Lords of Lumberg Lay the Lumber!

Seven weeks of the season have already been completed… it’s hard to believe! At last, the mighty king has fallen as James was delivered his first lost this week at the hands of the Midnight Maulers. And did you see the score that the Lords of Lumberg posted this week? Timmy overcame a pathetic 3-point performance from Miles Austin and posted the highest tally this year with a whopping 133 points! He got a major boost by having the Matt Ryan/Roddy White connection that accounted for 58 points of his total. Mmmm….yeah.

Last week, Week 6, saw two teams battle it out for the high score prize… and as luck would have it, those two teams were playing each other. The Midnight Maulers broke into triple digits and posted a 102 that would have beaten any other team that week, but sprouts had a huge game from Jeremy Maclin and Matt Schaub, and rang up a total of 118 points! Nice job Russ!!

So this week I propose my solution to excessive endzone celebrations, dole out two Best Bench awards, and explore the history of the negative political ad… (I don’t want to give too much away, but the phrase “half-breed Indian squaw” will be used!) But first, some observations:

BIG TIME FOOTBALL

Darren McFadden, RB – SOFA KING GOOD – 46 pts – Yeah, James’ team name pretty much sums up McFadden’s performance this week. He was so fahking good!! In all he had 165 yards rushing, 31 yards receiving and 4 touchdowns! James, you probably want to put him in now… lol

Kenny Britt, WR – Free Agent – 43 pts – Amazing but a free agent was the second highest scoring player this week, and is tied for third among wide receivers. I’ll give you one guess as to how long he stays a free agent.

Roddy White, WR – Lords of Lumberg – 35 pts – White leads all receivers with 105 points, which is a solid average of 15 points per game.

Carson Palmer, QB – Midnight Maulers – 31 pts – Palmer put up 412 yards passing and three TD’s, and the Bengals still lost to Atlanta by 7.

Ryan Fitzpatrick, QB – American BadAss – 31 pts – This guy has been on a tear, as he has gone for 20, 20, and now 31 points in his last three outings.

Lee Evans, WR – Free Agent – 28 pts – Well someone had to catch all the passes that Fitzpatrick was throwing.

Michael Turner, RB – Tailgate Approved – 26 pts – Turner broke through the 100-yard mark for the third time this year and added two touchdowns.

Dez Bryant, WR – American BadAss – 25 pts – The one true bright spot in what was otherwise a very, very dark Monday night game was Dez Bryant’s punt return touchdown. It was a thing of beauty! He might be the fastest human on the planet.

SUCKY

Matt Prater, K – sprouts – 2 pts – The Raiders absolutely thumped the Broncos, so it is no surprise Prater didn’t get many opportunities.

Robbie Gould, K – Midnight Maulers – 2 pts – In spite of Cutler’s best efforts to keep Chicago moving the opposite direction, Gould still managed two points.

Tony Gonzalez, TE – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 2 pts – Tony only managed 27 yards against Cincinnati. Good number, but bad yardage total.

Ryan Mathews, RB – SOFA KING GOOD – 1 pt – Here is a quote from Yahoo: “It's too early to declare Mathews an NFL bust, but it seems to have reached that point as it pertains to the 2010 fantasy season.” Yeah, that sums it up pretty well…

Roy Williams, WR – Tailgate Approved – 0 pts – I watched the whole game and I swear I did not see Roy Williams once. But apparently according to the official stat sheets he did play… go figure.

EXCESSIVE CELEBRATION RANT

If there was any doubt left, the NFL has officially established itself as the “No Fun League” with their continued crackdown on endzone celebrations. For the life of me, I cannot understand why the NFL has such a problem with players celebrating after scoring a touchdown. At the end of the day, sporting events are about entertainment. People will not watch sports if they are not entertaining…just look at the WNBA.

The NFL should adopt a rule that limits players to 15 seconds to do a celebration, provided that it is not obscene or is not directly taunting the opposing team. Within those 15 seconds, players would be free to do whatever they want. This would prevent celebrations from slowing down the flow of the game, and give fans extra entertainment. Do you remember several years ago, before this current prohibition on celebrations, when Steve Smith and the “Wide Receiver Formerly Known as Chad Johnson” would score touchdowns? Everyone was anxious to see what these guys would come up with next! I remember one time Steve Smith pretended the ball was a baby and proceeded to wipe its ass and put a diaper on it! That is freaking hilarious!!! And I mean seriously, would anyone even know the name Ickey Woods, if not for the “Ickey Shuffle”?

Endzone celebrations are as much a part of the NFL as instant replay and cheerleaders. It is high time for the NFL to smile a little bit and let the players (and the fans) have some fun…

NOW THAT’S A PERSONAL ATTACK!

