The People's Week 13: Spoiler Alert!

by Renal Failure


Yeah, not making the playoffs hurts, but not as bad as not making the playoffs and living in Philadelphia...

The People have had little to celebrate this season, so they take whatever small amount of joy they can squeeze out of ruining Nonames attempts to make the playoffs with our 108-84 victory in Week 12. We didn't expect to win, except if RGIII threw a bear into outer space, which he did (40pts).  Tom Brady on our bench, however, threw up a 43-point bear vs. The Jets, so it's not like we can claim a great strategic victory by way of our starting lineup selection.  We were getting a 40+ point day from our QB no matter what.

Trent Richardson and CJ Spiller had passable 16 and 15 point days respectively.  Our pick-up of the St. Louis defense paid off huge with their 22 points vs. Arizona. Shaun Suisham outscored DeSean Jackson 2 to 0, and DJax had the decency after two-straight games without any points to go on Injured Reserve.  We didn't start BenJarvus Green-Ellis and he had a monster 22pts, which again if he had done this earlier in the season maybe we could have traded him for some value at WR and possibly salvaged something respectable out of this miserable season.


If our dreams of making the playoffs have been destroyed, so must yours!

Nonames had decent weeks from Doug Martin (18pts), AJ Green (15pts), and Reggie Bush (14pts), but Aaron Rodgers let him down with only 15pts vs. the Giants, a team that Andy Dalton had carved up earlier in the season for big pointage.  So it's not like there was much Nonamedufus could regret about this loss, only that he happened to play us on the first week we've breached the century mark in points since Week Four vs. What the Canuck?  We've only exceeded 100 points three times this season, twice vs. Canadian-based teams.  Apparently we have no mercy for our neighbors to the north, especially NoNames whose playoff dreams we've crushed for the 2nd straight season (he missed the playoffs barely last season because he was 8-6 and we were 8-5-1).

But this victory did not pull your People's Champion out of the HBFFL basement, as Bald Spots also dashed LOBO's dream of repeating as HBFFL champion with a win in Week 12 as well to drop him to 5-7.  As we've stated before, no team in the HBFFL has made the playoffs with a 7-7 record, and there's little reason to believe that will change.


This just in... there's two games left in the season...

Week 13 gives Renal Failure a chance to play spoiler again, this time against What the Canuck? who at 6-6 cannot afford that evil 7th loss if he has any aspirations for the playoffs, which we assume he has.  Luckily for Canucklehead, he's got Matty Stafford and Andre Johnson who have been on bear-chucking rolls lately.  Miles Austin has a great matchup vs. the hapless Eagles. Ahmad Bradshaw is rolling along nicely too.

Once again, the People's Champ will have to rely on RGIII to throw a bear into orbit for any hope of a Renal Failure victory, with help from the tandem of T-Rich and Spiller.  Perhaps new WR pickup Davone Bess can get our WR corps to actually score some decent points for a change.  Yahoo! gives the early edge to Canuck, but they did the same thing to NoNames last week and look where that got him: a one-way ticket out of the playoff hunt.

What about the teams that are still hammering it out for playoff spots?  Let them write their own damn posts about that.




Renal Failure is the 2010 HBFFL champion, and the HBFFL runner-up in 2009 and 2011. Renal Failure clinched a playoff spot in their 12-team league this week, so it's not all rainclouds and AIDS regarding our 2012.

WTF?

A nonames projected blowout against Renal Failure was just not meant to be. RF downed us 108-84. How could the last place guy come away with such a win? Well you might remember RF blogged last week that...

"Yahoo!'s projecting a NoNames blowout, and there's little reason to doubt it. The Renal Roster has underperformed pretty much all season. The projection on NoNames' crew seems pretty reasonable. Maybe RGIII throws a mega-bear into space, that's pretty much our only hope here."

Well, guess what? RGIII threw that mega-bear to the tune of 40 fantasy points. Couple that with some underachieving nonames team members and it looks like our playoff hopes are pretty much dashed. Currently in 7th spot we'll never make the top 4 with only two regular season match ups to go.

