Special treat for Sacred Sundays this week as this is a
two-fer! Not sure what happened last
week, but I did hear that there is an FBI investigation to figure out how the
week was shortened by 16 hours.
Seriously, things just flew by last week, and before I knew it, it was
Friday morning. So first, let’s rewind
real quick to Week 5…
Congratulations to Joe’s Pats, claiming the High Score Prize
in back-to-back weeks! Joe’s Pats
posted 112 points, with big games from Stevan Ridley (22) and Reggie Wayne (30). Yeah, contrary to what everyone thought,
Reggie Wayne did not retire two years ago, and is in fact still playing
football! So that was exciting to see. Way to go, Joe!!
Now for Week 6, the accolades go out to sprouts, who had a
lot riding on the Monday Night game with three Broncos playing. Things didn’t look good through the first
half, as San Diego jumped out to a 24-0 lead and the Broncos looked flat.
But Peyton Manning, Eric Decker, and Willis McGahee came alive in the
second half and combined for 46 points, making sprouts the only team to score
in triple digits this week with 103!
Well done Russ! That big Monday
Night performance drove a stake through any hope my Rebels had to notch their first
victory. With a record of 0-6 my Rebels
have now started as bad as they did last year, and are tied for the worst
starting record in the history of Sacred Sundays. Speaking of starting records, Joe’s Pats suffered their first
loss this week, so there are no unbeaten teams left. Overall the standings very close, with 4 teams sitting with a
record of 3-3.
So this week I check in on the top scoring kicker, give an
alternative to the challenge flag, and make my final early season playoff
prediction. Let’s get to it!
OH YEAH!
-Aaron Rodgers, QB – American BadAss – 38 pts – Rodgers
looked like the Rodgers of 2011 as he Discount Double Checked all over Houston
to the tune of 338 yards and 6, yes six touchdown passes.
-Shonne Greene, RB – sprouts – 37 pts – Green had what we’ll
call a “career day”. He ran right
through the Colts, going for 161 yards and three touchdowns.
-RG3, QB – SOFA KING GOOD – 34 pts – New rule for fantasy
football—If there is even a 2% chance of RG3 playing, you put him in. He is proving to be an unbelievably
dominating force, and is now the top ranked player in all of fantasy with 136
points.
-Jordy Nelson, WR – 30 pts – With Rodgers throwing 6 TD’s,
you had to have someone catching them.
Nelson was the lucky recipient of three of them.
WHAT IN TARNATION?
-Dwayne Bowe, WR – Gotham’s Reckoning – 2 pts – Bowe only
caught 3 of the 9 passes thrown his way, and only went for 21 yards.
-Martellus Bennett, TE – SOFA KING GOOD – 0 pts – One catch
for nine yards. Well, at least he
didn’t fumble.
EXCEPT ON THE WEST COAST
How many people out there still turn on their T.V. on Sunday
afternoon around 5 o’clock and say, “Well goddamn. They’re showing this stupid football game instead of 60
Minutes. I’m going to write the
television company to complain.” I’ve
got to think that that disclaimer about 60 Minutes is really only applying to
maybe 16 people in the country, with 15 of those being in nursing homes.
CHALLENGE FLAGS
The NFL has always had issues with instant replay. They got rid of it because it was slowing
down games… then they brought it back but only to be used when plays were
“challenged”… then they decided that scoring plays were important enough to be
automatically reviewed… then they decided that all turnovers would be
automatically reviewed. And now we find
ourselves almost back to the point where any play that has any significance
whatsoever is going to be reviewed.
Maybe that’s a good thing, or maybe it’s a bad thing, but I think at
this point the challenge flag needs to be taken away. Any play of consequence will be reviewed automatically, so now
coaches are free to use their challenge on a first quarter drive when they
think their receiver actually gained eight and half yards instead of just eight
and a quarter yards. With all of the
automatic challenges PLUS the challenge flag the NFL has now created an even
better game-slower-downer system than what they got away from in the first
place!
So instead of the challenge flag, I am proposing the
Penalty-Negation Flag. This would be a
flag that can be used only one time per game to negate an accepted
penalty. The one exception would be
that it could not be used to negate a personal foul. But at any point during the game if there was a penalty called
against a team, and the opposing team accepts, the coach of the penalized team
could throw the Flag (black would be a good color), and it would make the call
the same as offsetting penalties. So
the down would be re-played. Think about
those times when an offense has 3rd and 22, and the defense gets flagged for a
5-yard holding penalty but gets an automatic first down. Now the coach of the defensive team can
negate that penalty! Or that false
start on 4th and inches? Negated!
LACES OUT!
The top kicker for this week was actually a tie between my
favorite player, Jason Hanson, and Rob Bironas. Both of these fine gentlemen racked up 16 points, by kicking four
field goals (with 2 from 40-49 yards) and 2 extra points. Here are some fun facts about them:
Jason Hanson – At age 42, is the oldest player in the NFL
and has spent half of his life in the league.
Also, he went to Washington State University where he received a
bachelor’s degree in Premed.
Rob Bironas – His full name is James Robert Douglas Bironas,
and was awarded the “Golden Toe Award” by the Pro Football Writer’s Association
in 2007.
