Watchdog - Buddy the Elf

Leon the Snowman: Why the long face, Watchdog?
Watchdog: It seems I'm not a good Fantasy Coach.
Leon the Snowman: Of course you're not good Fantasy Coach. Your team is 22-34 over the last four seasons. That don't happen by accident! Let's take a look together and see how you blew it this year, shall we? But first, a look at the Gump-Bandits matchup.

SANTA! OH MY GOD! SANTA'S COMING! I KNOW HIM! I KNOW HIM!
GUMP! How do they do it, year in and year out? Two words come to mind: Quarterback. For the 4th time in 5 years, Gump drafted either Drew Brees or Peyton Manning putting up a cumulative record of 81-64 since 2002. Brees has averaged just over 30 per game this season, and has scored less than 21 only once. This week, Brees was going against the same Minnesota D that allowed Tim Tebow to put up 35 points and that is a recipe for disaster (not the Natural kind, we'll get to them). 412 yards and 5 TDs later...

Santa: That's another thing... Buddy you should know that your father... he's on the naughty list.Buddy: Nooooo!
Interestingly or not, the game between Gump and the Bandits came down to two things: QBs and defense. As good as Brees was, Romo had 33 himself and is on a pace for 4400 yards and 33 TDs on the season. If I had you guess which QB has the second-highest QB rating of all time, in 100 guesses, how many of you would say "Tony Romo" (if this part of the blog wasn't all about TR)? Back to the game. The RBs were an identical 26-26. The Bandits won the Receiver battle 25-6, including tight ends 27-14. But that by itself would not have given Gump the win without the Jets' D somehow getting 11 points in their debacle loss to the Eagles. In a similarly choked game, the vaunted Ravens' D came up with exactly zero. In 9 of their previous 13 games, the Ravens' D would have been able to manage a tie or better for the Bandits. And that is why Ray Lewis is back on the 'naughty list' for this year.

You stink. You smell like beef and cheese! You don't smell like Santa.
The other semi-final game featured a series of very interesting matchups. First, the Wombats had "Can't Spell Elite without Eli" while Natural Disaster had Hakeem Nicks and Jake Ballard, going up against a Redskins defense that had been decimated by injuries. When that matchup ended 10-8 in favor of the Wombats, ND had to call that a huge win. Then, you had Aaron Hernandez for the Wombats with ND inexplicably starting Denver D against the Pats. Hernandez had averaged 5.9 points per game since the bye week with no TDs in the previous 5 games. Meanwhile, Gronkowski had averaged 18.9 over the same period with 10 TDs in 7 games. So the Broncos take Gronk out of the game plan (5 fantasy points) but Hernandez puts up 19.


I am a cotton-headed ninnymoggins!
The big question is why ND started Denver D? Why would anyone purposefully start a defense against the Patriots? We may never know. The other two options were Miami D against Buffalo (9 points) or Atlanta D against Jacksonville (22 points). Looking back, Washington had 12 against the Giants and Indy had 16 points against Tennessee, but it's hard to suggest picking either of those based on how the teams went into the bye week. Miami had just fired its coach and was going to be playing out the string in a snowstorm in Buffalo. And Atlanta had come off a string where their D averaged 3.9 points in the previous 5 games, and just 4.5 points per game against any team not named the Colts since week one. And all that is fine to say there wasn't much of an option, but it does not explain how they ended up on Denver D. And perhaps I wouldn't spend so much time on the question except Green Bay D scored a big fat goose egg for the Wombats against the reeling Chefs.

Does someone need a hug?
So with the defenses essentially equaling out, how did the Wombats win? They got a 37-14 point edge in Running Backs, which had been the strength of Disaster all season. Ray Rice came up with 9 points fewer than his season average. With Fred Jackson out, Fred Tolbert going agasint the (apparently) awesome Ravens' D and Adrian Peterson in, making Gerhart a less desirable choice, ND had to hope the Lions wouldn't put Kevin Smith back in unless he was healthy. They did but he wasn't. For the Wombats, Foster had a Brees-y matchup against the porous Panthers' running D, but Lynch against the Bears seemed a tough matchup. And indeed, with 42 yards on 20 carries, Lynch did struggle. But the two touchdowns... the first was after a Seahawks' field goal was taken off the board by a "Leverage" penalty, with Lynch scoring from the 2 on the next play. The second was set up when Obomanu got pushed out at the 3 after a 43 yard gain, even though he stretched to knock the pylon over as he went out of bounds. So to say Lynch was fortunate may be a bit kind. To say Natural Disaster is a little bitter may be a bit of an understatement.

We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns, and syrup.
So we had one close, low-scoring, ugly game filled with strange breaks, strange (awful) coaching decisions with the Wombats "winning ugly" and one high-scoring epic battle that was tied going into Monday Night, delayed by blackout and ultimately eeked out by the Gumpsters. Will Team Gump finally take home the Whole Enchilada? The league website has installed the Wombats as 19-point favorites. Leon the Snowman is suggesting sticking with the four basic components of fantasy winning teams: top QBs and top RBs. Oh, and top QBs.

You sit on a throne of lies.

What about the Constipation Bowl (3rd place)? Will the Red Bandits add Constipation Winners to their list of Enchilada and Toilet Bowl Champions in just their third season in the league? Disaster has been installed as 5-point favorites.

Have you seen these toilets? They're GINORMOUS!
And in the Toilet Bowl, it's Semi-P and the Fatties, with the league site showing a 95-95 tie. Semi-P out-uglied the Hundering Turd, who left 25 points on the bench in CJ Spiller, 7 more with Heath Miller and 8 more with San Diego D as a lost season went down the... ah, went down the... went down in flames! Yes, that was what I was looking for. In the other Toilet Semi-final, the Fatties edged I in I/R by 7, with Brady out-playing Rodgers by 6. Vernon Davis made a game of it last night with 13, but needed one more TD. I/R had 88 points from their bench, including the inactive Andre Johnson... Well-coached indeed! The kind of performance to make the Ditka Cup presenters sit up and take notice! Francisco; that's fun to say... Francisco... Frannnncisco... Francisco... For I in I/R, 49ers D going against the one-legged Roofiesberger, a sack-machine with two good legs, the extra 17 points could have come in handy... Just sayin'...