  And to be fair, Patrick started a strong DEF (the Giants), who threw down 29 points themselves.  And here's the crazy thing.  They were tied at 100 going into Monday night with only their TEs left to play.  So, yeah, Aaron Hernandez picked up 22 points, while Daniels only picked up 3.  Great game, fellas!

The Hey look Who's Still Playing Bowl featured Kookie and Terri.  Neither made it into the playoffs, and I think that their teams knew it.  Combined, their teams scored just under what Crutch's team score, who, I will remind you, didn't make the playoffs either.  But really, this game *nobody* showed up to play.  Well, I guess that Steve Smith did, but he was benched, so there's not much more to say, is there?

The Let's play for fun bowl starred RA Dave and Missy.  Not really too much to talk about here, except the only asterisked stat that I've seen this year.  Llyod got 6 points for recovering a fumble in the endzone, which is the most unique way for anyone to score a touchdown, I believe.  (And once again, a clean sweep of picks blows up in everyone's faces!)

The most talked about game of the week?  Mike G versus Crutch.  If Crutch won by 50 points (not record breaking by any stretch this year),  he would have snuck into the playoffs.  Sadly, he only won by 19 points. The good news for the rest of the league is that Brady and Moreno are now out of the league.  The rest of us breath a sigh of relief.  Thank you, Mike G, for only getting respectably beaten, as opposed to beat down.  Now, the big question is whether RG3 is going to be able to shake off his injury from week 14.

Lots going on!

Can Patrick stop his slide out of the league by picking up just a win or two?
Can Phil continue his 4 game winning streak?
Will RG3 be back to full power?
Will Bryant be able to bounce back?
Will the upsets continue?

It's playoff time!!!

Though, looking at the field of people still standing, I'm thinking that Joy and RA Dave probably have the best shot of taking gold this year...  This is sad for me, since I play Joy this week.  I was originally thinking that I wished that I would have been 8th seed, but looking at it, I think that Melanie has equal chances of destroying me this week as well....  Good luck all around, boyos!  But mostly for me. :-)

An Open Letter To Barnes and Noble.

To whom it may concern:

I was at your fine establishment this afternoon, browsing for some last minute gifts for Christmas.  While walking around in your store, I noticed some classification problems.

1. Under the "Romance" section, the 50 Shades of Gray Trilogy was proudly displayed.  I have to take umbrage at this classification, as it implies that romance was involved in the book.  From the second hand account that I received from a pretty reliable source, it has more to do with contract negotiation. Therefore, I humbly request that you move these books to the "Stupid Bullshit" section.
2. I passed a section called "Teenage Supernatural Romance".  Please destroy this section.  It is shameful that this is even a sub-genre.  Might I suggest the "Stupid Bullshit" section again?
3. And since we're talking about this section, may I once again pitch you my unpublished novel called "My Gothic Romance:  The New Gelatinous Cube in School".  But it's not what you think.  A new kid with an emo haircut wearing lots of eye make up starts going to school in a small town.  The misunderstood artistic girl meets him and a burgeoning romance commences.  But can she cope with the fact that he's actually a highly acidic being whose very touch breaks down all carbon-based beings that he comes in contact with?  I won't ruin it for you, though I do think that it would go well with your rapidly expanding "Stupid Bullshit" section.

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours,

Phil Rau.

DFL Week 13: The Kid Stays in the game...

Big week, boyos... Big week. Sadly, I've also got a kid who's been home from school for three days, and I think that I might be catching whatever she had. So, this'll be a short one this week.

First off: Pick 'em!

Melanie stormed back into a 6th place tie this week (with Mike G) by pulling in 5 picks. Kookie and Crutch made the last week of regular season pretty much a two man reace, with Kookie pulling in 4-2 picks and Crutch hanging on with 3-3 picks. So, the first two places going into the last week of the regular season are at 45 points (Kookie) and 44 points (Crutch). Ben and I went belly up with 2-4 picks, keeping the race for the bronse close at 41 for Phil and 39 for Ben. RA Dave narrowly held on to 5th place by going 4-2. Terri... well, Terri is still picking. Good for her! Oh, and one final note, Skoot went 0-2 this week, bringing his total picks for the year to 0-3. Great shame hangs over casa de Belgrave. Great shame....

Now, as a side note in the pick'ems of years past, I had cut off the regular season, crowning a winner, and then there was a post season winner. However, I'm going to make an executive decision here and say whatever Yahoo! does, that's what we'll follow. (Cuz it's going to be too much of a pain to keep track, unless Yahoo! does it for me. I know, I know.... I did that in the past, but Yahoo! has made me lazy...)

Before we get to the actual league, lemme throw out a heads up on the post-season for the newbies. I probably should have done this earlier, but there you go. So, the way that this will work is that the top 8 teams will continue to play on after week 14. Weeks 15, 16, and 17 will be the playoffs. It's a standard bracket. 1st plays 8th, 2nd plays 7th, etc. In week 16, the winners play, and the losers play in a consolation bracket. Week 17 will be the end of all of the brackets, and a winner will be crowned.

Now, if you are 9th-12th place going into week 15, then your position freezes. That is, there are no playoffs for you. Your position will be as it is.

Being that the next week will be the last week that some of you chumps play, make sure to not lose, or else you may just finish that much worse. And for all of you wondering if Skoot threw the game in week 13 to intentionally pick up the first draft position next year, I can assure you that he did not. I was coaching him this week and you saw how well *that* turned out. Sorry, Skoot. You should know better than to listen to me. (Plus, if you know Skoot, you know that he has an irrational fear of first draft pick. But hey, maybe this will encourage him to, you know, actually show up for the draft next year. LACES OUT, SKOOT!!!)

(And as a completely random side note, I looked at the playoff options that Yahoo! provides. I always thought that it was crummy that the bottom teams didn't get to compete for the worst in the league. So, the closest option that Yahoo! provides is to do 6 best teams go into a bracket and the 6 low teams go into a consolation bracket. Think about it for next year. I'm considering making that rules change next time around....)

Now, with that out of the way, let's take a look at what is actually happening in the standings. Well, a few more people locked up playoff BERTHS (how did I not know that for so long?) Ben and RA Dave are now officially in the playoffs. And good on you Dave. You jumped like 4 ranks with your win. I'm just going to throw something out there... Patrick is really embracing Philadelphia right now. He locked up a playoff berth 4 weeks ago. Ever since then, he has not won a single game. And he is doing it in spectacular fashion... Losing by 33 points in week 11, then by 17 points in week 12, and finally by 30 points in week 13. Ouch, dude. Just... ouch.

So, what does that mean for the remaining 3 playoff spots? Well, it's tight, but not really as tight as you might guess. There are three teams (Missy, Phil, and Mike G) sitting at 6-7 and there are three teams (Crutch, Kookie, and Terri) sitting at 5-8. So, for any of the teams at 5-8 to sneak in to the playoffs, they not only have to win this week, but one of the teams at 6-7 have to lose. But the kicker is that the winning team would need to outscore the losing team by at least 50 points (and in some cases just shy of 200 points). So, the playoffs aren't quite locked up, but it'll be a long shot to change the standings.

Now, what's happening with the week 13 match ups?

The tightest game of the week goes to Joy versus Phil. It came down to the Monday night and Phil walked away victorious by 1 freaking point. Now, let me pause and break an illusion that my dear wife Joy has been making for years. She claims that she's not funny enough to blog. However, halfway through the Sunday games (when I crazy down), she turned to me and said "O sweet! Looks like you can say in your write up that I spanked you twice this year. And I beat you twice in fantasy football too!" Brilliant, right? Well, on Tuesday when it turned out that I had actually won, without missing a beat, she said "I totally would have won if it wasn't for Rivers (who got the big old 0 points this week). How does it feel to have another man screw your wife?" I mean, seriously, the mouth on this one!

