Midnight Maulers March!

There are always a lot of obstacles to overcome to achieve victory… you have to pick the right match ups, deal with player injuries, manage around player bye weeks, and hope that the website hosting your league isn’t down on Sunday morning when critical game-time decisions need to be made.   Shawn took an interesting approach this week on dealing with byes, by merely acting as if they don’t exist.  And it paid off!  In a rarely seen move, the Coors Light Drunk Guys started two players on their bye week (the Packers Defense and Mason Crosby) and still managed to pull out a victory!  You must be doing some clean living, Mr. Martin!

The big congratulations this week go to Jamie George and his Midnight Maulers, who smashed the competition, scoring 23 more points than the nearest team and being the only team to break into the triple digits this week with 118!  This was also one of those extra special high scores because it was done with an optimal lineup!  Well done Jamie!  Six different teams have now claimed a Weekly High Score Prize this season…

This week we’ll start talking about the playoffs, see which NFL team is in the lead in fantasy scoring, and I give a salute to one of the greatest American athletes of all time.  But first, some player observations…

THAT IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!

-Denver, DEF – Scottish Rebels – 36 pts – Denver straight up Chicagoed the Panthers.  (That is the new term for a defense that humiliates an opponent by scoring over 30 points).  In all, Denver had 7 sacks, 2 interceptions (1 returned for a touchdown), plus a punt return touchdown and 169 return yards.  Oh yeah, and just for good measure they added a safety.  Boo, yah.

-Joe Flacco, QB – Midnight Maulers – 29 pts – Flacco put on a show against the Raiders, throwing for 341 yards, 3 TD’s, and 1 int, and also adding a 1-yard rushing touchdown.  Apparently he really loves playing at home this season where he has scored 114 total points (22.8 ppg), versus on the road where he has scored only 32 total points (8 ppg).

-Matt Ryan, QB – Midnight Maulers – 29 pts – Good to get in a shootout with the Saints!  Ryan finished with 411 yards and 3 touchdowns in the Falcons first loss.

-Adrian Peterson, RB – Scottish Rebels – 28 pts – Over the last four weeks, AP is averaging 25.5 points per game, and is the current NFL rushing leader with 1,128 yards.

-Dallas, DEF – Free Agent – 28 pts – This was just fun to watch, wasn’t it?!  Three defensive touchdowns?  You kidding me?!  Oh yeah!!  Love it!!  How ‘bout them Cowboys?!?!

-Calvin Johnson, WR – SOFA KING GOOD – 27 pts – Nerve damage…concussion…knee problems… it doesn’t matter.  Megatron looked like his old dominant self in this one.

-Jimmy Graham, TE – SOFA KING GOOD – 26 pts – Graham went for 146 yards and two TD’s against an undefeated Atlanta team.  Should be even easier next week going against the Raiders defense.  Look out!

COME ON, MAN!

-Rashad Jennings, RB – Scottish Rebels – 2 pts – I should know better than to start a Jaguar on my team.  What has my ‘Fantasy vs. Reality’ analysis been showing all year?  That freakin’ Jacksonville DOES NOT SCORE POINTS!  Do not forget this when setting your own roster…

-Eli Manning, QB – SOFA KING GOOD – 2 pts – Not sure what is going on with Eli and the Giants.  He has only scored 10 points over the last three weeks (with no touchdown passes).

-Victor Cruz, WR – SOFA KING GOOD – 2 pts – If Eli’s not throwing touchdowns, Cruz ain’t catching them.  So yeah, the Giants are having some problems.

-Eric Decker, WR – sprouts – 1 pt – Quite a drop-off after scoring 15, 16, and 21 points in the weeks leading up to this game.  But with Peyton looking good, I would think he’ll rebound nicely.

-Michael Bush, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 1 pt – I guess scoring only one point shouldn’t be too much of a surprise considering the guy hasn’t scored more than 4 points since Week 3 when he somehow scored 12.

-Michael Turner, RB – American BadAss – 1 pt – This looked like a dream match up going in with New Orleans giving up the 3rd most points to runningbacks, and Turner coming off a 16 point performance from the week before.  But he never got going in this one, gaining a measly 15 yards on 13 carries, and even got stuffed from the one-yard line on his only opportunity to score.  Ouch.

-Reggie Bush, RB – Midnight Maulers – 0 pts – Reggie only got four carries and was benched for fumbling.  Not a good development.

PLAYOFFS?  DON’T TALK ABOUT PLAYOFFS!

There are three regular season games left before playoffs start.  Four teams in the South Division have 5 wins, and Gotham’s Reckoning is only one game behind that.  So, the South Division is wide open.  There are two inter-divisional matchups in the South this week (BoomGoesTheDynamite vs. Midnight Maulers and Gotham’s Reckoning vs. Coors Light Drunk Guys), so we should know a lot more next week.  But for now, I’m just going to say that all teams in the South Division control their own fate to make it in to the playoffs.

