Pats are tops in Week 3

What an interesting week!  Three games were super close, each decided by only six points or less, five teams were within 8 points of tying the high score, and the high score itself tied the record for the lowest High Score of all time.  Also, the lone undefeated team and the lone winless team still remain!

Congratulations this week go to Joe’s Pats, who as mentioned above, tied the record for the lowest Weekly High Score Prize in Sacred Sundays’ history.  Back in Week 3 of 2008, three teams maxed out at 88 points to tie for the high score, but this time, Joe did it all by himself.  He got massive production from Matt Ryan and Julio Jones on Thursday night, with those two combining for 54 points or 62% of his total.  Add in 14 points from his other receiver (E. Sanders), and Joe practically won the high score with only three players.  Gotta love that shit!  Well done sir!!

Now, after three weeks one thing has been consistent with the Weekly High Score winners…Vandelay Industries has been involved in the game every single time.  In Week 1, Louis started the year right by claiming the high score, then in Week 2 he was victim to the Coors Light Drunk Guys’ 110 points, and now this week he falls to Joe’s 88 points.  Amazingly, Vandelay Industries is the highest scoring team through three weeks (295 points), yet have a record of 1-2.  Meanwhile, American BadAss is 9^th in scoring yet sits at 3-0.  Just goes to show how much of a factor scheduling plays.  Also, with Vandelay seeming to bring out the best in teams, Sofa King Mediocre has to be licking their chops for Week 4!

Let’s get on with this…

BIG TIME BABY!

-Andrew Luck, QB – Vandelay Industries – 34 pts – Luck is playing like the quarterback that used to wear a horseshoe on his helmet.  He carved up the Jaguars (as you should) for 370 yards and 4 touchdowns!  Luck leads all fantasy scorers this year with 80 points so far.

-Julio Jones, WR – Joe’s Pats – 31 pts – The Falcons pulled their starters when they were up 49-0 midway through the third quarter.  So Julio did all of this in pretty much the first half of the game…161 yards and 2 TDs.

-Kirk Cousins, QB – Free Agent – 30 pts – RGIII probably isn’t going to be the starter for the Redskins when (if?) he returns.  Cousins actually looks pretty good.

-Rashad Jennings, RB – American BadAss – 26 pts – Highest scoring runningback for the week is Rashad Jennings from the Giants?  This is a strange season…

-Nick Foles, QB – Midnight Maulers – 26 pts – Any time a QB can toss for 325 yards, 3 touchdowns and zero interceptions it’s a pretty good day.

COME ON MAN…

-Larry Fitzgerald, WR – American BadAss – 1 pt – Larry only has 10 catches for 107 yards with zero touchdowns so far this year.

-Montee Ball, RB – sprouts – 1 pt – Lost a fumble to go with only 38 yards rushing.

-Zach Ertz, TE – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 1 pt – Eagles score 37 points, but Ertz only manages two catches for 14 yards.  Dang…

-Frank Gore, RB – Midnight Maulers – 1 pt – Gore had 6 attempts for only 10 yards against the Cardinals.  He said he was too mad to speak to reporters after the game.  Too mad, or too embarrassed? 

-Antonio Gates, TE – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – One week after singing his praises he goes out and catches one stupid pass for 8 stupid yards.  Come on Antonio..

-Carolina, DEF – Vandelay Industries – 0 pts – One sack and 37 points allowed.  Just not good.

-Brandon Marshall, WR – Midnight Maulers – 0 pts – If you are hurt, don’t play.  Because if you play, we expect you to do more than 1 catch for 6 yards.  WTF!?

THE BALLAD OF THE ALL-UNWANTEDS

Time to check in on the All-Unwanteds for Week 3.  In Week 2, Mark Ingram-RB-NO, got hurt, so he was replaced this week by Isaiah Crowell-CLE.  Here is how the team scored:

QB - Jake Locker Ten          8

RB - Isaiah Crowell Cle       11

RB - Chris Ivory NYJ            9

WR - Allen Hurns Jax           12

WR - Steve Smith Sr. Bal      10

TE - Dwayne Allen Ind        10

K - Matt Bryant Atl           8

DEF - Minnesota Min           6

TOTAL             74

The average score this week was 79, so this one goes down as another loss for these guys.  Record now stands at 1-2, with 270 points scored on the season.

