What a game!! Sprouts squeaked out a 1-point victory (109-108) over the Midnight Maulers to claim the high score for the week! Sprouts was able to overcome the 30 points that Ricky Williams scored for the Maulers, and with big games from Matt Schaub, Wes Welker and Chris Johnson, sprouts has now amassed the best record in the league (7-4). Well done Russ!! That match-up just goes to show how important schedules are, because the Midnight Maulers outscored everyone else in the league this week, yet lost. Ouch...

In other news this week, we have only two more regular season games until its playoff time so I'm going to dedicate the majority of this week's column to playoff scenarios.


Playoff Rules:
-Six teams will qualify for the playoffs.
-Playoffs will run in Week 14, 15 and 16.
-The top two teams in each division automatically qualify, and two additional wild card spots are awarded.
-The top team in each division will receive a bye in the first round.
-Wild cards are not division dependent (i.e. Both wild card teams can come from the same division).
-During the playoffs, all teams are still eligible to win the Weekly High Score Prize.

Tiebreakers for Division Playoff Spots:
1. Overall record
2. Division record
3. Head-to-Head record
4. Points scored
5. Coin flip (initiated by Commissioner)

Tiebreakers for Wild Card Spots:
1. Overall record
2. Head-to-Head record
3. Points scored
4. Coin flip (initiated by Commissioner)

Team-by-Team Playoff Scenarios
Remarkably, with only 2 weeks to go no team has been eliminated from playoff contention. Because of that, the wild card spots are still completely up for grabs, so the scenarios spelled out below apply only for divisional playoff spots.

- Sprouts - Win one of two remaining games, OR two losses from Tailgate Approved PLUS one loss from each of Lords of Lumberg, Midnight Maulers and Coors Light Drunk Guys.

- Frito Pie - Win one of two remaining games.

- SOFA KING GOOD - Win one of two remaining games.

- Tailgate Approved - Win both remaining games, OR win one remaining game PLUS one loss from Lords of Lumberg.

- Lords of Lumberg - Win both remaining games, OR win one remaining game PLUS two losses from Tailgate Approved PLUS one loss from Midnight Maulers.

- Midnight Maulers - Win both remaining games PLUS two losses from Tailgate Approved PLUS one loss from Lords of Lumberg.

- Coors Light Drunk Guys - Win both remaining games PLUS two losses from Tailgate Approved PLUS one loss from Lords of Lumberg PLUS one loss from Midnight Maulers.

- American Bad Ass - Win both remaining games PLUS two losses from Frito Pie PLUS two losses from SOFA KING GOOD.

- Scottish Rebels - Win both remaining games PLUS two losses from Frito Pie PLUS two losses from SOFA KING GOOD PLUS one loss from American Bad Ass.

- Joe's Pats - Win both remaining games PLUS two losses from Frito Pie PLUS two losses from SOFA KING GOOD PLUS one loss from American Bad Ass PLUS one loss from Scottish Rebels.

As mentioned before these scenarios only apply to qualifying for one of the two divisional playoff spots in each division. There are multiple scenarios for each team to grab one of the wild card spots. So it is extra important in these next two weeks to make sure you have your best line-up in the game.


BEST BENCH
Speaking of having your best line-up in the game, I seem to have a real aversion to doing this... For the second week in a row, the Best Bench goes to -- My Scottish Rebels! With three roster moves this week, I could have improved my point total by a very nice 45 points... Eli Manning for Tony Romo (20 pts), Greg Jennings for Roy Williams (18 pts), and New Orleans for Dallas (7 pts). By the way - If anyone wants Roy Williams, he will be on the waiver wire Wednesday morning...


Two more weeks! Let's do this!!

Two is better than one!!

Congratulations Jens!! With the high score this week, Jens became the first team to post back-to-back high scores since Joe's Pats did it back in Week 7 & 8 in 2007! So it has been over two years since this feat was accomplished! AH SCHLEGA!! Nice pullova!!

Speaking of Joe's Pats... Joe was the most unlucky team this week, as he scored the second highest points (109), yet lost to Tailgate Approved's 113 points. Ouch!


