The Reckoning Has Cometh

 “Interceptions count as touchdowns?! I’m coming back!!” – tweet from Brett Favre.

What a weekend!  The replacement refs are really hitting their stride!  I heard on the radio that viewership for NFL games is up 8% this year, which I would guess is largely due to the fact that no one has any idea what will happen in these games.  To hear the announcers going apoplectic over the refs so hilarious—they sound as if there has never been an incorrect call made in a game prior to this season.

But alas, all good things must come to an end, and I just saw the news article that an agreement has been reached between the referee union and the NFL.  Sigh…oh well...

The big congratulations this week go to Gotham’s Reckoning!  Timmy put up a commanding performance and became the third different Weekly High Scorer in as many weeks.  His performance was all the more impressive by the fact that his optimal line-up was in the game!  That is not something that is accomplished very often, so well done Tim-may!!

Joe’s Pats remains the sole unbeaten team, and my Scottish Rebels remain in the basement with no wins.  The best ever starting record is 6-0, which has been accomplished 3 times (Jamie in 2007, James in 2010, and Jens in 2011), and the worst starting record is 0-6, accomplished by yours truly last year.  So Joe, we are halfway to tying the records!  Let's keep up the good work!

Now, on with it…

THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!

Jamaal Charles, RB – Gotham’s Reckoning – 37 pts – Charles had the second best day for a runningback in Chief’s history, going for 233 yards and a touchdown.  The best day also belongs to Charles, when he went off for 259 yards against Denver in 2009.  This is the kind  of game that Timmy has been dreaming about since that day!

Ben Roethlis--something, QB – Joe’s Pats – 34 pts – Big Ben has tossed 8 touchdown passes through the first three games.  He’s certainly got the hot hand right now… too bad he’s on a bye in Week 4.

A.J. Green, WR – Frito Pie – 28 pts – Dalton to Green is becoming a deadly combination.  A.J. caught 9 of the 11 passes thrown his way, with the longest being a 73-yard touchdown beauty. 

Joe Flacco, QB – Midnight Maulers – 28 pts – Flacco played great against the Patriots racking up 382 yards, 3 touchdowns and only 1 interception.  His next opponent is the Browns, who are without their best cornerback, and are the team that Flacco has had his best games against. 

Maurice Jones-Drew, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 27 pts – In spite of playing for the Jaguars, MJD continues to be an offensive machine.  He rushed for 177 yards and a touchdown. 

Jake Locker, QB – Frito Pie – 27 pts – Who would’ve thunk it?  Jake Locker looked like a solid quarterback tossing two touchdowns and racking up 378 yards in the process.

IT’S NOT FUNNY…IT’S NOT FUN…

Antonio Gates, TE – Scottish Rebels – 2 pts – Good thing I used a third round pick to net 6 points so far this season.  Yuck.

Rob Gronkowski, TE – sprouts – 2 pts – For the first time in a year, Brady actually threw to his wide receivers instead of his tight ends.  I don’t expect to see Gronk finish with only 21 yards very often.

Philip Rivers, QB – Frito Pie – 2 pts – Rivers played a horrible game, only throwing for 173 yards, no touchdowns and 2 picks.  He finished with a passer rating of 45.2, which frankly is generous.  I score this one a big fat zero.

Demaryius Thomas, WR – American BadAss – 1 pt – Thomas was targeted 12 times, but only managed to catch 3 of those for 34 yards.  Wide receivers are supposed to catch the balls.

Jordy Nelson, WR – sprouts – 1 pt – Nelson had 15 TD’s last season, but has yet to find the endzone this year.  Seattle’s defense really put the clamps on him in this one, holding him to only 2 catches for 19 yards.

Kevin Smith, RB – American BadAss – 0 pts – Smith was active, and did play, but was used only sparingly.  In fact, he never actually touched the ball.  Hard to score any points that way.

Lions, D – Scottish Rebels – 0 pts – The Tennessee Titans walked all over the Lions and rang up 44 points, gave up no sacks, and only had 1 turnover.  Buh-bye.

MAYBE YOU SHOULD CHANGE NAMES TO SOFA KING GIANT

Taking a page from the old Chief Dredd days, James has compiled a team consisting of six New York Giant players.  Week 11 will be tricky as those players plus two more will be on their bye week.

REALITY VS. FANTASY

The tracking of points scored in reality versus fantasy is getting interesting.  The top scoring team in real points is Washington with 99, but they rank only 7^th on the fantasy scoring list with 284.  Meanwhile the lowest scoring teams in real points are Philadelphia and Dallas (both with only 47), but they rank 19^th and 26^th in fantasy points with 225 and 211 points, respectively.   

Here are the top five fantasy scoring teams:

Baltimore – 315

New York Giants – 310

Atlanta – 298

Detroit – 293

Cincinnati – 285

PLAYOFFS?!

Can we already be talking about the playoffs?  As Jens would say, oh you betcha!!

I now have 5 years of data from which I have tracked the results to see what starting records make it to the playoffs most often.  After three weeks of play, the record that is the lock to make it in is 1-1-1.  The only time that record has been seen in the past ended with the team making it to the dance.  (That was the Midnight Maulers in 2010).  The record that is sure to exclude a team from qualifying is 0-2-1, which has also only been seen once, but ended with the team not making it in.  Fortunately, no team has that record this year so everyone is still alive!  Remarkably, an 0-3 start has been seen 6 times in the past five years, with 3 of those teams making it to the playoffs.  So this is exactly the start that I was looking for... I’ve got all of you right where I want you!