Next up, the game with the least number of wins coming into the game since Carolina played the Eagles last week: Skoot versus Terri... Good even split on picks for this game. I'm not sure why though... Skoot's team steadfastly refused to win, while Terri's team went buck wild. 18 points for your kicker? Really? I mean I know that I said that kickers win games, but... O wait... Detroit's kicker. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Someone on taht team has to be good at their job.

The biggest game of the week (for me at least) was Melanie versus Crutch. If Crutch won, he'd still be a serious contender in the playoff race. (Read: He's knock my ass to the curb). And how did it start? On Thursday night, with Brees scoring -3 points. That's right, Melanie's back up QB score more points than Brees. Who is Melanie's back u QB? She doesn't have one. So, I was pretty sure that Crutch was going to be alive and well. Somehow, Melanie's team rallied (with Welker picking up 23 points, meanwhile is QB, who is on Crutch's team, scored a paltry 5 points). Melanie was in serious danger of delivering the smack down of the week.

But that honor went to RA Dave. Not only did he score more points than anyone this week hands down, he put the beat down of the week on Mike by 57 points!! (What is happening this year??? We've had some crazy smack down of the week differentials!!) I guess everyone saw that coming right? Nope! only 3 of 8 people chose RA Dave. And Mike G was a 4 point favorite. So, let's look at Dave's points break down, shall we? Highest scorer? 26 points from his TE, who plays for Oakland. Next highest? Tony FUCKING Romo. Next up? A tie between his kicker and his DEF. I'm saying this right now... RA Dave sits high upon a throne of bullshit. (But thanks, Dave, for kicking Mike G into the playoff race...)

Next up, is the "Let's see who can beat Patrick this week bowl." The honor goes to Ben. Congratulations, Ben. And once again, I am kicking myself for not making the deal that Patrick offered to me that would have brought Calvin Johnson onto my team. Dammit. Regardless... like Patrick says. No win matters until the playoffs. That's what he's saying over and over again. To himself. While laying in the fetal position on his bed. Weeping softly to himself.

Finally, Kookie versus Missy. So many points left on the bench. Especially for Missy. She took some chances with her line up this week, and they all blew up in her face. Three of her starters scored 1 point. And her backups scored 12, 14, and 17. Kookie's point differential wasn't quite so extreme, but he still left 50 points on the sideline.

So, that's it. This week will most likely only shift the seeding around, but it is possible to change the playoff picture... And we've got some good match ups coming up:

The two longest winning streaks in the league, Ben with 4 and Phil with 3, are going head to head this week. who's going to Brees it up?

Will Patrick be able to stop his slide down the rankings? (He's playing Skoot, so there's a shot of some wackiness.)

Can Crutch overtake Kookie in overall picks?

Can Crutch (in 9th place) take out Mike G (in 8th place) and whoop him so hard that he'll sneak into the playoffs?

It's going to be a heck of a good week for football! Enjoy it, y'all!

DFL Week 12: Call it a come back!

Woo!!!  Another week for the books, lads!  One hell of a week if I do say so myself.  Before we get into the heart of things, lemme just say:

Yep... Happier than a fat kid in a golf shirt!  So much good stuff.  In fact, if you were to ask me how well this  last week went, I would be tempted to say:

So, what's got me in such a good mood.  All y'all!!  (I figure that I have to get the happy vibes out there this week since this is about as good as it will get for me this season.)

First off, pickem.... OK yeah, I crapped my pants here.  But on the plus side everyone did this week.  Crutch was the only one who hit more than 50% correct, and he only went 4-2.  And yeah, I lost second place. But here's the good news.  Kookie, on the verge of being untouchable in the regular season went 0-6. That's a big old goose egg.  I mean I only went 2-3 (not sure how I missed Joy versus Patrick's game, but there you go..), but getting 0 right?  Ouch, Kookie!

So, Kookie is now tied with Crutch in first place, I'm in third (and only 2 picks behind), and Ben is only two picks behind me.  And looking a little lower in the league, RA Dave was able to sneak ahead of Terri and be just behind Mike.  So, now, RA Dave is betwixt the Gs.  RA Dave, you'd best be doing some either really good or really bad picking this week to get out of that mess...

Two more weeks, everyone.  This is going to be a tight race!

And speaking of two more weeks...  Week 12 is keeping the league honest...  Both Melanie and Patrick, who had locked up the playoffs last week took looses this week.  Joy, on the other hand locked up a playoff birth this week, and stormed into second place overall.  Meanwhile, a little farther down the totem pole, we have a real slugfest going for the rest of the playoff slots.  We have 4 teams that are fighting over the bottom three playoff spots (Missy, Mike G, Phil, and Crutch).  OK, so it's pretty unlikely that Missy and Mike G are going to fall out of the playoff race, but it is theoretically possible.  So, really, it's just Crutch and I scrapping for the last playoff birth.  And really, these are the two teams to watch...  Same record, within 4 points of the over points scored (and oddly enough only 12 points difference in points scored against).  Granted, neither of these teams is going to be going anywhere in the post season, but a little drama at the end of the regular season never hurts.

(OK, OK, Kookie... Technically, you're not out of contention yet, but Crutch and I would both have to lose both of the next two games AND you'd need to win both of your next two games and that's a long shot, even for you...)

And speaking of records...  Has anyone noticed something odd with the points this year?  The top three teams are all crazy high on the overall point scoring, but the interesting thing is that they are lowest points scored against them.  Like, by far.  And looking at the bottom of the league, they have scored easily the lest points in the league and they've really had the points against them pile up.  That being said, the statistical anomaly is RA Dave.  He's got the most points in the league, the second most points scored against him, and the second most moves in the league.  And he's sitting squarely in 4th place.  I'm not sure about your mojo, RA Dave, but I like it....

All that being said, I'm not sure that there's all that much to say about the individual games, but I'll throw a few interesting tidbits out there:

• Holy cow!!  The SF DEF shut down Brees to hand the Melanie versus Phil bowl to me.  On the plus side, I picked up a win against the #1 team in the league.  On the minus side, I benched the SF DEF since they were playing Brees, and that cost me 20 points.
• Yes, yes, I picked up the Miami DEF to fill the spot, but desperate times, fellas....
• And for those of you keeping track, that puts me at 2-0 aganist Melanie this season.  Yay!
• And more bad news for Philly fans.... Now, not only is McCoy (from my team) out, but Melanie Jackson is officially on the IR.   Ugh...
• The Phil versus Melanie bowl was the first of two shut outs for pick 'ems this week.(Any given Sunday, right?)
• Skoot snapped his 6 (count'em - 6!) game losing streak against Missy.  As this puts her (minorly) in danger of missing the playoffs, I say "Right on!"
• This was the second pick 'em shut out.  
• Really, not much going on in this game.  Skoot didn't so much win it, as Missy steadfastly lost it.  Though really, it seemed like she made the smart starters calls across the board.
• Joy smacked Patrick down in spectacular fashion.  In all reality, I don't know what happened to Patrick's #2 ranked team... Just seems to have fallen apart here last week.  
• But man, neither of the QBs in this game showed up.  Neither got above 10 points...
• Kookie fumbled in winning streak when Mike G just dominated him. 
• And Mike G didn't even need a TE to do so.  
• In fact, if it weren't for Kookie's stellar defense, he might have been a contender to pull in the lowest game of the year...
• Beat down of the week goes to Ben against Terri this week.  Not record breaking, but certainly painful.
• Ben was the only one to break into triple digits this week.  (You keep that up, you might just get yourself a ring this year, son.)
• Another shocker (7 people voted against RA Dave), Crutch put the hurt on RA Dave this week.  Though to be fair, RA Dave's team just keeps getting knocked out of the game.  Stop hurting your players, RA Dave.
• And Crutch - yeah, just keep riding Brady.  He's your only hope these next few weeks.  Sure hope that the PAts don't lock up a playoff birth and start protecting their players...

And Ben helpfully pointed out that there is now another way for Yahoo! to tell you that your team sucks (his words, not mine).  Now, there's a little green, yellow, or red icon next to each player.  So, in addition to the projected stats and the Game Day Decision, there's a little light too.  Does this feel like a psychic's cold reading to anyone else?  Yahoo! is throwing out so many signals that one of them is bound to hit the actual result right on the head, right?

