So what's it feel like to beat a girl twice in one year in fantasy football?
Yep. Like that, especially when this second time was just barely an escape by my Ramblers with a 119-109 win over Bex's Battling Butterflies.
Each of us had five players in double figures: she with Mike Wallace, Carson Palmer, DeSean Jackson, Marion Manningham and the Philadelphia Eagles defense; me with David Garrard, Mike Thomas, Frank Gore, Arian Foster and Dan Carpenter.
However, the key combo was David Garrard and Mike Thomas, with Garrard connecting up on a 50-yard Hail Mary pass to Thomas as time wound down and the Jaguars escaped the Texans 31-24. Garrard finished with 37 fantasy points; Thomas, 26. In contrast, her top two scorers were Mike Wallace with 30; Carson Palmer, 26. End of story.
I would write more about that amazing combo with Garrard and Thomas, but our league commissioner, Chris Cameron, already did here: The 30 Point Hail Mary Play.
For that, this Chris Cameron character will play. Unfortunately, I have to wait until Week 14 to exact my revenge and have to wade through Krap, Eunuchs and Bald Spots before I can do that.
We win! We win! Computer duster whippets for everyone!
Renal Failure avoids falling into a tie for last place by defeating the last place team, Bex's Battling Butterflies, 90-70. And despite the meager numbers put up by Tom Brady (18pts) and the horrid day by Hines Ward (1pt), your People's Champion is walking on sunshine.
Brandon Lloyd threw a bear into space with a 27pt day vs. the Niners, Jason Witten is turning his season around now that Tony Romo is out of the lineup by netting his second double-digit point day in a row (15pts), and Chris Johnson put up a respectable 13pts for the People to make up for not doing jack last week for us. Dwayne Bowe salvaged a light receiving day with a TD to get 7pts for the People.
Brandon Lloyd asks an uncaring God why his Denver Broncos are 2-6, and why Renal Failure is 3-5. But God does not answer his pleas, because God is too busy watching Japanese porn.
Bex's lineup put up surprising numbers with their non-featured running back corps of Mike Tolbert (14pts) and Michael Bush (16pts). Greg Jennings got 8pts vs. a tough Jets defense. Carson Palmer put 20pts vs. the Dolphins, though most of those points came in the first half. Bex also forgot to put in the Tennessee Defense instead of the bye week Philadelphia Eagles, but they only scored 7pts so their contribution wouldn't have mattered, nor would starting Vince Young (24pts) instead of Carson Palmer.
But we weren't the only team who got away with an absentee owner syndrome win. Joe and the Bourbon Blasters got a boost from Team Krapsody forgetting to field a quarterback and a flex player. Danny Woodhead and his 11 points sat on Static's bench. If Static had picked up Matt Stafford, who put up 40 vs. Washington, to replace bye week Joe Flacco and Kevin Kolb, victory would have been his.
Sorry, but he's in the employ of Renal Failure now...
More egregious was What the Canuck? getting a free ride vs. Don's Eunuchs. Don didn't swap out the injured Tony Romo, nor did he replace bye week-having Hakeem Nicks and Michael Turner either. Worse was that pretty much everyone on Don's bench was on a bye week, so the only possible way for Don to have had a chance in this game was a complete free-agent revamp of his lineup, which would have required him to actually sign into Yahoo! and tinker with his roster.
Anyway... Bex will not get another shot at the People's Champion in 2010, as this was the two teams' sole game vs. each other. But both teams could go undefeated for the rest of the season and make it to the playoffs, perhaps to meet each other again either in the semi-finals or the finals. We've seen stranger things...
What has been seen cannot be unseen... even if you don't understand it. And there isn't enough context in the world to make any sense of this.
Also, the People would like to announce a trade that was finalized after Sunday's games. Renal Failure sends QB Eli Manning and TE Marcedes Lewis to La Machine for RB Peyton Hillis and TE Brandon Pettigrew. This move gives La Machine some insurance at QB now that Alex Smith is out of action with an injury and The People's Champion gets the highly productive Hillis (104 fantasy points for a horrid Cleveland Browns team) who has been wallowing (undeservedly) on Chris's bench behind LeSean McCoy, Cedric Benson, Ray Rice, and Marshawn Lynch. The People hope this returns the vaunted 1-2 RB punch that has defined past Renal Failure teams but has been absent this season due to losing Ryan Grant in Week One.
Week 9 sees Renal Failure take on The Ramblers who are in a three-way jam for first place with the Bald Spots and Bourbon Blasters. We'll have our preview later in the week on how the People will screw things up for the Ramblers' ambitions to sit atop the HBFFL standings.