In any event, based on the current records, here are my predictions for the teams that will qualify for the playoffs:

American BadAss – 1-1-1 (Record qualifying percentage = 100%)

BoomGoesTheDynamite – 1-1-1 (Record qualifying percentage = 100%)

Joe’s Pats – 3-0 (Record qualifying percentage = 77.8%)

Frito Pie – 1-2 (Record qualifying percentage = 66.7%)

Gotham’s Reckoning – 1-2 (Record qualifying percentage = 66.7%)

Scottish Rebels – 0-3 (Record qualifying percentage = 50%)

BEST BENCH

We have our first repeat champion of the season!  With four roster moves, and a 39-point improvement, the Best Bench for Week 3 goes to… the Coors Light Drunk Guys!  Shawn needed to sub in Arizona for Green Bay (+27),  A. Brown for M. Floyd (+7), A. Luck for D. Brees (+4) and M. Bush for CJ Spiller (+1).

Get ready for another Thursday night game, and the first week of byes!!!

F 'n' A!!!

The champ is back!  A week after sputtering out of the gates, the Coors Light Drunk Guys roared to life with a 40-point victory over Gotham’s Reckoning, and dominated the next closest competitor by 15 to take the Weekly High Score prize!  Shawn’s 127 points is the most scored so far this season, and is also a multiple of 27, so that is extra awesome!  (Editor’s note – Any number that ends in “27” is a multiple of 27 in the world of Letter 27.  So all you math nerds can just shut it.)  Way to go Shawn!!

In other news, we had our first tie game of the season, which was the first tie game since the Championship game in 2010.  BoomGoesTheDynamite and American BadAss both tallied 63 points, which would have lost to 7 other teams this week, but due to the luck of the draw, they finished with a tie.  Keep an eye on this, because tie games always seem to have a way of having an impact on playoff qualification.  Speaking of the luck of the draw, I just wanted to mention that the Midnight Maulers' 115-117 loss last week to BoomGoesTheDynamite was the second highest score in a loss in league history.  The record is 116 points held by both Coors Light Drunk Guys (lost 116-132 to the Lords of Lumberg in 2009) and my Scottish Rebels (lost 116-122 to SOFA KING GOOD in 2011).  So don’t feel too bad Jamie, it can get worse! 

Amazingly, after two weeks only 1 team has an unblemished record at 2-0… Joe’s Pats.  We have to go back to 2009 to see that again, when it was the Lords of Lumberg as the only 2-0 team.  That season ended with the Lords taking home the title, so Joe has to like that!  Starting next week I will make my first of a series of weekly playoff predictions, based on a highly detailed and scientific analysis. 

Not a whole lot on the docket this week, so let’s get to it!!

BIG TIME

Reggie Bush, RB – Midnight Maulers – 34 pts – How long has the fantasy world waited to see this?  Reggie Bush finally puts up a monster game (197 total yards and 2 TD’s), but he was sitting on the Maulers bench!

Robert Griffin III, QB – SOFA KING GOOD – 30 pts – How does the saying go? – Once is a happenstance, twice is a coincidence and three times is a trend? – or something like that.  Well, we’ve got two weeks in a row now, so if RG3 does this next week, we can officially say that this is a trend.

Eli Manning, QB – SOFA KING GOOD – 29 pts – What luxury to have your starting QB (RG3) score 30, and your backup QB score 29.  Makes decisions a lot easier.  And Eli would’ve been top dog had he not thrown 3 picks!

C.J. Spiller, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 28 pts – The Chiefs defense put up little resistance for Spiller who gashed them for 123 rushing yards, 47 receiving yards and 2 TD’s.  After scoring 25 last week, Mr. CJ is the #1 RB in fantasy.

Hakeem Nicks, WR – Gotham’s Reckoning – 28 pts – In a game that became a wild shoot-out, Nicks went crazy for 199 yards and hauled in a touchdown.  Nice.

Victor Cruz, WR – SOFA KING GOOD – 26 pts –  Only barely behind his compadre, Cruz racked up 179 yards and a touchdown.  In case you were wondering, Eli had 510 passing yards in the game.

YEAH, NO…

Julio Jones, WR – BoomGoesTheDynamite – 1 pt – Well so much for my assertion last week that this guy could be a stud.  Fourteen yards ain’t gonna cut it in this league Julio.

Dez Bryant, WR – American BadAss – 1 pt – Against the vaunted Seattle defense, Dez only caught 3 balls for 17 yards.  (Did the sarcasm come through on my description of Seattle there?  Maybe I needed some quotes around “vaunted”, or italics on defense, or both…)

Fred Davis, TE – American BadAss – 1 pt – In a shootout game with St. Louis, Davis was a non-factor catching 2 passes for an under-whelming 14 yards.

Jamaal Charles, RB – Gotham’s Reckoning – 1 pt – Charles carried the ball 6 times and only netted 3 yards.  But it wasn’t due to the Bills defense stuffing the run…  Peyton Hillis and Shaun Draughn (who?) combined for 16 carries and 122 yards.  Not sure why Charles is struggling, but he needs to get it figured out, and quick.

Dan Bailey, K – Frito Pie – 1 pt – A week after beating the defending Superbowl champs, the Cowboys offense looked flat and only managed one touchdown.

Larry Fitzgerald, WR – Frito Pie – 0 pts – The Patriots must have thought that Larry Fitzgerald was the only person who could beat them, because they did everything to shut him down.  He finished with only 1 catch for 4 yards (lowest reception total since 2010 and lowest yardage total since 2004).

James Jones, WR – Midnight Maulers – 0 pts – Even with Greg Jennings out, Jones wasn’t able to do anything on the field.  He actually caught two passes, but finished with minus -1 yard.  How do you catch TWO passes for negative yardage?

SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY

The Arizona Cardinals have a long and storied history of being able to take a situation that looks like sure victory, and turn it into a heart-breaking defeat.  They are much like the New Mexico State Aggie football team in that way.  On Sunday, it looked like they had added a new chapter to this all too familiar tale against New England. 

Arizona led by 8 points (20-12) in the final minutes of the game with New England driving.  The Patriots scored the touchdown, then went for two to tie it.  The conversion failed, so Arizona re-took possession ahead by two, with 2:06 to play.

In this situation, the Cardinals need to be thinking only two things: “Protect the ball” and “Stay in bounds”.  Well, they managed to stay in bounds, but on their 5^th play of the drive... when they could have been kneeling on it... in true Cardinal fashion, they fumbled the ball back to New England on the 35-yard line.  Now with 1:01 left to play, New England moved the ball up to the 24-yard line, where Tom Brady positioned the ball in the dead center of the field in order to set up a field goal.  Gostkowski had been money all day, and was 4-for-4 up to that point, so a 42-yard kick was all but in the bag.  The Arizona newspapers were already running the print reel reading “Cardinals blow another lead”, as Gostkowski lined up.

Then, the craziest thing happened… in a true Ray Finkle moment, Gostkowski appeared to aim his kick at some cheerleader on the sideline and missed wide to the left by like 10 yards!  It wasn't even close!!  What the?!  That’s not supposed to happen!  Could it be that the Arizona Cardinals have a streak of luck going? 

MARK TWAIN QUOTE OF THE WEEK

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

NFL SCORES BY WEEK

Two weeks into the season, and the top five scoring teams in the NFL have all scored over 60 points.  They are:

Washington – 68, Atlanta – 67, Baltimore – 67, Buffalo – 63 and San Diego – 60.

The top five fantasy scoring NFL teams are:

Baltimore – 205, New York Giants – 202, Washington – 198, Atlanta – 197 and New Orleans – 183.  (Green Bay is also tied with New Orleans at 183).

So after two weeks, three of the top five scoring teams in reality are also in the top five for fantasy.  Buffalo ranks 10^th in fantasy scoring and San Diego is 12^th. 

The Bottom Five Fantasy scoring teams are: Kansas City – 136, Oakland – 131, Arizona – 121, Jacksonville – 105 and Tennessee – 98. 

BEST BENCH

Quite a display for Best Bench this week!  It’s not too often that the improvement from the bench tallies more than 50 points, and even less rare to see it total more than 60 points.  But this week, with an impressive point improvement possibility of 61 points, the Best Bench award goes to… sprouts!  Russ needed four roster moves to make this happen:  W. McGahee for D. McFadden (+21), M. Vick for P. Manning (+17), B. Tate for S. Greene (+19) and D. Moore for A. Johnson (+4).

Already gearing up for Week 3!  And I learned something very important last week… there is a Thursday night game every week this season.  So the earlier you have your line-up set the better…

BOOM! Week 1!

Back in business and it feels so good!  The long, cold, dark offseason is finally over and it is football season again!!  Week 1 certainly did not disappoint as there was one OT game, five teams scoring 40 points or more, and the Cowboys whipping the Giants in Giants’ Stadium.  Ain’t nothing wrong with that!

In the fantasy world, everyone had to be impressed with the debut of Robert Griffin III.  It’s odd to say that he’s the second coming of a player who is only in his second year, but I’m going to go ahead and say that he is clearly the second coming of Cam Newton.  Also, it looks like the pundits were right about Julio Jones… that guy could prove to be a major stud this year.

But the big congrats this week go to BoomGoesTheDynamite!  All week Jens has been boasting about how awesome his team is, and he went out and proved it.  Boom had huge games from Tony Romo (23 pts), the aforementioned Julio Jones (22 pts), and Ray Rice (20 pts), finishing with a total of 117 points and besting the second highest scoring team of the week (Midnight Maulers) by only 2 points.  How the top two scoring teams were matched up head-to-head is beyond me.  That’s just tough luck, Jamie… normally scoring 115 points will garner a victory.  But nice job, Jensy!!  We’ll see if you can keep it up throughout the season…

This week we’ll examine which NFL team scored the most fantasy points, give out the first Best Bench of the season, and I give my take on the whole replacement ref situation.  But first, some player observations:

THAT’S THE WAY YOU DEBATE!

-Matt Ryan, QB – 31 pts – Midnight Maulers – There was not much that Matty Ice did wrong, throwing for 299 yards and 3 touchdowns, along with 25 yards rushing and a rushing TD!
-C.J. Spiller, RB – 25 pts – Coors Light Drunk Guys – No one could have predicted this one… Spiller rattled off 169 yards on the ground and 25 yards through the air, and added a touchdown.  Had he not lost a fumble, he would have ended up with the best score in the game – 27.

-Robert Griffin III, QB – 24 pts – SOFA KING GOOD – I’ll be honest, I didn’t believe the hype.  But 362 total yards and 2 touchdowns does a lot to change minds.

-Baltimore, DEF – 24 pts – Scottish Rebels – Continuing the list of the best players of the week being on the bench, the Ravens absolutely destroyed the Bengals with 4 sacks, 2 turnovers, a touchdown and only 13 points allowed.  Spoiler alert – they won’t be on the bench in Week 2.

-Cleveland, DEF – 24 pts – Free Agent – Cleveland gave Philadelphia all they could handle, notching 5 turnovers (4 interceptions and 1 fumble recovery), 2 sacks and a defensive touchdown.