HOSPITAL WARD

Only three weeks in, and it seems like we are dealing with massive amounts of players not playing.  Of course we all know about Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, Josh Gordon and Wes Welker being suspended and not playing, but check out this list of marquee players currently on the injury list, who are all listed as questionable or worse:

Jamaal Charles – ankle

Vincent Jackson – knee

Alshon Jeffery – hamstring

Jordan Cameron – shoulder

Arian Foster – hamstring

Dez Bryant – shoulder

Roddy White – hamstring

Doug Martin – knee

Brandon Marshall – ankle

Vernon Davis – ankle, knee

Knowshon Moreno – elbow

LeSean McCoy – vagina

Ryan Mathews – knee

Robert Griffin III – ankle

Maurice Jones-Drew – hand

Matt Cassel – foot

And this is only a small sampling of the long list of players with some form of an ailment.  Again, after only three weeks!  Geez…

BEST BENCH

No repeat Best Bench winners so far this season, and actually this week there were not many points left on the bench.  This week’s crown, though, goes to… sprouts!  Russ could have improved his point total by 25 with only two roster swaps:  D. Jackson for R. Cobb +15, and S. Jackson for M. Ball +10.

Week 4 coming up, and it is the first week with byes.  Six teams are on byes this week, so make sure you double check your rosters!  And we are only two weeks away from my Playoff Predictions!!

F 'N' A

Only two weeks in, and only one unbeaten team remains, American BadAss, and only one team has yet to notch a victory, Channel 4 News Team.  All the other teams stand in a tie for 2nd at 1-1.  This is exactly how last season started, only that time it was Channel 4 News Team as the undefeated and Vandelay Industries as the winless.  Channel 4 News Team went on to start the season 6-0, and finished second overall, all while securing a record five Weekly High Score Prizes!  We’ll see if Jason can follow in Timmy’s footsteps…

The big congratulations this week, however, go to the Silver Bullet… Coors Light Drunk Guys!  Shawn was able to get enough points from Jeremy Maclin and Zach Ertz on Monday Night to sneak past Sofa King Stupid aka Down Goes Jason aka BoomGoesTheDynamite aka The German Highlight Reel to claim the High Score of the Week with 110 points!  Shawn went about it in a less than conventional way, having 40 of his points scored by his defense (Bills – 23 pts) and his kicker (Carpenter – 17 pts).  But hey, like they say in golf, it doesn’t matter how…just how many.  This is Shawn’s first High Score prize since Week 2 of 2012, a season in which he went on to finish third, so that is definitely a good sign!  F ‘n A!!!!  Well done Shawn!!

Not a whole lot to update this week, so let’s get to it!!


NOW THAT’S THE TICKET!
-Jordy Nelson, WR – SofaKing Stupid – 29 pts – 209 yards receiving and a touchdown, move Jordy only two points behind the king of receivers, Calvin Johnson, for most wide receiver points this year.

-Aaron Rodgers, QB – American BadAss – 27 pts – After a flop in Week 1, Rodgers showed why he is a first round keeper…346 yards, 3 TD’s and a 2-pt conversion.

-Antonio Gates, TE – Free Agent – 27 pts – What in the 2005?  Gates was supposed to be washed-up or out of the league by this point.  But he owned the Seattle defense on Sunday.

-Darren Sproles, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 26 pts – I think it is because he is so tiny that defenses just don’t see him.  He caught 7 passes for 152 yards…nearly 22 yards per catch!


NOT SO GOOD…
-Seahawks, DEF – sprouts – 1 pt – Two weeks in, and the defending Super Bowl champ’s defense ranks 23rd in fantasy.  Damn.

-Pierre Garcon, WR – sprouts – 1 pt – One catch for 12 yards…that just isn’t gonna get it done.

-Chiefs, DEF – Channel 4 News Team – 1 pt – The Chiefs just got abused by the Broncos this week.  The 1 point came from 1 sack recorded…nothing else.

-Michael Floyd, WR – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 1 pt – Nice to have a player drop a dud and still claim the High Score Prize for the week!