The North Division has the team with the league’s best record (American BadAss, 7-2-1) and the league’s worst record (Scottish Rebels, 2-8).  My Rebels have officially been mathematically eliminated from making the playoffs, and it looks like American BadAss should be in.  For sure if American BadAss gets one more victory in the next three games they will definitely be in.  The remaining three teams in the North (sprouts, Joe’s Pats and SOFA KING GOOD) are all still alive to make it in.  Joe’s Pats and sprouts control their own destiny, while SOFA KING GOOD will still need some help.  I’ll have full scenarios for each team next week.

Playoffs Note #1: Don’t forget, this season there is a $20 bonus to each team that qualifies for the playoffs.

Playoffs Note #2:  I just wanted to mention that in Week 6 the teams that I predicted to make the playoffs were: Joe’s Pats, American BadAss, sprouts, SOFA KING GOOD, Frito Pie and Gotham’s Reckoning.  So it looks like I’m on track to be 100% correct!

Playoffs Note #3: Round 2 of the “What Do You Know?! Bowl” (BoomGoesTheDynamite vs. Coors Light Drunk Guys) will occur in the final week of the regular season.  How sweet will that be if the winner of that game makes it in and the loser is out?  What do YOU know!?!?!?

GREAT AMERICAN HERO

Lance Armstrong has been stripped of his Tour de France titles because he allegedly used steroids or something.  Frankly, I don’t care.  I am so tired of athletes getting in trouble for using “performance enhancing drugs”, when the drugs they are using are just the most effective drugs.  Every sporting league has lists of “approved” drugs, and “non-approved” drugs, with the main difference being how well the drug works.  But let’s take a look at the reality of the Lance Armstrong situation.

Lance Armstrong was a guy who had cancer, and had it bad.  By all accounts, his prognosis was bleak.  But, miraculously, he beat it.  And he didn’t go on to just live a regular life.  He went and won the toughest bicycle race in the world.  Then he won it again.  Then he won it again.  Then to prove it wasn’t a fluke, he won it again.  Then again.  And again.  And to top it off, again.  Just think about that…he not only beat cancer, he emerged from cancer as one of the strongest, most remarkable human beings that the world has ever seen!

Now, let’s assume that he did go through some sort of doping regiment throughout his recovery.  If he did, humanity better hope that he took extensive notes on exactly what he did, because apparently he stumbled on the cure for cancer.  Instead of crucifying him for cheating, we should all be thanking him for his enormous gift to all of us.  Every cancer patient should be following whatever alleged regiment he was on, because that shit works.  Thank you, Lance Armstrong.  You are an outstanding human being, and I will forever salute you.

I have the same sentiment for athletes like Roger Clemens who ridiculously got called in front of Congress for using drugs.  Once again, here is a guy who at age, what, like 50 was able to pitch at the Major League level!  I don’t give two craps about what he was on, how about we give everyone some of that?! I mean, I can go out and play tennis for a couple hours and still be sore three days later.  And I’m just playing against old white dudes, not young Cubans in their prime.  The fact that Clemens was able to do that is beyond remarkable.  It’s time to stop persecuting these athletes, and start revering them as pioneers in the science of curing diseases and enhancing human peak performance.

FANTASY vs. REALITY

The top team remains unchanged in Fantasy and Reality, the New England Patriots.  They have scored 299 points in reality and 906 in fantasy.  The Denver Broncos have taken over the 2nd spot in reality scoring (271 points), and have moved up to 3rd in fantasy scoring with 848.  The NY Giants are 3rd in reality (267 pts) and 2nd in fantasy (855 pts).  In fourth place, surprisingly, is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with 260 reality points, but they currently rank 9th in fantasy points with 765.  In fifth place for reality is Baltimore (254 points, up from 12th place last week), and they currently rank 7th in fantasy scoring with 784.

The bottom five teams in fantasy scoring are:

28th – Carolina Panthers – 579 pts (Reality= 27th)

29th – New York Jets – 568 pts (Reality= 24th)

30th – St. Louis Rams – 560 pts (Reality= 28th)

31st – Kansas City Chiefs – 527 pts (Reality=30th)

32nd – Jacksonville Jaguars – 466 pts (Reality= 32nd)

TIES ARE FOR SOCCER AND CHURCH

It is comical to have football players argue with refs or rant after games about bad calls when they don’t even know the most basic rules of the sport that they are playing.  Donovan McNabb made an idiot of himself in 2008 when he famously stated that he didn’t know that games could end in a tie.  You would think that after that, and after all the finagling that has been done with overtime rules recently, that all players would know this by now.  But you would be wrong.  At the conclusion of overtime on Sunday, with San Francisco and St. Louis still tied, Niners’ safety Dashon Goldson said, “I didn’t know you could tie.  When I saw both sides walking onto the field, I was like “Where’s everybody going?”  Same for Danny Amendola (STL, WR), who was actually a member of the Eagles in 2008 when they tied, he told Peter King after the game that he thought there was going to be a second overtime.  Hilarious.