SON OF A … WHAT THE?!?

-Mason Crosby, K – 2 pts – Coors Light Drunk Guys – The high-powered Green Bay offense only managed to have Crosby kick 2 extra points.  Ouch.

-Toby Gerhart, RB – 1 pt – Scottish Rebels – All week long, heck, all off-season long, word was that AP would play sparingly in the Week 1 game for the Vikings.  Turns out the only thing you could apply sparingly to in that game were Gerhart’s touches, and his ability to play football.  He finished with only 18 rushing yards and 8 receiving yards.  Go suck your head.

-Jason Witten, TE – 1 pt – Coors Light Drunk Guys – For a guy with a ruptured spleen, he actually played pretty well.  Seriously, Jason Lowery missed a week of work due to a hangover, but Jason Witten played in an NFL game with a ruptured spleen!  Now that’s a man!  (See the item below further highlighting Witten’s toughness).

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Scoring a touchdown for the Lions on Sunday was a gentleman by the name of Joique Bell.  I am continually amazed and impressed by the unique names that black people come up with.  (LaDainian, Demarius, D’Brickashaw, etc.)  But this one is extra unique because I don’t even know how to pronounce it… is it two syllables – Joy-key, Joy-kay, Joke-y, Joy-cue? -- or is it just one syllable – Joik, Jock? – or maybe it’s three syllables – Joe-eye-kay, Joe-eye-cue?  Frankly I’m too lazy to research this one, so I’m just going with the one syllable option.

WHO IS THE BEST TEAM IN REALITY?

Through the magic of spreadsheets and pivot tables, I am going to be tracking the fantasy scoring by NFL team this season.  Ultimately I want to see if the team that scores the most points in the actual games also scores the most fantasy points.  The scores listed below encompass all offensive players that score a fantasy point, along with all kickers and team defenses.  For Week 1, here are the top 5 scoring NFL teams by actual game points:

1)      NY Jets – 48

2)      Baltimore – 44

3)      Chicago – 41

4)      Washington – 40

5)      Atlanta – 40

And here are the top 5 scoring NFL teams by fantasy points:

1)      Baltimore – 123

2)      Chicago – 122

3)      NY Jets – 116

4)      Washington – 115

5)      Atlanta – 114

So for Week 1, the top five scoring teams in the actual games were also the top five fantasy scoring teams, although in a slightly different order.  Not super surprising, but I’ll continue to track this all season long.  Also, if you are curious about the worst teams fantasy point-wise, they are: Seattle (59), Cincinnati (53), Miami (53), Cleveland (53) and Tennessee (49).

TOUGHEST COWBOY

Three cowboys were sitting around a campfire and starting arguing over who was the toughest.  The first cowboy said, “Just last week I was walking down a trail and a 15-foot rattler slid out from under a rock and made a move for me.  I grabbed that ol’ boy, ripped his head off, and sucked down the poison in one gulp.  And I’m still here today!” The second cowboy said, “Ah that’s nothing… just yesterday a bull got loose in the corral and gored six men before I got there, wrestled it down, and tied it up with my bare hands!”  The third cowboy just sat there quietly, slowly stirring the coals with his penis.

That third cowboy was Jason Witten.

GET OFF YOUR KNEES REF, YOU’RE BLOWING THE GAME!

In case you haven’t heard about it incessantly for the last 5 weeks, the NFL is currently using replacement referees due to a labor dispute with the regular referees’ labor union.  I’ve been doing some research to try to figure out exactly where the two sides are in the debate, but details are surprising scarce.  As near as I can tell, the refs want more money and a better pension, while the NFL wants to give not quite as much money and move to a 401-k retirement plan option.  (One report that I saw showed that the refs’ current average salary is $149K, and under the NFL’s proposal this would rise to $189K annually, which apparently isn’t enough.) 

As Timmy can surely attest, I have always had a healthy disdain for referees which really reached its pinnacle during my college years while attending NMSU basketball games.  I developed what I affectionately referred to as my “Referee Yelling Voice” at those games.  So here’s my take on this issue… Are the replacement refs going to make mistakes?  Absolutely.  But the regular refs make just as many!  (Remember the officiating when the Seahawks were in the Superbowl a couple years ago?  Freaking joke.)  In my opinion all refs suck and are going to blow calls, so I say use the refs that actually want to work the games.  Simple solution.  Replacements all the way!!

NEXT TIME GET THREE TOUCHDOWNS

After Kevin Ogletree’s awesome game on Wednesday night against the Giants, the Yahoo! Trend Tracker showed that he had been added 73,103 times on Thursday!  The amazing thing is that it also showed that he had been dropped 876 times.  Apparently 114 yards and two touchdowns just doesn’t cut it for some people… 

INAUGURAL BEST BENCH

My Scottish Rebels really gave quite a push to take the Best Bench title for the first week of the season.  With a runningback scoring 20 and a defense scoring 24 on the bench, I should have had it all wrapped up.  But the Coors Light Drunk Guys had other plans this week, and edged me out for the crown with a 41 point improvement, besting my Rebels improvement by 1!!  Shawn needed almost a complete roster overhaul…five changes for the Best Bench: CJ Spiller for C. Johnson (+21 pts), M. Bush for M. Jones-Drew (+8 pts), B. Celek for J. Witten (+5 pts), N. Washington for A. Brown (+4 pts) and M. Floyd for M. Wallace (+3 pts).

Get your waiver claims in, get your rosters set, and get ready for Week 2!!

Coors Light Drunk Guys are CHAMPS!