Ten weeks of football have been played, so only three weeks remain until the playoffs begin... The playoff rules are the same as last year:
- The top 2 teams in each division automatically qualify for the playoffs
- The top team in each division receives a first round bye
- Two additional wild card spots are awarded to the next two best teams. Division affiliation does not matter for wild cards.
The standings are still so close that I started running through some scenarios and went cross-eyed, so I'll wait until next week to try to start speculating which teams will make it and which won't.


My apologies for the short write-up this week... I'm in the process of transitioning to a new position at work and in the meantime I'm doing two jobs, so I've had little to no extra time. But I will leave you with this week's Best Bench...

... which goes to Yours Truly! My Scottish Rebels could have improved by 29 points with three roster moves: Reggie Bush for Pierre Thomas (18 pts), Roy Williams for Greg Jennings (10 pts) and Mike Sims-Walker for DeSean Jackson (1 pt).


So there are no more bye weeks, and only three weeks left until it's PLAYOFF TIME!!! Get ready for Week 11!!

New Mexico here I come!!!

Week 9 is Tailgate Approved!

Shezow! Pappow!!

Congratulations Jens! Tailgate Approved is the Weekly High Score Champion for Week 9 with 121 points! Everything finally came together this week for Jens, as he outscored even the next closest team (Joe’s Pats) by 22 points to become the 8^th different team this year to claim a high score prize. Couple interesting notes about Jens’ victory: 1) Out of three quarterbacks, he started his lowest scoring one (C. Palmer – 13 pts), leaving K. Warner (30 pts) and J. Cutler (28 pts) on the bench, and 2) This is the first Weekly High Score for Jens since Week 15 2007 (12/17/07) when he got the high score with only 91 pts! What do you know?!?!

There are only four weeks of the regular season left for fantasy, but the playoff picture is still as unclear as it was in Week 3. Six teams have four wins, two teams have five wins, and the top team has six wins. The top team is Rachel’s Frito Pie, who is currently on a 3-game winning streak, and with a record of 6-3 has a higher winning percentage than any male-managed team. That’s the polite way of saying that Frito Pie has completely emasculated the entire league…

So this week I show some respect to Chad Ochocinco, make my (hopefully) final check on defenses, and could I actually have some words of praise for the federal government? More below. But as always, some quick player observations:

AIN’T NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!

• Michael Turner, RB – Scottish Rebels – 32 pts – Turner completely dominated the Redskins porous defense, and scorched them for 166 yards and 2 touchdowns! Oh yeah!
• Kurt Warner, QB – Tailgate Approved – 30 pts – Warner somehow managed to throw 5 TD passes against the Bears at Soldier Field. That’s an impressive feat for anyone, let alone Father Time.
• Jay Cutler, QB – Tailgate Approved – 28 pts – If it’s any consolation, Jens, I would’ve picked Palmer over Warner and Cutler as well. Seriously, I would never have predicted this one…
• Chris Johnson, RB – sprouts – 27 pts – Chris Johnson is averaging 6.7 yards per carry, which is the highest ever in league history through nine weeks.
• DeAngelo Williams, RB – American BadAss – 25 pts – Williams is hitting his stride lately, as over the past four games he has scored at least 18 points per week, and is averaging 23.5 ppg over that same period.

WORTHLESS STEAMING PILE OF COW DUNG…FIGURITIVELY SPEAKING

• LaDainian Tomlinson, RB – Midnight Maulers – 2 pts – LT is averaging barely over 7 points per game, and has only broken into double digits twice this year.
• Roddy White, WR – SOFA KING GOOD – 2 pts – This was Roddy’s first week without a touchdown since Week 3.
• Heath Miller, TE – Midnight Maulers – 1 pt – Roethlisberger found everyone but Miller on Monday night. Over the past two weeks, Miller has only scored 4 points. Yuck.
• Torry Holt, WR – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 1 pt – Holt has yet to score a touchdown this year.
• Ryan Longwell, K – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 0 pts – Okay, I’m not going to mock Shawn for leaving a kicker in his line-up who was on a bye. Nope, I am going to mock Shawn for having a kicker on his bench score 14 points while his active kicker was on a bye!!! Oh!! Burn!!

OCHOCINCO ES MI HEROE

Anyone who can get a respected sportscaster like Al Michaels or Jim Nantz to say a ridiculous word like “ochocinco" will forever have my comedic respect. So for that reason, Chad Ochocinco, you are my hero.