Speaking of ties, here are the tiebreaker rules that will be used in determining which teams qualify for the playoffs:

Division Champions and Runner-ups: (One Division Champ, and one Runner-up from each division)

1) Overall record

2) Division record

3) Head-to-Head record

4) Points scored

5) Coin flip     

Wild Cards: (Two wild card teams, regardless of division)

1) Overall record

2) Head-to-Head record

3) Points scored

4) Coin flip

Once we are in the playoffs, here are the tiebreakers that will be used in the event of any tie game:

-In any round prior to the championship game, ties go to the higher seeded team.

-In the championship game, if there is a tie, it will be broken in the following manner:

                -Team with the highest scoring quarterback wins,

                -Team with the highest scoring runningback wins,

                -Team with the highest scoring wide receiver wins,

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

BEST BENCH

When you can’t win high scores, or regular games for that matter, it is nice to still win something!  So for the second week in a row, the Best Bench goes to…. my Scottish Rebels!  With a roster overhaul of over half my players, I could have improved my point total by 41 this week.  Broncos for Ravens (+14), A. Gates for O. Daniels (+11), C. Palmer for C. Newton (+8), L. Moore for B. Lloyd (+5) and B. Green-Ellis for R. Jennings (+3).

The playoff push is on!  Thursday night games continue, but this is the last week of byes…

Here comes BOOM!

There are big games, and there are monumental games.  Big games are like when Ronnie Brown put up 43 points in Week 3 of 2008.  Or when Chris Johnson put up 48 in Week 2 of 2009.  The biggest of the big games was when Adrian Peterson posted 49 points in Week 9 of 2007.  Michael Vick matched that number in Week 10 of 2010.  But records, as they say, are meant to be broken.  What Doug Martin did on Sunday can only be described as a monumental game, going for 251 rushing yards, 21 receiving yards and 4 touchdowns, coming to a grand total of 54 points!  This is one for the ages…Truly outstanding!

But the big boom this week goes out to BoomGoesTheDynamite, who dropped a bomb and exploded for 118 points!  Jens had a big game from Brandon Marshall (30 points), and 15 points from his kicker, giving him two more points than Frito Pie.  With the win, that gives Boom a 4-4-1 record, which moves him to 1st place in the South Division, and in the driver’s seat to qualify for the playoffs.  Well done Jensy!

And I would be remiss if I did not congratulate sprouts for taking the high score in Week 8, with a massive 138 points!  That is the most points scored in a single week all season, and the highest total since the Coors Light Drunk Guys posted 139 back in Week 14 last season.  Russ’ victory also marked three weeks in a row of taking the Weekly High Score prize.  That is some good fantasy footballin’!! 

The league standings are crazy right now… four teams in the South Division have records of 4-5, and those teams are only a half-game behind the division leader.  So to say that the South Division is wide open would be an understatement.  It is literally anyone’s game at this point.  The North Division is quite a different story with American BadAss leading the way with a super strong record of 7-1-1, and both sprouts and Joe’s Pats with 6-3 records.  Hard to believe that there are only 4 games left until we start the playoffs.

So this week, we’ll get caught up on some outstanding items from last week and hand out two Best Bench awards.

BIG TIME

• Doug Martin, RB – Frito Pie – 54 pts – Out of 494 players that have scored a point so far this season, there are only 160 that have scored over 54 points.  Doug Martin did that in one game.  Unbelievable.

• Adrian Peterson, RB – Scottish Rebels – 34 pts – You don’t expect a player scoring 34 points to be outscored by 20 on a normal basis.  But AP still had a tremendous game, going for 182 yards and 2 touchdowns on the ground, plus 11 receiving yards.

• Carson Palmer, QB – Scottish Rebels – 31 pts – 414 yards and four touchdowns is a pretty freakin’ good day.  But he also tossed 3 picks, so there’s that.

• Chicago, DEF – Midnight Maulers – 30 pts – I have never seen a defense have a season like this… this is the third time this year that the Bears’ D has scored over 30 points, and they are now averaging 23 points per game.  Also, they are the second highest scoring player in all of fantasy, only trailing Aaron Rodgers by 9 points.  But Rodgers has not had a bye week, and the Bears have, so they are technically outscoring everyone this year.

• New Orleans, DEF – Free Agent – 30 pts – Who dat?  Anyone need a defense that can score 30 points?  Here’s one.

• Brandon Marshall, WR – BoomGoesTheDynamite – 30 pts – Marshall caught 9 passes for 122 yards and 3 touchdowns.  Yeah, that’ll play.

 

• Andrew Luck, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 28 pts – Luck is looking like he just might be able to play football at the pro level.  He is averaging 20.3 points per game over the last three weeks, and is the 7th ranked QB overall.  Shawn, you might have yourself a quarterback controversy brewing…  Brees and Luck have both scored 61 points over the last three weeks.

COME ON MAN!