This week we go up against 6th place Future Ex-Cons. Next week it's Delusion of Adequacy in 2nd spot. Yahoo projects nonames winning both contests but after this week we know how much stock we can put in Yahoo projections.

I think I can hear the fat lady singing.

Tuesday Morning QB: Anyone, anyone, anyone? Yes, ANYONE!

Welcome to Tuesday Morning Quarterback, where I take a look back at what I (and sometimes others) would have (could have/should have) done differently with my (their) fantasy football teams for that previous week's games. 

As I had the highest score of any team in the league this season with 155 this week, and again I FUCKING ROCK (yawwwwn), I turn my attention in particular to two losers: Troi with his Future Ex-Cons squad and LOBO with his Predator Press squad.

Both lost and it should be no surprise as they didn't even take players off their starting lineup that they should have taken off and replaced them with players...well, players who actually PLAYED.

It is especially evident with Troi, who still had LeSean McCoy in his starting lineup, even though McCoy was out with a concussion. Troi lost by a mere three points, 80-77, to Delusion of Adequacy. Put ANYONE in there for Odin's sake and you would have won.

As for LOBO, the defending HBFFL champion (seemingly in name only, not in reality) he still had Darren McFadden in his starting lineup and worse yet, Titus Young still on his roster. Go pick up ANYONE for even Baldur's sake off the waiver wire. Give yourself a fighting chance.

Yes, ANYONE!!!!

The People's Week 12: A Losing Season

by Renal Failure


"We'd win if we could, but we just can't score any points... bitch!"

Zero points from DJax and Dwayne Bowe... that's what brought down your People's Champ this week in our 81-72 loss to Troi's Future Ex-Cons.  Double goose-eggs from our wide receivers.  Dwayne Bowe had the decency to leave his game injured with no stats, DJax played the whole game and got nothing from Nick Foles - who Philly fans have been begging to see in action all season and now discover that he's only a slightly better quarterback than the dogs that had been killed at Michael Vick's house.  But at least the dogs have the excuse of not having opposable thumbs or any knowledge of the West Coast Offense for being useless.

And now suddenly my hypenated bench RB's BenJarvis Green-Ellis and LaRod Stephens-Howling decide they're actually going to play football well now, because the Law Firm put up 21 vs. the Chiefs and Stephens-Howling logged 23 on Atlanta.  Thank you so much for doing this right after the trade deadline passes so your sudden valuable-ness means absolute dick to your People's Champion.



We are little wired from losing all season...

So yeah, trade deadline's gone, and no one made a deal with us for our deep QB corps of Tom Brady and RGIII.  Our trips into the free-agent market have yielded little fruit.  Aside from the QB's and Trent Richardson, our draft didn't turn out so well.  Everything that was the hallmark of previously successful Renal Failure teams did not happen this season, and so we sit in last place of the HBFFL at 3-8, tied for last in points scored with LOBO's Predator Press (and he's 5-6 and still in the running for a playoff spot).

Who else is at 5-6? Our opponents in Week 12: Nonames. He has Aaron Rodgers doing the Discount Double Check vs. the Giants.  He actually has wide receivers on his team, and good ones like A.J. Green and Victor Cruz.  Doug Martin is rolling up big points for the Bucs. And Antonio Gates is still Antonio Gates.


The results are back, we're definitely not winning this week...

 Yahoo!'s projecting a NoNames blowout, and there's little reason to doubt it. The Renal Roster has underperformed pretty much all season. The projection on NoNames' crew seems pretty reasonable. Maybe RGIII throws a mega-bear into space, that's pretty much our only hope here.

But at least we're 7-4 in our 12-man league in 6-4 in our 8-man league.  Always remember, you can't lose in every league.  Well, you can, but it's really hard.

Renal Failure is one of the original members of the HBFFL and has a blog with 1,780 posts in it. Along with losing a lot in Fantasy Football, there's no hockey to watch and the Eagles suck, so this winter is going to be especially cold for the People's Champion of Fantasy Football.