Nowadays, merely calling a political opponent a liar is enough to get labeled as running a negative campaign. But negative ad campaigns have a history that goes back pretty much as far as the founding of this nation.

Check out the war of words that was waged between Thomas Jefferson and President Adams in 1800. Thomas Jefferson's camp accused President Adams of having a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” In return, Adams’ men called Vice President Jefferson “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow, the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father.”

I don’t know which is better, “a hideous hermaphroditical character” or “the son of a half-breed Indian squaw”! Yeah, I think I’m going to have to go with the half-breed line… that is just funny stuff! And these guys were the President and Vice-President!

THIS MUST MEAN SOMETHING

San Diego is ranked No. 1 in offense and No. 1 in defense. On the NFL's team stats page four of the six league-leader symbols are for San Diego. Yet the Chargers' record is 2-5.

BEST BENCH

Week 6 saw an occurrence that has been very rarely observed in years past, but has already happened twice this year… the team that claimed the High Score prize also had the Best Bench for the week! Sprouts could have added to his total by 32 points with only two roster changes: D. Bowe for S. Smith (15 pts) and R. Torrain for M. Jones-Drew (17 pts).

For this week, it was not even close… when you have a player on your bench score 46 points, you are probably going to have the Best Bench of the week. So this week it goes to SOFA KING GOOD! James could have improved his point total by 54 points by merely swapping his runningbacks, D. McFadden for R. Mathews (45 pts) and M. Bush for R. Mendenhall (9 pts). While 54 points sounds like a lot, that is still 25 points behind the mark set by my Scottish Rebels in Week 1, were I posted an unprecedented 79 point improvement…

Get ready for Week 8! And don't look now, but we're gonna have to start talking about playoffs soon...

Now that's Tailgate Approved!!

Quite a bit of action this week in the standings! SOFA KING GOOD remained undefeated, the Coors Light Drunk Guys took over the lead in the South, American BadAss finally got their first win, and Tailgate Approved threw down the hammer and logged 121 points to take the High Score Prize for Week 5!!

Jensy overcame a goose egg performance by Anquan Boldin and only 2 points from his tight end to still score the second highest point total of the year! How’d he do it? Well, all 6 remaining players on his team scored double digits and three players on his team scored 25 points or more. Well done Jens!! What do YOU know?!?!

This week I remember some reasons why I love The Hangover, figure out what quantitative easing is all about, and finally put to rest the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster. But first, some observations…

HIGH SCORING HEROES

Matt Forte, RB – Scottish Rebels – 33 pts – Apparently Forte scores 33 points, then does nothing for three weeks, and then scores 33 points again. Lookout Minnesota…we’ve got a date in Week 10!

Malcolm Floyd, WR – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 30 pts – This guy is benefiting big time from the absence of Vincent “Me First” Jackson. He had 213 yards and a touchdown.

Ray Rice, RB – Tailgate Approved – 27 pts – Rice doubled his point total for the season in one game (he had only scored 27 through the first four weeks) and finally looked like the player he was last year. He scorched the Broncos for 133 yards and 2 TD’s. Interesting note – Ray Rice has never run for back-to-back 100 yards games.

Chris Johnson, RB – sprouts – 25 pts – In three of the five games Johnson has played this year, he has scored a total of 75 points. In the other two, he has a total of six. Sounds like he has that Matt Forte disease.

Hakeem Nicks, WR – Tailgate Approved – 25 pts – Nicks leads the league for wide receiver touchdowns with 6. Yeah, I didn’t see that one coming either…

Tony Romo, QB – Tailgate Approved – 25 pts – In spite of 3 interceptions, Romo managed to throw for 406 yards and three touches. But in only four games, he has thrown five interceptions.

BOTTOM FEEDERS

Marion Barber, RB – Frito Pie – 1 pt – Barber really needs to find the endzone, as he has only broken through one time this year. Felix Jones could be replacing him full-time at any point.

Thomas Jones, RB – American BadAss – 1 pt – Days like this are going to become more common for TJ as the Jamaal Charles Era begins in Kansas City.

Dustin Keller, TE – Joe’s Pats – 1 pt – Well he did outscore Rob Gronkowski…but only by 1 point!

Anquan Boldin, WR – Tailgate Approved – 0 pts – Champ Bailey held Boldin to only one catch for 8 yards.

Tim Hightower, RB – Frito Pie – 0 pts – After a hot start scoring 28 points in the first two weeks, Hightower has only managed 6 in the last three games.

Jermichael Finley, TE – American BadAss – 0 pts – I normally don’t include players that were injured in this section… I only bring this one up, because I wanted to point out that Green Bay lost 2 tight ends in this game, and their starter is now Tom Crabtree. How about that for obscure?!