• Jeremy Maclin, WR – Midnight Maulers – 2 pts – Only 2 catches for 28 yards this week, giving him only 356 yards and 3 touchdowns for the season.  Surely not what Jamie was hoping for out of his 4th round pick.

• Jared Cook, TE – American BadAss - -2 pts – Cook had 2 catches for a grand total of 6 yards, plus a lost fumble.  It really doesn’t get much worse.

FANTASY vs. REALITY

The top three teams in reality scoring are also the top three teams in fantasy scoring.  New England is tops in reality (with 262 points), and ranks second in Fantasy with 807 points.  The New York Giants are second in reality (254 points) and first in Fantasy (814 points).  Green Bay ranks third in both categories with 239 points in reality and 789 points in Fantasyland.  (Side note – my spell check does not recognize “Fantasyland” as a misspelled word).  But the crazy thing is that New England has had a bye week (Week 9), yet the Giants and Green Bay have not.  So that just goes to show how much scoring the Patriots are doing this year!  (I guess you have to score a lot with a secondary like they have…)

Rounding out the top five are the Houston Texans who are 4th in reality with 237 pts and 6th in Fantasy with 730 points, and the Chicago Bears ranking 5th in reality with 713 points and 8th in Fantasy with 713 points.  (Side note about Chicago – The Bears Defense is not only dominating the league, but they are dominating the other Bears players… the Defense has 184 points on the season with the next closest Bear (Brandon Marshall) only having 118.)

Final note in the Fantasy versus reality – The Jacksonville Jaguars continue to live in the basement in both categories with only 117 reality points and 413 fantasy points.

TRADE DEADLINE AND PLAYOFFS

The trade deadline is Friday, November 16th.  If you want to make a trade after that date, both teams will have to drop the players and hope that no one else picks them up off of waivers.  And there are only four more games until the playoffs start!  Next week we’ll start looking at qualification scenarios.

NFL GAMES ABROAD

Last week (Week 8), the New England Patriots took on the St. Louis Rams at Wembley Stadium in England.  I just found it amusing to have a team named the “New England Patriots” playing in England.  “New” England, which is better than “Old” England, and the “Patriots”, named in honor of Americans who kicked the crap out of the British back in the day.  Simply awesome.

MARK TWAIN QUOTE OF THE WEEK

It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.

ELECTION RESULTS

Tuesday’s election results were a nightmarish train wreck of epic proportions, but it wasn’t all bad.  Here are a couple of positive things that will come out of this:

1)      We’ll finally get to learn what number comes after a trillion.

2)      We’ll get to find out what President Obama meant when he told that Russian diplomat that he needed more “flexibility”.

3)      We’ll all learn how to speak Chinese.

You always have to look at the bright side of things…

BEST BENCHES

Week 8 did not see much in the way of points being left on the bench… the winner of the Best Bench only improved by 25 points, which is the lowest Best Bench improvement for this season.  That team was…. Frito Pie!  Rachel only needed two roster changes to accomplish this: Titus Young for Wes Welker (+18) and Dan Bailey for Greg Zuerlein (+7).

For the Best Bench Award this week, the traveling trophy did not have to go far as my Scottish Rebels took home the crown!  I could have improved my point total by 30 points with four roster moves:  Denver for Baltimore (+12), Carson Palmer for Cam Newton (+10), Lance Moore for Percy Harvin (+4), and Ben-Jarvus Green-Ellis for Alfred Morris (+4).

Can it really be Week 10 already?... sheesh...

Week 7 - Midterms!

Congratulations to sprouts!  For the second week in a row, sprouts has been the only team capable of posting triple digits, this week logging 119 points! (That is the third highest single week total of the season.)  Russ did it with big games from Jordy Nelson, Rob Gronkowski and Josh Freeman, who was just picked up off of waivers this week.  Not bad to pick a guy up off the street and have him score 31 points for you.  Well done Russ!!

The league standings have really changed shape over the last couple weeks, with Joe’s Pats suffering two losses and American BadAss now in the lead in the North.  American BadAss has been looking good each week (averaging 88.1 points per game), but has also benefitted from being the team with the least points scored against them.  Only 462 points have been scored against BadAss, with the next closest team having 552 points against.  The league average for points against is 550.6, so Jason is really doing something to bring out the worst in his opponents.  In the South Division there is only one team with a winning record (Coors Light Drunk Guys at 4-3), so that still looks wide open for division champ.

And of course, I must mention the fact that my Rebels finally are out of the doldrums and logged a victory this week.  Booyah!! There will be no record-setting 0-7 worst-start-ever this season!  Not on my watch!

We are now seven weeks in, so that means one thing… it is time for midterm grades!  I’ve added some new categories for grading teams this year (keeper production, Weekly High Scores), and am following a bell curve this time.  Much more on that below, should be fun… but first, some observations from the week:

BIG TIME

-Chris Johnson, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 34 pts – Chris Johnson’s story for the last 3 seasons has been to underwhelm for weeks and weeks, then turn it on when it no longer matters.  Maybe this time he’s turning it on a bit sooner than normal.  He sure looked good going for 195 yards and 2 touchdowns.