-Marques Colston, WR – Scottish Rebels – 0 pts – He didn’t even get the ball thrown in his direction, let alone actually catch anything.

-Toby Gerhart, RB – American BadAss – 0 pts – Seven carries for 8 yards… yeah that’s about right for a Jacksonville runningback.


ROSTER CHECK
Joe’s Pats started two players who were inactive Week 2 (Doug Martin, RB and Jordan Cameron, TE) and his opponent Channel 4 News Team started one inactive player (A.J. Green).  Make sure to check your line-up on Sunday morning to ensure all your players are in!!  (Unless you’re playing against me…)


THE FORGOTTENS
Here is how the All Undrafted Team fared this week:
QB Jake Locker Ten = 9
RB Mark Ingram NO = 16
RB Chris Ivory NYJ = 10
WR Allen Hurns Jax = 1
WR Steve Smith Sr. Bal = 7
TE Dwayne Allen Ind = 0
K Matt Bryant Atl = 5
DEF Minnesota Min = 2
Total – 50 points
Not nearly as good as last week, although I am impressed with the runningback production.  But with an average league score of 80.1 points this week, this one goes down as a loss.  So just like the eight other teams, The Forgottens are 1-1.


BEST BENCH
For two weeks in a row now the Best Bench winner had four player swaps (50% line-up change) and still won their game.  This week’s honors go to… the Midnight Maulers!!  Jamie could have improved his point total by 32 with these roster changes: T. West for R. Bush (+12), J. Edelman for R. White (+11), P. Rivers for N. Foles (+7) and A. Vinatieri for P. Dawson (+2).  (Side note - The Maulers are the only team presently carrying a back-up kicker.)


Week 3 here we come!!!

2014 - Let the games begin!

And we are off!  What a big way to start the season with four teams scoring over 100 points!  In 2013, the most teams to break into triple digits in a single week was three, so we are already going bigger this year.  The record for the most teams over 100 is five, which happened back in Week 4 of 2011.

But the week’s highest score, and biggest props, go to Vandelay Industries!!  Louis knocked it out of the park with his QB and wide receiver (Andrew Luck & Calvin Johnson, 28 and 31 points respectively), and also got rock solid production from his runningbacks, Murray (17 pts) and Forte (16 pts).  Vandelay finished with 117 points, which was only four points shy of an optimatl line-up and a full 8 points higher than the next closest team.  Well done sir!!

As a reminder to everyone, the Weekly High Score Prize this season is $50.  So you will definitely want to make sure you have your line-ups set each week, get your waiver claims in early, and respond to trade offers quickly…(I’m looking at you Shawn).  Also, we will be doing the League Pick ‘Em again this season, which means that whoever picks the most correct winners in our weekly match-ups will be moved to first in the waiver order.  The remaining teams will be in reverse order of the current standings.  Since I am only announcing this now, we will start this for Week 2.

So this week I’m kicking off a new weekly item, the ‘All-Undrafted Team’, I give out the year’s first Best Bench award and get to the bottom of the ‘BoomGoesTheDynamite Curse’.  But first, some observations…


YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT
- Matt Ryan, QB – Joe’s Pats – 33 pts – Joe made the right choice here in not having Brady as his QB, as Matt outscored Tom by 24 points.  He got there by tossing 3 touchdowns to go along with 448 yards of passing.  Sweet!

- Calvin Johnson, WR – Vandelay Industries – 31 pts – All but like four yards of this stat line were gained in the first half: 164 receiving yards, 2 touchdowns.  Megatron was legitimately on track to score in the neighborhood of 65 points.

- Matt Stafford, QB – Scottish Rebels – 29 pts – I am officially a Matt Stafford fan.  Yes, yes I am.

- Julius Thomas, TE – sprouts – 28 pts –Julius Thomas as a 13th round keeper pick is absolutely awesome!  He showed why he is one of the elites, hauling in 3, yes 3!, touchdown catches!

- Andrew Luck, QB – Vandelay Industries – 25 pts – Good performance hurt a bit by two interceptions.  Adding a rushing TD is always a nice touch.