REASON TO LOVE “THE HANGOVER”

# 14 – The line “IN THA FACE!!” I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to use that for the rest of my life whenever someone gets hit in the face with anything.

NOW THEY JUST NEED TO TRADE FOR NDAMUKONG SUH

In addition to having a great defense, the Jets lead the league in nonsensical first names as they now have players named LaDainian and D’Brickashaw.

QUANTITATIVE HOCUS-POCUS

Right now, the Fed is planning another round of “Quantitative Easing”. This is Fed speak for “Printing Money Out of Thin Air”. Using big, fancy, nondescript terms is how the Fed maintains their death grip on our economy. People hear terms like “quantitative easing”, “bilateralism” or “credit default swaps” and are instantly transported back to their sophomore chemistry teacher’s ramblings, and their brains shut down. The Fed loves the fact that no one understands what they are doing, and they continually work to perpetuate the myth that they are smarter than everyone else. No organization in the United States raises its middle finger and laughs at the American people more than the Fed. No organization supports special interest groups more than the Fed. And no organization does more to destroy the United States than the Federal Reserve.

The goal of the Fed’s latest “Rape of the Economy” (that’s what I call quantitative easing) is to give banks more money so that they can start lending. The idea out there right now is that people and businesses aren’t spending money because banks aren’t lending, and banks aren’t lending because they don’t have any money. This is wrong on many levels, but we’ll start with the most obvious.

Do you know why people and businesses aren’t investing and spending money? It’s not because there isn’t enough money in the system (in fact, there is probably too much money in the system)…it’s because no one knows what the tax rates will be in two months!! We are 80 days away from 2011 and Congress still has not settled tax rates for next year. Businesses have to do something called “planning” before they make any large expenditure. It is impossible for businesses to plan and calculate the costs of any project without knowing what the tax implications will be!

The Fed could pump another $37 quadrillion into the economy and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference due to the uncertainty that has been created by the B.O. administration. It is not that the banks don’t have money to lend, it’s that no one wants to borrow in this environment! All that this latest move by the Fed will do is devalue the dollar even further, and make the hole that much harder to crawl out.

You really want to get the economy going and get people back to work?? Drop the corporate income tax rate to zero. Companies would be falling all over themselves from around the world to set up shop in the United States! There would be more jobs than people…

REASON TO LOVE “THE HANGOVER”

# 6 – The doctor in the emergency room when he tells them that the chapel they are looking for is at the corner of “Fuck off” and “Get a map”.

OH NESSIE, YOU’RE NOT A DINOSAUR AFTER ALL…

We’ve all seen the famous photo of the Loch Ness Monster where it looks like a Brontosaurus head of some kind is poking out of the water. Turns out, it was nothing more than an elephant going for a swim. Scientist Neil Clark has speculated that it was not the creature’s head poking out of the water; rather it is the elephant’s trunk. Below is his illustration. Now if we can just find Amelia Earhart, that should just about wrap up all of life's mysteries.

BEST BENCH

One other team gave it a good run, but no one really even came close this week to the impressive display by my Scottish Rebels in taking home the title for Best Bench of Week 5! My point total could have been increased by an amazing 55 points with 4 roster moves: M. Forte for A. Foster (31 points), Bears for Cowboys (20 points), P. Garcon for D. Jackson (3 points) and E. Royal for K. Walter (1 point).

Get your teams ready for Week 6!! Remember, the first round of payouts will be sent out next week!!!

It's Good To Be The King!!

In a relatively low scoring week, James decided that he only wanted to use seven active players and left the injured Andre Johnson in, yet still became the only team to break into triple digits this week! In doing so SOFA KING GOOD claimed a second Weekly High Score Prize in a row!! The King had a giant game from Antonio Gates, who registered 144 yards and two touches, and from Calvin Johnson who added two TD’s himself. With the victory, SOFA KING GOOD claimed the #1 spot in the league as the lone undefeated team. Way to go Cap’n!!!

Hard to believe, but one quarter of the fantasy season has been completed. Here are some things that I have learned so far: Auto-drafting your team is not the best path to success (just ask Jason, lol!), Lions players can actually help your fantasy team this year (weird), and I can’t believe I drafted Shonne Greene with a third round pick (I mean, is that guy still even in the league?). Also, just to add an element of weirdness to the season, the Kansas City Chiefs are the only undefeated team left in the NFL. No offense to the Chiefs, but…huh?? This must finally be the year that Timmy’s been talking about since 1994!

So without further delay, some quick observations from the week:

That’s What I’m Talking About!!!