-Drew Brees, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 32 pts – Brees breezed through the Bucs defense, scorching them for 377 yards and 4 touchdowns.

-Josh Freeman, QB – sprouts – 31 pts – Freeman had to try to keep pace with Brees!  He actually bested Brees’ yardage total by 43, and threw three TD’s of his own.  

-Vincent Jackson, WR – American BadAss – 30 pts – Over half of Freeman’s 420 yards went to Jackson… he finished with 216 yards and 1 touchdown.  And he should’ve had another touchdown, but was caught from behind at the 5-yard line on a long bomb.

YOU KIDDING ME?!

-Anquan Boldin, WR – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 2 pts – Boldin only caught 3 of the eight passes thrown his way, and only gained 24 yards.  He’s only caught one TD pass this year.

-Larry Fitzgerald, WR – Frito Pie – 2 pts – Larry decided to copy his ex-teammate (Boldin) and only scored two points on Sunday (on 29 yards receiving).

-Trent Richardson, RB – BoomGoesTheDynamite – 1 pt – Richardson only managed 8 yards on the ground and 11 yards in the air against the Colts.  That’s not too good.

-Jason Hanson, K – Scottish Rebels – 1 pt – His one extra point was not up to his normal excellence, but I’m sure he’ll bounce back.

-Jermaine Gresham, TE – Frito Pie – 1 pt – Gresham was a non-factor for Cincinnati only gaining 19 yards.

-Dez Bryant, WR – American BadAss – 1 pt – First the good news: Dez caught 66% of the passes thrown his way.  And the bad news: it was only thrown his way 3 times.

-Phil Dawson, K – Joe’s Pats – 1 pt – You can’t expect Browns players to put up many points, so I guess this was not totally out of the blue.

-LeGarrette Blount, RB – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – LeGarrette had no one but himself to punch in the face after this horrific performance… he rushed for negative (-)2 yards on the day.

-Vernon Davis, TE – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – Joe’s Pats had a kicker score only 1 point, and had his runningback and tight end shut out.  When it rains, it pours…

-Kyle Rudolph, TE – Gotham’s Reckoning – 0 pts – You gotta catch the ball to score points.  Rudolph was 0-4 in that regard.

MARK TWAIN QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.

YOU NEED A KICKER!

The Best Boot for Week 7 belongs to Nick Folk of the New York Jets.  He scored 18 points this week by kicking four field goals (1 from 50+, and 2 from 40+) and two extra points.

Just in time for Thanksgiving: Folk is a direct descendant from the Mayflower, as William Bradford was his mother’s “umpteenth-great grandfather”.

He is waaay better than:  Cam Newton (15 pts), Eli Manning (13 pts), CJ Spiller (10 pts), and Andre Johnson (8 pts).

DO YOU THINK THEY MIGHT BE RELATED?

After 7 weeks of games, Peyton Manning and Eli Manning have both scored 118 points.  That can’t just be a coincidence.

MID-TERM GRADES

So here we go… time to be judged.  I looked at a lot of factors when determining mid-term grades, with more emphasis applied to points scored, keeper production and of course, overall record.  Also, just to make it more fun this year, I followed a strict bell curve on grade assignment.  That means only 1 A, 2 B’s, 4 C’s, 2 D’s and 1 F.   If you don’t like your grade remember that there is still time to improve, and frankly all that matters is who hoists the trophy at the end of the season.

American BadAss - Jason

Current Record: 5-1-1

Points Scored: 617

2012 Weekly High Scores: 0

Last Weekly High Score: Week 1, 2011

Keeper production: 166 pts – Aaron Rodgers (1^st; 155 pts), Laurent Robinson (15^th; 11 pts).

Should have kept:  San Francisco DEF (15^th; 91 pts) instead of Robinson.

Best Move:  Keeping Aaron Rodgers.

Need to re-think: Keeping Laurent Robinson.

Grade:  B

BoomGoesTheDynamite – Jens

Current Record:  2-4-1

Points Scored: 579

2012 Weekly High Scores: 1

Last Weekly High Score: Week 1, 2012

Keeper production: 125 pts – Ray Rice (1^st; 100 pts), Aaron Hernandez (15^th; 25 pts).

Should have kept:  Joe Flacco (11^th; 105 pts) instead of Hernandez.

Highlight:  Dominating in Week 1.

Live in the now!: Jens’ team slogan is still referencing the glory days from Week 1.  It’s Week 8 now… time to move forward.

Grade:  D

Coors Light Drunk Guys – Shawn

Current Record:  4-3

Points Scored: 590

2012 Weekly High Scores: 1

Last Weekly High Score: Week 2, 2012

Keeper production: 213 pts – Drew Brees (1^st; 154 pts), Maurice Jones-Drew (3^rd; 59 pts).

Should have kept:  Marshawn Lynch (15^th; 80 pts) instead of MJD.

Best Move:  Winning the “What Do You Know Bowl” in Week 7.

