Watchdog 16 - FEAR THE HEAD!

FEAR THE HEAD!

You think that's scary, just be glad I didn't post a picture of Coach Eickhorst! Congratulations to the Mighty E-Head, Coach Eickhorst and elephants everywhere. It is a strange and wonderful season when a team goes from dead last in points scored and in the standings after week 5 to the top of the heap. Much has been made already in this column of the E-Head's amazing rise from the dung heap. But consider this - when they lost to Dale's Doormats in week 11, despite getting 87 points, they fell to 4-7 and a tie for 5th place in their division. Their 87 points in week 11 tied them for third for the week, but should have sealed their fate as a Toilet Bowl contender. They then scored under 92 points just once the rest of the season and won 6 straight games. And with the help they got from the teams in front of them, the E-Head claims the Whole Enchilada!

Proper respect must be shown to the second place Team Brokerage who went on their own little winning streak from a 4-4 record to finish the regular season at 9-4 before falling with a solid 92-point effort to the Head. A week 6 pick-up of Antonio Bryant was huge, and Peyton Hillis looked like a season-changer until he got hurt. With Addai in and out all season, their second-biggest mistake of the season was dropping Dominic Rhodes all those times. They also had Pierre Thomas (115 points in the last 6 weeks, including 15 this week) but let him go. But the #1 mistake of the season was in chosing not to keep Michael Turner (16 TDs and 2nd high scoring RB in the league) for $20. Now I give Coach Lubert crap for a lot of things, but we all make moves we wish we could take back. What makes Brokerage a consistently good team are the little things like this - with Matt Forte a game-time decision on Monday Night, they picked up the Other Adrian Peterson in case Forte wasn't going to play. I daresay most of us would not have thought of that!

Congrats also to Semi-R, who edged out BYOB to win the Constipation Bowl. Hard to believe BYOB's guys could have had worse matchups. Barber was never right after his littlest piggie cried 'wee wee wee' all the way home. As for Braylon Edwards, I think he just dropped another pass. McNabb - well what can you say? The entire team had just one TD for the week. A bitterly disappointing end to a fine season by the BYOBs.

Close, but....

For Semi-R, they get enough out of Warner/Leinart (somehow?!?!), Ronnie Brown, Westbrook and Gates and sealed the deal with the Charger D's INT for a TD. Nice for them to get a little something for a fine season.

And least and last, we have the Toilet Bowl. Congrats also to Pep & Cheez for edging out the Ds essentially on this catch by Santonio Holmes. The aforementioned Pierre Thomas comes back to haunt the Ds, who also had and released him. There was also a leaping, finger-tip catch by rookie TE John Carlson to beat both the Jets and the Ds. On the flip side, the Ds, as usual, left all kinds of points on the bench. Tashard Choice had 17, Jerricho Crotchery had 8, Dominic Hixon had 9, any one of which would have been enough to at least tie the game. And if you think winning the Toilet Bowl didn't mean much to me after all the s*** I took this season, you don't know me very well. But then, the D's biggest handicap has always been its coach.

OK, time for the post-season awards!

In addition to the division title and 2nd Prize in a Beauty Contest, Coach Lubert will take home the Ditka Cup for reasons described above.

The Bernard Madoff "Is That Legal?" prize goes to the Killer Ds for perpetrating questionably legal scheme to collect draft picks from unsuspecting teams.

The Plaxico Burress "Didn't Know It Was Loaded" Worst Excuse Of the Year Award goes to Rom Brago. Welcome back Rom!

The Jamal Anderson "Dirty Bird" first devestating injury of the season goes to Tom Brady and the Mavs.

The Barak Obama Fantasy Football Bailout Award goes to Pepperoni & Cheez, who finished the regular season with 6 straight losses, the fewest points scored in the league, finishing 202 points out of 13th place and somehow won the Toilet Bowl.

The George W Bush "This War is Over!" Award goes to Dale's Doormats, who led the league in scoring, yet somehow came in third in their division and were a first round out in the playoffs.

