Last Post of the Year

I guess I should have posted this when the season ended, but I didn't get around to it with the holiday's and such. Anyway...


Our 2006 No Logo Required FFL Champion is: Me

I completely rode Steven Jacksons back through the playoffs and was able to cobble together enough from my other starters to hit triple digits each week. Also, with the championship, I think me stealing MoJo from waivers may have trumped Alex stealing Brees from waivers when I dropped him early in the year. And it was nice sitting Parker on the bench and winning without any Steeler in my starting lineup (or Raven or even Bengal).

Overall, it was a real weak year for WR's (noone was reliable each week), TE's were horrible (Gates rebounded late and Winslow had a decent year, then a big dropoff) and there were only 3 QB's (Peyton, McNabb, Brees) who were consistently good and 1 of them (McNabb) was out the last 7 weeks, and Brees has subpar games in the playoffs. RB's ruled the day throughout the year and the teams that were able to draft some steals (Gore, Parker, Addai, Maroney, MoJo and Chester were not top 2 round picks) were able to get the most out of their teams.

Hope everyone had a fun year and see you next year.

And then there were two

So after the first week of no upsets, the second round has upsets in 3 of the 4 games. And the one non-upset stopped a 7 game losing streak.


Championship Table is Set
===================

Lance rode the back of LDT once again and scraped his way into the championship game despite McNair getting hurt and giving him 0 points. A huge game from Desmond Clark at TE definitely helped and Shayne Graham's big Monday night was just icing on the cake.

I was able to ride through with the help of several solid but not spectacular games from St. Jax, M-Drew, and Romo, which made Viniatieri's big monday night my icing and got me to triple-digits.

Alex fell to Lance through 3 bad events hitting him the same week: 1. He started 2 guys who didn't play 2. Brees finally had a bad week and 3. His IDP's actually let him down.

Tommy fell despite Gore and Bulluck's solid outputs because even the guys he had with big yards just did not get TD's, which ultimately killed his chances.


Consolation Rounds
===============

Tommy and Alex will now battle it out for 3rd place.

Saurabh stopped his 7 game skid by beating Kristel. He was losing going into Monday night, but he had Peyton while Kristel only had Wayne. Wayne had a good night, but Peyton had a spectacular game pushing Saurabh into the 5th place matchup (and Kristel to the 7th).

Tim was led through to the 5th place matchup with Saurabh by Vick's 4 TD explosion. Besides him only Stevens got into double-digits, but it was enough to hold off Joe, whose team has fallen off the past 4 weeks since McNabb was injured. Even Harrison's 24 point game (one of the highest for a WR this year) wasn't enough to make the score close.

5th place matchup: Saurabh vs. Tim

7th place matchup: Kristel vs. Joe

Week 1 Playoffs

No real surprises in the first week as all the top 4 seeds advance easily.

In fact, the closest game ended up being a 12 point win by the LDT led Lance team.

The other semi-close game with me vs. Joe was decided on Monday night as St. Jax and Urlacher reeled off huge games to send me to a harder than the score looked win.

Tommy and Alex rolled to easy wins yet again firming up their positions as the top two seeds.

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This week:

Alex vs. Lance

Lance - Has rode the LDT train this far and doesn't want to stop as he faces a weak KC defense. If he wants help, he's hoping McNair can take advantage of a banged up Cle secondary, and is also banking on Joe Horn still being out as he has Devery Henderson in his lineup. Also, he's hoping the Bears take advantage of TB as he has both Clark and Jones going for him.

Alex - Great matchup at QB with Brees facing the weak Wash secondary. Some of his other matchups don't work out as well though as Westbrook faces the re-invigorated NYG, Henry the Jags, and Galloway the Bears. He also has D-Jax in the lineup despite the fact he is probably out for Thursday's game. We'll see if he realizes this and changes him out in time.


Tommy vs. Mike

Tommy - some tough matchups as Holt faces the Oakland pass D, Gore the Seattle run D and Fitz faces Champ Bailey. Shockey has a real soft matchup though and his defensive players all ahve favorable opponents.

Mike - Half the team is banged up (St Jax, Driver, Vernon) and the other half is so up and down it's hard to count on them for sure (Romo, Roy Will, Parker). If the banged up guys play and the up and down guys are on an upswing, most have favorable opponents. Otherwise, it might be tough sledding.

Playoffs!?...you're talking Playoffs?!

