Week 11: Close shaves and sweet victories

by 2010 HBFFL Champion Renal Failure





It takes a team effort to win in this league... and nice legs...

Out of the HBFFL members who have been with the league since its inception, the one with the best record against Renal Failure is Joe O. who has gone 4-1 against your People's Champion going back to when he was masquerading as his wife.

Make that 4-2 as Renal Failure scored a critical 97-93 victory in Week 11 over Joe's Bourbon Blasters. CJ2K woke up from his season-long slumber for a 28-point day. Tony Romo got most of his 27 points in the first half vs. Buffalo, unfortunately not throwing much to Jason Witten (3pts). And Brandon Lloyd put up 10 points, continuing his steady scoring ways since going to the Rams.

Note: Marshawn Lynch put up a huge 26 points on our bench. Is Beast Mode getting activated just before the trade deadline? Who wants to make us a deal for a hot RB?


You gotta be hungry to win in this league... and a nice rack don't hurt either...

But Week 11 had disappointing performances all over the damn place. LeSean McCoy's 15 points was way under his projected 26 (and we blame Andy Reid for abandoning the run for that). The Jets D took the night off, as did Billy Fucking Cundiff. Even Megatron disappointed us with a 7-point night, although he did outscore both of Joe's receivers combined (Dwayne Bowe and Wes Welker, 5 total points between them, total disappointments there).

Joe's team had some good performances, just not enough of them to pull out the victory. Joe listened to our advice from last week and pulled Beanie Wells for Reggie Bush. Bush responded with 15 points to Wells' 6. But Joe didn't listen to our notion that Stephen Jackson would have a hard game against the Browns, keeping SJax in the lineup and watching him rumble for a big 18 point day. And Drew Brees did indeed score more points than Shady McCoy, the complete opposite of what we hypothesized in last week's column, putting up 29. Even Joe's kicker Jon Kasay had a big 15-point day, aided by the Saints and Falcons going into overtime. It just wasn't enough for the Blasters to overcome Renal Failure's balanced attack, or our tendency of getting 90 percent of our prognostications wrong.


We wish our mistakes could look this cool...

Week 11 brings a return encounter with Multiple Scorgasms, who recorded their first win of the year over What the Canuck? to get to 1-9 (and ensure that they can only tie the worst record in HBFFL history, held by Bex's Battling Butterflies in 2010). Now that Mark's team finally has a taste of victory, it's all they crave. Unfortunately Multiple Scorgasms doesn't seem to have enough firepower to make it two-in-a-row at Renal Failure's expense. Phillip Rivers is playing a tough Chicago defense. Rashard Mendenhall is on a bye week, so is Ben Tate, meaning Mark needs to hit the waiver wire or make a quick trade for RB for this week's game because he's got no one else on his barren bench. No one else strikes us as particularly dangerous. Maybe Santonio Holmes cranks it up vs. the Broncos, or perhaps Victor Cruz gets the lion's share of targets vs. the Eagles instead of the other Giants receivers, but Aaron Hernandez is getting pushed aside for Rob Gronkowski and the Eagles D doesn't scare anyone.

As of this posting. Renal Failure is projected to win 87-59 but we expect the People's Champ to score more than that. Tony Romo and Jason Witten have favorable matchups against the Redskins. Megatron will be pulling down balls all day against the Panthers. Shady McCoy will bring it against the Giants. CJ2K wants to show everyone last week was no fluke. Brandon Lloyd is finding his old productive form again. Plus, as always, Billy Fucking Cundiff.

A seventh win will put the People in a great position as the playoff race congeals for the final weeks of the regular season. Predator Press (8-2) and Purple Drank (7-3) have prime seating for this stretch run. What the Canuck? and Unfinished Person (4-6) are fading from contention with their two-game losing streaks. This leaves NoNames, Bourbon Blasters, and Renal Failure at 6-4 as the main combatants for those final two playoff spots. It's a good thing Renal Failure is a second-half team because we're going to need every last victory to defeat the trend of HBFFL champions failing to make the playoffs the following year.

Renal Failure is the defending 2010 HBFFL champion, the defending 2010 FTWL champion, and The People's Champion. We always schedule our team meetings for 4 in the afternoon so we never oversleep. Also, our team meetings are at a bar, so it's happy hour too. Half-off draft beers and 5-dollar margaritas...