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!