COME ON, MAN!
- Jamaal Charles, RB – Channel 4 News Team – 2 pts
- Victor Cruz, WR – 2 pts
- Jason Witten, TE – Vandelay Industries – 1 pt
- Rams, DEF – DownGoesJason – 1 pt
- Doug Martin, RB – 0 pts


FORGET THE ‘MADDEN CURSE’, HOW ABOUT THE ‘BOOMGOESTHEDYNAMITE KEEPER CURSE’?!?!
Jens had a real knack for picking keepers coming out of the 2011 season.  His first keeper is now on trial for at least one, but probably two murders, and is unlikely to ever see the exterior of a prison again.  His second keeper is now banned for life from the NFL for going all Apollo Creed on his fiancé in a casino elevator.  These two fine, upstanding young men are, of course, Aaron Hernandez and Ray Rice…both were Jensy’s keepers for the 2012 season.


THE ‘ALL-UNDRAFTED TEAM’ OF 2014
Here are the rules for this segment:
a) A team is going to be constructed from the top Week 1 performers who were undrafted in our league.
b) These players will be the starters every week, unless they get injured or are on a bye week.
c) Enough back-ups for each position will be selected from Week 1’s top undrafted players.
d) Each week, if the All-Undrafted team’s score is greater than the average score for the week, that will be considered a win, and if not it will be a loss.

Now, I give you, the All-Undrafted Team of 2014!!:
QB – Jake Locker, TEN = 19
RB – Mark Ingram, NO = 18
RB – Chris Ivory, NYJ = 16
WR – Allen Hurns, JAX = 23
WR – Steve Smith Sr., BAL = 17
TE – Dwayne Allen, IND = 12
K – Matt Bryant, ATL = 18
DEF – Minnesota, MIN = 23
Total Week 1 = 146

Bench = QB-Derek Anderson, CAR; RB-Isaiah Crowell, CLE; RB-Justin Forsett, BAL; WR-Greg Jennings, MIN; WR-Rod Streater, OAK; TE- Delanie Walker, TEN; DEF-Philadelphia; K-Mike Nugent, CIN

Considering that the Weekly High Score for the week was 117 points, we’ll go ahead and mark this as a victory for the Undraftees.  In all honesty, it is not all that bad looking of a team… we’ll see how this crew holds up over the whole season.

BEST OF THE DRAFT
In case you were wondering, after one week of play the best keeper production was a tie between Andrew Luck, QB – Vandelay Industries and Julius Thomas, TE – sprouts, both of whom logged 28 points this week.  But given the fact that Thomas was a 13th round keeper, and Luck was a 6th, we’ll say that Thomas is the Best Keeper so far.

The Best Pick of the draft goes to sprouts as well, for picking Knowshon Moreno in the 12th round.  Moreno got 19 points in Week 1, which was more than any player picked from round 8, 9, 10 or 11.  Nice pick Russ!


BEST BENCH
Apparently the Defending Sacred Sundays Champion didn’t want the first week to go by without being mentioned, so Jason went ahead and took home the first Best Bench Award of the season!  A solid 28-point improvement was there for the taking with four roster moves: C. Kaepernick for A. Rodgers (+8), K. Benjamin for D. Thomas (+11), L. Miller for T. Gerhart (+5) and J. Hunter for L. Fitzgerald (+4).


Get your waiver claims in, get your rosters set, pick the winners from each game and get READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!!!!!

Dawn of a new season... let 2014 begin!!

With the 2014 draft little more than a week away, here is a primer for this season with a couple of historical nuggets about Sacred Sundays…
-       Defending Champion, American BadAss, has finished in the Top 3 seven times out of 10 seasons.  Jason has four championships, two runner-ups and one third place.

- Next closest is the Coors Light Drunk Guys with four finishes in the Top 3.  What do you know!?!?  Shawn has one championship, one runner-up and two thirds.

- Lords of Lumberg and Joe’s Pats are next with three Top 3 finishes each.  Timmy has the hat trick with one of each (championship, runner-up, and third), while Joe has one runner-up and two thirds.

- James, Jamie, Jens, Russ and myself all come next with two Top 3 finishes.  Jamie, Jens and I all have one championship and one runner-up, James has a championship and a third, and Russ has a runner-up and a third.