New England, D/ST – Joe’s Pats – 38 pts – Pretty much 36 of these points came in the second half against Miami. Check out this stat line: 2 sacks, 4 interceptions, 2 blocked kicks, 3 touchdowns and 14 points allowed.

T.O., WR – Joe’s Pats – 31 pts – T.O. snagged 10 catches for 222 yards and a touchdown against the Browns. That yardage total put him in second place on the league’s career yardage list. But given he was only averaging 4.67 ppg coming in; I would not expect to see many more days like this.

Arian Foster, RB – Scottish Rebels – 30 pts – Foster leads the NFL in rushing by 126 yards over the next closest player, Rashard Mendenhall. He also leads the next closest fantasy RB (Adrian Peterson) by 29 points. To say that any playoff hopes for the Scottish Rebels depend on this guy, would be, well, pretty freaking accurate.

LaDainian Tomlinson, RB – Midnight Maulers – 27 pts – What the 2005?! LT looked like the LT of old and shredded the Bills for 122 yards and two TD’s.

Antonio Gates, TE – SOFA KING GOOD – 26 pts – Seriously, LT scores 27 and Gates scores 26? This really is 2005…

David Garrard, QB – American BadAss – 24 pts – Garrard was the top scoring QB for the week. I promise you that I have never uttered that phrase in my life.

U-G-L-Y! You ain’t got no alibi!!

DeSean Jackson, WR – Scottish Rebels – 1 pt – Jackson with Vick = 46 points. Jackson with Kolb = 1 point. Explain to me again what Philly sees in Kolb?

Hines Ward, WR – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 1 pt – I guess you can’t blame the guy when he has balls coming to him from Dennis Dixon and Charlie Batch. Yuck.

Indianapolis, D/ST – Lords of Lumberg – 1 pt – It’s hard for a defense to score this low, especially when you are playing against Jacksonville. The Colts registered no sacks, no interceptions, no fumble recoveries, no blocked kicks, no safeties and gave up 31 points.

Beanie Wells, RB – Joe’s Pats – 1 pt – In case you were wondering, his nickname comes from his childhood when his brother said he was “skinny like a bean pole”. Okay, maybe only I was wondering...

Randy Moss, WR – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – Moss was held without a catch for the first time since 2006. And now he’s a member of the Vikings…again.

Santana Moss, WR – American BadAss – 0 pts – Bad week to be named Moss. No catches for Santana either.

Inflation…Deflation… Who gives a $#!t!!

Inflation is an entirely man-made phenomenon in which prices of goods steadily increase over a given time period. Inflation has become ubiquitous to the point where we as a society don’t even question how or why it occurs, and just accept it as a fact of life.

But what is the root cause of inflation? Inflation happens because of two factors: either the goods being purchased are costing more to produce, or the money being used to purchase the goods is worth less. Take a gallon of milk for example. Fifty years ago (1960), the average price in the United States for a gallon of milk was $0.49. In 2010, the average price is $3.50, a seven-fold increase. So that begs the question, has milk gotten more costly to produce today than it was 50 years ago? Most likely it has probably gotten a lot cheaper, due to technological advances and improved delivery methods. So why are we paying 614% more today for a gallon of milk? Because the money we are using today is worth a fraction of what it was worth 50 years ago.

In 1965, the United States removed all silver from the coins in circulation. Prior to that, dimes, quarters, half dollars and dollar coins all were comprised of 90% silver and 10% copper. Those same coins today have a composition of 91.67% copper and 8.33% nickel. A quarter minted in 1964 (the last year using silver) is worth $3.98 today based on its metal content. Quarters minted since are worth just $0.053 based on their metal content. This is a loss of value of over 98%!! In 1964 if you went to the grocery store with four quarters, you could buy a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, and a dozen eggs and still get change back. Nowadays with four quarters, you might be able to buy a candy bar, as long as it’s not king-sized. That is inflation. And it sucks...

Payouts

Rather than pay out all of the money at the end of the year, and because I have free Bill-Pay through Wells Fargo, I think it will be cool this year to pay out three times… after Week 6, Week 12 and the end of the season. That should make Weekly Prizes seem a bit more weekly. So everyone send me your current address when you get a chance.

Best Bench

All the teams did a pretty good job this week of having in their best line-ups, with the exception of one team… One team’s bench more than doubled the next closest team’s bench. The winner of the Best Bench for Week 4 is---- Joe’s Pats!! Joe could have improved his point total by 46 points with only two roster changes!! T. Owens for R. Moss (31 pts) and M. Tolbert for B. Wells (15 pts). Now, Joe, the question becomes – How will Randy Moss do now with Grandpa throwing to him instead of Stetson cologne? Should be interesting…

Let’s do this!! Week 5!! And God Bless the U.S.A.!!!

Three weeks all in one...

