Start Me Up! Week 2 - 2011

Moves Like Jagger - a super cool uptempo song from maroon 5 featuring christina aguilera! Catchy whistle in various parts of the song.

Take me by the tongue and I'll know ya

Kiss me till you're drunk and I’ll show you

all the MOVES LIKE JAGGER

i got the MOVES LIKE JAGGER

i got the MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVES LIKE JAGGER

Just wanted to make sure everyone knows what they lost to this week. That is the Urban Dictionary definition of “Moves Like Jagger”… everyone is playing second fiddle to a Maroon 5 song featuring Christina Aguilera. Lol! When I saw the new team name for Tailgate Approved, I was really hoping it was some sort of sexual position involving a tongue, but oh well... What do you know?!?

Congratulations to Jens for being the Week 2 High Score Prize Winner! Joe’s Pats put on late run to try to catch his total, but in the end it was not enough. Six of Jagger’s players scored over 15 points and four of those scored more than 18 points! That is awesome scoring consistency across the line-up… something that my Scottish Rebels seem afraid to do. (James and Russ – You guys know what I’m talking about, right? Yeah you do.)

Week Numero Uno saw a tight battle for the High Score Prize, with American Bad Ass just edging Frito Pie by 1 point, 112 to 111. American Bad Ass had monster performances from Aaron Rodgers and Matt Forte in Week 1, while Frito Pie had a 31-point performance from Wes Welker thanks to a 99-yard touchdown catch. And how about this… the bottom two teams from the 2010 standings were the top two scorers in the first week! How about that for parity?!

So let’s get right to it and do this thang!!

THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT

§ Vincent Jackson, WR – Scottish Rebels – 32 pts – Two catches for 31 yards. Oh wait, that was Jackson’s week 1 stat line. This week he had 10 catches for 172 yards and 2 TD’s! Remember that consistency thing I was talking about?

§ Jeremy Maclin, WR – Midnight Maulers – 32 pts – With an almost identical stat line to V Jax, Maclin finished with 171 yards on 13 catches, and had 2 TD’s!

§ Miles Austin, WR – American Bad Ass – 32 pts – Rounding out the trifecta for receivers this week, Miles Austin scored his points by finding the endzone 3 times (!) and tacking on an additional 143 yards receiving. Amazing week to be a wide receiver.

§ Tom Brady, QB – Joe’s Pats – 31 pts – Just to make sure that everyone knows he’s the best quarterback in the league, Brady followed up his week 1 performance (517 yards, 4 TD’s) with another beast of a an outing, adding 423 yards and 3 TD’s!

§ Cam Newton, QB – Joe’s Pats – 29 pts – Let’s all be thankful that we are only allowed to start one quarterback in our league. Joe owns the top two fantasy players overall with both Brady and Newton.

WIGGITY WIGGITY WACK

§ Vernon Davis, TE – Lords of Lumberg – 1 pt – Slow start for Davis this year, as he only has 5 points through the first two weeks.

§ Reggie Bush, RB – sprouts – 1 pt – I’ll let the Yahoo! News report sum up this one: “Bush was awful Sunday in a 23-13 loss to Houston. Bush carried six times for 18 yards and had a three-yard reception. This was a terrible effort.” Ouch. I mean come on Reggie, sure you scored 14 points in Week 1, but what have you done for us lately?!

§ Oakland, D – American Bad Ass – 1 pt – Oakland gave up 38 points to the Buffalo Bills. That’s equivalent to 96 points against the Patriots. Not good…

§ Mike Williams, WR – Lords of Lumberg – 0 pts – His official stat line, I kid you not, is 1 reception for -4 yards. Wonder if the quarterback actually threw a pass backwards 4 yards, or if he somehow caught a pass downfield and then actually ran 4 yards backwards…

§ Antonio Gates, TE – sprouts – 0 pts – Gates only had one pass thrown his way the entire game and finished with no catches vs. the Patriots. I think it’s obvious here that Bill Belichik has Vincent Jackson on his fantasy team and was playing against Gates this week. Am I right?