The Coors Light Drunk Guys are the 2011 Sacred Sundays Champions! In yet another big game, the Drunk Guys took advantage of the prolific New Orleans Saints’ offense and scored 106 points to best Joe’s Pats by 17, 106-89. Congratulations Shawn! That is neat! The victory this weekend capped an amazing run by the Drunk Guys, that included 10 victories, no losses and one tie game. The last loss they recorded was in Week 4 against American BadAss. During that 11-game run the closest two games were the tie game (against American BadAss) in Week 15, and a 1-point victory (over the Midnight Maulers) in Week 11. Other than that, the Drunk Guys essentially ran over the competition. They led the league in scoring for the regular season with 1,316 points, and if you include the playoffs, they scored 1,651 points this year which is an impressive 103 points-per-week average!! F. N. A. KERR’S LIGHT!!!

Also, for the second week in a row the Lords of Lumberg outscored everyone to take home the Weekly High Score Prize! Way to go Timmy!! Timmy had not won a high score prize for the first 14 weeks, and decided to go ahead and double up to end the year. Matthew Stafford and Arian Foster led the way for the Lords (scoring 29 and 25 points, respectively), giving Tim a final tally of 108 points. Better late than never!

In the other significant game this week, Jagger ran out of moves and lost to American BadAss by the score of 85-77. That put Jens in fourth place for the season and Jason in third place. The Lords of Lumberg (Timmy) finished in fifth place by beating SOFA KING GOOD (James) last week, who finished sixth. My Scottish Rebels topped Frito Pie (Rachel) to finish seventh, placing Frito Pie in eighth, and sprouts (Russ) defeated the Midnight Maulers (Jamie) to finish in ninth place, leaving the Maulers in tenth. Remember that the draft order will be the reverse of standings from this year, so Jamie, you are on the clock!

So for this the final weekly wrap-up of the season we do a final count on the prize money won, take a look at final player stats, hand out final grades and find out which team takes the final award for Best Bench. But first, as always, some observations…

BOOYAH!

Aaron Rodgers, QB – American BadAss – 32 pts – Just a run-of-the-mill day for Rodgers with 283 yards, 5 touchdowns and no interceptions. Seriously, can anyone stop this guy?

Cam Newton, QB – Scottish Rebels – 30 pts – Newton had four total touchdowns (3 passing, 1 rushing) and 236 yards of total offense. That gives him 14 rushing touchdowns on the season which is more than any runningback, except for LeSean McCoy.

Matthew Stafford, QB – Lords of Lumberg – 29 pts – Stafford only missed on 7 of his 36 passes on Sunday, finishing with 373 yards and three touchdowns. He finishes the season ranked 5th out of all players with 307 points scored. Not bad for a guy taken with the 95th pick in our draft.

Tom Brady, QB – Joe’s Pats – 29 pts – Rather fitting that in the final week of the season, the top four performers for the week are four of the five top performers for the year. Brady was the fourth highest scoring player this year (behind only Rodgers, Brees and Newton), finishing with 344 points (which was 34 points ahead of Stafford).

COME ON MAN!

Jason Witten, TE – Scottish Rebels – 2 pts – The Cowboys appeared to be sleepwalking through this game with the Eagles, content to lie down and prepare for the Giants in Week 17. Witten only managed two catches for 24 yards.

Steve Smith, WR – Joe’s Pats – 2 pts – Carolina scored a whopping 48 points against the Bucs, yet Steve Smith only had 1 reception for 9 yards and 1 rush for 23 yards. WTF?

Dan Bailey, K – Scottish Rebels – 1 pt – Let’s be perfectly honest…the Eagles should have shut out the Cowboys. The last second touchdown by the Cowboys was unbelievably lucky. The fact that that was the only time they were even in scoring position does not instill a lot of confidence for next week’s game.

Cedric Benson, RB – American BadAss – 1 pt – Benson carried the ball 16 times for 57 yards, but lost TWO fumbles in the process. That means he fumbled the ball 13% of the times that he touched it. Ouch.

Chicago, DEF – Midnight Maulers – 0 pts – Here’s the new rule of thumb… if your defense is playing against the Green Bay Packers, it is probably wise to pick a different defense.

FINAL PLAYER STATS

Here are some interesting stats I noted while looking at the final player stats:

• Rob Gronkowski scored more points as a Tight End (214) than all but one Wide Receiver, Calvin Johnson (227).
• David Akers scored 29 more points than the next closest kicker, Dan Bailey, 175 to 146.
• The average score across the top 282 players was 118.1. Aaron Rodgers more than tripled that total with 394 points scored.
• Five quarterbacks scored more than 300 points this season, while only four runningbacks scored more than 200 points.

So which positions scored the most points? Quarterbacks and (surprisingly) defenses. Here is the breakdown:

The Top 100 players this season (when combining together all offensive positions, kickers and defenses) was comprised of 30 Defenses, 23 Quarterbacks, 20 Runningbacks, 15 Wide Receivers, 10 Kickers and only 2 Tight Ends. (The only two defenses that did not rank in the top 100 were Tampa Bay and Indianapolis).

The Top 50 players this season was comprised of 18 Quarterbacks, 15 Defenses, 9 Runningbacks, 5 Wide Receivers, 2 Tight Ends and 1 Kicker.

The Top 25 players this season was comprised of 12 Quarterbacks, 6 Defenses, 4 Runningbacks, 2 Wide Receivers, 1 Tight End and no kickers.

The Top 10 players this season was comprised of 8 Quarterbacks and 2 Runningbacks.