What Bryan Said

Except Bryan didn't say anything this week. Maybe Unfinished Person is just being modest. And probably proud of it. Or maybe he feels he did enough talking on the field last week and needn't rub it in here on the blog.

You see Unfinished Person crushed your no-way we could win nonames last week in what must have been the biggest blow out of the season 141-75. UP remains in 1st spot. Our nonames slip to 6th.

It all started out well enough. At the end of the first series of games Sunday we were tied 47-47. But not for long. NE TE Gronkowski racked up 30 fantasy points. Dal WR Dez Bryant pulled in 25 and his NE Def achieved 27.

The highest scorer for nonames was TB RB Doug Martin with 19. GB QB Mr Rodgers, with a projected 35 could only muster 17 points. It was not a good week.

Hats off to you UP. In the meantime, as for me...

The People's Week 11: A post-season without Renal Failure

by... eh, who cares...


"Did I just catch you trying to win at Fantasy Football?"

It's an ugly fact of Fantasy Football life, but sometime it's just not your season. And 2012 is turning out to be an outright disaster for your People's Champion.  Our latest 102-78 defeat to Delusions of Adequacy, dropping us to 3-7, has pretty much eliminated Renal Failure out of playoff contention, as no team has ever gotten into the HBFFL playoffs with less than an 8-6 record. 

We guessed wrong with our RB's yet again, going with BenJarvis Green-Ellis (5pts) instead of Fred Jackson (22pts) because we were starting CJ Spiller (12pts) and couldn't make ourselves start both Bills RB's at the same time.  We won't have that problem in Week 11 because Fred Jackson is out with a concussion, but at least our error in not starting him in Week 10 didn't cost us the game considering how poorly the rest of the team performed.

Tom Brady had a very non-Brady-like 19 points vs. Buffalo.  DJax (5pts), Jason Witten (4pts)and Dwayne Bowe (6pts) had nothing substantial to offer. We can take solace that we guessed right by picking up the Tennessee Defense (16pts) and that Shaun Suisham continues to be our MVP (10pts), which is a damn tragedy.  We just can't score this year for shit.


If it wasn't for the other leagues we're doing better in, you'd have to hide all sharp objects from us...

Delusions took our advice and benched Michael Vick for Carson Palmer, who blew up for 30pts.  Steven Ridley (15pt) and Ray Rice (1spt) crushed our RB's, Roddy White (15pts) and Hakeen Nicks (7pts) outdid our WR's.  Even Justin Tucker beat our MVP with a busy 13pt day.  We got blown out of the water by a team that mirrors the strengths of previously-successful Renal Failure rosters.

And so The People have come to accept a playoff-less year from their Champion, that this is not their year to shine.  Our goal now is to finish 7-7 and save some modicum of respect in this wretched year of 2012.  Last time we missed the playoffs was 2008, so perhaps the trend is that Renal Failure does poorly in election years.


This season, we are the 99% who don't win their league.  OCCUPY Yahoo! Fantasy Football!!!

So... Week 11 vs. Future Ex-Cons, the team directly above us in 8th place at 5-5.  Troi's missing MJD but Shady McCoy is sure to get more work now that Vick is out in Philly.  Alfred Morris will probably run all day on the Eagles D.  Peyton Manning will be throwing all day against the Chargers.  It looks to be a good day for the Ex-Cons.

For the Failure, we already grabbed 12 points with CJ Spiller.  Tom Brady has a nice matchup vs. the Colts.  Trent Richardson is back from his bye to trample the Cowboys. And Shaun Suisham remains Shaun Suisham. Not bad, but not that good either.

Yahoo! is actually projecting a Renal Failure victory due to current projections, but Renal Failure has underperformed pretty much all season.  But that's why they play the games.  The road to mediocrity begins here!

Renal Failure is the People's Champion, the 2011 and 2009 HBFFL runner-up, and the 2010 HBFFL and FTWL champion who will certainly do better next year in both those leagues because it doesn't get much worse than how they're doing.