- The Goldschlager Chupacabras, managed by none other than Jason “I’m smarter than this” Lowery, is the only other team with a Top 3 finish.  He had a third place finish in 2005.

- The longest drought for a team to finish in the Top 3 is a tie between the Midnight Maulers and Sofa King Good.  Jamie finished second in 2009 and James finished 3rd in that same year, but neither team has made it back to the top since then.

- The team with the highest win percentage for regular season games is sprouts, who has an impressive 60.3% winning percentage.  Russ has a record of 47 wins and 31 losses.

- The Coors Light Drunk Guys have won the most regular season games, now having 50 wins to go along with 41 losses.  That gives Shawn a win percentage of 54.9% which is the second best in the league.

- Championship-dominating American BadAss has an overall regular season record of 47-40-4 for a 53.8% winning percentage.

- The most points ever scored in a single game now stands at 149, which is a feat that was accomplished by Channel 4 News Team in Week 15 of last season.

- The best starting record in the league is 6-0 which has been done four times… Jamie (2007), James (2010), Jens (2011) and Timmy (2013).

- The worst starting record is held by my Scottish Rebels, having started off 0-6 not once but TWICE, first in 2011 and again in 2012.


Looking forward to another fun-filled season!  Can’t wait to see you guys in Vegas, and get this season going!!  ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!?!?

American BadAss Reigns!

American BadAss is the top dog once again!  Jason claimed his 4th Sacred Sundays Championship with an unlikely victory over Channel 4 News Team.  I say unlikely because the News Team had been dominant all season, averaging 102 points per game for the whole season, and having scored 125 and 149 points in the two weeks leading up to the Championship game.  Things just didn’t go right for Timmy in the Championship, as the News Boys only managed 55 points which was their lowest total all season.  But things couldn’t have been any better for Jason as he won the championship game and claimed the final Weekly High Score Prize of the season!  Once again he did it with solid performance all-around, with three players scoring over 20 points, and all but his tight end posting double digits.  Nice job bro!

American BadAss won championships in 2004, 2007 and 2008 prior to this season.  In 2011, they finished 3rd, last year they finished 2nd, and now this year it’s back on top.  Although there was that five year gap between championships, this is as close to a dynasty as we have in Sacred Sundays history.  If American BadAss finishes in the top three for 2014, I will officially bestow that title and refer to American BadAss as “The American BadAss Dynasty” going forward.

It is truly amazing how quickly 16 weeks can fly by…  it has been a blast once again!  And for the first time ever I have managed to get a write-up posted every single week this season!  How about that?!  So here we go for one final time…


BIG YEAR
-Peyton Manning, QB – sprouts – 404 pts – To say that Peyton had a good year, would be an understatement.  To say he had a phenomenal year might not even do it justice.  This one has to go down as a legendary year.  Last season’s top scorer was Drew Brees who put up 323 points, and Manning blew that out of the water.    He averaged nearly 27 points per game this year and scored over 30 points 5 times.  That is how you get it done!

-Drew Brees, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 326 pts – Call him Captain Consistency!  As mentioned above, he posted 323 points last season and now 326.  Were it not for Manning’s ridiculous year, Brees would have been the best in fantasy for two years in a row.  Still, finishing in 2nd place is pretty freaking good.

-Jamaal Charles, RB – Channel 4 News Team – 301 pts – Look at what this guy can do when he stays healthy all season!  Charles gets the extra nod this season for being the player to score the most points in a single game when he racked up 54 in Week 15.  Nice work!  (Side note – no runningback broke 300 points last season, so this is quite an achievement).

-Matt Stafford, QB – Midnight Maulers – 269 pts – In spite of struggling at times, Stafford still had a great season finishing with 10 points more than he did last year.

-Philip Rivers, QB – Vandelay Industries – 269 pts – Out of nowhere, Rivers had an awesome season and finished tied for fourth highest scoring player in fantasy.  He increased his production from last year by 42% (189 to 269 points).  I honestly thought Louis was crazy for drafting this guy, but that pick really paid dividends.