So which teams ended up with the most top players this year? Not surprisingly, our league champion had the most of the Top 50, Top 25 and Top 10. Here is a breakdown of that:

Top 100: Free Agents 23, Joe's Pats 11, CL Drunk Guys 9, Frito Pie 8, Lords of Lumberg 8, Moves like Jagger 8, Scottish Rebels 8, Midnight Maulers 7, sprouts 7, American BadAss 5, SOFA KING GOOD 6.

Top 50: CL Drunk Guys 7, Joe's Pats 6, Free Agents 6, Moves like Jagger 5, American BadAss 4, Lords of Lumberg 4, Scottish Rebels 4, SOFA KING GOOD 4, sprouts 4, Frito Pie 3, Midnight Maulers 3.

Top 25: CL Drunk Guys 4, Lords of Lumberg 3, Moves like Jagger 3, American BadAss 2, Joe's Pats 2, Midnight Maulers 2, Scottish Rebels 2, SOFA KING GOOD 2, sprouts 2, Free Agents 2, Frito Pie 1.

Top 10: CL Drunk Guys 2, Joe's Pats 2, Lords of Lumberg 2, American BadAss 1, Midnight Maulers 1, Moves like Jagger 1, Scottish Rebels 1, Frito Pie 0, SOFA KING GOOD 0, sprouts 0.

FINAL SCORING STATS

All season I have been keeping track of the number of times teams scored 100 points or more in order to see how often that leads to victory. In total, the triple-digit barrier was eclipsed 43 times this year. Figuring five games a week for 16 weeks, that means that 26.9% of the scores were greater than 100. Of the 43 times observed, only 7 of those were in a losing effort. So by scoring more than 100, teams registered a victory 83.3% of the time. From an historic perspective (going back to 2007), scoring over 100 points leads to victory 88.9% of the time.

In case you were curious, the team with the most 100+ games was the Coors Light Drunk Guys who did it 9 times, and the team with the least was sprouts, who only did it once (in Week 13 in a loss to the Drunks). Weeks 4 and 13 had the most teams score over 100, with five teams achieving the mark. One more stat on scoring? The team that had the most losses while scoring over 100 points, well that would be my Scottish Rebels who only scored over 100 four times, and lost on two of those occasions.

KEEPERS FOR 2012

The same keeper rules will apply for 2012. Refer back to the Week 12 post for complete rules. The gist is that each owner can designate up to two players from this year’s final roster as keepers for next year. For any player designated a keeper, that player will count as a draft pick in the same round as drafted in 2011. Any keeper from 2011 will count as a first round pick and any player acquired as a free agent will count as a 15^th round pick.

I’ll send out a spreadsheet with all of the final rosters in the next couple days. Keepers will need be declared a week after the conclusion of the NFL draft, which is typically around the end of April.

SOY ALERGICO A LOS CACAHUATES

Rachel and I received a bag of “Chili HOT Peanuts” as a gift this holiday, and it had quite the warning label. After listing the ingredients as: Peanuts, Sunflower Oil, and Spices, it stated, “This product may contain trace amounts of peanuts and/or other tree nuts.” So be careful if you are buying a bag of peanuts, because there might be trace amounts of peanuts in there.

EVERYBODY NEEDS MONEY; THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT MONEY

Here is the final tally on prize money won this season:

1. Coors Light Drunk Guys - $220 – Championship plus three Weekly High Score prizes
2. Moves Like Jagger - $160 – Four Weekly High Score prizes
3. SOFA KING GOOD - $120 – Three Weekly High Score prizes
4. Joe’s Pats - $90 – Runner-up plus one Weekly High Score prize
5. Lords of Lumberg - $80 – Two Weekly High Score prizes
6. American BadAss - $40 – One Weekly High Score prize
7. Scottish Rebels - $40 - One Weekly High Score prize
8. Midnight Maulers - $40 - One Weekly High Score prize

Frito Pie and sprouts finished out of the money this season.

FINAL GRADES ARE POSTED

Coors Light Drunk Guys – A+ -Led the league in scoring, victories and longest win streak, all with only 3 waiver moves. Impressive.

Joe’s Pats – A -Solid season with the #4 QB (Tom Brady) and #1 RB (LeSean McCoy).

American BadAss – A -A tie game against the eventual champion in the playoffs was tough.

Lords of Lumberg – A- -Had Timmy been able to beat American BadAss in his wildcard game, he would have been the league champ, as he claimed the High Score Prize in the weeks when it matters most.

Moves Like Jagger – B -It’s not how you start; it’s how you finish.

SOFA KING GOOD – B -James had the unfortunate distinction of being the team that had the most points scored against him this year.

Frito Pie – B- -Rachel had bad luck before the season began with Peyton Manning’s season ending before even starting.

Scottish Rebels – C+ -A poor draft and a record-setting losing streak to start the year made my shot at a repeat title virtually non-existent.

sprouts – C -A big bright spot for sprouts was drafting Rob Gronkowski in the 13^th round. I smell keeper!

Midnight Maulers – C- -Jamie’s magic touch on receivers never seemed to happen this season, as Boldin struggled and Jennings never really took off.

BEST BENCH

The final award for Best Bench goes to one of the teams with a lot on the line this week, competing for the league championship. With a 35-point improvement possibility, the 16^th and final Best Bench award goes to… Joe’s Pats! Joe would have needed to make these three roster moves: J. Nelson for S. Smith (+21), J. Stewart for L. McCoy (+11) and M. Bush for R. Mathews (+3).

