Week 13 Review: Renal Failure vs. Team Duckgirl and everyone else in the playoff race

Ninja Vicki and Samurai Cathy support our decision to start Jeremy Maclin...

It may seem Renal Failure has nothing to play for this week, but they do. A 12th regular season victory would give the People's Champion the HBFFL record for wins in a regular season. Blocking the People's Path this week is Team Duckgirl returning for a second go-round to avenge her 106-58 loss in Week 4, as well as fight for her playoff life. For at 5-7, Duckgirl can't afford to lose, and even if she does win out her destiny is still not completely in her own hands. But more on that later...

Duckgirl (aka The Looks) fields a more dangerous lineup for Week 13 than she did in Week 4. Tony Romo has learned how to throw the ball, Frank Gore is back from injury, DeAngelo Williams is not on a bye week, and she still has her own hyphenated big-point player in WR Mike Sims-Walker, also a Jaguar like Renal Failure's Maurice Jones-Drew. That's a lot of firepower.

But Renal Failure, aka The Wild Card (bitches!), has Philip Rivers throwing against Cleveland, Chad Ochocinco catching against Detroit, Stephen Jackson running against an increasingly pourous Chicago, and Jones-Drew doing everything vs. Houston. These fine matchups have a decent chance of getting us Win Number 12.

Now to the complicated part... even if Duckgirl beats the People's Champion and Bald Spots to finish at 7-7, she still needs a lot of help because she is the longest of the long shots here. It's complicated, but we think we've worked it all out.


So Duckgirl wasn't in a barbershop quartet in Skokie, Illinois?

The scenario:

Stipulate that Team Duckgirl finishes the season 7-7.

What the Canuck? not only has to lose both their games but has to finish with less points than Duckgirl (and Canuck's currently up 86 points on her). Duckgirl also needs the Ramblers to lose both their games, or go 1-1 and squander the 106 point tiebreaker lead they have on her in those two games (and because the Ramblers play La Machine and Predator Press in the last two weeks, Machine and PredPress will clinch playoff berths in this scenario). And to make things even harder, Defending Champions and Prestige Worldwide have to lose once because they are way ahead of Duckgirl on points as well (193 for DefChamps, 93 for Prestige).

If all those things happen, if all the right stars align in the sky, Duckgirl will be the 4th seed in the playoffs and be scheduled to play Renal Failure yet again. The shitstorm never ends, does it?

The People know and are moved by Duckgirl's plight - they were there last season, scrapping to get into the playoffs while at the mercy of the actions of other teams - which is why the People call on their Champion, Renal Failure, to be merciful and spare Duckgirl the agony of hope by utterly crushing her this week.


"No, ma. I beat her in Week 4, she's my responsibility..."

And just because destroying one team's playoff hopes isn't fun enough, What the Canuck? could find himself in peril if he loses this week to Defending Champions, for the Ducky draws Renal Failure in Week 14. The People's Champion could drop Canuck down to 7-7 and right into tie-breaker hell, depending if Defending Champions or Prestige Worldwide win out. DefChamps have a 107-point edge in the tiebreaker on Canuck and 100 points on Prestige. Prestige only has seven points on Canuck.

Clinching the number one seed early, possibly ruining the playoff hopes of two teams... it's an early Kwanzaa for the People this year!


Contrary to popular belief, Kwanzaa is not black Hanukkah.

Oh, and for Rambler who thinks we're entering a word of pain if we meet again, we present this for his consideration...


You're out of your element, Rambler! And we peed on your rug!

But back to the present... Yahoo! has Renal Failure projected to win 103-94 over Duckgirl. If Duckgirl's going to beat us, she'd better put up like 200 points because she's going to need it when tiebreaker time comes.

---Renal Failure shot Sonny on the causeway, and Marvin in the face.

Some Guys Have All The Luck

Unfortunately for Defending Champion, this past week, it wasn't he.

His No. 1 QB, Ben Roethlisberger, was out with a concussion, so he had to play his No. 2 QB, Matt Ryan.

And we all know what happened there, as Ryan went down to be replaced by one of those Noname Dillholes I discussed yesterday.

Theoretically, DC could have won if he had played Miles Austin who scored 23 points to Reggie Wayne's 7 points and/or played Jamaal Charles who scored 20 points to Wayne's teammate Joseph Addai's equally woeful 7 points.

He then could have defeated me 105-93 instead of losing like he did 93-89 (no thanks to Marques Colston for putting up 23 points to almost give me a heart attack Monday night and Randy Moss only putting up an infernal 6 points).

Of course, I could have played Chris Chambers in my flex as suggested by Chris Cameron and Renal Failure instead of Bernard Scott and gotten five more points than Scott's 8 points to take me to 98, but still would have lost, 105-98.

Still I wish I had played Chambers instead of Scott, because it would have been more palindromic with the final score being 98-89 instead of the 93-89 which seems so much more banal in comparison.