It’s baaaack!! Yes, the Sacred Sundays Blog finally resumes in Week 3 of the 2010 season! Two reasons for the late start this year: 1) Only nerds do things on time, and 2) I’ve been busy working on my new book entitled “Fantasy Football Advice I’ve Learned From Jens”. Unfortunately it’s only a page and a half long. HA HA! What do you know Jensy!!!

We have a lot of ground to cover, so without further adieu, let us begin…

Week 1 started right where Week 17 ended last year – with Timmy’s Lords of Lumberg whooping everyone’s ass! Timmy’s was the only team to break into the double digits, registering an even 100 points. Meanwhile, my Scottish Rebels posted what would be a really good nine holes of golf, but is unfortunately a really bad fantasy football score…32. Not one of my active players scored in the double digits, and two of my active players scored zero. I stress the word active because my bench probably set a record for best bench. More on that later…

Week 2 saw a very tight battle for the Weekly High Score, but ultimately it went once again to Mr. TPS Report – The Lords of Lumberg!! In spite of only getting 1 point from Brett Favre, Timmy still managed to post 96 points just edging sprouts by 1. Sprouts score was notable because 69.4% of his score came from just two players…Matt Schaub had 32 points and the Pittsburgh defense rang up 34 points!! Week 2 also featured Round 1 of the “What Do You Know?!?!” Bowl, which was won handily by the Coors Light Drunk Guys 80-60. Lastly, Week 2 had a tie-game between Frito Pie and the Midnight Maulers… I only mention this because in year’s past it is always interesting how tie games can end up coming into play when determining playoff spots.

Things got going a lot better scoring-wise in Week 3, with three teams breaking into double digits!! There were 97 more points scored than compared to Week 2 and 199 more points than compared to Week 1. SOFA KING GOOD led the way with a big 122 points to take the Weekly High Score Prize!! Way to go Cap’n!! After three weeks of intense competition, the Hand brothers are the only two undefeated teams remaining. Odd how they both have also won all of the Weekly High Score prizes… there must be a correlation between scoring a lot of points and winning games… hmm… interesting.

This week I’ll preview an entirely new fantasy football stat that I’ll be tracking this year, push for the demise of the screen pass, and give out three Best Bench awards. But first, some observations from the first three weeks:

They Came To Play:
Arian Foster, RB – Scottish Rebels – 44 pts (Wk 1) – Foster made quite the splash in his NFL debut going for 231 yards and three touchdowns. All while firmly planted on my bench.
Matt Forte, RB – Scottish Rebels – 33 pts (Wk 1) – The bulk of Forte’s points came from an 89-yard touchdown catch that was a thing of beauty. Forte finished with just over 200 yards and two touchdowns. All while firmly planted on my bench.
Peyton Manning, QB – Frito Pie – 32 pts (Wk 1) – Peyton passed for 433 yards and three touchdowns, yet the Colts lost to Houston. Weird.
Javid Best, RB – Lords of Lumberg – 43 pts (Wk 2) – Best was the best in Week 2. Too bad the Lions defense is as porous as the roof on the Superdome because their offense actually has some talent.
Jason Snelling, RB – sprouts – 35 pts (Wk 2) – Snelling had the game of his life and netted a total of 186 yards and three touchdowns. I say “game of his life” because in that one game he equaled 21% of his yardage from last year (872 yards) and 60% of his touchdown total from last year (5).
Matt Schaub, QB – sprouts – 32 pts (Wk 2) – Schaub passed for an amazing 497 yards and 3 touchdowns. He’s good.
Adrian Peterson, RB – Lords of Lumberg – 34 pts (Wk 3) – You knew AP would blow up at some point, so why not against the Lions?
Anquan Boldin, WR – Tailgate Approved – 32 pts (Wk 3) – After three weeks, it’s Anquan Boldin 46, Larry Fitzgerald 26. Come on, you know everyone’s watching that.
Michael Vick, QB – Scottish Rebels – 32 pts (Wk 3) – Here is the second highest scoring player in fantasy so far (with 75 points), second by only 4 points to Peyton Manning. Trust me I am just as shocked at that stat as you are…I’m just glad he’s a Rebel! Oh yeah!!