DFL Week 11: Kill All Halflings!!*

**  Subtitle this week given by Skoot.  Thanks for contributing, Skoot.

What a week, what a week!!  Yes, I won this week, snapping a 5 game losing streak.  And the fact that it was the highest score of the week and the second highest score of the year made it that much more delicious.  So, I enter this week a Champion.   An American Champion.  Accordingly, I make my entrance thusly:

All you bastards can eat it.

(Gimme a break, it's been a rough season.  I  have to savor the few moments that I can.)

But where is my sense of decorum?  We start with the Pick'ems.  Ben and Crutch both snagged 5-1 picks this eek.  Low men were Phil and Melanie with 3-3.  So, Kookie (with 4-2) added another notch to his lead.  And now, Crutch is tied with Phil for the number 2 (hehe) slot, and Ben is only 1 pick behind that.  Well, shit.  How often have Pick'ems been this close this late in the season.

On a side note, I want to thank Mike G an Terri G for their unwavering support this week in the pick'ems.  They were the only ones pick me this week.  And let me say from the bottom of the league's heart, you two are lucky bastards.

And since we're talking about the Gs, let's get into the biggest note of the season.  Terri and Mike were the only ones to make a trade this season. Right under the deadline no less.  Just goes to prove that it's easier to make a trade if you actually see a person.

Let's keep the Segue segue going, shall we?  Who's top of the league with moves?  Not surprisingly, Kookie takes the top spot this week with 29 moves going into week 12.  Kookie has been regenerating his team like a troll what its arm cut off.  I'm thinking that if Kookie really commits, he might be able to hit 40 moves by the end of regular season.  The bigger surprise is that RA Dave is right behind Kookie with 24 moves and RA Dave is currently in 3rd place.  Usually, that number of moves lands you... well, lands you where Kookie is.  And good on you, Kookie for not letting 10 straight seasons teach you that you need to pick up a player the week before they get hot, not the week after.

With that out of the way, let's get to the games!

The Nerd Bowl, presented by WoC:  Phil vs Crutch.  Crutch came into the game with a slight favor. Phil walked away with the victory.  Why?  Because Andre Johnson finally woke up and somehow the San Fran DEF whooped up on Chi-Town.  Just goes to show you that anything can happen on Monday nights.  I would like to thank Crutch.  He had Tony *FUCKING* Romo on his team.  Since Romo was benched, he had a poor game.  Were he to have started, he would have had a game for the record books...  (Fun side note, after this game, Crutch and I are exactly tied on points for the year. Weird, right?)

The So Close I Can Taste It Bowl, sponsored by Hostess (Gord rest their souls):  Ben vs. Missy.  1 point difference in this game.  Congrats to Missy for having a consistent "meh" team this week.  Nothing special really.  Most of the team was right around projections.  This is in stark contrast to Ben's bunch of filthy creatures that he calls players and Dez Bryant (wha?) and the Baltimore DEF (against the blindingly painful to watch Stillers) who somehow combined to get 51 of the 79 points for the team.  Lesson learned here folks:  Get the superstars and your other mongrel player will just pad the score for you...

The 'THESE ARE THE BEST TEAMS IN THE LEAGUE' Bowl, sponsored by Dale's Discount Pooh:  Melanie versus Patrick.   Melanie - You keep riding Brees.  That's all that you'll need to do.  Patrick. Holy Your Team, man.  Sorry, I shouldn't use such foul language.  Lemme rephrase.  "Holy Shit, Man."  Ryan pooped the bed pulling in -4 points.  But in his defense, he was playing the powerhouse team known as ... that can't be right...  The Cardinals?  That's gotta hurt...  Then, Goose eggs from Jackson and Bowe... Esh!  Whta's really sad is that the 40 points that you snagged wasn't the lowest in the league.

The 'O dear... Here's the number for a battered woman's shelter' Bowl, sponsored by Phil's definitely got to go to sensitivity training for that one:  Skoot and Mike G.  Mike scored a whopping 113 points (also achieving line up Nirvana) against Skoot's killer 39 points.  OK, two of Skoot's players wer on BYE and his QB on Monday night was questionable and didn't start and the TE just got shut out...  Ouch Skoot.  I talked to Skoot this week and he assures me that he's not out of the league yet.  He is fully read to assume the position of spoiler for the remainder of the season.  And that's good.  His team definitely seems to have spoiled.  But that's what happens when  you leave a fantasy team out without proper safeguarding it. It stinks!  (And Sadly, skoot was just shy of line up Nirvana....)

The Lady Bowl, sponsored by flowers and pretty things, I don't know what you ladies like:  JOy vs Terri.  The most interesting thing about this game was sitting on the bench.  Somehow, Joy's backup QB (Palmer) outscored her starter (Rivers).  On Terri's side... 37 points from Matt Schaub?  Really?  How the hell does this even happen?  Plus, Terri's down a player due to the trade with her dear hubby.  Pro tip, Ter:  Pick up someone.  Anyone.  Even if you don't need them.  That'll prevent someone else from getting them.  A term in most leagues known as cock-blocking.  However, in this league, due to Melanie's ridiculous ownership of the KC DEF last week, I now dub it "Melanie'ing".  Wow.  That's a really hard word to say.  Sadly, that's gonna be it, cuz "She-Kookie'ing" isn't any better.

The Stopping the Juggernaut, sponsored by "Really?  That's Shadowcat?  Cuz she was in the first X-Men 5 years ago and was about 10 years older than she is now" (and if you get that reference, good for you!):  Kookie vs RA Dave.  After dropping six of his first seven games, Kookie entered this game with a 3 game winning streak.  Could he possible get into the playoffs?  RA Dave said no.  And he had perhaps the best smack of the year "Better bring a bib, its going to get messy (shoves waitress carrying food.)"  I'm not sure if that was actually a quote from something, but it was awesome.  Good on  you RA Dave.  Also, good on you for hitting the exact number of points that was projected for you.  What' gotta be killing Kokie is that he benched the NE DEF (against Indy) and played ATL (against ARI).  Definitely the smart thing to do, but it wound up costing him 21 points.  Ouch.

All that being said, we've gotten to the last stretch of the regular season.  Sure, Melanie and Patrick have locked up playoff births, but with 4 teams tied record wise for the last playoff spot (and with me sitting at the top of them - see the first picture above) and another three teams within striking distance, these next three weeks are going to get intense.  So, strap in!

Also, remember, no more BYE weeks - Rah!  And you might remember the match ups for the rest of the season...  Our last three games will be the teams that we initially played in the first three games.  So, strike back and obtain vengeance for a loss at the beginning of the season.  Heck, try to keep the team down that you initially beat.  End result?  Keep on slugging; this season is still going.

DFL Week 10: The quiet blackout...

I have to admit... Long about this time in the season when I have such as suck team, I find it hella hard to keep with the updates.  I mean, hell, I didn't even do an update last week until the freaking Monday night game.  Plus, a bunch of stuff is going on - family visiting both last weekend and this upcoming one, kids and wife are sick, I'm GMing a new D&D campaign on Monday...  The list just keeps going on and on.

So, each week, I think "Well, maybe I can get away with not doing the write up.  Who's going to notice?"  And then I sit back and see how the games play out.  So, why am I writing up the games this week?  I'll tell you why.

Cuz you assholes happen.

Good lord, I just can't believe that even after all of these years, that you pricks can figure out ways to amaze and astound me with your tomfoolery.

The good news is that the elimination league is out of the way.  That means I can focus all of my rage and salty language on what really matters.  Just so that we can pictorially set this stage, I think that this sums me up right about now:

And in case you're wondering what I'm shouting there, it's a stream of vulgarities that would make a sailor blush.

So, here we go.  Pick'ems!