Need to re-think:  Drafting two wide receivers from Pittsburgh as starters.

Grade:  C

Frito Pie – Rachel

Current Record:  3-4

Points Scored: 539

2012 Weekly High Scores: 0

Last Weekly High Score: Week 14, 2010

Keeper production: 84 pts – Wes Welker (4^th; 76 pts), Beanie Wells (9^th; 8 pts)

Should have kept:  Alex Smith (15^th; 88 pts) instead of Wells.

Best Move:  Drafting A.J. Green in the third round.

Dime-a-dozen: Carrying a back-up kicker is a wasted roster spot.

Grade:  D

Gotham’s Reckoning – Timmy

Current Record:  3-4

Points Scored: 648

2012 Weekly High Scores: 1

Last Weekly High Score: Week 3, 2012

Keeper production: 228 pts – Matt Stafford (10^th; 98 pts), Arian Foster (1^st; 130 pts).

Should have kept: Slight improvement by keeping A.J. Green (11^th; 106 pts) instead of Stafford, but that’s really splitting hairs.

Churning the roster:  Thirteen waiver claims leads the league. 

Note:  Timmy  takes the prize for having the most productive keepers thus far!

Grade:  C

Joe’s Pats – Joe

Current Record:  5-2

Points Scored: 631

2012 Weekly High Scores: 2

Last Weekly High Score: Week 5, 2012

Keeper production: 203 pts – Tom Brady (1^st; 137 pts), LeSean McCoy (1^st; 66 pts).

Should have kept:  Tony Gonzales (9^th; 66 pts) instead of McCoy.  Only a marginal improvement here on draft choices surrendered for equally productive player.

Best Move:  Keeping a death grip on Tom Brady.

Bad luck: Three players combining for 1 point in Week 7.  Ouch.

Grade:  A

Midnight Maulers – Jamie

Current Record:  3-4

Points Scored: 651

2012 Weekly High Scores: 0

Last Weekly High Score: Week 8, 2011

Keeper production: 100 pts – Greg Jennings (1^st; 12 pts), Frank Gore (1^st; 88 pts).

Should have kept:  Carson Palmer (15^th; 97 pts) instead of Jennings.

Best Move:  Drafting Chicago’s defense. 

How’s the weather up there?: The Maulers are the top scoring team in the league!

Grade:  C

Scottish Rebels – Jerry

Current Record:  1-6

Points Scored: 590

2012 Weekly High Scores: 0

Last Weekly High Score: Week 9, 2011

Keeper production: 193 pts – Cam Newton (11^th; 98 pts), Adrian Peterson (1^st; 95 pts).

Should have kept:  Kept players are the most productive from last year’s roster.

Best Move:  Picking up Alfred Morris off the waiver wire.

Need to re-think: Not starting Roddy White in Week 4 when he scored 31 points.

Grade:  F

SOFA KING GOOD – James

Current Record:  3-4

Points Scored: 640

2012 Weekly High Scores: 0

Last Weekly High Score: Week 12, 2011

Keeper production: 150 pts – Victor Cruz (15^th; 104 pts), DeMarco Murray (14^th, 46 pts).

Should have kept:  C.J. Spiller (11^th; 93 pts) instead of Murray.

Best Move:  RG3 .

Note:  James has the unlucky distinction of having had the most points scored against him.

Grade:  C

sprouts – Russ

Current Record:  5-2

Points Scored: 621

2012 Weekly High Scores: 2

Last Weekly High Score: This week!

Keeper production: 138 pts – Willis McGahee (15^th; 69 pts), Rob Gronkowski (13^th, 69 pts).

Should have kept:  Kept players are the most productive from last year’s roster.

Best Move:  Having the confidence to draft Peyton Manning.

Grade:  B

SHAWN-- TRADE BOLDIN TO JAMIE

I just realized that Jamie has almost re-created his 2011 roster in 2012.  The only difference from his ending roster in 2011 was that he had Anquan Boldin as his 2^nd receiver, and this season he has Josh Gordon.  Considering that the Maulers finished last year at 3-10, I’m not sure that it was the best strategy, but it seems to be working so far this season.

FANTASY VS. REALITY

The top five scoring teams in fantasy are:

1)      New England Patriots – 691 pts (Reality #1 – 217 pts)

2)      New York Giants – 681 pts (Reality #3 – 205 pts)

3)      Houston Texans – 642 pts (Reality #2 – 216 pts)

4)      Green Bay Packers – 641 pts (Reality #5 – 184 pts)

5)      Baltimore Ravens – 585 pts (Reality #7 – 174 pts)

The team rankings for reality scoring has been correlating pretty closely to the fantasy points scored by team.  The largest discrepancy is the Detroit Lions who are currently 15^th in Fantasy scoring (501 pts), but rank 21^st in reality scoring (133 pts).  Jacksonville continues to be the worst in both categories, with only 307 fantasy points scored, and 88 reality points scored.