___________________________________________________________ Renal Failure is glad they actually got to trade Eli Manning this season, after no one would take him off our hands in '09.
I don't care if you don't have anything below the belt, Bex, I'm punching there anyway. All's fair in love, war, and the race for the playoffs.
This is it. The game that determines the People's season. The game that either keeps our playoff hopes alive or murders them in their crib. The game that could give you an ice cream sundae or colon cancer. All right, so that last one was a lie, but it's hard to hype up a game between the 9th and 10th place teams in the HBFFL, which is what Renal Failure (2-5) and the Battling Butterflies (1-6) are.
Sitting at the halfway point of the 2010 season, the People's Champion Renal Failure is battered, bruised, and bedeviled. Our running back depth that was supposed to be our strength is gone, with only Chris Johnson remaining from our corps of Ryan Grant, Pierre Thomas, and Clinton Portis. Tom Brady, the man who invented throwing bears into outer space, has not dominated like we had hoped. We also haven't dominated in the Kicker and Defense/Special Teams categories as we have in previous years, which is how we became known as The Wild Card (bitches!). And only in recent weeks has our wide receivers actually started manufacturing at a decent clip. Last year, we set a new record for points scored in a season; this year we are 9th (only Bex is worse). Even worse, we've had the third-most points scored on us (Bex is 2nd, LOBO is 1st). It's going to take some sort of divine intervention to turn the Renal Failure season around.
"Inez Sainz... I have never prayed to you. I may have done other things to you, though..."
And so what better way to begin the miraculous process of salvaging our season than by beating up on the last place team in the league. As seen above, Bex's Battling Butterflies have had worse season than us, and Week 8 doesn't look like it's going to be the week where things get better for her either.
Bex is rolling with Carson Palmer, who is playing a Miami team looking to bounce back from Ben "Lifetime Movie of the Week Villain" Roethlisberger lighting them up in Week 7. Her running backs are not the featured RB's on their teams anymore. Mike Tolbert may get a goal line run for a TD, but that will be the extent of his day. And even if she puts in Ryan Mathews he's not going to have a fun time against the stingy Tennessee defense either. Oakland's Michael Bush is only going to get carries when Darren McFadden needs a breather. Greg Jennings is going to get stuck on Revis island in his game vs. the Jets, not that she can swap him out because the rest of her receivers are on bye weeks. The bulk of her points look to come from Steelers WR Mike Wallace, TE Chris Cooley, and the Tennessee Defense if she remembers to put them in.
I don't think this is the Mike Wallace is who projected to have 7 points against the Saints this week, but he and 60 Minutes will be on immediately following the late game on CBS, except on the west coast.
But your People's Champion has a lot of great match-ups this week. Tom Brady's throwing against a rudderless Minnesota squad. Chris Johnson never gets stuffed for small numbers in consecutive weeks. Hines Ward has been on fire since Ben "Lifetime Movie of the Week Villain" Roethlisberger has returned, and the Steelers will be in a shootout with the Saints this week. Brandon Lloyd and the Broncos are playing the 1-6 49ers. And we'll see if Dwayne Bowe can make it three straight weeks of 20+ points, a likely scenario considering he'll be playing the Buffalo Bills.
As of Friday morning, Yahoo! has Renal Failure winning 85-66 vs. Bex (85-74 if she remembers to put in the Tennessee defense). That looks about right to us. It'll be a fine day for the People's Champion to start rattling off wins for a playoff push, and to cement Bex in as the last place team in the HBFFL, like the Fantasy Football version of The Cask of Amontillado.
___________________________________________________________ Renal Failure would rather hear Inez Sainz do play-by-play than Joe Buck.
We have problems with anger, and with our team not scoring points...
Last season, your People's Champion set the HBFFL record for points scored in a 14-game regular season with 1481, about 105 points a game. In 2010, Renal Failure is second-to-last with 290 points in 4 games (72 points a game), just 35 points ahead of Bex's Battling Butterflies (though it would only be a three-point deficit if she had remembered to start Chad Henne at QB this week instead of bye-week Brett Favre. But at least it didn't cost her the game as it did with Don forgetting to bench bye-week Tony Romo and Kellen Winslow for Matt Ryan and Zach Miller. You got a freebie win there, Static.)