Bye Bye Benny, Bye Bye

Jesus H. Christ.

While Mr. Rodgers had a bye week, your nimble nonames bench QB Ben Roethlisberger stepped in and went on what may be a permanent bye. In a team win over Kansas City Big Ben racked up all of 9 fantasy points before racking up his shoulder and leaving Monday night's game.

Up until that point Obi Ben Kanobi was my only hope.

But it wasn't meant to be and my no-win nonames went down in flames to Bourbon Blasters who decidely won our match 119-82. Good on ya BB.

My good news? The nonames Denver D pulled in 25 fantasy points.

My bad news? Pretty much everything else.

NYG WR Victor Cruz phoned in his 2 fantasy points along with Miami RB Reggie Bush's measly 1 point.

My secret weapon, TB righteous bulldozer RB Doug Martin (R2 B2), pissed off at his Muscle Hamster nickname, scraped up 11 points. That's quite a fall from last week's 62 points.

Cincinnati WR A.J. Green pulled in a respectable 16.

But in the end it just wasn't enough.

Nevertheless my nifty nonames remain in 4th spot and fresh from a crushing defeat of Unfinished Person over in the FTWL (where we moved into 3rd spot) last week, look forward to taking him on in the HBFFL this week. He's #1, you know. Maybe we can do something about that.

I just hope we don't end up like this guy...

Tuesday Morning QB: There's an app for that, loser!

Welcome to Tuesday Morning Quarterback, where I take a look back at what I (and sometimes others) would have (could have/should have) done differently with my (their) fantasy football teams for that previous week's games. 

Well, this week again I'm not going to look back at what I could have done differently, because I still won...although this week by a mere 7 points and putting up a measly 88 points. So I don't FUCKING ROCK. I just rock, but still rock in first place nonetheless.

However, I am going to look back at what my opponent, Troi with his Future Ex-Cons, could have done differently.

One thing the California boi (see what I did there? clever, huh?) could have done differently: Put in a replacement running back for Alfred Morris who was on a bye.

Troi normally isn't an absentee owner, but this past week, I think he got distracted by being on vacation. See, I'm friends with him on Facebook and it looks like he and his wife went to Missouri to visit family.

What I also see is that he checks in an awfully lot on Foursquare. Dude is everywhere. He's eating (and drinking) at restaurants (and microbreweries), frolicking at parks and waiting at airports. What he's not doing is checking in on his fantasy football team...

...and it's so simple.

Because there's an app for that...

Yahoo! Fantasy Football '12 (pay attention to this link, my boi Troi) is available as an app both on Android and iPhone.

If only Troi had had the app on his phone and then used it...

...instead of losing 88-81, Troi could have won with any one of these three running backs who were available on the waiver wire: Danny Woodhead, Chris Ivory or Andre Brown. Personally, I would have gone with either Woodhead or Ivory, but any of the three would have given Troi the victory.

But nooooo, he left bye-week Morris in and got defeated by a weak 7 points.

Don't let something similar happen to you...whatever fantasy league in, I'm sure there is an app for your league. Get it and don't be a loser like Troi.

The People's Week 10: Bleakness

by 2010 champion, 2009 and 2011 runner-up, and completely fucked this season Renal Failure


The liquor is calling the shots now, because the liquor's doing better than us in the decision-making department this season...

We made some tactical errors in our estimations of our chances of winning last week against Unfinished Person, primarily that we forgot he had Arian Foster on his team.  But hey, wouldn't you want to forget your opponent's got a top 5 running back going against you?

What killed us in our 111-82 loss?  Well, the San Diego Defense going off for 21 points vs. Kansas City did some major damage.  So did RGIII's pitiful 15 point performance against Carolina (projected for 27 - Dick Morris on FOXNews told us he could have gotten 40. Jim Cramer on CNBC said 60, but Cramer does coke and you don't listen to what cokeheads tell you).  Fred Jackson's irrelevant 3-point day didn't help.  Only DeSean Jackson's big 23 points on Monday night made this look halfway respectable for the People's Champ.