BEST BENCH

While Joe’s Pats and sprouts have both won two Weekly High Score Prizes this season, one team has done even better than that when it comes to the Best Bench.  Taking home their third Best Bench Award this season is… the Coors Light Drunk Guys!!  Shawn previously won the Best Bench in Weeks 1 and 3. This time Shawn could have improved his point total by 44 with three roster changes – C. Johnson for M. Jones-Drew (+34), A. Brown for A. Boldin (+8) and the Cardinals for the Packers (+2). 

Thursday night games and bye weeks continue.  Make sure you have your rosters set!!

Doublin' Up for Week 6!

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!

Week 4 bringing the bang!

It must be something about the fourth week of the season that brings out the big scores.  Total points scored this week came in at 976, which is the third highest total all-time.  The record was set one year ago in Week 4, when the total points scored reached 1,000.  That week there were 5 teams that scored over 100 points and this week we had four teams eclipse that mark.  Nice job to all of those teams!

But the accolades this week go out to Joe’s Pats who overcame a 2-point performance from Vernon Davis, and a 4-point performance from Steve Smith to score 129 points and take this week’s High Score title!  How’d he do it with two of his players only combining for 6 points, you ask?  Well, he followed his team name and got 70 points from three Pats (Tom Brady 31, Stevan Ridley 22, and NE Defense 17).  Note - If you’re going to load up on players from one team, it is good to do it with a team like New England that is now the highest scoring team in reality and the second highest scoring team in fantasy.  More on that below.  Also after four weeks we have had four different Weekly High Score winners.  How’s that for parity, huh?  But congratulations, Joe!  Nice job on the high score and on remaining the sole undefeated team!

Speaking of being undefeated, I guess the world needs balance (you know, that whole Jedi and Sith thing), because my Scottish Rebels still have yet to find a victory, and are scraping bottom at 0 and 4.  But don’t think that this counts me out of the playoffs… oh no!  Quite the contrary!  I’ve got a full playoff prediction breakdown, where I’ll go through each team’s record and give the historic percentages of qualifying for the playoffs at this stage of the season.  Don’t miss it!

So let’s get on with it!!

 NOW THAT’S THE INSIDE STUFF

-          Brian Hartline, WR – Free Agent – 34 pts – Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of this guy, he’s only owned in 23% of leagues.  And Yahoo! only had him projected for 4 points this week, so yeah, they were off just a bit.  He actually set a Dolphins receiving record with 253 yards on Sunday.

-          San Francisco, DEF – sprouts – 33 pts – Had the 49ers defense recorded a safety, they would have had a picture-perfect stat line.  Get a load of this one: 3 sacks, 3 fumble recoveries, an interception, a blocked kicked, a return touchdown, and ZERO points allowed. Well, that’s pretty perfect as it is…

-          Drew Brees, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 32 pts – Brees is putting up the numbers, but the Saints aren’t winning.  He logged 446 yards and 3 TD’s… and lost.  Man, it’s tough to win in this league.

-          Roddy White, WR – Scottish Rebels – 31 pts – Oh yeah!  These kinds of games are the reason I traded for this guy!  169 yards and two touchdowns!  Booyah!  Wait…he wasn’t active?  I played Brandon Lloyd instead? D’oh!

-          Tom Brady, QB – Joe’s Pats – 31 pts – Brady threw for 3 touchdowns, and also ran for a touchdown.  That went along with 340 yards passing and no interceptions.  Yeah, I’d say he had a good day.

-          Minnesota, DEF – Free Agent – 31 pts – The Vikings sacked Matt Stafford 5 times, and had one fumble recovery, but get this – they had two return touchdowns (one kickoff and one punt) and racked up 186 return yards.

-          Cam Newton, QB – Scottish Rebels – 30 pts – Classic case of over-thinking it… Cam Newton against the red-hot Falcons, or Matt Schaub against the struggling Titans?  When in doubt, go with your keepers.  Don’t be like me.  Double d’oh!

-          Matt Ryan, QB – Midnight Maulers – 27 pts – Ryan trails only RG3 for the top spot in fantasy scoring.  He is flat out throwing it like a madman this year, and already has 11 passing TD’s through the first 4 games.

-           Aaron Rodgers, QB – American BadAss – 27 pts – It was the weekend of quarterbacks!  Five of the top 9 scorers for the week were signal callers.

 COME ON, MAN!

-          Evan Royster, RB – American BadAss – 1 pt – I guess you shouldn’t expect too much from a guy who had his breakout game last week scoring 3 points.

-          Dennis Pitta, TE – BoomGoesTheDynamite – 0 pts – Never caught a pass and never really needed to as the Ravens walked all over Cleveland.

 -          Jeremy Maclin, WR – Midnight Maulers – 0 pts – Only one catch for seven yards.  That’s not gonna get it done.

 

YOU NEED A KICKER!