The John McCain "Thanks For Trying" Award goes to Brett Favre and the Walla Walla Wombats. I'm sure Coach Sharp was speaking for Jets fans everywhere when he said "Don't let the door hit you in the a** Brett."

2008 PCFFL PAYOUTS
1,820 Total Pot
130 Cost of Website
1,690 Net

Individual Payouts
845.00 50.00% Winners Purse E-Head
338.00 20.00% 2nd Place Brokerage
84.50 5.00% 3rd Place Semi-P
169.00 10.00% High Scorer Dale's Doormats
84.50 5.00% Division Winner 1 BYOB
84.50 5.00% Division Winner 2 Brokerage
84.50 5.00% Toilet Bowl Winner Pep & Cheez
1,690 100.00% TOTAL

Payouts By Team
845.00 50.00% Winners Purse E-Head
422.50 25.00% 2nd Place D1 Win Brokerage
84.50 5.00% 3rd Place Semi-P
84.50 5.00% Division Winner 2 BYOB
169.00 10.00% High Scorer Dale's Doormats
84.50 5.00% Toilet Bowl Winner Pep & Cheez
1,690 100.00% TOTAL

That's all I have for you. Now go get a life! See you in September!
- Watchdog Out!

Watchdog 15 - Random Thoughts for a Random Season

The wheel in the sky keeps turning / Where will I be tomorrow? How random is the fantasy football season?

BYOB and Semi-R are now playing for 3rd place. Semi-R wasn't even able to hold onto their division title, despite leading for the first 11 weeks of the season. BYOB led wire to wire and lost their first playoff game.

Sage Rosenfels / Matt Schaub have more fantasy points than McNabb, Peyton Manning and Patriots QBs. Tyler Thigpen, on a 2-12 NFL team, is 11th in the league, ahead of Favre, Rothlisberger and Eli. Free agent San Francisco QBs are 12th and have 10 weeks out of 14 with at least 18 fantasy points.

Team Brokerage, who had exactly one healthy RB on their roster, rose up and put down Semi-R, holding on despite having to rely on Cleveland to hold down Westbrook and D Jackson.

And BYOB puts up the second most points in the week, but ran into the machine that is the Mighty E-Head. Andre Johnson, Randy Moss and Dallas Clark combine for 64 and Slaton and Peyton do enough to put down the Colossus. The E-Head started the season 0-4, putting up a total of 247 points in those 4 games (61 per game) and now they are in the Enchilada Bowl. Since week 5, they have averaged just under 90 per game. Remarkable. Big pick-ups were Eddie Royal, Dallas Clark and Derrick Ward. Otherwise, it is largely the same team they started the season with.

The top three running backs in the league in fantasy points were all available in the draft portion of our auction/draft, and every team had a chance to take Thomas Jones (last pick of the first round) and DeAngelo Williams was a 3rd round pick. Forte was a 2nd round pick, Slaton went in the 6th, Chris Johnson was the 11th pick of the first round. So 6 of the top 10 producing RBs on the season were in the draft. Michael Turner was the 2nd pick overall, but everyone had a chance to draft 4 of the other 6 at least once.

Dale's Doormats led the league in points scored for the season and lost their first round playoff game as well as 5 other games in the regular season. The Fatties, who finished with high points 2 weeks and were within 5 points of high points 3 other weeks, went 5-8, missed the playoffs and lost in the second round of the Toilet Bowl.

For WRs, it's been a bit more predictable, with only Roddy White, Greg Jennings, Antonio Bryant and Vincent Jackson as top 12 WRs who were available in the draft. That said, White was a 3rd round pick and Bryant and Jackson went completely undrafted, as did Kevin Walter, Lance Moore and Eddie Royal, also top-20 WRs.

In the Toilet Bowl, we have one of the more improbable match-ups, with Pep & Cheez, who finished the regular season with a 4-9 record, going against the Killer Ds, fresh off their 3-win season.