Nothing is making sense this season for us in the HBFFL...

So... 3-6 with 5 game to go.  We need to win the rest of our games to get to 8-6 and have the slightest of chances to make the playoffs, and we have to start this very difficult run against 5-4 Delusions of Adequacy who housed us 102-55 in the season opener way back in Week One. 

Delusion's got a strong ground game with Ray Rice and Ryan Mathews, but he's vulnerable at QB with turnover machine Michael Vick and at WR with the oft-injured Hakeem Nicks.  Still, Roddy White could pick up some of that slack.

Trent Richardson's on his bye week, so The People's most-reliable RB this season is out, forcing us to put our faith in the law firm of BenJarvus Green-Ellis (because we're not making the Jonathan Stewart mistake twice).  RGIII is on a bye too, so we've got Tom Brady slinging the rock for us in a very favorable matchup vs. Buffalo. We're hoping C.J. Spiller can get some good work vs. the Pats while Dwayne Bowe does what Dwayne Bowe does semi-well: get garbage time points. 


Everyone spends time in the drunk tank, or the bottom of the standings...

Pretty much any defeat eliminates us from the playoffs, something that hasn't happened since the inaugural HBFFL season (and the first time we ever played fantasy football) where we missed the playoffs by one game. And what would the HBFFL be without Renal Failure in the playoffs?  What kind of world would that be?  Why would you bother The People with such a scenario.

And why has no one offered anything for one of our quarterbacks?  We got two bear-throwers on the Renal roster as we go into the stretch run of the season and no one has so much as cast out a feeler for either Brady or RGIII.  What is going on here?  

Yahoo! likes Delusion in this game.  Fuck.  Well, at least we've got winning records in our 8-team and 12-team leagues.  Something about 10-team leagues are bad luck to your People's Champ this season...

Renal Failure is the People's Champion and Wild Card of Fantasy Football. Renal Failure was late typing this post because of that thing where you put the clocks back an hour - except we fell back an entire day. It's been that kind of a 2012 for us.

On The Move

I called it. And Week 9 gave your nimble nonames their 4th victory in a row. Sure it was against Basement Dweller Bald Spots but to his credit, Bryan gave me a bit of a scare as Andrew Luck chalked up 34 fantasy points for him. My Mister Rodgers claimed 29. Why is it Aaron is so good in reality but sucks in fantasy?

Reality sucks.

No worry, that righteous bulldozer running back Doug Martin (I'm gonna call him R2 B2) had an amazing week racking up 62 fantasy points and contributing nicely to our second highest point total of the season, giving us a 143-112 win.

R2 B2

Our nonames got off to a shaky start this season and I joked that I was hiding in the weeds waiting for the right moment. With the largest victory margin the third time this year, that moment would appear to be now.

Heading into Week 10 nonames climbs into 3rd place with a 5-4-0 record. We're up against 8th place Bourbon Blasters with a 4-5-0.

Anything could happen. I'm hoping it'll be 5 wins in a row.

Oh, by the way, my luck seems to be rubbing off on godufus over in the FTWL. After spending some time in last place, as recently as week 7, after 3 wins in a row over there we've moved into 4th place after a 109-81 win over Team TBA. Not bad, not bad.

Boy those horse shoes up the rectum kinda hurt. But it's a nice hurt, ya know?

Guess you can just call me an excitable boy...

Tuesday Morning QB: Watch the waiver wire!

Welcome to Tuesday Morning Quarterback, where I take a look back at what I (and sometimes others) would have (could have/should have) done differently with my (their) fantasy football teams for that previous week's games. 

Well, this week again I'm not going to look back at what I could have done differently, because to put it quite bluntly, I STILL FUCKING ROCK!

Instead, I'm going to turn my attention to Joe O. of the Bourbon Blasters who lost 56-74 to the Future Ex-Cons.

Joe picked up two running backs off the waiver wire last week: the Steelers' Isaac Redman and the Texans' Justin Forsett, all well and good. They both were nice waiver wire picks, considering that the Steelers' Rashard Mendenhall and Jonathan Dwyer were on the bench and that the Texans' Ben Tate also was on the bench.