-Kansas City Defense, DEF – Channel 4 News Team – 234 pts – The KC defense was on an absolute tear through the first 9 weeks, averaging over 18 points per game, and on pace to score 290 points.  Unfortunately, they only averaged 11 points after their Week 10 bye, but still finished as the top defense.

-Josh Gordon, WR – Sofa King Good – 222 pts – Can you believe that this guy was the top scoring wide receiver in fantasy this season?  Dude wasn’t even drafted, and didn’t even score a point until Week 3!  He ended up ranked 19th out of all fantasy players.

-Jimmy Graham, TE – Channel 4 News Team – 201 pts – Jimmy Graham was to tight ends what Peyton Manning was to quarterbacks this season.  There was Graham, then 52 points later there was the second place guy (Vernon Davis).

-Stephen Gostkowski, K – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 164 pts – Gotta give a little love to the top scoring kicker.  Gostkowski averaged 10.9 points per game, never scoring less than 7 in any given week.  He actually finished as the 48th highest scoring player this season, which was better than Andre Johnson, Reggie Bush, Eli Manning, and Aaron Rodgers.


EVERYONE NEEDS MONEY, THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT MONEY
Here is the final prize money tally for 2013:
1) Timmy – Channel 4 News Team - $290 – Runner-up plus 5 Weekly High Score Prizes (Weeks 2, 3, 4, 6, 15)
2) Jason – American BadAss – $260 – Champion plus 2 Weekly High Score Prizes (Weeks 14, 16)
3) Russ – sprouts - $214 – Third place plus 4 Weekly High Score Prizes (Weeks 1, 7, 10, 12)
4) James – Sofa King Good - $76 – Fourth place plus 1 Weekly High Score Prize (Week 11)
5) Louis – Vandelay Industries - $40 – 1 Weekly High Score Prize (Week 5)
6) Jamie – Midnight Maulers - $40 – 1 Weekly High Score Prize (Week 8)
7) Joe – Joe’s Pats - $40 – 1 Weekly High Score Prize (Week 13)
8) Jerry – Butkus’ Dick - $40 –1 Weekly High Score Prize(Week 9)

Well done everyone!!


KEEPERS FOR 2014
Once again this year, each team will be able to keep two players from this season’s final roster for next season.  Players that are kept will count as the draft pick in next year’s draft where they were picked in 2013.  Players that were keepers in 2013 will count as a first round draft pick for 2014.  Players that were claimed off waivers or picked up as a free agent will count as a 15th round pick.  I will send out a separate email to everyone with the final rosters for 2013 along with the keeper costs for each player.

The draft order for 2014 will be the reverse of the final standings for 2013.  So the draft order will be:
1)      BoomGoesTheDynamite – Jens
2)      Coors Light Drunk Guys – Shawn
3)      Vandelay Industries – Louis
4)      Joe’s Pats – Joe
5)      Midnight Maulers – Jamie
6)      Butkus’ Dick – Jerry
7)      Sofa King Good – James
8)      sprouts – Russ
9)      Channel 4 News Team – Timmy
10)   American BadAss – Jason

Keepers will need to be declared about a week after the NFL draft, which usually falls around the end of April.  I will send out emails as we get closer to that date.


ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK
An electron is driving down a motorway, and a policeman pulls him over. The policeman says: “Sir, do you realize you were travelling at 130km per hour?” The electron goes: “Oh great, now I’m lost.”


BONUS ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK
How many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A fish.


BEST BENCH
Before awarding the final Best Bench Award for the season, I want to recap a few Best Bench stats for the season…
Team with the Most Best Bench Awards – American BadAss (3)
Team with the Highest Best Bench – sprouts (56)
Team with the Lowest Best Bench – Sofa King Good (20)
Team that went the longest without getting a Best Bench – Coors Light Drunk Guys (Week 14)

Now, without further adieu, the winner of the Week 16 Best Bench Award is… the Channel 4 News Team!  Timmy could have improved his point total this week with only 2 roster moves: D. Brown for D. Johnson (+20 pts) and A. Boldin for D. Jackson (+10 pts).


So that be it for this season!  Thanks again to all of you guys for making the season so much fun!  I’m honestly not sure I would do with my down time at work if I didn't have fantasy football… I might have to do actual work.  Banish the thought!