Something is going on at House Kookie.  Melanie went 5-1 (jumping ahead of RA Dave in the process) and Kookie went 6-0 in the picks this week.  That's right.  Kookie, thus far the only one to have a perfect week, just did it again.  I personally think that Kookie went ahead in time, got a book of all things that ever happened and then came back to the present.  Now, he's sharing with the wife and they are just rocking it.  On the other side of the spectrum, we've got the Gs sitting and 2-4.  Not hugely newsworthy, except that it puts them both in striking distance of Melanie and RA Dave.  So, that race is heating up nicely.  Crutch, Ben, and I all were sitting at 4-2 this week.  This means, of course, that the small gap that I closed last week when Kookie went on sabbatical is now gone.  Mother FARTER.  FART you, Kookie.  FART YOU IN THE EYE!!!

And now, the real league.  After this week's performance, I came to a sudden realization:

That's right, you jerks are forcing me to go out to sea.

So, the biggest news of the week is that the record-breaking 63 point smack down that Joy threw out last week was subsequently broken this week.  Patrick laid a 64 point differential on me this week, not only picking up the beat down of the week, but also in the history of the league.  A pox on your house, sir.

However, we can't discount the role that Eli Manning played in all of this.  Why, with his cumulative last month's worth of scores being negative, I am astounded.  I mean, I know that he's no Payton, but come on, he's no Romo either.  So, with that being said, he's going on the bench this week.  And what powerhouse did I pick up to take his place.  Andy Dalton.  Who?  He's a professional QB, don;t you know?  Yes, in the NFL.  For the Bengals.  Yes, Cincinnati still has a team.  But just to crystalize this for everyone.  Eli Manning is being replaced by Andy Dalton.  May Gord have mercy on our souls...

So, well played Patrick.  And I think that this is all that I  have to say about this game...

Next up... Ben vs Mike G.  All of Ben's players hit into the double digits, except for his flex position, who got a big old goose egg.  That's right, when Ben puts Bush into the flex position, he gets nothing out of it... (I know, I know, I could have worked on that joke a little more, but you get what you get...)

And Mike.. good lord.  the one week that Flacco decides to wake up and you have to play ben when he's obviously given his team steroids...  Sorry, bud.  There's always next week.

Melanie vs Terri:  Melanie's lack of faith in Jamal Charles, though well founded, finally bit her in the buttox, as he almost doubled his projections.  It didn't realy matter as she beat Terri pretty soundly, but still...

As for Terri, I appreciate you taking my advice for Kickers and Defenses winning games, but maybe you should pick up the rest of your tea as well?

Skoot vs. RA Dave....  Damn, Skoot.  You have the touch of death his season.  First, MJD craps out on you.  Now, Vick is gone for at least a little while, and Hernandez is stuck in the "Maybe he'll be better by Sunday" dance of death...  Next year, man.  You and I are going straight to the top!!!

Dave...  Not a bad week.  Take away your DEF and you have a pretty blah week, as a matter of fact.  but somehow you had the foresight to start a Defense against Carolina.  How'd you figure on that one?  :-)

Joy versus Missy : Or what I like to call the gift of the week.  I'm not sure how many of you got bitten by the black out on Sunday afternoon, but Joy gifted the game this week to Missy because of it.  Joy sets her line up at around noon on Sundays.  So, she just barely missed her opportunity to change out her two players on BYE.  To add insult to injury, she wasn't able to pick up a DEF on Monday night by the time that Yahoo! came back online.  For some unknown reason, Melanie had the KC defense.  Arrg!!  (Were she able to do that, Joy would have won the game.  Needless to say, Joy took it a lot better than I did...)

So, Missy, you obviously get the lucky luck award this week...

Finally, Crutch and Kookie.... once again kookie eeks out a win this week.  And let me be one of the many to say "What *the* fuck???" Here's the thing.  Kookie hasn't won a game since week one, so much as his opponents have lost in the last  3 weeks.  However, I do have to hand it to Kookie, he did regenerate his team from nothing since week 1.  Good lord, would it not be great if Kookie snuck into the playoffs and made a run for the gold?

Though again, combined TE scores in this game?  Over 50!  (yes yes yes, more than my entire team put together.  But not if I had benched Manning... Dick....)

DFL Week 9: On Kookie Time!

Blarg...  Yeah. I know, I know... It' 9 pm on the Monday of Week 10 and the Week 9 write up isn't out yet...  I'm going to make a commissioner call and say that the weekly write up isn't officially late until the last game of the next week is over.  So, yeah.  That means that I've got another 2.5 hours to write this one up.  And it will be officially on time!

(And yes, if you are studying trending, then next week's blog will be out around the time of the super bowl...)

Now, let's get on to the hot sauce!  Elimination league!  We officially have a winner!  After 9 long weeks, Ben emerges victorious as Joy *ahem* forgot to choose a week 9 pick.  Good on you, Ben!  Winning by default still counts!  And this is the part of the blog where I bitch about how the elimination league doesn't actually give trophies except to the winner, and that is only if the winner does so alone.  Aaahhh.. nevermind.  Being that I didn't win I can say that this is a silly little contest that doesn't matter anyways.  Yeah, That's how I roll.

Next up!  Pick'em...  Big, big week here, boys and girls!!  In an ultimate act of hubris, Kookie decided not to make any picks this week.  And in an ultimate act of shitty picks, Phil blew his chance to even tie.  Big winners this week wee Ben and Melanie with 4-2.  RA Dave upped his win percentage by going 3-0, and the only more embarrassing move than Phil was Skoot.  Dear Mr Belgrave tried to secure a 100% pick rating this year by picking himself over Kookie.  Generally a good plan, but Kookie pulled an upset (what's that? two wins in a row?  Call it a come back!), leaving skoot holding a 0% pick this year.  Not very surprisingly, Skoot was the only one to pick himself this week....

Next up, we've got the main event or as I like to call it "How shitty is Phil doing this week?"  The answer?  Very shitty.

However, not as shitty as a certain Mike G.  In a record setting year, Mike takes the highest beat down of any team ever in the DFL.  A whopping 63 points.  Congrats to Joy for delivering the killing blow.  Some other highlights:

• Everyone who picked in Phil vs Terri got it wrong.  Sorry to be the spoiler here, guys.
• Phil's call of "closest game of the year" (Ben vs RA Dave) wound out having a 28 point difference.  Ugh... where is my head in picks this year?  And, seriously, Ben, field a team!  (though in a very nice snippet, 3 of Ben's 4 playeres on the bench went with goose eggs, and only 1 was on bye!)
• In the Daggone game of the week, Missy put up 109 points against her DFL sponsor Melanie, only to lose by a full touchdown...  But Melanie team didn't have that good of a d-  Oh, Doug Martin pulle din 45 points?  Yeah, I don't know who he thinks he is either... (And in Missy's defense, here DEFENSE pulled in 30 points themselves...)
• Just noticing this now, but Skoot picked himself to win, even though his starting TE was on BYE and out with an injury.  Now *that* would have been awesome sauce were you to pull that win off!!!

That's about all tha tI've got in me tonight...  Not a great write up, I realize, but good enough for now.  Next week will be better... What with no elimination league to worry about.
(Author's note:  heading into the Monday night game I've only pulled in 44 points.  so, I haven't yet decided whether I'm going to be pissed or just sad.  Either might just work in this league...)

DFL Week 8: This is stupid and I hate it...

Seriously???  Another week and another loss?  And to Missy of all people!  Ugghhh...  This madness stops next week!!  But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.

First off, sorry for the late updates this week.  Halloween ran pretty late this year, so I didn't get back home until after 9.  So, once again, I write away while the Thursday night game plays on in the background....

And just a little interlude before we get into the good stuff.  So, while a majority of the traffic is coming from Windows (which kinda makes sense, I do check in a lot...), fully 15% of the page views are coming from an iPad.  So, hosers, fess up.  Who's checking the blog from Starbucks on your iPad?  Cuz you know that you're a stereotype, right? :-)

Interlude part 2:  Did you know that when you offer someone a trade in this league, they aren't automatically notified?  Cuz I sure didn't!  Oddly enough, once the person rejects the trade you sure as hell get notified.  So, word to the wise, if you're interested in trading, keep the email addresses handy.  (Yes, I was involved with no less than 4 trade negotiations last week.  They all fell through.  I'm thinking next week is really when things will heat up...)