And our 8 teams are set. Congrats to those that are in and regrets to those that didn't make it. Special solace to Justin who finished in a 4 way tie for 6th by going 6-2 down the stretch, but didn't have enough points to make the cut.

Good luck to everyone in the playoffs. Should be fun times.

Some Regular Season Awards:

Spoiler of the Year: No doubt that Chetan gets this award. After starting 1-7, he finished by winning 4 out of 5 games including his last 2 over playoff teams that helped wreck their seeds.

Flops of the Year: Joe's two friends with teams logged in sparingly and showed you can't win in fantasy football without putting in some kind of effort.

Most surprising fall: I would give this to Saurabh's team that was able to squeak into the playoffs despite a 5 game losing streak. at 7-1 it looked like he had the team to beat; that may still be the case, but it hasn't looked that way as he dropped to the #6 seed.

Busiest: Tim had the most waiver moves at the end of the regular season with 37, while I ended with 35. I also had 4 trades completed though, so maybe I take home this title (though the trades netted me the likes of David Carr and Michael Clayton among other such stellar players).

Brother Battles: Justin beat Pat. Joe beat Tommy. Little Bros 1...Big Bros 1.

Biggest losing streak: 10 by say something.

Biggest winning streak: 6 by myself.

Point Winner: Alex (followed by Lance and Tommy)

Point Loser: DUP (followed by say something)

Highest scoring player: Tomlinson (by 80!!! points).

Highest scoring defensive player: Demeco Ryans (a rookie!)

Highest scoring week: 119 by Kristel

Playoff Picture coming into focus

Back from vacation, so the blog is back to being updated. Sorry for the delay.

Anyway, the playoff picture has become more clear as 4 teams (Alex, Tommy, Lance and myself) are assured as spot in the playoffs. Another 3 teams (Saurabh, Kristel, and Joe) are all but assured as they have amassed enough points to probably get in even with a loss.

So, the real battle this week is for positioning and for the 8th spot. As it happens, brothers Justin and Pat play each other with a chance for the playoffs on the line. Though they probably need a Tim loss as he has a significant point advantage built up on both of them.

Fantasy team of the past couple weeks: Alex has put his stamp on the league and barring a collapse this week will be the #1 seed. He has had an impressive 2nd half run despite losing his #1 pick Portis for the season.

Fantasy Flop of the past couple weeks. 4 weeks ago, Saurabh was cruising along as the best team in our league. Since then he has lost 4 straight games decreasing his point total in each game. The weird thing is that injuries weren't the biggest dropoff for Saurabh, just a bunch of players disappearing at the same time (Santana, Ahman, Glenn).

Game of the week: I'm going to give this one to Devo not because the game was close but because his team was able to crack into triple digits in a win after a mostly disappointing season for him. It certainly helped that his mid-season acquisition of Addai broke out for 4 TD's and Boldin had another solid game. Outside of them, it was mostly just a solid week for his guys where nobody disappeared. He has a final chance to play spoiler as he plays Tommy this week who is vying for the #1 spot.

Surprise Outcome of the week: No doubt on this one. Chetan's team has come on strong lately winning 2/3 and scoring well in each of the past 3 weeks to become the spoiler of the season as his team is out of playoff contention. That didn't stop him from driving Tim's team to the edge though by racking up 93 points with a solid all-team effort to beat back a solid 83 point total from Tim. Interestingly enough, Chetan's rising spoiler team plays Saurabh's falling once-elite team in the final regular season week. If he can pull the upset, it is possible Saurabh's team could fall all the way to the #7 spot.

Week 10 Review

The playoffs are fast approaching and there are 10 teams currently fighting for the 8 spots. 2 otehr teams (Che and Devo) still have a shot too but would need to make up a ton of ground in the last 3 weeks.

Also of note the trade deadline is Nov. 24th, which is the day after Thanksgiving.

Injuries of the week: Damage Report: Clinton Clipped.

Fantasy team of the week: Lance maintained his string of being among the highest scorers with pretty much LDT and his 33 points. He also had a big game from McNair which definitely helped.

Fantasy Flop of the week. Pat's team was in a battle for the final playoff spot and noone on his team showed up except for Chad Johnson. It was a wasted effort by him though as the rest of Pat's team couldn't even match CJ's almost 28 points.

Game of the week: Joe v. Saurabh. Saurabh pretty much has a standing appointment in this spot as he once again squeaks out a victory to stay atop our league. Despite low-scoring days from virtually everyone on his roster, he was able to get just enough points out of a waiver wire transaction for Mark Clayton and the always consistent Ronde Barber and Gould to beat Joe's team which struggled as the Eagles had yet another bad game.

