Championship Time!!

Only two left to duke it out for the title!  BoomGoesTheDynamite and American BadAss both proved that they rightfully deserved the top two seeds going into the playoffs, as they vanquished their opponents by a combined 29 points.  Jens also notched his second Weekly High Score Prize in a row (and 4 1/2th overall) by posting 114 points, which just bested a strong performance by the Midnight Maulers (113) and my Scottish Rebels (111).  Not to brag too much, but only one team has scored over 100 points for the last five weeks in a row, that team being my Scottish Rebels.  If only the season went for another 10 weeks, I might have a shot at this thing!

The Championship game will pit the only two teams this season that do not have a win or a loss against one another.  In their Week 2 meeting, American BadAss and BoomGoesTheDynamite tied at 63 points.  So the game this week will determine once and for all who is the best this season!   As a quick refresher, here are the tiebreakers that will be used should the Championship game end in a tie:

    1) Team with the highest scoring quarterback wins;

    2) Team with the highest scoring runningback wins;

    3) Team with the highest scoring wide receiver wins;

    4) If still tied at that point, co-champions will be declared.

These tiebreakers will supercede any that Yahoo! tries to impose…

It is the holiday season with Christmas less than a week away, and the Mayan Apocalypse even sooner!  So just a couple quick items to note for this week…

YOU NEED A KICKER!

The feature on the best kicker of the week has been in hiatus for a couple weeks, but I had to bring it back this week.  In a truly unprecedented performance, Blair Walsh (MIN) scored 25 points in the Vikings game against the Rams.  He did it by kicking one 30-yard field goal, one 40-yard field goal, three 50+ yard field goals(!!), and 3 PAT’s.  To be honest, I have not kept a good record of kicker performances, but I cannot recall one better than that!  So here are a couple quick facts about the amazing Mr. Walsh:

• In high school as a senior, he twice kicked field goals from 59-yards.

• With his performance this last week, he broke the Minnesota team record previously held by Randy Moss for most points scored by a rookie in a season.

THE RESULTS OF OUR STUDY SHOW THAT WE NEED TO CONDUCT A STUDY

The U.S. Mint has been engaged in a two-year study with an outside consulting firm, in order to determine new metal compositions for the penny and nickel.  Since 1983, the penny has been comprised of 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper, but still costs about 3 cents to manufacture and distribute.  The nickel is comprised of 75% copper and 25% nickel, and costs the mint about 11 cents to manufacture and distribute.  So due to this negative seignorage (coin costs more to manufacture than the face value), Mint officials and politicians want to debase these coins like they did with the silver coins in circulation in 1965.

After this two-year study the conclusions reached were, and I’m not making this up, that they need to continue researching and looking into options.  That’s government work for ya!

EVERYONE NEEDS MONEY, THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT MONEY

As we approach the season finale, I wanted to give an update on the money won this season:

BoomGoesTheDynamite - $200 (4.5 Weekly High Score prizes, Playoff qualification)

sprouts - $140 (3 Weekly High Score prizes, Playoff qualification)

Joe’s Pats - $140 (3 Weekly High Score prizes, Playoff qualification)

Coors Light Drunk Guys - $60 (1 Weekly High Score prize, Playoff qualification)

Midnight Maulers - $60 (1 Weekly High Score prize, Playoff qualification)

Gotham’s Reckoning - $40 (1 Weekly High Score prize)

SOFA KING GOOD - $40 (1 Weekly High Score prize)

American BadAss - $40 (0.5 Weekly High Score prizes, Playoff qualification)

Remember that all teams are still eligible to win the High Score Prize this week!

FANTASY vs. REALITY

The New England Patriots continue to set a blistering pace in both the fantasy world and in reality with the number of points that they are scoring.  In reality, they have scored 506 points which is 97 points more than the next closest team (Denver).  In fantasy, they have scored 1,510 points, with the next closest team trailing by 174 (New Orleans).  New Orleans ranks fourth in reality scoring (389 pts), and Denver ranks third in fantasy scoring (1,333).

As I hypothesized this season, the teams’ rank in reality correlates closely to their rank in fantasy scoring, with most teams rank being only 2 or 3 spots different.  The largest deviations are the Green Bay Packers who rank 13th in reality scoring but 7th in fantasy scoring (6 spots different), and the Oakland Raiders who rank 26th in reality and 20th in fantasy (also a 6-spot difference).  Not surprisingly, the bottom three teams in reality scoring are also the bottom three teams in fantasy:  Arizona (30th in both), Jacksonville (31st in both) and Kansas City (32nd in both).

BEST BENCH

There were a decent amount of points left on the benches this week, with several teams having possible improvements in the 25-point range.  But when you have a kicker on your bench score 25-points, you are well on your way…  so the Best Bench for Week 15 goes to:  American BadAss!!  Jason could have improved his point total by 33 this week with only two roster moves:  B. Walsh for J. Tucker (+19 pts) and S. Johnson for D. Thomas (+16 pts).

Only one week left!  My oh my how it flies by…  hey that rhymes!