OK, no more non-sense.  On to the important issues of the day!  No, not the presidential election.  I'm talking real news!!  That's right, time to look at the updates to our fake game and the fake games that surround it.

First off, since this will be the penultimate update on it, we are looking at the elimination league.  Joy takes her first strike in week 8, which makes the race dead even between Ben and Joy, at one strike apiece.  Joy is taking a big risk in week 9 by not actually making a pick.  We'll see how that works out.  If Ben (and 35% of the people playing across Yahoo!) are wrong, then we'll have a tie in week 9.  Otherwise, Ben's going to be taking home his first trophy in quite some time.

And speaking of first trophy in quite some time, how about the pick'em league?  Kookie, much to everyone's chagrin, is still tearing it up.  IN fact, two others went 5-1 this week: RA Dave and Crutch. Congrats, guys.  And stop picking so well!!  'm gettiner nervously close to dropping out of contention for the gold here.  And Mike G just peed his pants this week, bottoming out at 1-5.  (Oddly, his wife, Terri G only did slightly better at 2-4.  Are we getting into mid-season collusion here?  :-) )  So, Kookie still has the top slot, followed by Phil, and then Crutch.  Though, Ben, Mike G, and Terri G are nipping at medal contention themselves....

And *now* we bring the pain.  I'll keep it brief tonight since I'm still recovering from All Hallow's Eve, but sufficed to say that we are squarely in Nonsenseville.

Phil vs Missy:
Certainly line up Nirvana for Phil, but seriously Manning?  You could only do as well as the kicker from St Louis?  For shame...
Missy - Totally lucked out with Crabtree.  I can imagine that's going to happen ever again.  Though, maybe... maybe Karma saw that Fucking Romo was cut and its looking for a new enemy...  CRABTREE!!!!!

Ben vs. Kookie
Holy hell, Kookie!!  Where have you been hiding this team?  O wait, Freeman got a lucky game, and Tynes (*that's* how Mannning did so crappily...), and Graham.  You didn't so much win this as you made a pact with a dark power.  I'm calling it now.
Ben... may losing always sucks.  But so much worse when the victor is Kookie.  Even worse when you QB alone pulls in more points than your WR, RBs, and DEF combined....

Melanie vs Mike G
Only big this to talk about here is Doug Marting pulling down 27 points and Charles only pulling in 3.  Did not see that coming!
OK, I guess also noteworthy is that RG3 was kept under 10 points...  But maybe the rookie is getting tired halfway through the season playing with the big boys.  Which brings us to.....

Terri G vs Patrick.
Wow Terri... 44 points.  What happened?  (Though thank you for pulling in half of the pick 'em votes.)
And Patrick... how could you have NOT given the smackdown of the week this week?  Perfect set!!!  O right, cuz the smackdown of the week was from:

Skoot vs. Crutch
Fifty freaking nine point smackdown.  LEt me say that again.  A record 59 point smack down from Crutch to Skoot.  (Though Crutch don't feel powerful.  Skoot's admittedly crappy team was down its two top scorers this week.)
And how the *hell* did you get the Miami defense to put up 27 points???  O right... they were playing Sanchez....

Joy vs RA Dave
53 points.  That is how many points their combined TEs got.  That is more than Terri's entire team got this week.  That is close to Mike and Skoot's entire team score.  So, you two are very welcome for makig you start TEs.  I expect presents at the end of the season.

Week 7 Wrap Up: Well that was a crummy first half of the season.

Ugh... Another week goes by and that mean that we are exactly halfway through the season.  And here I am sitting at the king of the losers spot, just like Yahoo! said.  Shit, man.  This is how I feel like the first half of the season went:

Yeah, that's right.  50 words in and I'm already breaking out the monkey ass.  So, strap in boys and girls (and whatever the hell you are, Crutch), this one's gonna get rocky.

So.. elimination league.  Ben and Joy left... no strikes this week.  Though, I will say that it's starting to get hard to pick a team with a good spread these days.  So, get ready suckers.  Soon you will feel the sting of Melanie.  That being, choosing a sure thing and then having it pooh directly into your eyes.

Next up....  pick'ems!  Man, this week just threw us all down and had its way with us collectively.  *Nobody* picked all that well this week.  Though, I guess not surprisingly, in a week like this, Uncle Fucker picked the best with 4 correct picks.  Mike bottomed out with only one correct pick.  And an honorary Patrick award goes to RA Dave for trying to pick one game and getting 100% picks right.  Sadly, blew up in his face and he lost.  (See, Dave?  This is what happens when you pick yourself to win!)  End of the day, Kookie and Phil both went 3-3 and Mike G shit the bed (with a 1-5).  So, Kookie is still out in first, Phil's in third, and Mike G is in third...

Moving on...

Well, guess who got to the top of the league this week?  Melanie, with her 30+ point blowout against RA Dave knocked Patrick from the top spot.  However, not to be outdone, Patrick scored exactly enough points to bring his total for the year to 666, the mark of the beast.  This will turn out either really bad or really good for old Patrick.  And to be fair, Joy's also got the same record, though out of first place by about 40 points.  So, enjoy your time at the top, jerk faces.  Cuz there are a lot of hungry people at the bottom, just itching for a win.  And Kookie is at the bottom.  I'm pretty sure that he's just waiting out the season at this point...

Alright, let's get back to basics.  Awards time!!!!

We'll start with the beat down of the week.  Actually... the beat down of the weak.  Ben snagged this by almost but not quite beating down Skoot as badly as Melanie beat down kookie last week.  Here is a visualization of the game:

So, Ben, I present to you the flying ninja cat award.

Skoot, holy cow man.  You are just not catching a break this year.  MJD went down this week.  Plus, next week Green is on BYE.  So, you've got one hell of a hill to climb, buddy.  So, I'm handing you the Tyler Durden award.  This week, you'll be picking a fight and you're going to be losing...

Next up is what I like to call the bullshit game of the week.  I'm really OK with losing.  Yeah, it sucks.  But I've been in the DFL for too freaking long not to have gotten used to it.  However, when I go into a  gimme game, and I get blown the fuck out the stadium, I call shenanigans.  (Hell, it's half the name of the blog!)  So, what happened?  Well, I award Mike G the William Wallace Kilt of underdog wins for having one of the studs get the big ol' goose egg and then having one of his players double the projection, another more than double, and a third more than triple their projections.  But you know what happened to William Wallace, right?  He was immortalized in film by an anti-Semite.  So, don't blame me when some skinhead protrays you in your biopic.

Plus, here's what really chafes my bollocks.  *Everyone* voted for me.  Well, OK, two people voted for Mike G, but I'm going to guess that was Mike G and Terri G.  Their still too new to the league to have stopped voting for each other out of love.

Melanie pulls down a win, the top slot of the league, and, consequently, the "Everything's Coming Up Milhouse!" award.  Just get your floodpants.  I'm just saying that you're wading through something, and it's ain't flood water.

RA Dave - Congrats.  You are the proud winner of the Optimist neckerchief.  Never before and never since has there been such adulation over pulling down a 3-4 record.  Good for you, buddy.

I am dubbing Missy vs Patrick game this week as the Delaware Bowl.  NOTHING interesting happened here.  Yes, Patrick's team went crazy (they would have all gone double digits if Johnson didn't get hurt.), Yes Missy lost.  Yes, this was an upset.  But overall... eh.  You two really need to buckle down and put on more of a show. It's like you didn't even *read* The Hunger Games.  Come on!

Joy, on the other hand took home the "You Can't Have My Pants" award (if you don't get that, then see Snow White and the Huntsman.... in fact you know what... it's not even worth it to get that reference. If you don't get that reference. Steal Snow White and the Huntsman and then give it to one of your enemies.  Then, after they watch that piece of shit of a movie they will explain it in a fit of rage.  Anyway, off topic...)  for oh so gently teasing Kookie with the hope of a win.