And for those of you who won money, I’ll send separate emails to confirm that I have your correct address and will get checks sent out this week.

Happy New Year!!!

And then there were two...

It is Championship time!!  Just like last season, the top two seeds will be facing off for the Sacred Sundays title this year.  Last year, American BadAss went in as the top seed and fell to BoomGoesTheDynamite, who was seeded second.  This season, Channel 4 News Team goes in as top dog after an unprecendented regular season, (no team has ever finished at 11-2), and through 15 weeks of play have scored 163 more total points than the next closest team!  That has to be some kind of record!

Speaking of records, this past week Channel 4 News Team set the record for the highest score ever posted in a game in Sacred Sundays history.  The prior record of 148 had been achieved twice, most recently in Week 14 of 2012 by BoomGoesTheDynamite.  Timmy did one better than that this week, finishing with 149 points, courtesy of another record…a single player record for most points in a week.  Jamaal Charles tied the single game record of 54 points (Doug Martin did it last year in Week 9), by gaining 195 receiving yards, 20 rushing yards and 5 total touchdowns!!  Tim-Tim also sets a record this week for most Weekly High Score Prizes won in a season by being the highest for the FIFTH time this year!  Last note on the News Team – had Tim had in his optimal roster, he would have finished with 173 points!  That would have only required changing Alex Smith for Cam Newton and Rashard Mendenhall for Ben Tate.  I don’t think I have ever seen a possible score that high.  Well done Timmy!  Well done indeed!

The match-up for 3rd and 4th place should be an interesting one to watch as well, with sprouts and SOFA KING GOOD battling it out.  Sprouts has four Weekly High Score Prizes this season, and has outscored SOFA KING GOOD by 55 points on the season.  However, over the last three weeks, SOFA KING GOOD is averaging 106 points per game, while sprouts is averaging 98.  So this game has the makings for a real nail-biter.  Remember that 3rd place wins $54 and 4th gets $36.

Well with the holiday season in full force and with family visits, caroling, ristra-making, etcetera, this is just a quick update.  But I would be remiss if I didn’t give out the Best Bench Award for this week.  After going all season without snagging a Best Bench Award, Shawn Martin has now made it two in a row!  With four roster moves, the Coors Light Drunk Guys could have improved their point total by 31 points.  J. Edelman for S. Smith (+17), M. Colston for E. Decker (+11), B. Pettigrew for J. Gresham (+2) and the Giants for the Patriots (+1).

Fifteen weeks gone by and only one left!  Who will take the crown this season?!?!

Money Round!!

The first round of the playoffs are done, so the teams that are remaining are in the money!  Remember that this season, top prize is $180, Runner-up gets $90, 3rd gets $54 and 4th gets $36.  So Timmy, Jason, James and Russ – even if you score 0 points from here on out, you’ve got more cash coming your way!

The big congrats this week go to American BadAss for finally putting it all together and snagging a Weekly High Score Prize!  Jason becomes the 8th person this year to take home a prize by scoring 133 points this week.  He did it the old-fashioned way by having solid performances throughout his line-up.  His lowest scoring player (Vincent Jackson) finished with 13 points and his highest scoring player (Ben Roethlis-something) finished with 23.  His only player to not score a touchdown (besides his kicker) was DeMarco Murray, but he ran for 146 yards to make up for it.  Even his Defense (Arizona) had a touchdown. And his kicker scored 17 points, thanks in part to a 64-yard field goal that sets the NFL record for longest ever.  That practically counts as scoring a touchdown!  All in all, that is just solid production and definitely what you want going into the playoffs.  Well done!!

Hard to believe that there are only two weeks left of the fantasy season… so let’s get to this!


BIG TIME
-Josh McCown, QB – Free Agent – 38 pts – When a team doesn't play defense, this sort of thing can happen.  McCown walked all over the Cowboys to the tune of 348 yards passing, 4 TD’s plus 16 yards rushing and a touchdown.

-LeSean McCoy, RB – Joe’s Pats – 36 pts – Philadelphia needs to have a snow machine installed in their stadium and play every game in 18 inches of the white stuff!  McCoy went off for 217 yards and 2 TD’s!