Pillow-Fight of the week:Justin was able to stay alive in the playoff race in what basically equated into an elimination game between him and Devo. He can pretty much thank Carson Palmer because even Housh wasn't that special for him. He did get good games out of Champ Bailey and Antonio Pierce which definitely helped stem the tide. Devo's starters continued to disappoint and even the steady Bulger didn't show up for him this week. He has to win out to get to 6-7 and hope he can win a tiebreaker to even think about the playoffs now.

Surprise Outcome of the week: This could be Tommy's team scoring in the 60's as he has one of the best teams in the league. However, the big surprise was Chetan's team scoring in the 90's despite the fact he doesn't even maintain his team. With bye weeks over and everyone healthy, Che has a formidable team and can play spoiler these last 3 weeks.

Week 9 Review

No more bye weeks. This is good news for some, bad for others. And also bad news for anyone playing the 3 teams that haven't been updating their rosters. Oh, I still have all 3 to play, doh!

Injuries of the week: Sorry, they didn't have one this week.

Fantasy team of the week: Alex continued his recent string of dominance despite supbar games from Henry, D-Jax and Portis. Brees and Galloway provided the offensive firepower and Urlacher and Fletcher chipped in with defensive gems.

Fantasy Flop of the week. In a game where she could have buried Justin from the playoffs, Kristel's team apparently forgot they play on Sundays in the NFL. MM was her only double-digit scorer and Brady sealed the loss by garnering -3 points on MNF.

Game of the week: Tommy v. Saurabh . In a battle of two of the top teams in our league, it was a ruthless struggle for top-billing and both teams decided to show up to play. Tommy had Huard outscore Peyton, which seemed to be the difference as he got solid showings from everyone else (except Reggie-Will) but no other great scores. Saurabh pitched his tent to Peyton, Gonzo, and Jason Taylor but they weren't quite enough when Horn sat out the game due to injury.

Pillow-Fight of the week:Che beats DUP in a battle to stay out of the cellar. The teams combined to have 7 players score 0 points due to bye weeks, injury and ineffective play.

Surprise Outcome of the week: Going with a season theme here. Justin and Patrick are still in the thick of the playoff hunt despite having poor total scores, while Chetan and Devo are barely within fighting distance for spots even though they have each well outscored the former mentioned.

Week 8 Review (belated)

Sorry for the delay on posting this, some crazy stuff at work on the 'are we going to change to marvell this week or not' going on. Anyway...

Injuries of the week: Damage Report: Bush Whacked

Fantasy team of the week: Kristel's team saw new heights as her team now has the high score on the year with 119 points. It helps when you have 2 players almost score 30 each (Brady, Wayne) and everyone else shows up with decent points (except Tatum Bell who was hurt).

Fantasy Flop of the week. Joe's team finally gets bit for relying almost soley on the Philly offense. Big winds made passing almost non-existent, which left Joe w/o points from McNabb, Reggie Brown, and LJ Smith. Couple that with Harrison being covered by Champ and a bad defensive week, and you have the makings of a really low score.

Game of the week: Kristel vs. Lance. The only close game of the week and it was a high scoring affair as well. Lance seemed to have things wrapped up with a big lead going into Monday night, but Brady was just unreal hitting 8 different receivers and racking up the yards and TD's. Therefore, a wasted effort by LDT and Owen Daniels for Lance.

Pillow-Fight of the week:Justin over DUP. Justin is able to get the win despite only scoring 55 points. Palmer and Housh have been the only stable guys for him and this week even Housh had a bad game. But you can win those games when your opponent starts 4 yes 4 guys either on bye or out due to injury.

Surprise Outcome of the week: Tim staying over .500 by crushing a previously cruising Tommy team.

Week 7 Review

Sort of a weird week where a handful of players had absolutely huge games, but overall the scoring in our league didn't seem that high.

Injuries of the week: Damage Report

Fantasy team of the week: Lance's team is turning into a buzzsaw. Randy Moss is actually getting passed to during the game, Ward woke up to the tune of 3 TDs, and that doesn't even mention LDT.

Fantasy Flop of the week. My team saw Jordan dress, but not play, Reggie Williams not have a pass thrown to him, Willie Parker somehow not get points in a gaem wehre his team had 38, and I was already giving up the TE position. David Carr scoring huge on Jacksonville is the only thing that made my team respectable.