All that said, it should be noted that Team Brokerage is one win away from their second Enchilada Bowl title. Team Gump missed their 4th straight Enchilada Playoff appearance by one game. Since their inceptions as teams in this league, the Mavs, Wombats, Fatties, Doormats and Gumpsters are all averaging over 82.7 points per game. So, like life, there is a significant amount of just rewards amid the apparent randomness. And that is your deep thought for today.

Watchdog XIII - Freddy vs Mighty E-Head

Fear the Head! You can't kill the Head, you can only hope to contain them. This may be the single greatest comeback in the history of fantasy football.

Let's review for a second. Coming out of the draft you had a team that was widely considered (by me) to be hands down the worst team in the league. Remember, this was a team led by Peyton Manning with more knee surgeries than healthy knees, Kenny Watson as their #1 RB, Randy Moss but suddenly without Tom Brady. At the half-way point in the season, they were 2-5. But they kept plugging away. A lesson for all those teams that gave up half way through the season (whoever that may be)?

Nevertheless, they stood at 5-7 and solidly in 5th place in the Quakes Division entering the last week of the season. They needed the Wombats to lose to Semi-R (OK that's possible) and the Fatties to lose to the Killer Ds, who had not won since week 7. And they needed to beat the defending champion Sprockets.

Well, Semi-R took care of business, laying the wood to the Wombats 123 to 60, with only Antonio Gates scoring under 10 points. Not enough to hold off Team Brokerage for division champs, but enough to make the playoffs for the first time in team history.

The Fatties inexplicably left DeAngelo Williams, who had averaged just over 20 fantasy points per week the last four weeks and was facing the 30th ranked rushing defense in the league, on the bench. His 32 points in place of Frank Gore's 8 would have made last night's game irrelevant to the entire world instead of just relevant to Coach Eickhorst. And with the Killer Ds coming up with 95, the stage was set.

Now I've said before, "Down 49 going into Monday Night" is not a phrase you want to hear. Peyton Manning put up a grand total of 5 points, with 125 yards passing and two picks, plus a fumble literally inches away from the end zone. Colts QBs have 235 points, trailing Sage Rosenfels and just 5 points better than Tyler Thigpen. So to say Manning has been disappointing is putting it mildly. Randy Moss has 121 points on the season, including a whopping 5 on Sunday, with about 17 dropped passes in the end zone. He trails Greg Jennings and Roddy White, among others, who were not in the auction, and is just 4 points ahead of the immortal Lance Moore.

So while Andre Johnson had an early TD and Kris Brown put up 3 FGs, it looked like it would all be for naught until about 5 minutes left to go in our fantasy season when J Zgonina recovered a fumble by David Garrard and the next play Steve Slaton burst through the line for a 7-yard TD.

Still the E-Head trailed, but the Fatties were getting a litte nervous now. And when the Jags finally engineered a TD drive and failed at the on-side kick with 2:11 to play, the confluence of events proved mightier than the Monongahela and the Alleghany. Again, a one-play drive with Steve Slaton going off-guard, slicing through the defense and 40 yards later, the Head had gone from paupers to playoffs.

Now THAT is a comeback!

So the playoffs are set:

BYOB and Brokerage win their divisions and earn first round byes. Semi-R and Dale's Doormats will face off in the Canes Division to earn the right to play Brokerage. Congrats to the Doormats on holding off BYOB by 7 points for the points race, going wire-to-wire.

And in the other bracket, the Mavs and E-Head will battle for the right to play BYOB.

One other side note - you knew I couldn't leave this alone - yes, the Killer Ds earned just one victory after the controversial firesale. However, I would point out that we led the league in points against, 159 points more scored against us than against Brokerage. Put another way, over 12 points per week more were scored against the Ds than Brokerage. Put yet another way, we scored more points than 6 of the 7 teams in the Quakes Division and finished DFL. Only twice all year did we score less than 70 points and never less than 60.