Kookie, get your head in the game, brah.  Graham was out last week and is probably gonna be out this week.  Find a new tight end and move on...  You get the "Son, I am disappoint" award. This could have been your second win!

And I saved the best for last....  The closest game of the week was between Terri and Crutch.  A mere 3 points separated them.  And, since they were both 3-3 going into the game, there was a lot on the line.  You surely don't want to go below .500 halfway into the season.  Big hole to climb out of.  Big hole. So, you two get (jointly) the "Are You Not Entertained???" Award, for keeping things interesting...

So, lots going on now.  Entering the second half of the season, the BYE weeks are really starting to hurt.  Injuries are spreading like the plague.  So, plenty of time to get back in it.  If you're down, do something crazy.  It might just work!  If you're up, do something crazy. It might not work (and I need all of the help that I can get at this point...).

DFL Week 6: Suddenly Bullshit Breaks Out.

Well, riding on the coat tails of Ben's bitter post (and one of the best posts in the history of the league, in my opinion), I've decided to get pretty bitter myself this week.  Why is that?  Well, I took my second strike in a row on the elimination league (Come on, Eagles!!!  Man Up!!  Assholes!) and I got beaten to a pulp in both of my leagues.  So, I was going to start off this post with a round of ad hominem attacks on each of you, but apparently, that could hurt my readership of 10.  So, everyone gets off with a stiff warning this time.

(Also, on happy web page notes...  We have over 50 posts in this blog and we have 2000 page views!  Squee!!  But this is far too much happiness for the bitter post.)

Starting off like we always do is the elimination league...  The most important thing happened in this league.  I was eliminated this week after Vick went on the field and just vomited all over the place.  (Really, Vick?  2 INTs and a Fumble against the Lions?  Aarrgh!!!)  So, this leaves only Joy and Ben left.  Joy's still strikeless and Ben's got one strike.  I'd wish you two good luck, but screw you guys.

Next up is Pick'em... Kookie still leads the way on this one.  But Mike did fall to third place with his stellar 2-4 picks this week.  Sadly, Kookie and Phil did the best with 4-2 picks, which keeps Kookie firmly in 1st place.  Which leads me to my next point...

Will all you bastards set your line ups before Sunday morning? I mean, I can probably take Kookie out of the top spot, but only if I know that you'll wake up from your coma and actually bench your players on BYE *cough* Skoot and Joy *cough*.  And if you really need to start your BYE players, at least do it when you're playing me.  Cuz let's face it, my team isn't really getting any better...

Just one final word on the picks - Joy, Skoot, and Missy - you don't have any picks this year...  Think that you can snag the Hutton Award of Excellence by only making one pick this year and getting it right?  What's that?  Yep, the gauntlet  just got thrown down.

Oh, who am I kidding?  It's more like this:

That's right.  Red Warrior needs food... badly.  And by "Red Warrior", I mean "pink girlie man".  And by "food", I mean "a win".  And by "badly" I mean "So freaking badly it hurts."  That's right I'm segueing into the games.  And let's start off with the Kookie Bowl.

Melanie delivered the smack down of the week.  This was the biggest beat down of the season thus far.  I say so far since I'm sure that Kookie hasn't hit rock bottom quite yet.  With his 20th move this year, he picked up this guy:

Let's be fair.  Even though he is playing the wrong sport and can't even stand above the ground, he's better than half the players that are on Kookie's mess of a team.

Next up is the chatty bowl.  RA Dave and I had a nice little gab fest going on about my starting QB and starting DEF (as they were going head to head this week and that's generally a no-no).  Luckily, I was talked into picking up a nice DEF. Unluckily, everyone on RA Dave's team just went bonkers.  So, I took the lose there.  Dammit.  (And I had the people on my side...  The people!)

Next up... The Naughty Name Bowl...  Uncle Fucker came on strong and gave the Penetrators a good Rodgering initially.  But Crotch's Penetrators weren't licked yet.  They keep inching their way further and further up the score board.  Sadly though, they were impotent to come from behind.  They took it on the backside as the Fucker ultimately took down their pants and showed them what for.  OK enough of this paragraph.  I've got a feeling that we'll be attracting enough undesirables to this blog from just this alone.
(One last thing.  The real kick in the nuts is that not a single person (including Ben) voted for him *again* this week.  Maybe this week will turn things around for UF?)

The Upset of the Week, as called by whom?  (That's right, jerks, I use proper grammar!!)  Me, you bastards!  Not sure how it happened, but Patrick (with nobody on BYE) lost by a solid 31 points.  And here's  a fun fact.  Mike G had a 28 point game with RG3, which was only 15 points shy of Aaron Rogers discount double check of forty freaking three points.  I'm not sure who Mike is playing in week 7, but I firmly expect to be back on his mediocre ways by then.

The BYE Bowl is next.  There were 5 players on BYE in Joy vs Skoot's match up.  And the score showed it.  69 to 41 in Joy's favor.  Of course, it is *really* bad for Skoot when the BYE player that he started outscores his starting QB. (And only barely has fewer points than 4 of his starters.)  Maybe it's time to do a trade for a new QB?  Maybe to Mike G?

Finally, we reach the quiet bowl.  Missy versus Terri.  Not a lot of smack, not a lot of fanfare here.... Just two ladies with a lot of non-superstar players quietly dueling it out....  Missy came out the victor, but shhh!!!  don't tell anyone.

One last thing that I wanted to mention was a rules question that RA Dave pointed out on the Yahoo! boards this week.  In short, WRs are going crazy with points this season mostly due to the 1 point/catch rule that we have in effect.  So, a lot of catches, without a lot of yards would outscore a WR who only got one long bomb pass.

I actually really like the discussion, but sadly it's too late this season to start changing stats around.  The current points scheme came about I want to say about 5 years ago when I first took over as commish.  Back then, RBs were *dominating* the league.  So, we put the point per catch rule into effect. However, we also moved the yardage for WRs to 20 yards per point (whereas RBs still hang out at 15).  It did work pretty well for a few years, but I think that RA Dave has a good point in that the NFL is a hell of a lot more pass happy now than they were even last year. I think that Skoot and I were talking about the point per catch being a bit too much last year, but I forgot about it when we were doing the rules changes this year... O well.  Anyway, there's probably some room for tweaking in there for next season.  But, for now, just go out and find yourself a good WR.  :-)

As far as fractional points go, I'd tend to stay away from that, just because I like to keep things simple.  That being said, I'm also not above moving to that next year if that's what the league wants.

Fuck you, Fuck you, Fuck you, You're cool, Fuck you.

no wait, you're not cool either.

I suppose one of the chief responsibilities of the write-up author is to be objective and not bring personal biases to the post.  You should anticipate that goal to not be met in this post.

Secondly, I've noticed my predecessors have been all fancy, using people's names and things like that.  That's not gonna happen this week.  I don't know what names go with what teams with a few rare exceptions, so i'm only using team names.  Besides, team names lend anonymity which is to be reveled in.  So, revel...i won't expose you for the fantasy football playing nerds that you are.

Ok, so first up is the easy one...  elimination league.  It is with great pleasure that I award 0.5 Donkey their elimination strike, and Philthy Bastards their first strike.  What's that you say?  I'm not the one handing out the strikes?  Au contraire.  I'm pretty sure most of you aren't going and looking at the elimination league on your own, especially since 4 of you are already eliminated and 5 of you never even signed up.  And if Schrodinger taught us nothing else, it's that results don't exist until they are observed.  In this case by me. So, you're welcome.  Also it turns out the cat was dead.

On to the league pick'em:  First off, I'd like to give out an award. The "No Fucking Shit, Sherlock" award goes to:  Everyone, because you all picked me to lose my game.  This was the only game in which the picks were unanimous.  This was in spite of the fact that my opponent didn't even bother to put in a TE.  Congrats, I hope you all feel like big big men.  Or women.