These guys are way better than: Arian Foster (15 pts), Calvin Johnson (13 pts), Eli Manning (11
pts), and Rob Gronkowski (6 pts).
MARK TWAIN QUOTE OF THE WEEK
All generalizations are false, including this one.
REALITY VS. FANTASY
The top scoring NFL team in fantasy points is the New
England Patriots with 599 points. The
Patriots are also the top scoring team in reality with 188. The New York Giants are second on both
lists, with 587 fantasy points and 178 reality points. The third highest team in fantasy is the
Atlanta Falcons, who have scored 577 points and currently rank 5th in reality
with 171. Fourth place in fantasy
belongs to the Broncos, having posted 558 points, and they rank 6th in reality
with 170. Rounding out the top five in
fantasy is the Baltimore Ravens who have scored 547 points, and with 161
reality points are ranked 7th.
Couple quick notes:
-Washington is tied for second with the Giants in reality with 178
points, but currently ranks 9th in fantasy points with 504.
-Jacksonville is in last place in both lists, and it is
really not even close. They have scored
242 fantasy points, while the 31st ranked team (Carolina) has 320. In reality, they have scored 65 and the 31st
ranked team (Oakland) has scored 87.
-The most fantasy points scored in a single week was 131 posted by Detroit in Week 3. Second highest was Green Bay last week with
128.
SLASH AND BURN
Kordell Stewart had the nickname “Slash” because he was so
good that he could play several positions.
Or so that’s how the story went.
Usually a player that is considered good at a lot of different positions
is never great at any one position.
This season, I have found seven players that have multiple position
distinctions and their performance thus far has been underwhelming. Here are the players:
Darius Reynaud-Ten-WR,RB
Dexter McCluster-KC-WR,RB
Rhett Ellison-Min-RB,TE
Niles Paul-Was-WR,TE
Charles Clay-Mia-RB,TE
Dorin Dickerson-Buf-WR,RB,TE <-- Three positions?!
He must be really good!
Stefan Logan-Det-WR,RB
Darius Reynaud leads the scoring of this group with 17
points on the season. Dexter McCluster
has only put up 14 points so far this year.
Mr. Triple Threat Double D (Dorin Dickerson) has all of 3 points this
year. I wonder if he scored one point
as a runningback, one as a wide receiver and one as a tight end. That would be pretty cool.
PLAYOFFS
Through six weeks of play, the most common record observed
over the last 5 years is 3-3, having occurred 14 times. This year we have four teams with that
record. Historically, 50% of the teams
with that record have gone on to qualify for the playoffs, so for those four
teams it is literally a coin flip.
There are two records that are a lock to make it in, 5-1 and 1-4-1, both
have been seen twice with all teams qualifying. An unblemished 6-0 record has happened 3 times, but only 2 of those
teams made it to the playoffs, so ironically, by Joe losing this week, he has
essentially guaranteed himself a spot in the playoffs. Also, American BadAss’ record of 4-1-1 has
never been achieved prior to this season, so there is no exact predictor for that one.
All that said, here are my predictions for teams to make the
playoffs:
- Joe’s Pats – 5-1 (qualifying percentage: 100%)
- sprouts – 4-2 (qualifying percentage: 88.9%)
- American BadAss – 4-1-1 (qualifying percentage: N/A) (Note-Teams with 4 wins qualify at 88.9%, and teams with 1 loss qualify at 100%, so I think this is a safe bet.)
- SOFA KING GOOD – 3-3 (qualifying percentage: 50%)
- Frito Pie – 3-3 (qualifying percentage: 50%) (Note- For the four teams at 3-3, I flipped a coin and these two teams won.)
- Gotham’s Reckoning – 2-4 (qualifying percentage: 45.5%)
On the bubble:
- Midnight Maulers – 3-3 (qualifying percentage: 50%)
- Coors Light Drunk Guys – 3-3 (qualifying percentage: 50%)
Snowball in Hell:
- BoomGoesTheDynamite – 2-3-1 (qualifying percentage: 0.0%)
- Scottish Rebels – 0-6 (qualifying percentage: 0.0%)
BEST BENCH
Double dose of Best Benches this week… First starting with
Week 5. The Best Bench for Week 5 was
extra special, because it is something that has only happened a couple of times
in the history of Sacred Sundays. Only
two roster moves were necessary to be the Best Bench winner, who also happened to be the week’s
high scorer… Joe’s Pats! Joe only
needed to swap M. Colston for S. Smith (+27 pts) and R. Mendenhall for L. McCoy
(+3 pts) to improve his high score by 30 points. Double Crown Winner! (My
record keeping in the early days of Sacred Sundays was not nearly as good as it
is now, but I was only able to find 3 other times when this has happened.)
This week’s Best Bench needed five roster swaps to take the
title. Sprouts almost took the Double
Crown and copied Joe’s Pats from last week, but they were edged out by this
week’s winner…. SOFA KING GOOD! With
the five roster moves, James could have improved his total this by 46
points! R. Griffin III for E. Manning
(+23), A. Bradshaw for M. Lynch (+12), Giants for Falcons (+7), F. Jackson for
D. Murray (+3), and K. Britt for V. Cruz (+1).
Six weeks are done.
Tune in next week for mid-season grades!
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