Just Plain Bad
Miles Austin, WR – Lords of Lumberg – 2 pts (Wk 3) – After starting off super hot (20 pts in Week 1, and 14 in Week 2) Austin became little more than a decoy against the Texans.
Chris Johnson, RB – sprouts – 2 pts (Wk 2) – Pittsburgh actually held Chris Johnson to only 34 yards rushing and 19 yards receiving. (He also lost a fumble). Pretty remarkable considering in his other two games he had 142 and 125 yards respectively.
Maurice Jones-Drew, RB – sprouts – 2 pts (Wk 2) – It’s not the MJD looks bad, it’s that Jacksonville just looks bad. My prediction – Jacksonville will have a top 5 pick in the 2011 NFL Draft.
Steve Smith, WR – Midnight Maulers – 2 pts (Wk 3) – With the quarterback situation in Carolina, it’s actually pretty amazing that Steve Smith even managed to score this many points.
Pierre Garcon, WR – Scottish Rebels – 1 pt (Wk 2) – Rookies are always hit or miss, and… wait he’s not a rookie? Dang…
Felix Jones, RB – American Bad Ass – 1 pt (Wk 2) – For the season, Felix Jones has been outscored by Daniel Fells, Rashad Jennings and Mike Goodson. I will mail a bright, shiny penny to anyone who knows what team any of those players play for, without looking it up.
Brett Favre, QB – Lords of Lumberg – 1 pt (Wk 2) – Favre’s current QB rating is 60.4. If he throws a couple more picks, he might be the first player in NFL history to be as old as his rating.
C.J. Spiller, RB – Frito Pie – 0 pts (Wk 1) – Rookies are always hit or miss, and this one was definitely a miss.
Mike Sims-Walker, WR – Scottish Rebels – 0 pts (Wk 1) – I just don’t understand.. did he marry Herschel Walker’s daughter and take her name?
Owen Daniels, TE – Scottish Rebels – 0 pts (Wk 1) – Two active players in my line-up netted zero points. Suck me.


Take a Pass on the Screen Pass
The last time I witnessed a successful screen pass was probably sometime in the mid-nineties. By successful, I mean a screen pass that resulted in more than the standard yard-and-a-half gain that has become ubiquitous with screen passes today. Seriously, a screen pass will work if you are coaching against an eighth grade defense, but not in the NFL. NFL defenders have been defending against screen passes since they were in the eighth grade, and they’re not falling for it anymore. The best thing a team running a screen pass can hope for is that the clock runs out on the quarter before the ball is snapped so the quarterback can go over to the sideline and talk his coach into calling a real play. An offensive coordinator who calls a screen pass is basically saying “I am no longer following a game plan…I am just selecting plays at random,” because there is no excuse for purposefully calling one of these plays. Screen passes need to die a quick death, and go on the football strategy trash heap along with the Wishbone and Run & Shoot.


Political Rant
With the November elections looming, there is a very important issue going on in Washington regarding the tax rates that will go into effect in 2011. In 2002 George W. Bush signed legislation that cut taxes across the board for all taxpayers. In order to get these tax cuts passed through Congress, Bush cut a deal with Democrats that established an expiration date for the tax cuts. That expiration date is 12/31/2010. If Congress does nothing, everyone’s tax rates will go up. Let me state that again, if Congress does nothing, everyone’s tax rates will go up.
Now this brings us to the debate on Capitol Hill… The Republicans want to extend the current tax rates for everyone (no exceptions) and make these rates permanent. The Democrats want to extend the tax rates only for those making less than $200,000 per year, but revert high earners back to the old (much higher) rates. Currently Republicans are filibustering the attempt by the Democrats to impose this massive tax increase. Our president who is out on the campaign trail (doing what he does best) is going around stating that Republicans are “trying to block a tax cut for the middle class.” As explained earlier, there will be no tax cuts for anyone. All the Democrats’ plan will do is keep exactly the same rates in place this year as next year for the lower income brackets. There are no “tax cuts” being blocked by Republicans.
Also, our president has mentioned that extending the tax rates for individuals making over $200,000 per year will “cost us” $700 billion. But what does this actually mean? If a business announces that something will cost them $700 billion, that means that they will be forking out $700 billion dollars of money that they already own or will have to pay back. That is a true cost. But when our government says that continuing these tax rates will “cost” $700 billion, all that means is that they (the government) won’t receive $700 billion in extra tax revenue! There is no “cost” here. And considering how the government spends money, any amount kept out of their hands is a good thing.


Quarterback plus Receiver Pairing
Over the past several seasons, I’ve tracked kicker rankings and compared actuals to pre-season projections. My analysis has unequivocally shown that trying to predict kickers is useless and pointless. This season I am going to analyze the effect of having on your fantasy team a quarterback paired with a receiver from the same team. For the purposes of the analysis, a receiver is defined as any position that can catch passes from the quarterback (wide receivers, runningbacks or tight ends).
So far this season there have been 19 instances where a quarterback has been paired with a receiver in our league. Next week I will release the preliminary findings and formulate a hypothesis about this strategy.