Game of the week: Pat vs. Che. This all came down to Monday night. Although Plax and TO had big nights for Che; Eli, Jacobs, and Toomer did just enough for Pat to hold on for the win. Pat can thank Che for starting Duece on the bye as it proved to be the difference in his win.

Pillow-Fight of the week:See game of the week. Our league has seen the lowest scoring games almost always be the closest games as well.

Surprise Outcome of the week:No real surprises, the best teams won and the bottom teams lost.

Week 6 Review

And fantasy players bounce back in huge fashion this week with 3 of our teams getting to triple digits and Tommy knocking on that door.

Injuries of the week: http://fantasysports.yahoo.com/analysis/news?slug=ch-damagereport-week6&prov=yhoo&type=lgns&league=fantasy/nfl

Fantasy team of the week: Lance's team was the highest scoring almost entirely due to LDT scoring 4 TD's. He also had decent games from Bledsoe, Ward, and Tillman.

Fantasy Flop of the week. Saurabh's team finally had a bad game as even in this week of fantasy scoring galore, he couldn't top 65. In fact, it was previously quiet Joe Horn who carried his team this week.

Game of the week: Devo vs. Bode. Bode dominated Sunday's action and led by 20 points going into Monday night with Grossman and Clark to play against the weak Az defense. Devo had Boldin as his only hope. Of course, his real hope resided in the fact Grossman played the worst game of any QB this year, turning the ball over 6 times and destroying my team with -10 points. Boldin did just enough for Devo to take over the game and earn the win.

Pillow-Fight of the week:Justin vs. Saurabh. Justin was able to take advantage of Saurabh's poor week, but just barely.

Surprise Outcome of the week:Could use Saurabh again here, but we'll spread the love and go with DUP scoring 85 points even in the loss because he started 3 people on bye and two of his defensive players are never high scorers (and weren't). Amazingly his team almost got it done with Hasselback, Steve Smith, and Kevin Jones carrying the load.

Week 5 Review

In our league, usually 75 points would be just good enough to get you beat. This week our high scorers only had 76. I know there were a lot of good players on bye, but that is just one plain weird week.

Injuries of the week:
http://fantasysports.yahoo.com/analysis/news?slug=ch-damagereport-week5&prov=yhoo&type=lgns&league=fantasy/nfl

Fantasy team of the week:
None.

Fantasy Flop of the week
Most teams had a bit of a flop this week. I would say the worst was by Lance. He let his TE and kicker play on a bye, but it really didn't matter as he got virtually nothing from his normally dominant defensive players and when Randy Moss is your high scorer for the week, you know you are in trouble.

Game of the week: Alex vs. Joe
Two of the teams to actually post decent weeks of course played against each other. Unfortunately for Alex, Joe was able to change his recent luck by sneaking out a win in this game by a mere .21 points. He really should start sending McNabb thank you letters for each win because he single-handedly is keeping him in some of these games.

Pillow-Fight of the week:
Tim vs. Justin. Tim managed just 65 points, but Justin let his Bengals play on their bye and it was too much to overcome.

Surprise Outcome of the week:
None really. The teams that were supposed to win won and the teams that were even played close games.

Week 4 Review

Parity Rules. We now have but 1 team undefeated and no teams without a win. 3 games came down to the wire this week, but we actually had a game decided by .008 points. See below.

Injuries of the week:
http://fantasysports.yahoo.com/analysis/news?slug=ch-damagereport-week4&prov=yhoo&type=lgns&league=fantasy/nfl

Fantasy team of the week:
For the 2nd straight week, 1 team came up huge to make the rest of us look weak. This week it was Saurabh ensuring he would remain undefeated by posting 117 points with the help of Glenn's 2 TD's, Santana's 3 TD's and Peyton being Peyton.

Fantasy Flop of the week
NE shut Cincy down. So, when your team rely's on Palmer and Housh, you could say you are in trouble. Justin was and noone else stepped up to stop him from having a bad week.

Game of the week/YEAR: Pat vs. Joe
In a battle of little brothers, this one came down to .008 points. Pat thought he had a comfortable lead going into Monday night with Ahman Green playing and Frye and Cotchery having given him good games the day before. However, Green was a gametime scratch and Joe almost took advantage almost solely on the back of McNabb this week.

Pillow-Fight of the week:
This should also be Pat v s. Joe because while the game was ridiculously close, neither had a good week and neither broke 70 points.

Surprise Outcome of the week:
After 3 consecutive week's of 80+ points, Joe's team comes back to Earth with a 66 point performance and a devastating loss that puts him at .500.

