I keep looking at the league website to see if they've added a turnover to the Giants' D from Monday Night. Wasn't there more than one fumble in that game? No? Two points. As it turns out, the Fatties' tie in week 12 had one other outcome I hadn't even counted upon - a second straight tie, which would have put them in a third tie, this one for the sixth and final playoff spot. And they avoided that fate by just two points. Before Junior-Jr's 4th quarter touchdown, the Giants' D actually had 5 points, with three coming from holding the Skins to just 10 on the game. Hold the Skins to a field goal there and the Turd wins 69-68. Alternatively, the Turd could have "rested their starters" because their bench scored 69. At every position possible the Turd made the wrong roster decision. Last week, Coach KIngrey lucked into a win by inadvertantly starting Michael Bush over Matt Forte and when Forte left the game early he got gifted with 14 points he would not have otherwise had and a 7-point division-clinching win over the Wombats. Tried to catch lightning in a bottle a second straight week but this time Forte outscored Bush by 12. Bengals QB scores 20, Bears 23; any combination of two of their three reserve WRs would have scored at least 2 more points than Nicks/Jackson. And Bills D had 8 compared the Giants' 2.
And so the Fatties move on and earn a first round matchup with Wilt Chamberlain Scoring Champ Dale's Doormats who clinched their scoring title in style with their fourth high-points week of the season, a 112-64 demoralizing, dominating win over the Red Bandits, who may already be on their honeymoon (congrats, Coach Marcin, on the impending nuptuals!). For DD, everybody scored at least 8 but no one scored more than 21. For the Bandits, Eli's continued struggles against the 30th rated pass defense in the league, or more appropriately, the Giants' puzzling reliance on running the ball against the #3 rated run defense in the league, along with McCoy's bell-ringer seems to foreshadow a short post-season appearance for their first time in the league.
Semi-P gave one of those "it's the last game of the regular season, we better put up a good effort" type games you get from teams that clinched their division 11 weeks before. Interestingly, they did bench one of their under-performing WRs in favor of Cecil Shorts 33 1/3 (The Smell of Cecil) - they just picked the wrong one, keeping Larry Fitzgerald in the lineup over Miles Austin and having to witness one of the worst QB displays in NFL history this side of Patterson Plank Pisarcik. Ryan Lindley! Mark Sanchez! Greg McElroy! And Tim Tebow didn't even get in the game... Anyway, SP fell short as the Avis "We Try Harder" Award this season goes to the Sprockets, for continuing to work that roster, picking up Bryce Brown (potential keeper) and Vick Ballard (another potential keeper or trade option) on waivers after already picking up two extra first round picks for next year's draft. They could theoretically keep Aaron Rodgers and Bryce Brown, trade Ballard for a first or second round pick and end up with five of the top 28 picks, two keepers and $45 to spend. Even Coach Feldman should be able to build a winner with that!
Team Brokerage broke out some world-class anti-trash talking (whining) which reminded both my brother and I of one of our father's most effective techniques in winning all those games and contests over the years. Looked after the Thursday night game like it would pay off in a big way when Brees had his 54-game TD streak broken, but alas, it was not to be. Calvin Johnson, Ray Rice, Fred Jackson combined for 47. Looking ahead though, Brokerage's acquisition of DeMarco Murray looks like it's going to pay dividends in the playoffs. If Harvin can come back healthy, with Josh Freeman's friendly up-coming schedule Brokerage looks like a tough out.
In other games, the Dundies finished the regular season strong, winning their fourth straight with Stevan Ridley and Mikael Leshoure looking like potential keepers for next season. They finished with the second-most points scored in their division but fourth in the standings. Not sure I can pinpoint why they are suddenly scoring 98 per game over the last four after scoring just under 81 per game over the first 9. Stafford is a big part of that - the only truly great game he had in the first 9 weeks was in week 3 when the Dundies put up 114 to beat the Sprockets, but the correlation isn't there - he averaged 23.25 in the first 9 weeks and 25.5 in the last 4 - not exactly a 17 point swing! Similarly, Ridley, Andre Johson and Leshoure are each doing better, but no one is doing it all by themselves. Pep & Cheez, meanwhile, never really overcame the "fantasy mediocrity" of Matt Schaub. Sproles, Charles, Nelson, Dez Bryant and Jimmy Graham are the nucleus of a competitive team, but no one had a great season. The Steelers' revolving door at RB didn't help anything either.
I/T finished by winning their last two, to end up at 7-6 and scored only one point fewer than the playoff-bound Fatties, but still a disappointing season despite backing into having Peyton Manning as a keeper QB and having two pretty good RBs in Steven Jackson and Trent Richardson. The rest of the team never really seemed to gel. Steve Johnson was only OK, Heyward-Bey got his head taken off. Having no first or second round pick definitely hurt, particularly when none of their waiver pickups panned out. Their best value pick in the draft was Heath Miller, the fourth-best TE in the league this year, nabbed in the 9th round. The Gumpsters finish defending their Enchilada championship with a 4-9 record after getting pasted by I/T. Luck looks like a keeper for next year, and maybe Bradshaw too if he looks healthy.
Last and least, the Wombats edged the Camel Jockeys and each team finished at 4-9. The Wombats had a particularly frustrating season, one that saw them get top flight production from 3rd round pick Reggie Wayne and 7th round pick Alfred Morris. Chris and Calvin Johnson's slow starts and the roller coaster season for Tony Romo did them in as much as anything. Romo had only 5 games with more than 22 points but all 5 of those were at least 29 points. The Camel Jockeys were bitten by the injury bug, with McFadden, Roofiesburger, Keller, Pierre Thomas, Beanie Wells and Greg Jennings all losing large chunks of the season. Danario Alexander was a great waiver pickup, but didn't make up for Phil Rivers and Victor Cruz' disappointing seasons.
In an unprecedented move, the Watchdog is actually going to hold itself responsible for the pre-season predictions. How'd we do? Picked the Sprockets, Camels and Turd int he Canes Division (oops) and Fatties, Semi-P and Wombats in the Quakes division. 50% success ratio isn't too bad, I think, but not too good either - seems to be right in keeping with the theme of the season - call it "a return to mediocrity!"
And in a precedented move, the Watchdog will hereby declare our prediction for the Enchilada Bowl as Semi-P, with the Turd coming just short! Well Joe? The curse is on!
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