In spite of that gimme, no one had a particularly strong week, though Olympic Crybabies kept up their strong performance, staying on top of the league with 4 correct picks.

I'd also like to hand out the "Tony Danza" award to Sweet T and Rolling Vengeance for having 6 out of 7 picks go against you and still come up with the win.  Who's the boss indeed?


Ok, on to the games.

Uncle Fucker vs Taco For The Win:
Uncle Fucker (that's me!) gets the "Rodney Dangerfield I can't get no respect" award for having an opponent who couldn't even deign to fill their roster in anticipation of the game.

Taco For The Win gets the "Cry me a river" award for this notable stat item from the yahoo recap: "Taco for the Win won despite having only 2 of their 8 starters exceed their projected points."

Philthy Bastards vs Olympic Crybabies
Philthy Bastards gets the "Harvey Dent" award for having the most two-faced lineup this week.  Exactly half your players scored well over 10 points, exactly half didn't even reach double digits.  


Olympic Crybabies gets the "Al Gore Unsustainability" award for picking up almost half their points from a single player.  Then again, since they lost again this week, maybe there is something sustainable here after all...

PointFiveDonkey vs Superion
PointFiveDonkey and Superion are corecipients of the "12th man" award for actually caring about the fans and giving us a game that was actually close.

Rolling Vengeance vs Pittsburgh Maulers
Pittsburgh Maulers gets the "Terry Malloy" award for having had a chance to be a contender, if only they'd started...well, pretty much any of their benched players.

While Rolling Vengeance gets the "Phil R" award for achieving line up nirvana, which 1) near as i can tell is something only Phil cares about and 2) isn't necessarily a good thing as it means the players on your bench probably suck.  But hey, congrats!  (Admittedly, it's a bit easier to achieve line up nirvana when half your bench is a on a bye)

Team Sweet T vs Lint Lickers
Team Sweet T and Lint Lickers share the "Crippled Masters" award for engaging in the lowest scoring game of the week, making even my team look almost competitive. 

Crotch's Penetrators vs Scooby Doo
Crotch's Penetrators gets the "If it weren't for those meddling kids" award for having a chance to win if only a bunch of dorks in a van hadn't come along and ruined all their devious plans.....oh wait, no...  they never had a chance.

And last but not necessarily least, Scooby Doo gets the "Big Lebowski" award because fuck it, i'm going bowling.

What's that you said?  That's not a very specific award for Scooby Doo?  Well, i refer you to the title of this post.

DFL 2012: Week 4: Better late than never!

So, it's Thursday and I'm betting all y'all thought that you weren't getting a write up this week, huh? Bet you thought that old Phil was dropping the ball already?  Well, I'm no NoName McPeePeePants.  I'm here, and there's no freaking way that I was missing this week's write up.  Really good games going down this week.  So, let's get to it.

But before we jump way into things, I'm just getting over a cold this week.  So, some of my snark might not be all that effective.  So, like so many great (read:  mediocre at best) men before me, I'm going to delegate out the work.  May I present to you, QB smack talk:

http://imgur.com/a/9H0Hv

(And here's a lipmus test.  For you newbies to the league.  You might not have gotten all of the jokes, but did you get more than you would have last year at this time?  If so, congratulations.  You are *tearing* it up!)

Now, really on to the good stuff.

First up, the elimination league.  Nobody took a strike this last week.  But, probably worth mentioning that all four remaining players picked different teams.  also, probably worth mentioning that all 4 remaining players picked different teams in week 5 as well.  Good luck to Phil, Joy, Skoot, and Ben.  However, mostly good luck to me.

Next, the pick 'ems.  I'll throw this out there: What the hell??  Not only did Kookie go 6-0 this week, but he jumped from third place all the way up to #1.  Meanwhile, with my bed pissing from last week, I went 5-1 and still landed in 3rd place...  But, All in all a good week across the board.  The lowest pick was 4-2.  Still pretty tight.  Plenty of time for some upsets this season.

And finally, let's take a look at what we're all here for.  OK, all of us except for Kookie. I think that he's just here for the free ass kickings.  Anyways, most of us are here for the DFL proper.  So, here we go!!!

First off, holy good gracious.  What a hell of a week!  *All* of the victors jumped into the 100 point club.  O wait... Did we miss one?  Geez, Patrick missed the 100 points club by just two points.  Boy howdy!  Sadly, I can't really give him too much shiza since he's currently sitting at the top of the standings.  Followd by Melanie, RA Dave and Mike G.  Wait.. What the hell, cruel fates??  I mean Kookie, Skoot, and Ben are right at the bottom of the league where they should be, but these four up top?  Certainly a tight league to be sure this year, but really?  Those are our best?  I'm ashamed enough for all of us...

(And fun fact:  Outside of Patrick, the rest of the top three lost in week 1.  Since this is the last time that I can conceivably use this excuse, I'm going to blame the replacement refs for this weird top of the league.  So, hopefully things should be righted by month's end.... We shall see.)

Now, let's start with the beat down of the week: Phil vs Skoot.  It all started on Thursday night when our Flex spot decided to tie, making that game more worthless than yo mama.  (Daaaaaaaaamn!!!)  Then, after that  Skoot's team just quietly collapsed. One didn't start another only got a quarter of the points that he was slated for.  Granted, Smith only was projected at 4.  But still...ouch.  So, for getting slaughtered so spectacularly  I present Skoot with the Custer's Last Stand Award.

I present to Phil the Defenses Win Games Trophy, for having my Defense score as much as my next two players combined.  

Kookie this week gets the Generic Windex Knock Off crown of shame for having two of the streakiest receivers in the game and sadly benching the wrong one.  Steve Smith is the best WR that the Panthers have.  Sadly, he's really the only one that they have too. So, that means that he's also the one who gets double covered.  And seriouly Marque Colston....  22 points against GB in GB??  Kookie a fair choice, but what a choice.  I hope that you have the same luck this week while playing me...

Patrick, on the other hand, gets the PieTaster's Girl Take it Easy Award.  Sure he could have have a higher score with line up Nirvana.  Sure, he could have tweaked things here and there.  But fuggit.  He's winning and he doesn't care.  Good for you, Mr. Boss Man.

In the Upset of the week bowl, Melanie whooped up in Ben.  Oddly, most people, but not Yahoo, called this one right.  

Melanie gets the Phil Sponsored Better Late Than Never medallion for sticking with Brees and Charles, who, though not doing horridly, certainly have taken their sweet ass time warming up this year.  

Ben, Ben, Ben.... It looks like you're going to be having another one of those years.  But on the plus side, you can take solace in the fact that you're not Kookie.  And I'm not just limiting this to Fantasy Football.  There are a lot of good reasons not be Kookie.  So, the best that I can come up with this week for you is the John Edwards (idiot psychic guy, not idiot politics guy) Award for You Probably Should Have Seen It Coming. This is for picking up a Detroit QB and then being surprised that he's falling flat on his face...  

Bonus Award for Ben this week though...  Ben texted me halfway through the Sunday game saying "I want to to punch whoever does the ff score predictions"  Bad grammar aside, brilliantly deadpan delivery of his frustrations.  Though, on a sad sidenote, Ben wouldn't have even come close to Melanie, even with lineup Nirvana.

And speaking of line up Nirvana, RA Dave hit it out of the part this week.  With three players (two of them elite) on BYE this week, RA Dave had one hell of a hill to climb.  Not only did he climb the hill, but he also kicked it ass all the way home.  So, I'm proud to present the Double Digit Across the Board award to RA Dave for perfection this week.

Terri snags the Class Warfare medal for having a distinct set of Haves and Have Nots in her starting line up.  Her first four players scored 17, 17, 14, and 12.  Then, her next 4 players scored 0, 3, 8, and 4.  Eesh. Keep your Che Guerava shirts at the ready, Mrs. G.  