Week 3 Review

Crazy week as per usual. And, we are down to 2 undefeated teams and 1 non-win team so parity has struck our league rather hard.

Injuries of the week:
http://fantasysports.yahoo.com/analysis/news?slug=ch-damagereport-week3&prov=yhoo&type=lgns&league=fantasy/nfl

+ Shaun Alexander - broken foot (i think RB's need those)

Fantasy team of the week:
Ummm...yeah. I think it might be Alex's team. Maybe. I mean if you want to call scoring 25 points more than anyone else has all year good. Then, yeah. 47 points from Westbrook and Portis sure helped. Another 35 from D-Jax and Winfield didn't hurt either.

Fantasy Flop of the week
Lance was undefeated and had scored well in his first two games but that all ended this week as he could only manage 50 points with LDT and Bledsoe on a bye. Noone else on his team stepped up leaving him with a struggle for the week.

Game of the week: Justin vs. Say Something.
Justin was down early, but he made a furious comeback in the late games and in Monday nights game. He almost was able to pull it out, but NO just ground the clock in the 2nd half and didn't put up enough FG's for Carney to sneak out the win. SS pulled out the win when all 3 of his WR's went off (over 100 yds each and combined 3 TD's).

Pillow-Fight of the week:
No true pillow fight this week as Tommy had the lowest winning score, but he still had over 79 points.

Surprise Outcome of the week:
Joe's Lover puts the Bobby Brown love on Joe. Only scoring 25 points in his first 2 games, JL came out of nowhere to put up 95 and take out the previously #1 team in our league.

Week 2 Review

A huge week by QB's and some surprising developments becoming assurances. I mean who saw the Bears and Jets as having two of the best passing games in the league? Or Colston as being one of the most valuable low-tier players? Maybe they are a mirage and disappear later this season, but for now, they are the fun surprises that make fantasy football so enjoyable.

Week 1's best bench warmers and waiver wire fodder:
With all the QB's going off this week, the waiver wire was flooded with WR's who caught those balls: Toomer, Colston, Desmond Clark, Grossman, Devery Henderson, Berrian, Jennings and Cotchery.

Injuries of the week:
Viniatieri - pulled his groin and Indy had their punter try the extra point (and it was not pretty)
TO - broken finger, but with the week 3 bye...he may only miss one game.
Chad Johnson - he got leveled and Palmer said he was still "loopy" after the game. Of course, how do you tell if CJ is bad loopy or normal loopy?
Rich Braham - I normally don't list OL here, but he is a center and played against Cleveland. For those of you keeping at home; this makes 5 centers the Browns have lost, 1 ex-Brown center lost to injury, and now an opposing center lost to injury. The moral: don't be a center with ANY connections to the Browns.
Aaron Brooks - like it matters. Actually, this downgrades any IDP's playing against him.
Rod Smith - left the game with a concussion. And apparently took the Broncos passing game with him.
Itulu Mili - apparently Seattle TE's are very similar to Cleveland centers.
Braylon Edwards - he heroically played through SHS during the game. He is not expected to miss anytime, but hopefully he does find a cure for his Stone Hand Syndrome.

Fantasy team of the week:
(Could have easily been Tommy or Joe, but they are taken care of in the next item)
Lance's team may have only had 4 players show up to play this week, but when those 4 players total 60 points by themselves, there isn't much more need for points.

Game of the week: The battle of the Raffays.
Tommy had about a good of a week as possible from his defense as they gave him nearly 40 points. The rest of his team struggled to score TD's though and Shockey and Fitz had rare off-weeks, which opened up an opportunity for Joe to steal the week. Joe's team took advantage with another phenomenal performance by Donovan McNabb and decent starts by everyone else on his roster, which was enough to squeak out the win.

Pillow-Fight of the week:
Tim over Joe's Lover. Neither of Joe's friends have bothered to update their rosters with actual players who play on Sunday, so it was no surprise that his team finished sub-30 points for the second consecutive week. Tim's team is doing more than doubly-better, which still wasn't exactly an inspiring performance, but I'm sure he will gladly take the win. And one of these days Larry Johnson should have a 2005 type performance.

Surprise Outcome of the week:
Justin's team rebounds from a horrendous week 1 with solid contributions from Palmer, Bryant, Dillon and Carney. He also continued to get good production from his IDP's, which helped him over the fact that he had 3 offensive players decide they didn't need to play for the 2nd consecutive week.