As usual the season has come and gone in a blink of an eye. Seems like only last week I was laughing at Shawn’s draft choices, and wondering how he expected to win with so many Saints on his team. Wait, that was last week. Haha!! What do you know?!?! In all seriousness, being in this league is awesome and really makes the football season that much better. Next season will mark the 9^th Anniversary of the creation of this league, and will also mark the 5^th year with the same group of owners. That to me is remarkable, and I just want to say thank you to all of you for making this league great year-in and year-out. I’m looking forward to many more fun-filled years!

Happy 2012!!!

And then there were two...

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! There’s Santa Claus, presents, Trans Siberian Orchestra, eggnog… but most importantly, the Sacred Sundays Championship game! Everything has led up to this point, where we now have two teams that have never won the title set to square off for the big money and all the bragging rights. In the first semi-final game, Joe’s Pats continued to have strong performances from Tom Brady and LeSean McCoy, while Moves Like Jagger stumbled to their 2nd worst point total of the season. In the other semi-final game American BadAss, with a kicker and a defense playing on Monday night, needed 30 points to pass the Coors Light Drunk Guys, and got 29. That caused the game to finish tied at 90 points each (coincidentally the first tie game of this season), with the tie-breaker going to the Drunk Guys by virtue of being the higher seeded team. (More below on playoff tiebreakers.) So the 2011 Championship will be decided between Joe’s Pats and the Coors Light Drunk Guys! Congratulations Joe and Shawn!

Big congratulations need to go out this week as well to the Lords of Lumberg, who really cranked it up and scored 113 points to take the Weekly High Score Prize! This in spite of the fact of having Percy Harvin lay a big fat egg and tally zero points. But that was easily offset by giant games from Matthew Stafford scoring 32 points and Reggie Bush (yeah, remember this guy?) scoring 27 points. Nice job Timmy!! By winning the High Score Prize this week, that marks the eighth different team that has been the high scorer this year.

Only one more week to go! Just a quick update…

TIEBREAKERS

Here are the tie-breakers that will be used should there be a tie in the Championship game:

1) Team with the highest scoring quarterback wins

2) Team with the highest scoring runningback wins

3) Team with the highest scoring wide receiver wins

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

The tie-breaker rule used for any playoff game prior to the Championship game, is that the higher-seeded team is declared the winner. This rule differs from the tie-breakers used by Yahoo!. The Yahoo! tie-breakers look first at the head-to-head record, then go to the higher seeded team. In our system head-to-head records are used in determining final divisional standings, but I don’t think that should be a factor in playoff games. Basically, I figure that the higher seeded team in the playoffs can be considered the “home” team, and therefore should have a slight advantage. Also, higher seeded teams have done better throughout the regular season, so I believe that there should be a reward for that.

All that said, I am open to modifying our tie-breaker rules for next season to sync up with the Yahoo! tiebreaker rules. After the conclusion of the season, when I send out the final rosters, I’ll ask for everyone to vote on which tie-breakers to use.

BEST BENCH(ES)

Week 14 did not have many points left on the bench. In the end, the winner of Best Bench for the week was Moves Like Jagger! Jens could have bettered his total by 25 points with two roster moves – A. Brown for M. Wallace (+17 pts) and A. Hernandez for J. Finley (+8 pts).

In Week 15, Moves Like Jagger tried to make it a repeat performance by leaving 31 points on his bench, but that could not top the bench from American BadAss! Jason could have improved his point total by 35 points with three roster changes – B. Celek for J. Gresham (+23 pts), T. Smith for B. Lloyd (+9 pts) and M. Austin for L. Robinson (+3 pts).

Next week I will pass out all end of year grades, and we crown a brand new Sacred Sundays Champion!!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!!

IT'S PLAYOFF TIME!!!

Going into last week, four of the six playoff teams were known for sure, while two spots were still up for grabs. The Lords of Lumberg won their game to get six wins on the season, which secured the second wildcard spot. Three teams finished tied at 5-8 in the South Division that led to a four-level tiebreaker to determine the division runner-up. Here’s how it broke down – Level 1 - SOFA KING GOOD, sprouts and Frito Pie all had overall records of 5-8. Level 2 – All had divisional records of 3-4. Level 3 - In head-to-head matchups, SOFA KING GOOD had the advantage over Frito Pie, Frito Pie had the advantage over sprouts, and sprouts had the advantage over SOFA KING GOOD. Level 4 – Points scored: SOFA KING GOOD-1208, Frito Pie-1067, sprouts-990. So by virtue of scoring more points, SOFA KING GOOD is in! But in an odd twist, because of the overall record, SOFA KING enters the playoffs as the 6th seed—behind both wildcard teams! Crazy!

But the big congratulations this week go to Mr. F’n’A himself—Shawn Martin and his Coors Light Drunk Guys!! This week’s victory marked Shawn’s 9th straight win, and by scoring 122 points, he took home his second Weekly High Score Prize of the season! The Drunk Guys lead all teams in scoring with 1,316 points and thus enter the playoffs as the top seed. And Shawn has done this essentially with the team he drafted, having only made 3 waiver claims all year. (Two of his three claims involved first dropping Marshawn Lynch then re-adding him a week later…so really it’s more like only two claims made.) That is quite an impressive feat, as my current team barely resembles the team I drafted (only 5 players that I drafted are still on my team. Lol!) Well done Shawn!! F! N! A!!!

So now that the playoff teams are known, we’ll take a look to see how close I was with my early-season playoff predictions. Also, we’ll see if the worst player in all of fantasy can pull himself out of the cellar and we will find out which team claimed a league-leading fourth Best Bench Award of the season! But first, some observations...

HARD-NOSED FOOTBALL

Cam Newton, QB – Scottish Rebels – 37 pts – In twelve games, Newton has rushed for 13 touchdowns, which is already the most ever by a quarterback in a season. This also marks the third time this year that he has scored over 30 points. He’s good.

