Watchdog Week 12 - And Down the Stretch They Come!

Marky Marc and the Funky Dogs are hardly coming to the wire like Secretariat in the Belmont, stumbling to a 58-point effort as Marshawn Lynch sat, Peyton Manning futzed around in the cold for a mere 18 points, Steven Ridley coughed up his fourth fumble of the season and crossed the sidelines again.  While the Funky Dogs are already in the playoffs, they now hold just a 17-point lead in the Wilt Scoring Title race.  Dem dere is in need of some good vibrations! 

TBD was the team to up-end the Funky Dogs this week, dropping the leading scoring team in the league to 7-5.  Strangely, the Funky Dogs are just 4th in the league in points against, though of course they don't have to face themselves.  TBD saw Tom Brady turn again from Clark Kent (as pictured) to Superman, particularly in the second half of his battle with Peyton Manning.  After averaging 15.5 points per game in the first 8 weeks, Brady has averaged 29.6 in the last three weeks.  It is probably too late for TBD this year, though they're just one game behind Team Gump, as they're 109 point behind in the first tie-breaker.

In the continuing study of "how did he end up with HER???" we take a look today at Jabba the Hut.  Pictured here when he first met Princess Leia, it was not exactly love at first sight.  Nevertheless, it wasn't long before Leia was sporting racy gold lingerie for her big man.  Similarly, the Fatties started out the season just 1-2, but have ripped off 8 wins in their last 9 games and are coming up on the outside of the Funky Dogs, with a 110-67 shellacking of Semi-P.  They got 29 from Stafford, 27 from Jamal Charles, 21 from Eddie Lacy and 17 from Brandon Marshall.  They got just one from KC D, but had Tampa Bay D's 18 on the bench in case of emergency.  The Fatties locked up first place in the Quakes Division with a 1.5 game lead on the Turd with one game left in the regular season.

Semi-P fell to 4-8 after having won 3 of their last 4 games.  That said, they haven't scored over 90 points since week 4 and in their last 7 games have averaged under 70 points per game.  What happened to a team with two top 14 RBs as keepers for just $50?  They drafted Eli as their QB and failed to get a backup, Peterson saw a lot of this kind of coverage, David Wilson fumbled his season away then got hurt, Gronk didn't come back from injury until the fat lady was warming up in the aisles and the Texans went from AFC championship game to vying for the #1 pick, destroying Andre Johnson's season.  Hard to have more go wrong than that and not have an injury (Gronk doesn't count because we knew he was hurt before the auction).

The other team with an outside chance at the Wilt Title is Team Gump, of course.  The Gumpsters put up a 98-56 point hurtin' on the Wombats this week despite an atrocious week by Andrew Luck against the vaunted Cardinals D.  Knowshon Moreno has, in week 11, surpassed his career high for yards from scrimmage and TDs.  This kind of break-out season in a player's 5th season is extremely rare.  John Riggins is perhaps the most similar in career though he was a fullback, having run for 1005 yards in his fifth season with the Jets while averaging about 700 yards per season before that.  OJ Simpson's fourth season was his first over 1000, having topped out at 742 before that.  He ran for 1251 in his fourth and 2003 in his fifth (in just 14 games).  Thomas Jones topped 1000 yards for the first time in his sixth season (and third team).  James Brooks, the kick-returner for the Chargers in the early 80s, topped 1000 for the first time in his 6th season, his third after moving to Cincy.  And Michael Turner, who sat behind LaDanian Tomlinson for four seasons with the Chargers, ran for 1699 in his first season with Atlanta.  It's a short list, I'm saying (see what kind of tidbits you get by reading the Watchdog?).  Irregardless, the Gumpsters are just 40 points behind the Funky Dogs and have all but locked up a playoff spot in the Quakes Division.  Moreno's ankle injury is not thought to be as serious as Bubba's was in this picture.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Wombats put up less than 60 points for the third time this season, a remarkable feat for a team that has locked up a playoff spot and is half a game behind for the division championship.  The only team with more such games is I/T.  It helps that they are 1-1-1 in those three awful games this year.  They may be getting some help with the comeback of Michael Crabtree in week 13, alertly scooped up a few weeks ago.  And Aaron "Discount Daaable Check" Rodgers should be back for the Enchilada playoffs.  In their other 9 games, they're averaging just under 89 per game.   

Team Brokerage finally surrendered their season this week when they traded LeSean McCoy for Ray Rice and a draft pick.  Rice was coming off his first decent game of the season, at least in yards per carry.  But with the Eagles on a bye week and Brokerage needing to win out to have a chance they recognized they were up against the odds with STD up on the schedule.  While they missed that Hakeem Nicks was a late scratch for the Giants, they did become the latest team to take advantage of the "pick up whoever the Disasters cut" strategy in scooping up Dennis Johnson, who may well be the Texans' #1 RB the rest of the season.  His 13 carries for 74 yards against Jacksonville could indicate good things to come over the last third of the NFL season as Brokerage adjusts their sights on the Toilet Bowl.  Yes, they too are technically alive if Gump loses badly this week and they put up a monster score, but 83 points is too much to overcome.