With our 81-48 loss to La Machine, long-waited vengeance was not had and the People's Champion is left to wonder what the hell is going on with their once-feared franchise. Our backup QB Sam Bradford scored twice as many points as Founder of Bear NASA Tom Brady this week (26-13), First overall pick in the draft Chris Johnson churned out a paltry 6 points vs. Denver, and Hines Ward grabbed a solitary point vs. the Ravens. Only Mark Clayton (7pts) and recently acquired Marcedes Lewis (8pts) made any sort of dent on the scoreboard. The fact that we lost by so much mitigates the regret of leaving Brandon Lloyd and his 16 points on the bench for emergency acquisition Tim Hightower's big 2 point day because Pierre Thomas was suddenly inactive for his game against Carolina (another RB on our team injured? You don't say!), and we didn't trust that Clinton Portis would do well against the Eagles (5pts, bad but still better than Hightower).
Let's see... 1-3 record, second-least points scored, most points scored against... yeah, I think I has a pretty big fucking sad.
Our only solace from Week 4 is that we pulled a Jedi mind trick on Chris with our preview from last week. We got Chris to doubt starting Terrell Owens against us with our suggestion that perhaps Braylon Edwards would do better, but since Chris knows that Renal Failure is the goddamn devil, he hedged his bet by not taking our advice of benching the ailing Ray Rice for Peyton Hillis. Owens threw a bear into space with 33 points to Edwards' 14, and Hillis put up an impressive 21 points to Rice's 2. The lesson learned? Don't be meek and hedge your bets.
And Renal Failure learned that lesson for themselves as well. See, we were going to start Brandon Lloyd for Week 4 after hearing that Pierre Thomas was out, but then panicked and picked up Hightower minutes before kick-off. We second-guessed our first instinct. Well no more of that. Renal Failure declares from this moment on to eschew such timidity in our roster choices. If we are to lose, then we shall lose boldly! When the People's Champion acts, it will be with firm conviction and no regrets, because as one of my favorite blogs Fafblog! once wrote: "Being right is not a plan! Being wrong with resolve is a plan!" And if we are to be wrong this season, we're going to do it with resolve.
Removes even the toughest stains on your soul... but not your Fantasy season.
So the new bolder Renal Failure (with 50% more "Wild Card, bitches!" in every bottle) marches into Week 5 against What the Canuck?, better known as the only other team to defeat the People's Champion in 2009. But since we housed Canucklehead in the playoffs that year to avenge that Week 14 loss this is more a revenge game for him. We'll have our review of this pivotal matchup that could either keep the People's season alive or bury it for good later in the week. But either way, it will be bold!
___________________________________________________________ Renal Failure listened to Butt Trumpet and Dead Kennedys all through high school. It probably explains a lot.
As Kenny sings: "You got to know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away and know when to run."
This week in fantasy football, I didn't know any of the above as I gambled, but somehow still managed to pull off the win 72-51 over Bex's Battling Butterflies.
Aside: Battling Butterflies: What the hell kind of name is that? I swat you away, killer butterflies, with my butterfly-swatter named Aaron Rodgers.
The score should have been 138-72, if we both had played our "optimal lineup" according to Yahoo GameChannel/StatTracker.
This is where the gambling entered the picture, at least for me. For Bex, I think since she's a woman, it was just throwing darts at pictures on a wall to see who she played.
Photo courtesy of Quixado on Flickr: I'm thinking the monkey would have fared better than Bex in this contest.
However, for me, I took a gamble on an old Cadillac:
photo courtesy of rocketvox on Flickr
And like the one pictured above, the Cadillac I played, Carnell "Cadillac" Williams was parked, with nine fantasy points. I'm in two leagues and have Arian Foster in both, so I thought I'd test to see how Williams did here in this league and Foster in the other. That was my gamble.
While I did win the game, I did lose the gamble. Arian Foster put up a monster 46 fantasy points as he and the Texans went off on the Colts.
The only two other players which I have in common on both teams now are Aaron Rodgers and Austin Collie. I think next week I'll play someone else instead of Collie, but I'm thinking I'll do it in that other league which shall not be named. Maybe it will be Dez Bryant. As for Rodgers, I don't think I'll gamble him with much, except in week 10.
Tune in for next week's Tuesday Morning QB after I play Static's Team Krapsody...and I thought Battling Butterflies was a team name of which I could make fun. Oh, I can't wait for this. Don't worry I won't go after Static's ethnicity like I did with Bex's gender. After all, most of my squad is made up of African-Americans, whereas I have no women on my team and so can feel free to make fun of them all I want. Plus whereas misogyny is considered funny, racism is not unless you're a member of the Tea Party.
