What? Mr. Math and I aren’t supposed to tie! One of us is supposed to beat the other badly!
Rhode Island Dynamic (7-3) vs.
{} (4-6)
draw
61-61
In a rivalry game between the Rhode Island Dynamic and Murphy’s Tiers, they, well, tied. But in a decent scoring game, so much went wrong. The Tiers had Ronnie Brown run for a whopping 2 yards and a fumble (that’s -3 points). The league’s then-leading receiver in yardage, Marques Colston, got hurt early and didn’t return, adding 0 points. The good news is that they kept Losman in; he got 17. But if the Tiers keep Brown on the bench, they win. The Dynamic had problems of their own. Peyton Manning had three turnovers (though he connected with Reggie Wayne enough for Rhode Island’s taste). Reggie Brown was effected by McNabb’s injury and only took home a single point. And all three of their game-time decisions (Brown, Mare, and St. Louis) were the wrong ones. Both teams were very lucky they didn’t lose.
Koko's X-Cats (6-4) d. Stevies Scapegoats (3-7)
58-39
Ah, finally, something one-sided. Actually, Larry Johnson’s 20 and Carolina’s 19 were all the X-Cats needed (and that’s all the X-Cats’ defense could muster up anyway). We all know how badly Favre got pwned for the Scapegoats, and from there, it was all downhill (must be a pretty low hill). Their best score was Joey Galloway’s 9. It was nowhere near enough to stop the X-Cats from winning their fourth straight.
Indiana Ironmen (5-5) d. Cooney Quest (2-7-1)
92-54
Cooney: excellent teamwork, no big score to back them. It’s how they came in, and it’s how they’ll leave this season. Not a knock against them; they had six players clear 6 fantasy points this week. Generally, that’s pretty good. But nobody on their team scored more than 8 (Vick got that, for the record). Also, their opponent had the high score of the week. Props to the Ironmen, who really went out of their way to show us they belong in the playoffs. They had Ocho Cinco (which really should be Orchenta Cinco, but I digress) lead the way with 28. We all know how much Tom Brady pwned in Lambeau Field (consider this an extension of the Scapegoats woes from above), and that got the Ironmen 17 more points. Finally, their defense combined for 38, putting any hopes for Cooney out of reach.
Eat My Shorts (6-4) d. Evil Trav's Minions (7-3)
59-47
EMS has LaDanian Tomlinson. Do they really need anything else? Well, yes, they do, but my point still stands. His 33 (yes, I said 33) is easily why EMS won. The Minions dominated EMS on defense, but their offense led by Frank Gore’s 10 wasn’t enough to offset Tomlinson. Even worse is that the Minions have Donovan McNabb. Or should I say “had”. Long story short, the Minions have problems.
Cromer Smash! (3-6-1) d. RPI10 (3-7)
59-42
When you have two negatives from a receiver and a kicker, you know you’re just not going to have a good week. RPI tried to offset this with Miami’s 15 and Burress’s 10, but the Smash scored too many positive points. Willie Parker continued his awesomeness with 14, and Deion Branch proved his worth with 13. Also, Cromer didn’t have to deal with those nasty negative points. RPI joins the teams in the eliminated category with this loss.
Nor Cal Crushers (8-2) d. T-Hawks (6-3-1)
70-64
The Nor Cal Crushers are dropping like flies. First Portis, now Kevin Jones. And on Sunday, the rest of them were only decent. Chester Taylor and Darrell Jackson both put up 10s and their three defensive players combined for 21. Meanwhile, the T-Hawks were staying even on defense, and getting 14 from Marion Barber and 11 from Steve Smith (though take note that his partner in crime, Keyshawn Johnson, put up 0 for the T-Hawks). It looked like Nor Cal was going to die a painful death. But Monday Night Football saw the Jaguars cream the Giants. And guess what? The Crushers had Josh Scobee and the Jacksonville DEF. An extra 22 fantasy points were scored on Monday night for the Crushers, and it pushed them to victory.
sigmakittens (1-9) d. FIRST Force (3-6-1)
55-53
Heh, I have a feeling you guys are going to like this one. This was a pretty even game, even if the majority of the scoring was done by two players. For FIRST Force, they had number eighty-three score two eighty-three yard touchdowns in the first quarter (IOW, Lee Evans scored 26). The Kittens had Jamal Lewis with 22. The rest of the offenses were dead even, and so were the defenses. Here’s where the differential was: the QB spot. Jake Plummer looked like he did at the beginning of the season, only getting 1 point for the Kittens. Luckily for them, it was two more than Tony Romo got for FIRST Force. In what was a very weak performance (though to his credit, he still led the Cowboys to victory), Romo got a -1. And that’s your ballgame. The Sigmakittens come up from the grave to pull FIRST Force down with them.