The aforementioned Steel Trojan Divas moved a half-game up in the Cane's Division with the convincing 107-82 point win over Brokerage.  Josh Gordon led the way with 237 yards receiving and a TD.  Ravens' D looked good against the hapless Jets and Adrian Peterson looked a little 2012-ish with 146 yards and a TD against the Pack.  A win against the Gumpsters in week 13 or a loss by the Wombats (against the Fatties) and the Funky Dogs (against Brokerage), would sew up the division title. 

Dale's Doormats were eliminated from Enchilada contention this week, falling to 5-6-1 after being drubbed 90-65 by Pep and Cheez.  The Doormats got exactly one TD from any of their starting eight (and only one more from their bench).  Hard to believe, watching the Cowboys-Giants, that DeMarco Murray and Dez Bryant did not score, though they did combine for 20 fantasy points.  The Doormats are a team that had scored 347 points in their first three games and averaged just over 73 per game since, and that included last week's 106-point outburst. 

Pep and Cheez finally ended their losing streak at 5 straight, a mark bested only by Semi-P's 6-game losing streak between weeks 2-7.  Danny Woodhead and Cam Newton led the charge and Keenan Allen, the 76th player and 8th WR selected in this year's NFL draft, continued his quest for 1000 yards receiving as a rookie. He would become just the 8th player in NFL history to accomplish that, along with Marques Colston, Michael Clayton, Anquan Boldin, Randy Moss, Terry Glenn, Joey Galloway and John Jefferson.  Bolden (54th pick) and Colston (252nd pick) are the only ones not to be first round draft picks when they came out of college.  (I was going for something to do with a wooden head for the picture and came up with this.  Sorry.)

We had our second tie of the year when the Camel Jockeys and Turd skated to a 68-68 score.  The sudden death shoot-out somehow failed to produce a winner.  What?  We don't have a shoot-out in this league?  Sorry.  I got this great picture from the classic atrocity Sudden Death and thought I could use it here.  Anyhooo, the Turd, with 946 points, or just under 79 per game, have of course locked up a spot in the Enchilada playoffs despite being the lowest scoring team in the Quakes Division and the 10th lowest in the league.  They have repeatedly refused trade offers saying "that won't help this sh**ty team" or something to that effect.  Interestingly, the had a streak of four straight games early this season with between 96 and 98 points.  In their last 7 games though, they've averaged just 71.7 and topped 90 just once.  They will flush or be flushed based on whether Drew Brees can play like an MVP between weeks 14 and 16 when the Saints play Carolina twice and St. Louis in between.  Interestingly, the Browns D started for the Turd, becoming just the fourth D this year to put up a zero-point effort in a non-bye week.  Figures the Browns would play so stinky for the Turd, I guess.

The Camel Jockeys improved to 4-7-1 with the tie.  Remarkably, they Camels have not scored more than 86 points in any game this year, the lowest season-high of any team.  They also are one of only two teams (with the Fatties) to score at least 61 in every game this season.  Coach Haas said simply "Well, we haven't played the Disasters yet this year."  In a lost season for Matty Ice and the worst season of CJ2.0's career in terms of yards per carry, it hardly mattered that Pierre Garcon is on his way to obliterating his best receiving yards season or that Vernon Davis is matching his best season of his career or the emergence of TY Hilton as a potential #1 fantasy receiver.  Parenthetically Julian Edelman is only 104 yards from matching the total from his first four seasons combined, and has already matched the number of TDs. 

There Is an I in I/T became the fifth team in 12 games this season to put up their high for the season against Natural Disaster.  Coach Eickhorst said afterwards: "Sure, you always take a special joy in beating those guys.  They just talk waaaay too much, if you know what I mean.  I think everyone in the league feels the same way."  Philip Rivers certainly got the message.  After averaging 17.5 points in the previous six weeks, he put up 392 yards and three TDs against the #1 defense in the NFL.  Rashard Mendenhall continued his season with 13 carries for 54 yards and a TD.   Jared Cook put up double-digit points for the first time since week one.  And Pittsburgh D put up more points against Cleveland than they had in their last three weeks combined. 

Natural Disaster has played eight games now against teams that have averaged 77 points per game against the rest of the league.  Those eight teams averaged 101 points against ND.  Interestingly, in four games against teams that averaged 93 points against the rest of the league, those four teams averaged just 78.5 against the Disasters.  ND went 2-2 in those four games and has averaged 81.4 points per game on the season, and that after giving up on Calvin Johnson and his 125 points over the last five weeks.  Their overall points against is just 8 points less than having to face the Funky Dogs every week.  Hard to believe this is the same guy that played Captain Jack Sparrow.