In Joe's defense, he does a great job at making picks off the waiver wire week in and week out. Lesson for all of us: Watch the waiver wire!

However, when it came to putting the right one into the lineup, Joe failed. Why? He placed Forsett, a backup to Arian Foster, in the running back slot instead of Redman, who was a backup to no one. Redman naturally rocked with 25 points; Forsett didn't, with ZERO points. If only Joe had played Redman, Joe would have won 81-74.

Lesson for all of us: Play the right guy off the waiver wire and, in the process,...

The Unvarnished, Science-Loaded Predator Press Rebuttal To Unfinished Rambler's Unedited Potty Mouth

-LOBO, Predator Press

The People's Week 9 - Gift Wrapping Your Victories

by 2010 HBFFL Champion Renal Failure


Every Fantasy Football owner does this hundreds of times a season...

Joe needs to send us a thank you card and a gift certificate to the Olive Garden because we served him his 81-76 victory and some endless salad this past week.  We panicked on Sunday morning about Trent Richardson's condition and, not wanting another 1-point day from our RB, we pulled him for Jonathan Stewart.  Instead T-Rich decided he could actually play through his rib injury and put up 24-points vs. Stewart's 7pts. But that wouldn't have mattered if we had gone with Tom Brady instead of RGIII at QB (36pts vs. 12pts), which we didn't because RGIII has been throwing bears into outer space regularly and Tom Brady was facing a team with a good pass defense on a neutral site field.

At least Jason Witten had a great day (21pts), however Shaun Suisham again outscored our wide receivers individually (Josh Gordon 4pts, DJax 5pts, Dwayne Bowe 6pts).  Joe escaped with quality performances from Jonathan Dwyer (15pts), Percy Harvin (15pts) and Matt Bryant (12pts) to offset the crap games from Drew Brees (16pts - projected for 30pts), Jeremy Maclin (3pts), and Frank Gore (6pts).  These are sorts of games teams need to win to make the playoffs, and again Renal Failure is just not getting it done and it's driving your People's Champion absolutely batshit mad.


Only the King of the Potato People can save our season now...

Okay, so we're not going to go 7-0 in the 2nd half of the season, but we can still try to go 6-1 with a victory over Unfinished Person, who scored a blowout victory over front-running Delusions of Inadequacy.  But UP is vulnerable this week. Rob Gronkowski and Stephen Jackson are on their bye weeks, Tony Romo's throwing so many INT's lately that Jay Cutler feels bad for him, and aside from Julio Jones no one else on his roster gives us any cause for pause.

Your People's Champ doesn't have to worry about the RGIII/Tom Brady decision this week because Brady is on a bye. Fred Jackson's back from the bye and should put up some good numbers even while sharing time with CJ Spiller, and T-Rich is good to go against a Baltimore defense that isn't so scary anymore. 


Renal Failure strategy session... Thursday night... 

Yahoo! gives Renal Failure a slight initial edge, but only because Yahoo! is way overvaluing Tony Romo and Dez Bryant in their matchup vs. undefeated Atlanta.  But even in 9th place at 3-5, Renal Failure is still only two games behind the first-place trio of Unfinished Person, Delusions of Inadequacy, and Predator Press. If Renal Failure wins six straight, that brings us to 9-5 and gives us the best chance of making the playoffs.  8-6 is a trickier proposition because unless we start throwing bears into orbit every week we're not going to win any tie-breakers.

There hasn't been a Renal Failure-less championship game in three years, and we'd hate to break the streak of last year's runner-up not winning the championship the next year, even though we did break the streak of the previous year's winner not making the playoffs the next year.  It's a wicked web of trendsetting and trend-breaking that we've created.

Renal Failure is the People's Champion and The Wild Card (bitches!) of Fantasy Football. Renal Failure is doing better in his other leagues, except the FTWL where we're 2-6. We're doing slightly better in our 12-team and 8-team leagues though, and that's some small solace to us.