Silver Lobos (6-4) d. Meatball Artists (5-5)
72-53
This was the first of two games the Artists really needed to win. And I’m pretty sure they were ecstatic watching New England shut out the Packers, because they had the New England DEF worth 11 points. Even the Sunday night game gave them Jason Elam and 9 points. But that was all they got. The Lobos outdid them the rest of the way. We all remember the Bengals victory from when I played Spanish Grammar Nazi with Chad Johnson up above. Carson Palmer got 16 points from that one. Darrent Williams was the man for the Broncos defense, tallying 15 for the Lobos. Finally, Maurice Jones-Drew is having a heck of a year, scoring 9 this week. The Lobos stay in that jumble of teams in eighth-or-better.
The Very Fast Blitz (4-6) d. Boilers 1529 (4-6)
59-46
Who here actually thought Alex Smith had a chance against the Seahawks? Not me, that’s for sure. But he gave the Blitz 13 points. They also had Watson’s 9, Westbrook’s 8, and a better defense than their opponent. Yes, The Very Fast Blitz actually played better defense than an opponent. There really isn’t much to say about the Boilers anyway. The only thing they were even close to the Blitz in was at the QB spot with Drew Brees equaling Smith with 13 points. Everything else was worse than the Blitz, giving the Blitz their third straight win.
stantheman (8-2) d. Amazin' Blue (7-3)
56-53
Jeff probably going to murder me for this one, but notice how Amazin’ Blue lost this game by the exact same amount of points the Wolverines did against the Buckeyes (much to Trav’s enjoyment). This one was another one decided on Monday as both teams had one player playing, and I seriously thought the Blue could hold their lead. Obviously that wasn’t the case. But lets go back a day to Sunday, where the Blue had three 0s on offense. Holt, Houshmandzadeh, and Tatum Bell were all held scoreless. That’s gotta hurt. They had some pretty good scores with Matt Leinhart (14), Thomas Davis (12), Pittsburgh (9), and Michael Turner (8). But there was some extreme separation between their high scores and their low scores. It left a door open for STM. Granted, they were behind going into Monday, but it seems like they held it together better. Their high scores were 11s from both Maroney and Chicago, and their defense was the better of the two. The offense all scored too. What won it on Monday though was David Gerrard and his 5 points. It wasn’t big, but it turns out they didn’t need a big score to get STM back to winning.
Code:
Rank Team W-L-T Pct. Pts. Streak F.Rank Change
1. Nor Cal Crushers 9-2-0 .818 769.00 W-3 2 ±0
2. stantheman 9-2-0 .818 654.00 W-1 8 ±0
3. Rhode Island Dynamic 7-3-1 .682 770.00 T-1 1 ±0
4. Evil Trav's Minions 7-4-0 .636 719.00 L-1 3 ±0
5. Koko's X-Cats 7-4-0 .636 686.00 W-4 5 +2
6. Silver Lobos 7-4-0 .636 663.00 W-2 7 +2
7. Eat My Shorts 7-4-0 .636 622.00 W-2 9 +2
8. Amazin' Blue 7-4-0 .636 575.00 L-3 12 -3
9. T-Hawks 6-4-1 .591 666.00 L-2 6 -3
10. Indiana Ironmen 6-5-0 .545 694.00 W-1 4 ±0
11. Meatball Artists 5-6-0 .455 534.00 L-2 18 ±0
12. The Very Fast Blitz 5-6-0 .455 514.00 W-3 19 +2
13. Cromer Smash! 4-6-1 .409 561.00 W-2 15 +3
14. {} 4-6-1 .409 553.00 T-1 16 -1
15. Boilers 1529 4-7-0 .364 565.00 L-1 13 -3
16.z FIRST Force 3-7-1 .318 589.00 L-5 10 -1
17.z Stevies Scapegoats 3-8-0 .273 563.00 L-2 14 ±0
18.z RPI10 3-8-0 .273 539.00 L-2 17 ±0
19.z Cooney Quest 2-8-1 .227 588.00 L-3 11 ±0
20.z sigmakittens 2-9-0 .182 504.00 W-1 20 ±0
z=Mathematically Eliminated
Wow, we lost four more teams this week. Anyhow, before noon on Thursday, you will see both the playoff picture, and then, because Ed is away for Thanksgiving, the pregame analysis done by me. Should be interesting.