I’ve always been rough on kickers here because, well, they’re kickers.  They are impossible to predict week-to-week, change teams every other year and injure themselves with their celebrations.  But because my best player this year is my kicker, I’ve decided to extend an olive branch to the Vanderjagt’s, Septien’s and the like.  So each week, I’m going to highlight the highest scoring kicker, pass along an interesting tidbit, and point out some high profile players that he outscored. 

Now, without further adieu, here is Week 4’s HIGHEST SCORING KICKER:

Greg Zuerlein – St. Louis Rams – 18 points

How’d he do it? Four field goals (including 2 from 50+ yards (one of those was actually from 60 yards out), and 1 extra point.

Following in Apollo Creed’s footsteps – He has three nicknames: “Greg the Leg”, “Legatron” and “Young G.Z.”

He’s way better than: Michael Vick (17 pts), Victor Cruz (16 pts), Rob Gronkowski (14 pts), Arian Foster (14 pts) and Frank Gore (13 pts).

FLY AGENT, YOU’RE FREE!!

Check out the team of unwanteds that I put together this week:

QB – Kevin Kolb, ARI – 20

RB – Brandon Bolden, NE – 20

RB – Jackie Battle, SD – 20

WR – Brian Hartline, MIA – 34*

WR – Andre Roberts, ARI – 23

TE – Scott Chandler, BUF – 18*

K – Greg Zuerlein, STL – 18*

DEF – Minnesota, MIN – 31

Total – 184

 The asterisk (*) next to the player names above denotes players who were the highest scorer in their position for the week.

MARK TWAIN QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

FANTASY VS. REALITY

All year I’ve been tracking the total fantasy scores posted by NFL team, combining all offensive players, kickers and team defenses, in order to see how points on the scoreboard correlate to fantasy points.  Thus far, the way the teams are ranked in terms of game points is running pretty close to the fantasy ranking, except for Philadelphia, who is ranked 29^th in game scoring, but 19^th in fantasy scoring, and the New York Jets who are ranked 21^st in game scoring, but 28^th in fantasy scoring.  Speaking of the Jets, their fantasy point total this last week is stupefying.  So far this season, the average points scored per team each week is 80.2... the Jets scored 14 points this week.  Fourteen!!  That is crazy terrible!  The only team to even come close to that was Jacksonville in Week 2 scoring only 25 points.

Here are the top five scoring teams in game points, with their fantasy points and rank in parentheses:

1)      New England Patriots – 134 pts (Fantasy Rk #2, 410 pts)

2)      Houston Texans – 126 pts (Fantasy Rk #5, 381 pts)

3)      Atlanta Falcons – 124 pts (Fantasy Rk #1, 412 pts)

4)      Washington Redskins – 123 pts (Fantasy Rk #8, 368 pts)

5)      Baltimore Ravens – 121 pts (Fantasy Rk #3, 404 pts)

WEEK 4 PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS

    In looking at five years of Sacred Sundays history, there is one record that is a lock to qualify for the playoffs after 4 weeks.  That record is 1-2-1, which has been observed 2 times, with both teams qualifying for the playoffs.  So that means that with BoomGoesTheDynamite sitting with that very record right now, Jens is a shoo-in to make it to the big dance.  The next highest qualifying record, amazingly, is 1-3.  There have been 9 teams to start with a 1-3 record, with 8 of those qualifying to make the playoffs.  That’s 88.9% of the teams!  So Midnight Maulers and Frito Pie are poised to make a strong run.

    An undefeated record at this point sounds like a good place to be, but we’ve only seen that record four times, with three of those teams making it in.  So Joe’s Pats has a 75% chance to make it in.  A record of 3-1 has been observed 10 times with 7 of those teams qualifying.  That means SOFA KING GOOD and sprouts are looking at a 70% shot to make it in.

    Now for the teams that have an uphill battle… Coors Light Drunk Guys and Gotham’s Reckoning both have a record of 2-2.  This is the most common record that has been observed, having been achieved 17 times.  However, only 8 of those teams qualified, so Shawn and Timmy are looking at a 47% shot to get in.  American BadAss looks to have a strong record at 2-1-1, but in the three times that record has occurred, only one team made it in.  So Jason, you’ve got a 33% shot staring you in the face.  Bringing up the rear (and I mean that in the worst possible way that you can imagine), are my Scottish Rebels sitting at 0-4.  Four teams have started out this bad in the past, with one of those still managing to qualify.  The team that qualified was back in 2007, when the now defunct “2Fantastic” went 0-4, but battled back to a 6-7 record and snagged the final wild card spot.  There is hope!  I’m not out of this thing yet!!

BESTEST BENCH

I can’t even sugar coat this one this week… I made some bad decisions and rightfully deserve the crown for Best Bench this week.  So, with a 44-point improvement possibility, the Week 4 Best Bench winner is my Scottish Rebels!  Only three roster moves were necessary for this one:  R. White for B. Lloyd (+20), C. Newton for M. Schaub (+14) and A. Morris for B. Green-Ellis (+10).

Four teams are on byes this week, so make sure you have your rosters ready to go!  Week 5 is coming at ya!!