-Petyon Manning, QB – sprouts – 34 pts – Peyton is now so far ahead of all other players in scoring that he could probably sit out the next 3 weeks and still be the top dog.  He has 352 points and the next closest (Drew Brees) only has 293.  Manning is averaging, averaging!, 27.1 points per week.  That is just remarkable.

-Jason Campbell, QB – Free Agent – 32 pts – Clearly the Patriots did not view the Browns as a worthy opponent, because they did not seem at all prepared.  Campbell took advantage, throwing for 391 yards(!) and 3 TD’s and nearly pulling off a major upset.

-Andrew Luck, QB – Vandelay Industries – 32 pts – The Colts are such an enigma because they hardly even play in the first half, then come out like madmen in the second half.  The second half was where Luck did his damage in this one, throwing 326 yards and 4 TD’s.

-Kansas City, DEF – Channel 4 News Team – 32 pts – In the battle of the indians, Chiefs proved superior to Redskins.  The Chiefs D only gave up 10 points while recording 6 sacks, 2 turnovers and 2 TD’s.

-Jamaal Charles, RB – Channel 4 News Team – 30 pts – Charles is finally having that season that was supposed to happen half a decade ago because he has remained healthy.  He is currently tops among fantasy runningbacks, having tallied 228 points on the season.


REALLY?
-Mike Wallace, WR – BoomGoesTheDynamite – 1 pt – You would’ve thought Wallace would want to prove something going against his old teammates in Pittsburgh, but you would’ve thought wrong.  He struck out with only 19 yards on 2 catches.

-James Jones, WR – Midnight Maulers – 1 pt – After a promising start to the season and scoring 45 points in Weeks 2 – 5, Jones has not produced much.  He hasn’t even scored in double digits since that Week 5 game.

-T.Y. Hilton, WR – Vandelay Industries – 0 pts – Targeted 5 times…2 catches… 7 yards.  That is an ugly stat line.

-David Akers, K – Joe’s Pats – -1 pts – For the first time since 1957 there was an NFL game where no points were registered by a kicker.  Akers lost a point here for missing a PAT.

NO POINTS FOR YOU!
As mentioned above, the Philly/Detroit game was the first game since 1957 in which no points were scored by a kicker.  The 1957 game ended 6-0.  As I was researching this, I came across a listing of professional football games in which there were no points scored at all.  The last time this happened was in 1943 when the New York Giants and Detroit Lions finished with a 0-0 tie.  WTF?!  Is that a soccer score?  I haven’t read the NFL’s new overtime rules in their entirety, but I would hope that it includes a stipulation that no game can ever, EVER, end with the score of 0-0.  Can you imagine sitting through a game that finishes with a 0-0 tie?  That would have to be the most boring game in history.  We’re talking 6th grade girl’s basketball boring.

But apparently back in the 1920’s and 30’s, people didn’t mind games finishing 0-0, because it happened 73 times!  No wonder they implemented the forward pass, people were falling asleep at these games.  Now check out the names of some of the teams involved in these games from back in the days of yore:  Rochester Jeffersons, Fort Wayne Friars, Detroit Heralds, Rochester Scalpers, Toledo Maroons, Dayton Triangles and, I kid you not, Washington Glee Club.  You had to feel really crappy about yourself if you played in a football game and lost to the Washington Glee Club.  (Side note – Do you think the PC crowd these days would go along with the “Scalpers” as a team mascot? LMAO!)


ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK
An Englishman, a Frenchman, a Spaniard and a German are walking down the street together. A juggler is performing on the street but there are so many people that the four men can’t see the juggler. So the juggler goes on top of a platform and asks: “Can you see me now?” The four men answer: “Yes.” “Oui.” “Si.” “Ja.”


BEST BENCH
With all the touchdowns that were scored this week, you would have thought that more points would have been left on the bench.  But this week’s Best Bench ties for the second lowest total of the season.  So without further adieu, the Week 14 winner of the Best Bench is… the Coors Light Drunk Guys!  Shawn could have improved his point total by a perfect 27 with only two roster moves:  M. Colston for S. Smith (+14) and B. Green-Ellis for S. Ridley (+13).


Two more chances to claim a High Score prize, and only two more weeks until we crown a champion!!!