BEATING A DEAD HORSE

The “Beating A Dead Horse” Award for this year so far goes to Joe’s Pats for pulling the trigger and adding Peyton Manning to his roster. This is a pony that is on the train to Retirementville. How many professional athletes have you heard of “undergoing experimental stem cell therapy in Europe on their injured neck” that come back to throw for 5,000 yards? Probably not going to see it happen. It is fun to see Tom Brady and Peyton Manning on the same team, though…

GAME PICK RECAP

There were more correct picks in the games this week than last, but in the end, our Weekly High Score Winner for the week also picked the most correct games! Way to go Jensy! By being the only manager to pick himself to defeat American Bad Ass, Jens picked 4 of 5 games correctly. Frito Pie, American Bad Ass and sprouts all had 3 of 5 picked correctly this week.

This means that Moves Like Jagger will be #1 on the waiver wire list this week, with teams following in reverse order of standings. Be sure to get your picks in each week!

BEST BENCH(ES)

Two weeks have gone by, so there are two Best Bench awards to give out. In Week 1, it looked like sprouts was a shoo-in for the Best Bench by having Steve Smith score 31 points on his bench. But sprouts only had a 58-point improvement, six points short of the total put up by the Midnight Maulers! Jamie could have improved his total by 64 points in the first week with four roster moves: Chicago D for San Diego (+21 pts), M. Tolbert for F. Gore (+20 pts), D. Sproles for D. Williams (+13 pts), and J. Cutler for M. Ryan (+10 pts).

This week wasn’t even close… with a 50-point improvement possibility the Week 2 award goes to my Scottish Rebels! And it would have only taken two roster moves to accomplish it… V. Jackson for D. Jackson (+30 pts) and J. Best for A. Foster (+20 pts).

Get those waiver claims in, get your rosters set and get your winners picked! It's time for Week 3!!!

Rebels Reign Supreme!!

Wow! In 7 years of this league we have never had a Championship game end in a tie. In fact, we didn’t even have playoff tiebreakers in effect until 2007. If you remember, that was the year where in the semifinal round, Jens defeated his opponent but Joe and Jason tied in the other game. Ultimately, all three of those teams battled for the title with Jason coming out the victor. Tiebreaker rules for the playoffs have been in effect since then, but have never been used. Until now…

In a bizarre decision, Philadelphia decided to postpone their Sunday Night game until Tuesday due to a snowstorm. By random happenstance, four players in the Championship game were involved in this game: Michael Vick, DeSean Jackson and David Akers for the Scottish Rebels, and Jeremy Maclin for sprouts. Sprouts led by 18 points going into the Tuesday night game. Akers ended up posting a deuce by only kicking two extra points and coming up about 12 yards short on a 54-yard kick. DeSean Jackson posted a measly 3 points, while Maclin logged 7 by gaining 74 yards. So it all came down to Michael Vick. Coming in he was averaging 28 points per game, so it seemed likely he could put up a good total against a struggling Vikings team. The only thing that struggled though, was Vick. He lost two fumbles, threw one interception (and should have had at least two other passes picked) and just looked bad all night. Somehow he managed to throw and run for a touchdown, finishing with 20 points, his second lowest point total of the season. This left my Scottish Rebels and sprouts knotted at 87 points.

The first tiebreaker in the Championship Round is to the team with the highest scoring quarterback. In spite of his less than stellar performance, Vick outscored sprout’s QB Matt Schaub who had scored 14 points against the Denver Broncos. So the 2010 Sacred Sundays Champion is the Scottish Rebels!!! I must say, it feels good to take my spot at the top of the Fantasy Football Mountain. :-)

Congrats also need to go out to Joe’s Pats this week who was the only team to break into triple digits (and just barely!) with 100 points! Way to go, Joe!! With that, six different teams took home Weekly High Score Prizes this year. Here are the final standings:

1^st – Scottish Rebels – Jerry

2^nd – sprouts – Russ

3^rd – Joe’s Pats – Joe

4^th – SOFA KING GOOD – James

5^th – Lords of Lumberg – Timmy

6^th – Midnight Maulers – Jamie

7^th – Tailgate Approved – Jens

8^th – Coors Light Drunk Guys – Shawn Martin

9^th – American BadAss – Jason

10^th – Frito Pie – Rachel

(Next year’s draft will be the reverse order. More on the draft and keepers below.)