THE MOST ANTICIPATED MOVIE OF THE YEAR ISN’T DUE OUT UNTIL NEXT YEAR

Hopefully some of you caught the preview for next summer’s best movie – Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. It begins with the tagline “The most anticipated movie of the year…”, but only it is not due to come out until May 28, 2010! That is over six months away (198 days to be exact), and more importantly not until the next calendar year! So are they saying that it is this year’s most anticipated movie, or are they predicting that it will be the most anticipated movie next year? Do they somehow already know every movie that is going to be released next year? Also, who out there has been anticipating a Prince of Persia movie? Have gamers really become that powerful of a marketing group?

As for the movie itself, I believe that it will fall somewhere between Transformers and The Fast & The Furious in terms of horribleness. There is simply no amount of special effects or hot female co-stars that can save this movie. For those of you who think that this might be a good movie, do not forget – It is based on a video game! Here is a link to a list of all the movies ever made that are based on video games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_video_games). That list is a veritable “What’s What” of crappy movies.

Bonus hot chick picture. I stumbled across this gem earlier this week, and simply had to share. I think I might become a Tampa Bay fan…

HOW TO NOT PICK NFL GAMES

I am in an NFL pool at my office where all you have to do is pick the winning teams from each game each week. Not picking against the spread, just simply picking the winners. Sounds easy right?

I’ve been doing horrible (my record is 75-41 and I’m tied for 25^th place), so I have been trying to come up with any sort of method to predict the winners. This week I picked my winners based on which team’s defense has scored the most points in Fantasy. My thought was that if a team’s defense is scoring a lot of fantasy points, then they must have also been beating up on their opponents pretty good.

Did my theory hold up? Yeah, not so much. My record for the week was 6-7. Had I simply picked the home team in every game, I would have been 9-4.

Lesson learned – How a team’s defense is doing in Fantasy has little to no impact in the outcome of their games.

New theory for this week– The team with the better fantasy QB wins the game. I will report back on the results next week.

POLITICAL RANT

A Kindler, Gentler D.C.?

Recently, an announcement came from Washington D.C. that Attorney General Eric Holder had directed federal prosecutors to back away from pursuing cases against medical marijuana patients who are in compliance with state marijuana laws. Put aside for a minute the fact that this announcement deals with the legalization of marijuana, which is an entirely different debate. The important thing that I wanted to point out with this announcement is what a huge victory it is for state’s rights! The federal government is willingly backing off of an issue and letting the states decide how they want to deal with it.

That is how the founders of our country wanted it to work. They envisioned a small federal government that would only get involved to settle disputes between states. The states themselves would handle the governing of the people. That way, if you didn’t like the way things were going in your state, you could move to a different state that governed in the way that you preferred. All too often now it seems that Washington is dictating the direct governance of the people. It was refreshing to see one finally go to the states.

DEFENSIVE UPDATE

In Week 1, the Philadelphia Eagles scored an amazing 43 points. At that time, I predicted that it would take the worst defense at least five weeks to score that many total points. Now after nine weeks, the bottom defense has finally broken the 43-point barrier! The Jacksonville Jaguars came into their Week 9 match-up with only 40 total points (a dismal 5.7 ppg), but somehow managed to hang 7 points on the Chiefs this week! Go Jags!!

ENJOY THE MUSICAL GENIUS OF YOKO ONO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR6P3mBlkHY

She makes Alvaro Dominguez sound like Luchiano Pavarati.

BEST BENCH

It was a total runaway this week! With an incredible 62-point improvement, the winner of the Best Bench is – the Midnight Maulers! Jamie needed almost a complete roster overhaul to get to that total – 5 roster moves in all: G. Olsen for H Miller (24 pts), Tampa Bay for Philadelphia (22 pts), B. Roethlisberger for D. McNabb (8 pts), R. Williams for L. Tomlinson (7 pts) and E. Royal for S. Smith (1 pt).

So Week 10 is upon us, and this is the last week with any teams on byes. Only the Giants and Texans are off. Only four weeks left until the playoffs!!!

