Lousy Rangers of the North...
Dunedain (3-6) d. Rhode Island Drive (6-3)
77-68
You'll notice that the Drive's usual powerhouse running game decided to keep their scoring on the lower end of the spectrum this week. Not a great start for them, and it'd stay that way. Dunedain outdid Rhode Island when they needed to: the Drive's Derek Anderson gets 14, Dunedain's Favre gets 20. Eric Wright got 14 for the Drive, Gibril Wilson and Mike Peterson both average 15.5 points on Dunedain's side. Rhode Island tries to come back on Monday night with a D.J Hackett 12, but Seattle shuts out the 49ers and equals that 12 for Dunedain. It was a clear and decisive win for Dunedain.
Stevies Scapegoats (4-5) d. Koko's X-Cats (2-7)
33-32
And on the other end of things are two teams that both seemed to not want to win. In fact, had the X-Cats not fielded a QB, they'd have won! And we all know about Travis Henry's troubles. Again, Marshawn Lynch's 14 alone is not going to cut it. The Scapegoats weren't much better. Going into Monday, they were still losing by 4, mostly thanks to Jamal Lewis's -2, and lack of any non-kicking offensive score above 4. But there were three 7s keeping them in the game, and the Scapegoats' two Seahawks scored the necessary 5 points between them on Monday Night Football to put them ahead. And just a bit of filler here: eight teams beat or equaled the combined score of this game, three of which were losing efforts. Says a lot about this game, huh?
Team Jack (7-2) d. What Am I Doing Here (4-5)
67-53
What am I doing here? I'm not even sure WAIDH was even here. There's three empty slots on their scorecard, and this was the week Jason Campbell breaks out for 13. LT even came through with 10 of his own, and Portis added 8 more. But then there's all... those... zeros... Team Jack has had better weeks, but they had some big scores from Maurice Jones-Drew (15), Hines Ward (14), & Drew Brees (10), and their defense was relatively decent enough to not be a factor. The answer to the question of what I'm doing here? I'm watching WAIDH lose their fifth straight.
Indiana Ironmen (4-5) d. The Stud Man Clan (4-5)
76-44
What am I doing here? I'm not even sure The Stud Man Clan was here. If you thought WAIDH was bad, there's five 0s on the Clan's scorecard, four from byes. There's that Derrick Johnson 15 waaaaayyyyy down at the bottom, but that was it. All the Ironmen had to do was breathe on the Clan to take them out (there's an iron lung joke there somewhere, but I'd rather not). And Roethlisberger's 24, Brackett's 17, & Dunn's 12 must've felt like a hurricane. This was exactly what Indiana needed to snap their three-game losing streak. So... many... zeros...
Nor Cal Crushers (2-7) d. Isotopes (5-4)
95-71
Now
these are the Crushers we all know and love. While their defensive 16 wasn't much to be proud of, that just meant more points for their offense. Brian Westbrook hit the end-zone thrice and ended his day with 29 fantasy points, Roy Williams hit the end-zone twice for 14, Steven Jackson passed for a TD and ran for a TD, totaling 14, & Selvin Young made good of Travis Henry's (and the X-Cats') pain, rushing for a TD and breaking that 100-yard mark for 13 points. The 'Topes didn't play too bad themselves; they won the QB battle by 16 (Eli got picked twice for Nor Cal, McNabb, well, didn't), and Reggie Bush's 15 was impressive (even if he did lose). But it's faily obvious that while most of their scores were decent, there were no more scores of the caliber the Crushers put up this week. Now the important question is whether the Crushers can keep living up to their name.
FIRST Force (6-3) d. Silver Lobos (8-1)
56-52
Here's what happens when the top team in the league has their top two players fail miserably. We all know what happened to Adrian Peterson (injury; out for two weeks at least), and we all know what happened to Peyton Manning (six interceptions; that's 12 points subtracted from his total). Luckily, Reggie Wayne caught one of Manning's TD passes and a good portion of his yardage, giving the Lobos 16 points, but with abnormally low scores from the rest of the team, it just wasn't meant to be. FIRST Force played the "slow and steady" card this week. Their high score was Jeff Reed's 11, but six of their players scored 6 points or more, and all of their players scored at least two points. In this "every little bit counts" sitch, those lower scores ended up being the difference.
Youngstown Hitmen (3-6) d. The XaulZans (5-4)
87-65
For some odd reason, I'm chuckling at Adam Vinatieri's -4 in the Hitmen's K spot. But rest assured, Youngstown fans, that was the only bad thing to come the Hitmen's way. Everyone else on their roster scored at least 4 points, including T.O.'s 20, Joshua Cribbs's (again I say, who?) 18, Kurt Warner's 14 (I know, I'm just as shocked as the rest of you), & Chicago's 12 (and now I'm just speechless). The XaulZans, unfortunately, are in one of those losing skids where nothing seems to go right. They had some nice scores from Romo (18), Jacksonville (11), Berrian (10), & Crayton (9), but you've probably noticed that those scores were no equal to Youngstown's, and that there wasn't much in the way of backup for the Zans. So now the Hitmen have their first winning streak of the season. Can they keep it up?