Here are the final money payouts:

Scottish Rebels - $220 (3 Weekly High Score Prizes plus Championship)

sprouts - $210 (4 Weekly High Score Prizes plus Runner-Up)

SOFA KING GOOD - $160 (4 Weekly High Score Prizes)

Lords of Lumberg - $120 (3 Weekly High Score Prizes)

Tailgate Approved - $40 (1 Weekly High Score Prize)

Joe’s Pats - $40 (1 Weekly High Score Prize)

Checks will be going out this week!

DRAFT AND KEEPERS

The same rules will apply for keepers this year as last year: You can keep up to two players from your team’s final roster for next year. For any player that you elect to keep, you will forfeit a draft pick equivalent to the round the player was drafted in the previous draft. Any keeper being kept again will count as a first round pick. Any player acquired through a waiver wire pick-up or as a free agent will count as a 15^th round pick. Keepers must be declared no later than one week after the 2011 NFL Draft. Also, as mentioned earlier, the draft order will be the reverse of the final standings.

HISTORY AND RECORDS

As I was researching the tiebreaker rules this week, I ended up spending some time looking back at past seasons for Sacred Sundays. It’s amazing that this league has been going now for 7 years! Here are the past champions:

2004 – Bad Ass – Jason (I believe he defeated Jamie in the finals, but I kept really crappy notes and records back then.)

2005 – Sofa King Cool – James (Defeated Bad Ass in finals)

2006 – Midnight Maulers – Jamie (Defeated Coors Light Drunk Guys in finals)

2007 – American BadAss – Jason (Defeated Jens & Joe in three-way battle)

2008 – American BadAss – Jason (Defeated Scottish Rebels in finals)

2009 – Lords of Lumberg – Timmy (Defeated Midnight Maulers in finals)

Also, here are some records that I have been keeping since the 2007 season:

Highest Weekly Point Total – Shawn – 145 pts, Week 16-2008

Lowest Weekly Point Total – Jason – 21 pts, Week 4-2008

Highest Weekly Total Score (all teams combined) – Week 2-2007 (993 total pts)

Lowest Weekly Total Score (all teams combined) – Week 16-2007 (644 total pts)

Best Bench Improvement – Russ – 89 pts, Week 2-2009

Highest Single Week Player Points – TIE – Adrian Peterson – 49 pts, Week 9-2007, and Michael Vick – 49 pts, Week 10-2010

BEST BENCH

There was a real battle to see who was going to grab the final Best Bench of the season… Joe’s Pats and Frito Pie put up good efforts, with 35-point and 36-point improvements, but the final crown for this year goes to last year’s champion…. the Lords of Lumberg!! Timmy could have improved his point total by a solid 42 points with three roster moves: J. Freeman for M. Ryan (+20 pts), M. Austin for W. Welker (+14 pts) and Kansas City for the New York Jets (+8 pts).

So another season has gone by in what seems like the blink of an eye. I have certainly had a blast this year, as I do every year with you crazy assholes! I’m already looking forward to next year!

Happy New Year!!!

It's Playoff Time!!

This marks the 3^rd time in the history of the Sacred Sundays Fantasy Football league that four of the six playoff teams will come from the same division. All of the scenarios and tie-breakers in the end did not matter, as Jamie’s Midnight Maulers pulled out a narrow victory over sprouts to snag the 2nd Wild Card spot and final spot in the playoffs.

The Maulers finished with a win-loss percentage of 0.500 courtesy of their tie with Frito Pie in Week 2. It’s funny how tie games always end up mattering in the end. Also, it was fitting that on the day Jamie made it in because of a tie, he once again tied with Frito Pie at 77 points. In an even closer game, Joe’s Pats took the South Division title over the Lords of Lumberg with a 1-point victory, 95-94. It ultimately came down to Monday Night’s game with the Jets playing the Patriots. Joe scored 31 points in that game (T. Brady-29 pts, D. Keller-2 pts) and Tim only scored 5 points (NYJ D-5 pts). The NY Jets, last year’s top-ranked defense, look average this year and currently sit ranked 15^th among defenses.