Alas, beggars can't be choosers. I'll have to take the win, no matter how prosaic it is.

At least, I'm 6-6 and just hope I'm able to go .500 as the regular season ends and I face Chris and RF (edited after comment by RF correcting me that I'm not playing him in week 14 to say the following...), I mean, Lobo in the last two games. To be honest, that's my only goal this year...to win both games, possibly get into one of the top four spots and then win the whole shebang (as if) would be just icing on the cake for me.

Addendum: I know I could have used the popular Rod Stewart version of The Persuaders original song, but I liked the idea of a smiling Jamaican, mon. It fit more with how I felt after this week's win, and I couldn't resist rubbing it in a little to Defending Champion, my nemesis from last year, even if I didn't know it was he...I and the rest of the league thought it was his wife. Plus The Dude said in that post (click on link), and I quote, "And I'm still gonna kick all your asses this year in Fantasy Football, bitches." I beat you twice, I beat you twice, na na na.

Addendum to the addendum: Of course, now if you look at the comments as of this afternoon/evening, I pull out my own ass-kicking comment directed to Lobo that could come back to haunt me: "It's just another ass to kick, to my way of thinking. ;)" Even though I put in the emoticon, it could mean trouble. Oh, well, let the chips fall where they may.

When is a Wild Card not a Wild Card?

Alex Trebek knows...

Answer: When they're the division winner.

The Wild Card (bitches) of the HBFFL - better known as Renal Failure - avoided the carefully-placed trap and clinched the top spot in the playoffs with a 91-61 victory over Paula's Googlyeyed Goons, though Paula probably won't know about it because she hasn't touched her team since September. Still, the People's Champion can take pride that even if Paula had started RB LaDainian Tomlinson and TE Anthony Fasano instead of the inactive duo of Owen Daniels and Dwayne Bowe that Renal Failure would have still been victorious. Now if Paula had started Matt Schaub at QB instead of Carson Palmer, then our ass would have been KOed.


Some days you get slapped, other days you're dishing out slaps and awesomely-dickish double thumbs-up.

Not that the People are completely happy with our victory - they rarely are, for the People are demanding. But when your fifth WR option Jeremy Maclin (5pts) outscores the combined point total of alleged WR studs Chad Ochocinco (3pts) and TJ Houshmandzadeh (1pt)... well we can see why the People are on the cranky side. Our fourth option Percy Harvin sat on the bench and put up as many points as Miles Austin and Donald Driver (25pts), and usual starter Hines Ward only put up four points, but we expected that considering his QB Ben Roethlisberger is out with a concussion and will not be allowed back in the lineup until he can spell his own last name without a cheat sheet.

In other disappointment news, Maurice Jones-Drew had another sub-par week (10pts) and the Philadelphia Defense (5pts) had the worst day of the three Defenses on our roster (49ers had 10pts, Chargers had 16pts). Stephen Jackson didn't necessarily disappoint with his 17 points, but Yahoo! had him unfairly projected for 22. But at least Philip Rivers (32pts), Nate Kaeding (12pts), and Dallas Clark (12pts) had good enough games to lock up first place for the People's Champion.


In hockey, the team with the best regular season record wins the Presidents' Trophy. There's no such trophy in the HBFFL, so we'll just take this one and name it the Tag Larkin Trophy.

So... yeah, the Wild Card (bitches!) is Number One, but the season still has two more games left to play. That means crushing the playoff dreams of Team Duckgirl and What the Canuck? so that when we go into our first playoff game at 13-1 and lose, it will be hilarious for everyone else. Anyway, we'll have our Week 13 preview of our game with Team Duckgirl, plus some possible playoff matchup scenarios, on Friday as usual.

---Renal Failure says to evacuate the dance floor because the roof is on fire and we don't need no water...

2009 HBFFL MVP Week Twelve

Despite the scoring mayhem caused by a bunch of no names in Week Twelve the MVP list contained the usual suspects.

QB- Drew Brees 53
Predator Press

RB- Chris Johnson 29
Defending Champions

WR- Marques Colston 23
Defending Champions

TE- Antonio Gates 28
What The Canuck

K (tie)- David Akers 13
Predator Press

Ryan Longwell 13
Team Duckgirl

Def- Arizona 12
Googlyeyed Goons
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(Points are based on the following system: Passing-1 pt/20 yds, 6 pt TD, 5 point 300+ yds; Receiving/Rushing- 1pt/10 yds, 6pt TD, 5 point bonus 100+ yds; 2Pt Conversion 2 pts; Sacks 1pt, Int/Fumb 2 pts; Def/ST TD 6 pts; Safety 2 pts; Block Kick 2 pts; FG 3 pts, 1 point bonus 50+ yds; PAT 1 pt. Bench players are not eligible.)

2009 HBFFL Week Twelve Results and Standings

Results



Standings