Aaron Rodgers, QB – American BadAss – 34 pts – Rodgers continues to dominate the world of fantasy football, and the world of real football for that matter. He has not scored less than 20 points in any week, and now leads all players by a wide margin in total points for the season. He has 323 points so far which is 37 points ahead of second-place Drew Brees.

Percy Harvin, WR – Lords of Lumberg – 31 pts – Harvin has shown promise the last two weeks (scoring 15 and 18 points), but really broke out this week with a 156 yards receiving and two touchdowns along with 19 yards rushing. Who says you can’t have a good receiver with Christian Ponder as your QB?

Ray Rice, RB – Moves Like Jagger – 30 pts – The Browns defense offered little-to-no resistance for Ray Rice, as he gouged them for 204 yards and a touchdown.

Pierre Garcon, WR – sprouts – 30 pts – In spite of the season that the Colts are having, Garcon is actually having a fairly decent season. He is currently on pace to have his first 1,000 yard season, and ranks 14th among wide receivers in points scored this year. (Which is higher than Dwayne Bowe, Brandon Marshall and Anquan Boldin). This week, he added 150 yards and two touchdowns.

Chris Johnson, RB – SOFA KING GOOD – 30 pts – Johnson apparently decided to sleep through the first 8 games of the year. Through those 8 games, he averaged a pedestrian 7.13 points per game. In his last four, he is averaging 18.75. Yeah, I’ll take the second one.

POWDER PUFF

Oakland, DEF – Scottish Rebels – 1 pt – Oakland was averaging 18.67 points per game over their previous three games coming in to this week, and were playing against the Miami Dolphins. Should have been a dream match-up. Instead, they surrendered 28 points, got no turnovers and only were able to sack Matt Moore one time. One freaking time. Yuck.

LeGarrette Blount, RB – sprouts – 1 pt – Blount averaged 1.7 yards per carry on his 11 attempts Sunday, finishing with barely 19 yards. Now there are reports that he is in trouble with the law. Fitting… he should get arrested after a pathetic performance like that.

PLAYOFFS?

After Weeks 3 – 6 this season, I made predictions on which teams would make the playoffs based on previous year’s standings. In Week 3, I was only correct with 50% of my predictions. In Weeks 4 & 5, I was correct with four of the six entrants. In Week 6, I was correct with 5 of the 6 eventual playoff participants. In that Week, I predicted that Moves Like Jagger, Joe’s Pats, American BadAss, Lords of Lumberg, Coors Light Drunk Guys and Frito Pie would make the playoffs. Not bad… I’ll hone my methods over the off-season and see if I can’t nail the prediction by Week 4 next year!

A TIE GAME IS KINDA LIKE KISSING YOUR SISTER

Remarkably, for the first time since 2007 we finished the regular season with no tie games. Here is a reminder of how any tie games will be settled in the playoffs:

Ties in any playoff game prior to the Championship Game will automatically go to the higher seeded team.

If there is a tie in the Championship Game, the following tiebreakers will be used:

1) Team with the highest scoring quarterback wins

2) Team with the highest scoring runningback wins

3) Team with the highest scoring wide receiver wins

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

And don’t think that these won’t come into play… last year sprouts and my Rebels tied 87-87 in the championship game, and I won because Vick outscored Schaub. Also remember that throughout the playoffs (Weeks 14 – 16), Weekly High Score Prizes will still be awarded with all teams being eligible to win.

WORST PLAYER IN FANTASY

Going in to Week 13, Josh Johnson held the title for Worst Player In All Of Fantasy, owing to the fact that he had minus (-)2 points total for the year. But fortune smiled on him this week as Tampa’s starting QB Josh Freeman was out with an injury. So Josh Johnson took to the field as the starter and threw for 229 yards and a touchdown, and rushed for 45 yards. He did toss one interception as well, but finished the day with 15 points! Way to go Josh! And I have newfound respect for him after reading this Yahoo! report: “Johnson separated his left (non-throwing) shoulder Sunday against Carolina, but was able to pop it back in place and finish the game.” Hell yeah! Any player that finishes a game after separating their shoulder is all right in my book.

Josh Johnson, you are no longer the Worst Player In All Of Fantasy. That title now belongs to Mike Kafka…

NORTHERN DOMINATION

The North Division was the powerhouse this year, besting the South Division in points scored (5,925 to 5,621), games won (37 to 28), playoff entrants (4 to 2), and in inter-divisional head-to-head victories (19-11).

PICKING THE WINNERS

Only two teams made their selections in the Weekly Matchups, and ironically, it was two teams that would be at or near the top of waiver priority anyway. In the end, my Scottish Rebels bested Jamie’s Midnight Maulers by picking correctly in three of the games.

BEST BENCH

The winner of this week’s Best Bench is becoming a familiar name in this section. This marks the fourth time this season that this team has won this award, and the second time in the last two weeks. (Not since Joe’s Pats did it in Week’s 14 and 15 of 2010 has a team taken home the award for Best Bench two weeks in a row!) If you remember the winner from last week, then you already know that this week’s winner for Best Bench is… sprouts!! This week Russ could have improved his point total by 44, with three roster moves: P. Garcon for A. Johnson (+21), R. Mendenhall for L. Blount (+17) and N. Novak for S. Janikowski (+6). And not to point to fine a point on it, but had Russ made these roster changes, he would have tied the record for the highest point total of all-time, currently held by SOFA KING GOOD from Week 3 of this year, 148.

There is another Thursday night game this week, so make sure you have your roster set by then. Best of luck to the playoff teams!!