Best Bench(es)
Week 1 nearly had an historic event… Had Shonne Green scored more than 8 on my bench (he actually scored -1) I would have had a situation where all of my bench players outscored my active players. Basically that means that any change I would’ve made would have been the correct change. As it stood, I could have improved my point total by 79 points with 6 (yes SIX) roster moves… A. Foster for D. Williams (38 pts), M. Forte for S. Jackson (25 pts), K. Orton for C. Henne (7 pts), Chicago for Dallas (5 pts), R. Meacham for M. Sims-Walker (3 pts) and P. Garcon for D. Jackson (1 pt).

Week 2 had a very rare occurrence as well, with Timmy’s Lords of Lumberg taking both the high score prize and being the Week’s Best Bench. Timmy could have improved his score by a very nice 55 points with only two roster moves: J. Best for J. Charles (37 pts) and M. Ryan for B. Favre (18 pts).

Last week saw pretty decent team management from everyone, as evidenced by the higher scores. In the end, the Week 3 Best Bench went to the Midnight Maulers. Jamie could have added 29 points to his total with four roster changes: B. Edwards for S. Smith (12 pts), L. Tomlinson for R. Brown (9 pts), G. Olsen for C. Cooley (7 pts) and Carolina for Baltimore (1 pt). But don’t feel too bad Jamie, even with those changes you still would’ve lost to Lumberg by 2 points.


Okay, we have three weeks in the books, but frankly it feels like we’ve only just begun! Get those waiver claims in, and get ready for Week 4, the first week with byes…

THE LORDS OF LUMBERGS ARE CHAMPS!!

Congratulations TIMMY!!! You are the 2009 Scared Sundays Champion!! And what a way to do it too, claiming the high score of the week in the process… that is big time football!! And congratulations to Jamie also for coming into the playoffs as the 6^th seed, yet battling all the way to a second-place finish.

Now that that’s out of the way, I believe an explanation is in order… This column has endued a big decline in the number of posts recently, and for that I must apologize. Basically staffing hours for Sacred Sundays Blog, Inc have been cut way back due to overtime at Banfield Inc, where I do the bulk of my writing. I’ve been working two jobs there for several weeks, which has eaten up all my free time at work plus really made me not feel like getting on the computer at night…

But this week’s column was going to be colossal since it was for the Championship Game! Rachel is out of town, so I was going to get home from work as early as possible and have a lot of time to write a good long column. But then Snowmageddon hit Portland. Let me just tell you…Portland city residents go insane when it starts snowing, and Portland is ill-equipped to handle white, fluffy precipitation that piles up on the ground. It took me 4 ½ hours to get home from work… a trip that normally takes me 35 minutes. Suffice it to say, that really cut into my writing time tonight… lol! So all I have for this week are a couple quick items, and the final money tally:

FINAL STANDINGS

1. Lords of Lumberg
2. Midnight Maulers
3. SOFA KING GOOD
4. Coors Light Drunk Guys
5. sprouts
6. Tailgate Approved
7. Frito Pie
8. American BadAss
9. Scottish Rebels
10. Joe’s Pats

(Remember that the draft order will be that order in reverse.)

FINAL MONEY WINNERS

1. Timmy - $175 = Championship, plus Three Weekly High Scores (6, 12, 16)
2. Russ - $100 = Four Weekly High Scores (3, 8, 11, 15)
3. James - $80 = 3^rd Place, plus two Weekly High Scores (5, 13)
4. Jamie - $75 = Runner-up, plus one Weekly High Score (2)
5. Jens - $50 = Two Weekly High Scores (9, 10)
6. Shawn - $25 = One Weekly High Score (1)
7. Joe - $25 = One Weekly High Score (4)
8. Jerry - $25 = One Weekly High Score (7)
9. Rachel - $25 = One Weekly High Score (14)

KEEPERS

Once again this year, keepers will have to be declared by one week after the NFL draft. But this year each team will have the option to keep up to 2 keepers, but can elect to keep only one or none. Also this year, the draft pick forfeited for a keeper in next year’s draft will be the round the player was selected this year. (Keepers from this year count as a first or second round pick, and any free agent pickups count as a 15^th round pick.)

So that concludes another fantasy season… I can’t believe it is over so quickly… I will send all of the money winners an email to confirm mailing addresses. Also, I’ll send out email updates when we get closer to the keeper declaration date.

Until then, Happy New Year!!

What a game!! Sprouts squeaked out a 1-point victory (109-108) over the Midnight Maulers to claim the high score for the week! Sprouts was able to overcome the 30 points that Ricky Williams scored for the Maulers, and with big games from Matt Schaub, Wes Welker and Chris Johnson, sprouts has now amassed the best record in the league (7-4). Well done Russ!! That match-up just goes to show how important schedules are, because the Midnight Maulers outscored everyone else in the league this week, yet lost. Ouch...

