Wednesday, September 19, 2012

F 'n' A!!!


The champ is back!  A week after sputtering out of the gates, the Coors Light Drunk Guys roared to life with a 40-point victory over Gotham’s Reckoning, and dominated the next closest competitor by 15 to take the Weekly High Score prize!  Shawn’s 127 points is the most scored so far this season, and is also a multiple of 27, so that is extra awesome!  (Editor’s note – Any number that ends in “27” is a multiple of 27 in the world of Letter 27.  So all you math nerds can just shut it.)  Way to go Shawn!!

In other news, we had our first tie game of the season, which was the first tie game since the Championship game in 2010.  BoomGoesTheDynamite and American BadAss both tallied 63 points, which would have lost to 7 other teams this week, but due to the luck of the draw, they finished with a tie.  Keep an eye on this, because tie games always seem to have a way of having an impact on playoff qualification.  Speaking of the luck of the draw, I just wanted to mention that the Midnight Maulers' 115-117 loss last week to BoomGoesTheDynamite was the second highest score in a loss in league history.  The record is 116 points held by both Coors Light Drunk Guys (lost 116-132 to the Lords of Lumberg in 2009) and my Scottish Rebels (lost 116-122 to SOFA KING GOOD in 2011).  So don’t feel too bad Jamie, it can get worse! 

Amazingly, after two weeks only 1 team has an unblemished record at 2-0… Joe’s Pats.  We have to go back to 2009 to see that again, when it was the Lords of Lumberg as the only 2-0 team.  That season ended with the Lords taking home the title, so Joe has to like that!  Starting next week I will make my first of a series of weekly playoff predictions, based on a highly detailed and scientific analysis. 

Not a whole lot on the docket this week, so let’s get to it!!


BIG TIME
Reggie Bush, RB – Midnight Maulers – 34 pts – How long has the fantasy world waited to see this?  Reggie Bush finally puts up a monster game (197 total yards and 2 TD’s), but he was sitting on the Maulers bench!

Robert Griffin III, QB – SOFA KING GOOD – 30 pts – How does the saying go? – Once is a happenstance, twice is a coincidence and three times is a trend? – or something like that.  Well, we’ve got two weeks in a row now, so if RG3 does this next week, we can officially say that this is a trend.

Eli Manning, QB – SOFA KING GOOD – 29 pts – What luxury to have your starting QB (RG3) score 30, and your backup QB score 29.  Makes decisions a lot easier.  And Eli would’ve been top dog had he not thrown 3 picks!

C.J. Spiller, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 28 pts – The Chiefs defense put up little resistance for Spiller who gashed them for 123 rushing yards, 47 receiving yards and 2 TD’s.  After scoring 25 last week, Mr. CJ is the #1 RB in fantasy.

Hakeem Nicks, WR – Gotham’s Reckoning – 28 pts – In a game that became a wild shoot-out, Nicks went crazy for 199 yards and hauled in a touchdown.  Nice.

Victor Cruz, WR – SOFA KING GOOD – 26 pts –  Only barely behind his compadre, Cruz racked up 179 yards and a touchdown.  In case you were wondering, Eli had 510 passing yards in the game.


YEAH, NO…
Julio Jones, WR – BoomGoesTheDynamite – 1 pt – Well so much for my assertion last week that this guy could be a stud.  Fourteen yards ain’t gonna cut it in this league Julio.

Dez Bryant, WR – American BadAss – 1 pt – Against the vaunted Seattle defense, Dez only caught 3 balls for 17 yards.  (Did the sarcasm come through on my description of Seattle there?  Maybe I needed some quotes around “vaunted”, or italics on defense, or both…)

Fred Davis, TE – American BadAss – 1 pt – In a shootout game with St. Louis, Davis was a non-factor catching 2 passes for an under-whelming 14 yards.

Jamaal Charles, RB – Gotham’s Reckoning – 1 pt – Charles carried the ball 6 times and only netted 3 yards.  But it wasn’t due to the Bills defense stuffing the run…  Peyton Hillis and Shaun Draughn (who?) combined for 16 carries and 122 yards.  Not sure why Charles is struggling, but he needs to get it figured out, and quick.

Dan Bailey, K – Frito Pie – 1 pt – A week after beating the defending Superbowl champs, the Cowboys offense looked flat and only managed one touchdown.

Larry Fitzgerald, WR – Frito Pie – 0 pts – The Patriots must have thought that Larry Fitzgerald was the only person who could beat them, because they did everything to shut him down.  He finished with only 1 catch for 4 yards (lowest reception total since 2010 and lowest yardage total since 2004).

James Jones, WR – Midnight Maulers – 0 pts – Even with Greg Jennings out, Jones wasn’t able to do anything on the field.  He actually caught two passes, but finished with minus -1 yard.  How do you catch TWO passes for negative yardage?


SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY
The Arizona Cardinals have a long and storied history of being able to take a situation that looks like sure victory, and turn it into a heart-breaking defeat.  They are much like the New Mexico State Aggie football team in that way.  On Sunday, it looked like they had added a new chapter to this all too familiar tale against New England. 
Arizona led by 8 points (20-12) in the final minutes of the game with New England driving.  The Patriots scored the touchdown, then went for two to tie it.  The conversion failed, so Arizona re-took possession ahead by two, with 2:06 to play.
In this situation, the Cardinals need to be thinking only two things: “Protect the ball” and “Stay in bounds”.  Well, they managed to stay in bounds, but on their 5th play of the drive... when they could have been kneeling on it... in true Cardinal fashion, they fumbled the ball back to New England on the 35-yard line.  Now with 1:01 left to play, New England moved the ball up to the 24-yard line, where Tom Brady positioned the ball in the dead center of the field in order to set up a field goal.  Gostkowski had been money all day, and was 4-for-4 up to that point, so a 42-yard kick was all but in the bag.  The Arizona newspapers were already running the print reel reading “Cardinals blow another lead”, as Gostkowski lined up.
Then, the craziest thing happened… in a true Ray Finkle moment, Gostkowski appeared to aim his kick at some cheerleader on the sideline and missed wide to the left by like 10 yards!  It wasn't even close!!  What the?!  That’s not supposed to happen!  Could it be that the Arizona Cardinals have a streak of luck going? 


MARK TWAIN QUOTE OF THE WEEK
A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.


NFL SCORES BY WEEK
Two weeks into the season, and the top five scoring teams in the NFL have all scored over 60 points.  They are:
Washington – 68, Atlanta – 67, Baltimore – 67, Buffalo – 63 and San Diego – 60.
The top five fantasy scoring NFL teams are:
Baltimore – 205, New York Giants – 202, Washington – 198, Atlanta – 197 and New Orleans – 183.  (Green Bay is also tied with New Orleans at 183).
So after two weeks, three of the top five scoring teams in reality are also in the top five for fantasy.  Buffalo ranks 10th in fantasy scoring and San Diego is 12th. 
The Bottom Five Fantasy scoring teams are: Kansas City – 136, Oakland – 131, Arizona – 121, Jacksonville – 105 and Tennessee – 98. 


BEST BENCH
Quite a display for Best Bench this week!  It’s not too often that the improvement from the bench tallies more than 50 points, and even less rare to see it total more than 60 points.  But this week, with an impressive point improvement possibility of 61 points, the Best Bench award goes to… sprouts!  Russ needed four roster moves to make this happen:  W. McGahee for D. McFadden (+21), M. Vick for P. Manning (+17), B. Tate for S. Greene (+19) and D. Moore for A. Johnson (+4).


Already gearing up for Week 3!  And I learned something very important last week… there is a Thursday night game every week this season.  So the earlier you have your line-up set the better…

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