Joy gets the Crazed like a Mad Dog award for haveing two players score over 20 points this week and another just miss that mark.  In fact, she could have pinned another 11 point to her already impressive score had she ignored Yahoo! and played the Ari Def instead of GB DEF.  I know... blasphemy, but the "Play whoever's DEFENSE is going to be playing Miami" rule definitely comes into play here.

Meanwhile Crutch snagged the Bill O'Reilly Fuck it!  I'll do it myself!! placard for having both of his QBs bring in almost 50 points and the rest of his team barely  making that much...

Finally, the biggest game of the week was with Mike G and Missy.  Lemme just say Shazaam!!  

Mike G just pulled down both Joy and Terri's awards this week, but bigger.  3 players over 20 points, another 2 on the heels of that stat... and then 3 players who don't hit 5 points each.  Shit, Bironas, get it together, man.

Missy  takes home two awards this week:

1 - Talk Up, Child award for being quietest in the league *again*.  that takes Talent.  RA Dave is in the league this year and he's talking more smack than you.  That's saying something.  In the entire time that I knew RA Dave at Penn State, he said like 25 words to me.  And you are losing to that? Come on, Missy.  You're better than that.  And by that I mean Dave.

2 - Time To Look at the Waiver Wire drumstick.  Solid, Solid starters.  But your middle folks could use a looking over.  Pick up a few players that average more than 5 points a game and you'll be sitting in butter.

OK that's it for me tonight... I wonder how the game is coming so far this week...  Yay Kicker!  Twice as many points as Kookie's RB!  Kick ass!!!

NFL = National F'ed League - Week 3

      

Thank you. Thank you. And again, I thank you.  Thank you Phil for that horrid introduction.  May the hair on your toes grow longer than your head.  Joy!!!  Can't you give him more to do around the house?  What about teaching Sammy how to make pipe bombs from household chem for the inevitable rise of the machines...or zombies...or worst of all mecha-zombies!!!  I mean wtf?!??  It's like reading a Robert Jordan novel -- 1,800 pgs of "blah blah blah yakety schmackety" before you get to the good stuff.  There's still time for others to do a write-up.  No need for Filthy Phil to do them all (although admittedly, Week 2 WTF NFL??!??!! was deserved).   

Week 6 is still open.  For those of you who don't know, that's the G-spot for trash-talk.  The wheat is separated from the chaff and the gloves come off.  Nuff said...after all for week 3, I'd like to skip the phil-abuster and get right to it.  Unfortunately there's a lot of new people in the ranks.  And I don't know half of you as well as I should like.  And I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.  But here goes...

"Best Player on my Team is a TE!" Award goes to...Crotch's Penetrators

What the hell is up with TE's this season?  If this was the first year you ever watched football, you'd think that the Tight End should be renamed the End-Zoner.  Best of luck with DeAngelo.  He really knows when to turn it up...the last 2-4 games of the season.

"Tebow 2012" Award goes to...Lint Lickers

Damn-it, Jim, I'm a Running Back.  Sure you are Griffin.  Keep telling that to Jr & Sr.  And it's so bad that Mike had to BENCH Aaron Rodgers for a better option.  But, hey, maybe this is Washington's year.  Oh wait?  Didn't I just get strike 1 in Survivor League due to them?  Pssshhh...no worries.  I picked Pittsburgh for Week 3...

"Wait!  What just happened!" Award goes to...Taco for the Win

Turkey!  Triple crown!  Three peat!  Tres Victorias!  You could have been a contender... you could have been somebody, but now... Now you're just a bum like the rest of us.  Now if you make a miraculous recovery season -- place or show, it will only be "doing a Ben."  Alas, it's looking like no turkey dance in December.  I was really rooting for you, Joy...which really seems to have brought your downfall, quick.  Let this be a lesson:  He (or she) who drafts best (according to Yahoo/Toyota) can suck it! 

"P-Wing it!" Award goes to...Superion

Melanie had an entire team of Probables going into Week 3.  Way to ride the injury reserve.  F@$king Jamaal Charles!  That ass-clown was my accidental yahoo auto-draft pick last year and he took a SEI (season-ending-injury) in 2011 Week 1.  Now look at him.  All rested and refreshed.  Enjoy it while it lasts.  NE's not fooling anyone -- Welker's about as out of the O as Tom Brady.  Unfortunately their "mind-games" may mean a hot/cold season.  Good luck with the matchups.

"Wait I'm not dead yet!" Award goes to...ScoobyDoo

They're not quite winning games, but Peyton's still got some fight left in him.  I really like the home-town confidence -- Chicago defense still has it.  Now if only they can keep Urlacher from talking in any more commercials...he's got the presence of Howie Long.

"What did I miss" Award goes to...Pittsburgh Maulers

I really think Worthlessberger has a good shot at taking you all the way.  I like your Coldstone Creamery mix-in:  arch-enemy RB & DEF with QB & WR.  Melanie could never have stomached that.  For those that may not know, Dave decided it was time for an emergency gall bladder removal a few weeks ago and took himself out.  Not quite the bloody children death ride of Marie (Skoot's wife & ex-DFLer), but blue-diamonds to you, buddy!  The military took purple hearts, so us civilians got bumped down the Lucky Charms ranks…  Hope you're feeling better.

"Weenie Duel" Award goes to... Philthy Bastards & Uncle Fucker

For those who stayed up to midnight Monday not knowing who was going to win in the midgetone-armed monkey donkey wrestling match that was the low-score slap fest chess match between Phil and Ben.  I came down to the wire, but Uncle Fucker lived up to his name and cost me a pick to win.  Fuck you, Uncle Fucker!  Nice of you two to leave 20+pts on the bench, but to be fair to Ben, I wouldn't have called a Torrey Smith breakout game against New England.  This matchup was about as painfully boring as a few ancient history D&D sessions.  For those of you who think Fantasy Football isn't dorky, may I refer you to evidence #1 -- it's all based on statistics.  Let's see what ol' Leeroy has to say:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkCNJRfSZBU

...classic.

"Defcon 5" Award goes to...Rolling Vengeance & PointFiveDonkey

For laying down some law.  This was the matchup of the week with two rock solid competitors.  (Sorry, Missy, I know you put up more of a fight with Dave, but I think your time at the top is short-fused...it's on the (D-) Fence...ah ha ha ha ha...aaaahhh...)  Albeit Skoot is on borrowed oxygen.  Sorry, Skoot...I don't think your team has it this year.  Pat on the other hand is on cloud 9.  Turner is about the only non-performer on that bench, but that's only due to how hot Atlanta's air corp is.   And unlike your teams of old, I'm looking forward to a potential Vengeance - Mauler throw-down in the playoffs.    Don't disappoint.  I don't have much else to look forward to, because...

"Should have auto-drafted" Award goes to...Olympic Cry-babies!

<sigh>  I put zero-time into planning this year and the lesson here is to use a random number generator.  It's nice having the 2nd lowest Pts against.  I haven't seen a good, easy matchup season yet.  Unfortunately, only putting up the lowest points in the league by 1/3 less makes me Punching Bag 2012.  Would anyone believe that I have a good team in my wife’s work league?  No?  Oh well…on the bright side, at least I get to cry about it like a US Olympian!  ;-)

“Wait?!?!  My best player is a Kicker???” Award goes to…Team Sweet T

Very unorthodox, Terri.  I like your swagger.  Fitzgerald only barely pulled ahead at the last minute.  May you kick your way into the playoffs.  Hard to say which QB to trust.  Each year, Houston wants to be good, it’s just that by Week 6, they seem to die on the vine.  No one would have predicted Tennessee Def.  But then again, this NFL season has combined Doctors Who & Strange.  Does anyone know if there’s a blue-moon?  Saturn’s rays being blocked?  Jupiter's mag field gone astray?  Or some other astro-illogical bullshit?  I’m not sure about blaming the scab ref’s… they do suck and have caused excessive injury and a few unusual losses, but what we’ve seen is well beyond officiating.

Well that about wraps it up.  And, Phil, it’s more like ah-ha funny.  Kind of the way nails on a chalkboard sound funny after 3-4 attempts.

-- Kookie