Week 8 In Brief

Eight weeks into the season, and the standings are still wide open. Almost everyone moved a position this week except for the two division leaders, Frito Pie and Lords of Lumberg! Both of those teams have records of 5-3, but only hold 2-game leads over the bottom-ranked team in each division. That’s right, the bottom-ranked teams in each division are only 2 games out of first place. Unbelievably tight! So there is still a lot of football to be played!

Speaking of football—Congratulations this week go to sprouts, who showed that they were the only team that could break 100, and logged very nice 115 points!! With the victory this week, sprouts becomes the first two-time winner this year. Well done Russ!

Just a quick update this week as my normal writing time has been interrupted with meetings, conference calls and TPS reports. Stupid work, always gets in the way of the important things. So we move on to the observations:


PLAYERS I WISH I HAD ON MY TEAM

* Chris Johnson, RB – sprouts – 38 pts – Chris Johnson is what you would call a home-run hitter. When he goes off, he goes off big time! Remember Week 2 when he piled up 48 points? Yeah, so this was just a mediocre game for this guy…

* Maurice Jones-Drew, RB – sprouts – 32 pts – Russ managed to have the two top scoring players for the week on his team! Reminds me of Jamie George circa 2005.

* Ryan Moats, RB – Free Agent – 32 pts – Three touchdowns for this guy after coming off the bench to replace Steve Slaton. Looks like we may have a runningback controversy…

* Aaron Rodgers, QB – American BadAss – 28 pts – Well, at least Rodgers won the fantasy point battle against Favre…

* Brett Favre, QB – sprouts – 25 pts – …but not by much.

* Matt Forte, RB – Scottish Rebels – 24 pts – I’m going to use this section to conduct an experiment… Greg Jennings really sucks. He probably doesn’t deserve to watch the NFL, let alone play in the NFL. (I will report next week on the results of my experiment.)


PLAYERS I NORMALLY END UP WITH ON MY TEAM

* Brandon Marshall, WR – Frito Pie – 2 pts – After a three game stretch where he scored 45 points, Marshall has only managed 6 in his last two games.

* Anquan Boldin, WR – SOFA KING GOOD – 2 pts – Hey Anquan, if you are hurt don’t play. Because if you play, James might be expecting you to score more than 2 points.

* T.J. Houshyourdaddymandzadeh, WR – Midnight Maulers – 2 pts – How about that Cowboy defense shutting down the Housh?! They might have a playoff game in them yet…

* Torry Holt, WR – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 1 pt – Honestly, until I was scanning Shawn’s roster this week, I thought that Torry Holt was out of football. In a way, by playing for Jacksonville he kind of is…

* Mike Sims-Walker, WR – Scottish Rebels – 0 pts – You have got to be kidding me! You cannot be serious! Twice I have had Sims-Walker in my active line-up and twice he has scored me zero points. Unbelievable.

* Steve Slaton, RB – Lords of Lumberg – -1 pt – So how does a runningback end up with a negative point? All you have to do is only gain 10 yards, lose a fumble and get benched for the remainder of the game. Oh, it’s simple!



DEFENSE UPDATE

As you know, the Philadelphia defense went off in Week 1 and scored an unbelievable 43 points. The challenge at that point became to see how long it would take the lowest scoring defense to break through the 43-point barrier. As of last week, two defenses remained below that mark: Tennessee and Jacksonville. As of this week, one defense remains: the Jacksonville Jaguars.

After playing in 7 games, the Jaguars have only scored a total of 40 points. That is an average of only 5.7 points per game! However, they do play the Chiefs this weekend, so I’m giving them a pretty decent chance of scoring 4 points.



IT IS NATIONAL “CHECK YOUR SMOKE DETECTOR BATTERY” WEEK

So you know, go ahead and check the battery in your smoke detector.



BEST BENCH

It’s like that old saying, “You gotta dance with who brought you.” Seriously, what was I thinking playing Mike Sims-Walker and Marshawn Lynch ahead of Greg Jennings and Matt Forte?! There must be a reason that one of those guys was my keeper and the other one was my first round pick… So this week, the award for best bench goes to: the Scottish Rebels! I could have improved my total this week by 35 points, with three very simple line-up changes— M. Forte for M. Lynch (20 pts), G. Jennings for M. Sims-Walker (14 pts) and New Orleans for Baltimore (1 pt).



Only two more weeks of byes! Get ready for Week #9!!