In other news this week, we have only two more regular season games until its playoff time so I'm going to dedicate the majority of this week's column to playoff scenarios.


Playoff Rules:
-Six teams will qualify for the playoffs.
-Playoffs will run in Week 14, 15 and 16.
-The top two teams in each division automatically qualify, and two additional wild card spots are awarded.
-The top team in each division will receive a bye in the first round.
-Wild cards are not division dependent (i.e. Both wild card teams can come from the same division).
-During the playoffs, all teams are still eligible to win the Weekly High Score Prize.

Tiebreakers for Division Playoff Spots:
1. Overall record
2. Division record
3. Head-to-Head record
4. Points scored
5. Coin flip (initiated by Commissioner)

Tiebreakers for Wild Card Spots:
1. Overall record
2. Head-to-Head record
3. Points scored
4. Coin flip (initiated by Commissioner)

Team-by-Team Playoff Scenarios
Remarkably, with only 2 weeks to go no team has been eliminated from playoff contention. Because of that, the wild card spots are still completely up for grabs, so the scenarios spelled out below apply only for divisional playoff spots.

- Sprouts - Win one of two remaining games, OR two losses from Tailgate Approved PLUS one loss from each of Lords of Lumberg, Midnight Maulers and Coors Light Drunk Guys.

- Frito Pie - Win one of two remaining games.

- SOFA KING GOOD - Win one of two remaining games.

- Tailgate Approved - Win both remaining games, OR win one remaining game PLUS one loss from Lords of Lumberg.

- Lords of Lumberg - Win both remaining games, OR win one remaining game PLUS two losses from Tailgate Approved PLUS one loss from Midnight Maulers.

- Midnight Maulers - Win both remaining games PLUS two losses from Tailgate Approved PLUS one loss from Lords of Lumberg.

- Coors Light Drunk Guys - Win both remaining games PLUS two losses from Tailgate Approved PLUS one loss from Lords of Lumberg PLUS one loss from Midnight Maulers.

- American Bad Ass - Win both remaining games PLUS two losses from Frito Pie PLUS two losses from SOFA KING GOOD.

- Scottish Rebels - Win both remaining games PLUS two losses from Frito Pie PLUS two losses from SOFA KING GOOD PLUS one loss from American Bad Ass.

- Joe's Pats - Win both remaining games PLUS two losses from Frito Pie PLUS two losses from SOFA KING GOOD PLUS one loss from American Bad Ass PLUS one loss from Scottish Rebels.

As mentioned before these scenarios only apply to qualifying for one of the two divisional playoff spots in each division. There are multiple scenarios for each team to grab one of the wild card spots. So it is extra important in these next two weeks to make sure you have your best line-up in the game.


BEST BENCH
Speaking of having your best line-up in the game, I seem to have a real aversion to doing this... For the second week in a row, the Best Bench goes to -- My Scottish Rebels! With three roster moves this week, I could have improved my point total by a very nice 45 points... Eli Manning for Tony Romo (20 pts), Greg Jennings for Roy Williams (18 pts), and New Orleans for Dallas (7 pts). By the way - If anyone wants Roy Williams, he will be on the waiver wire Wednesday morning...


Two more weeks! Let's do this!!

Two is better than one!!

Congratulations Jens!! With the high score this week, Jens became the first team to post back-to-back high scores since Joe's Pats did it back in Week 7 & 8 in 2007! So it has been over two years since this feat was accomplished! AH SCHLEGA!! Nice pullova!!

Speaking of Joe's Pats... Joe was the most unlucky team this week, as he scored the second highest points (109), yet lost to Tailgate Approved's 113 points. Ouch!


Ten weeks of football have been played, so only three weeks remain until the playoffs begin... The playoff rules are the same as last year:
- The top 2 teams in each division automatically qualify for the playoffs
- The top team in each division receives a first round bye
- Two additional wild card spots are awarded to the next two best teams. Division affiliation does not matter for wild cards.
The standings are still so close that I started running through some scenarios and went cross-eyed, so I'll wait until next week to try to start speculating which teams will make it and which won't.


My apologies for the short write-up this week... I'm in the process of transitioning to a new position at work and in the meantime I'm doing two jobs, so I've had little to no extra time. But I will leave you with this week's Best Bench...

... which goes to Yours Truly! My Scottish Rebels could have improved by 29 points with three roster moves: Reggie Bush for Pierre Thomas (18 pts), Roy Williams for Greg Jennings (10 pts) and Mike Sims-Walker for DeSean Jackson (1 pt).


So there are no more bye weeks, and only three weeks left until it's PLAYOFF TIME!!! Get ready for Week 11!!

New Mexico here I come!!!