Remember that although the playoffs start this week, all teams are still eligible to win the Weekly High Score Prize. Speaking of that, big congratulations to the Cap’n who was SOFA KING GOOD this week! James held off a strong charge from the Coors Light Drunk Guys and took home his fourth Weekly High Score Prize of the year! Well done, sir!

So lets get ready for some playoffs!!! Oh yeah!!! First, some observations…

THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!!!

Reggie Wayne, WR – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 29 pts – Wayne was tied for tops in fantasy this week, as he notched his highest point total of the season.

Tom Brady, QB – Joe’s Pats – 29 pts – In spite of the cold, Tom Brady was hot and threw for 326 yards and four touchdowns! Bang.

Adrian Peterson, RB – Lords of Lumberg – 28 pts – I’m actually surprised that the Bills managed to hold AP to only 107 yards and 3 touchdowns. That should be considered a victory for them.

Michael Vick, QB – Scottish Rebels – 28 pts – What other wonderful things can I say about Vick that haven’t already been said? He is a class act all the way, and will hopefully retire from the game as a Scottish Rebel.

Marshawn Lynch, RB – Scottish Rebels – 27 pts – Before we give too much credit here, it must be noted that Lynch was playing against the Carolina Panthers…a team that should probably be competing in the NAIA, not the NFL.

Aaron Rodgers, QB – American BadAss – 26 pts – Rodgers could be nicknamed “Captain Consistency” because this guy always puts up big points. Out of 12 games this year, Rodgers has scored over 15 points 10 times, five of those times going for 25 points or more! The only two times he failed to score more than 15 points were in Week 1 and 8, where he scored 11 points and 6 points respectively.

TRY AGAIN

Reggie Bush, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 2 pts – Bush’s average over the last two games is half a point per game.

Visanthe Shiancoe, TE – Tailgate Approved – 1 pt – My research was pretty brief, but I believe this guy may be the only person in the world named ‘Visanthe’. I did however find a pretty close match on Google with ‘Vasanti’ which is Sanskrit for “from springtime”.

Dwayne Bowe, WR – sprouts – 0 pts – Bowe was held without a catch for only the second time in his career. He was averaging 31 ppg over the last three weeks before laying this egg, so we can probably cut him a little slack.

Greg Olsen, TE – Midnight Maulers – 0 pts – Olsen has posted more than 10 points only once this year (Week 3), and has now been shut out three times. Not a good trend.

NORTH DIVISION DOMINANCE

The North Division was the powerhouse this year, sending four teams to the playoffs and leading in every meaningful category.

Categories won by the North Division:

Points scored: 5,542 to 5,304

Points against: 5,354 to 5,492

Wins: 33 to 31

Ties: 2 to 0

Good looks: 5 to 0

Categories won by the South Division:

Losses: 34 to 30

Waiver Moves: 75 to 61

PLAYOFFS? DON’T TALK ABOUT THE PLAYOFFS!!

Here are the final regular season standings and seeds for the playoffs:

North Division Champion – SOFA KING GOOD (first round bye)

South Division Champion – Joe’s Pats (first round bye)

North Division Runner-up – sprouts (will play 2nd wildcard team in first round)

South Division Runner-up – Lords of Lumberg (will play 1st wildcard team in first round)

Wildcard #1 – Scottish Rebels (by virtue of best overall record of remaining teams)

Wildcard #2 – Midnight Maulers (by virtue of 2nd best overall record of remaining teams)

Remember that there will be no tie games in the playoffs. Ties will be broken in the following manner:

• Ties in any playoff game prior to the Championship Game will automatically go to the higher seeded team.
• If there is a tie in the Championship Game, the following tiebreakers will be used:

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, co-Champions will be declared

WHO NEEDS A DRAFT?

As of Week 13, there are only four players on my roster whom I actually drafted (Steven Jackson, Arian Foster, Chicago and Kyle Orton) and one of my keepers (DeSean Jackson).

BEST BENCH

No one really even came close to the winner of the award for Best Bench… sprouts!! Russ could have upped his point total by 36 points with three roster moves: V. Davis for J. Tamme (14 pts), B. Green-Ellis for C. Johnson (13 pts) and C. Ochocinco for D. Bowe (9 pts).

That’s all I’ve got… Let’s play some football!!!