Code:
Rank Team W-L-T Pct. Pts. Streak F.Rank Change
1.x Silver Lobos 8-2-0 .800 788 L-1 1 ±0
2.x Team Jack 8-2-0 .800 710 W-1 3 ±0
3. FIRST Force 7-3-0 .700 703 W-4 4 +1
4. Rhode Island Drive 6-4-0 .600 748 L-1 2 -1
5. Indiana Ironmen 5-5-0 .500 693 W-1 6 +2
6. The XaulZans 5-5-0 .500 639 L-4 8 -1
7. Stevies Scapegoats 5-5-0 .500 590 W-3 11 +2
8. Isotopes 5-5-0 .500 586 L-1 12 -2
9. Dunedain 4-6-0 .400 700 W-1 5 +2
10. Youngstown Hitmen 4-6-0 .400 648 W-2 7 +2
11. What Am I Doing Here 4-6-0 .400 622 L-5 10 -3
12. The Stud Man Clan 4-6-0 .400 551 L-1 14 -2
13. Nor Cal Crushers 3-7-0 .300 635 W-1 9 +1
14. Koko's X-Cats 2-8-0 .200 576 L-3 13 -1
x=Clinched Playoff Birth
We've got some teams trying to surge up from the bottom to take a playoff spot, and some teams that are falling out of secure positions.
Playoff Picture:
- Team Jack does what I told them to do last week, and joins the Silver Lobos in the playoffs.
- Force is halfway there; one more win will clinch them a spot. Also, a single loss from all of the 4-6 teams will do it.
- Drive still need two wins to clinch. A win and a single loss from all of the 4-6 teams will work as well.
- Ironmen, Zans, Scapegoats, & Topes will clinch if they win out. Of course, it's impossible for more than two of them to do so, which leads us to...
- ...Dunedain & Hitmen will still have a shot at at least 7th if they win out. Again, not a guaranteed playoff birth, because there's a chance up to three more teams could be tied with them.
- And adding more fuel to the math fire, WAIDH will clinch a playoff spot if they win out. Um, see below. Again.
- The Clan will be directly eliminated if they lose out. It's the same thing from two weeks ago.
- The Crushers will be eliminated if they lose twice.
- The X-Cats will be eliminated if they lose one more time.
- As an aside, the Topes & Dunedain will be mathematically eliminated if they lose out, carrying over from the last two weeks.
More math!
- This week's mathematical quandaries are brought to you by the Ironmen/Zans & Scapegoats/Topes games, both in Week XIII. It's what allows the win-out scenario for WAIDH (two of the Ironmen, Zans, Scapegoats, & Topes will drop a bracket, and WAIDH has both Dunedain & Hitmen, so winning out would drop those two teams below WAIDH, meaning WAIDH would be guaranteed at least 8th), and allows Dunedain & Hitmen to have at least a shot at 7th (mostly because they're guaranteed to have two teams joining their bracket, but they can make their situation even better, depending on how said games turn out).
- Since I'm in that 4-6 bracket, the Clan have absolutely no games that help them, which is why they're singled out. They could feasibly go 3-0 and be stuck at 9th even before we take fantasy points into consideration. The good news for them is that they can eliminate the X-cats this week then possibly the Crushers next week, but their last game is against the Lobos, which other than adding a win to the W column (which is still important, mind you), doesn't do a whole lot to help them considering the Lobos have already clinched.
- The Crushers took out the Topes this past week. They now have the Scapegoats followed by the Clan. If they can take those two, they'll be in a rather large tangle for the last few playoff spots come Week XIII. A bit of bad news though: their Week XIII opponent is Team Jack.
- For the Ironmen, Zans, Scapegoats, & Topes, these next two weeks are going to be very important. A single loss opens up the door for up to four more teams to join you in your playoff hunt.
- The Force/Drive game in Week XIII doesn't look as good as it did last week (I mean, it was the game holding together that entire circle that got undone by the Ironmen beating the Clan last week, for crying out loud!), but it should still be a decent game played by two of the current top 4.
- And as I end every week, The Man Award (for the #1 seed) is mathematically available to the current top 8 teams, but realistically, I'll be handing it to one of the current top 3 (with an outside chance for the Drive). None of the top 3 play each other, so it's really anybody's ballgame.
I'll be back either Tuesday night or Wednesday for the Week XI postgame. Until then...