This past weekend I defeated Don's Eunuchs 110-72, but it was a Pyrrhic victory in a way as the more important news for my team for the weekend was the loss of the second part of my one-two punch at running back:
While I shouldn't speak too quickly --but I will, because that's the way I roll-- at least, for now, I have the one part of that punch at running back:
It still hurts a eunuch when you snap them where their balls used to be...
Renal Failure scored a big 123-67 victory over the Eunuchs in Week 11, avenging our previous loss this season to Don and keeping us in the hunt for the playoffs. And though Don would have been better off starting Matt Ryan over injured Tony Romo, it wouldn't have made a difference because the People's Champion treated the People to a dominant fantasy performance this week, where 6 out of the 8 starters hit double-digit points (but you still exceeded your projected total Brandon Pettigrew, so we're still cool. The Saints D, however...).
Sure, Tom Brady only met his projected score of 21 points and Chris Johnson severely underperformed the highly-optimistic 28-point projection he was slated to have against the Washington Redskins with a modest 18-point day, but that slack was made up by Peyton Hillis (19pts) Dwayne Bowe (27pts), and Brandon Lloyd (13pts). Even kicker Matt Bryant had a nice 14-point day for the People, displaying why one reason Renal Failure is known as The Wild Card (bitches!): points from unlikely sources.
Your 2nd-highest scoring kicker in the HBFFL this season... and he's probably really good at kicking people in the balls too.
The People continued to be highly confused by Buffalo Bills RB Fred Jackson's awesome point production on our bench considering he hadn't done a damn thing all season. But after a 29-point Week 11 and a 33-point Week 10, we can only lament that he didn't start throwing bears into orbit before the trade deadline because unless Chris Johnson or Peyton Hillis get injured he's never going to see the starting lineup for our roster. Yes, Renal Failure is bold, but not bold enough to bench either Johnson or Hillis at this critical stage of the season when a playoff spot is oh-so-close.
In other Renal bench news, Chad Ochocinco snagged a touchdown in his second straight game while snagging 8 points vs. Buffalo, Tampa Bay's Mike Williams had a nice 11-point day to go along with his arrest for suspicion of driving under the influence, and backup QB Sam Bradford outscored Tom Brady with a 24-point day vs. Atlanta. So in essence we could have started our bench against Don and still would have won, but that's an easy task when your opponent doesn't swap out their injured QB.
Our Lady of Victory and Tight Denim Ines Sainz looks favorably upon Renal Failure's devotion, and thus has granted us yet another glorious triumph.
The People are now 6-5 and riding a four-game winning streak into a four-way tie for that last playoff spot alongside La Machine, What the Canuck? and Predator Press (and we've got the tie-breaker edge in points). There's no room for error anymore, especially with our next game: a Week 12 Revenge Match against the 7-4 Bald Spots. Regular readers here will remember that in Week Three Bald Spots Bryan had four players on his roster throw bears into deep orbit, probably to get back at us for surviving Tom Brady's 60-point game vs. Tennessee and beating him in '09. We'll have a preview of what is sure to be a high-scoring match-up later this week.
Three more wins to go.
___________________________________________________________ Renal Failure is working on a cervix kick to use on women so that they may know a man's pain when it comes to getting a boot to the crotch.
Bas Rutten trained us to be better Fantasy Football players... and to kick you in the groin.
Your People's Champion feels good about the prospect of avenging their earlier loss this season to the Eunuchs. Back in Week Two, Renal Failure had some issues: Chris Johnson and Tom Brady hadn't found their bear-throwing groove yet, our wide receivers weren't scoring, and with Ryan Grant going down in Week One for the season we were without a decent flex option.
But all that has changed as we enter Week 11. Dwayne Bowe has gone from putting up less points than letters in his name to being a touchdown machine. Brandon Lloyd strikes fear into the hearts of fantasy football owners who don't own him with his big-yardage days and multiple touchdown games. Peyton Hillis has shown how glad he is to be off of Chris's bench by running wild for the People in our flex spot. And best of all Tom Brady and Chris Johnson are clicking on all cylinders at this crucial part of the season, and have awesome match-ups this week as the Colts are soft against the pass and the Redskins might as well rename themselves "the Launching Pad" after the all the bears the Eagles threw into orbit against them.
Michael Vick threw this bear so far into space it's going to come back centuries later as V'Ger... and it will demand to merge with Vick so it can evolve.
Also in the People's favor is the fact that Don hasn't touched his team in many week, resulting in the injured Tony Romo remaining as the Eunuchs' starting QB. But the Eunuchs still have dangerous plays in their lineup such as Rashard Mendenhall, Michael Turner, and Hakeem Nicks (each projected for 14pts). And the Pittsburgh Defense who got shut out last week vs. the Patriots will be looking for redemption against the Oakland Raiders. Even without Romo they could still win with the right combination of good luck for the Eunuchs and bad luck for the Failure. And with such a strong lineup, it's a shame that Don has left his team to stagnate and rot to a 2-8 record.
We sacrificed a case of Sam Adams Winter Lager to Ines Sainz so that she may grant us glorious victory. And by sacrifice we mean drank it all alone in one sitting in the dark.
Yahoo! has Renal Failure projected to win 103-71, a lot of that based on the 28 points Chris Johnson is projected to get against Washington. Peyton Hillis is projected for 13 vs. Jacksonville and that seems low to us considering Jacksonville doesn't play tough defense and Hillis is a muscle-laden juggernaut. Tom Brady is slated for 21 vs. the Colts, a game that's probably going to be a shootout between Brady and Peyton Manning.
A win puts the People's Champion above .500 for the first time since Week One and continues the People's push to the playoffs. And considering 6-4 La Machine is playing the 8-2 Bourbon Blasters and the 7-3 Bald Spots are playing 5-5 Predator Press, this is definitely the week to either make up some ground or get in a better position in the fight for those precious post-season spots.
___________________________________________________________ Renal Failure doesn't underestimate the kick in the groin. In fact, we tend to over-rely on the move. Crotch murder is our bag, baby.
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.
This is how Week 2 went for the People's Champion...
The cold, hard fact of Fantasy Football life is that during the course of the season you are going to have a bad week. And by bad fantasy week, we don't mean when your wet dream about Inez Sainz suddenly morphs into a wet dream about Jessica Tandy. No, we're talking about when most of your stud starters fail to perform while your opponent has everyone clicking on all cylinders, leaving you to wonder "Where is my team and why aren't they scoring?"
"What I want from each and every one of you is a hard-target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in this area. Your missing fugitive is the Renal Failure starting lineup."
A lot of the blame for our 105-61 drubbing goes to the Pittsburgh Steelers. For one thing, their defense put up 24 big points for Don and his Eunuchs while keeping the cornerstone of the Renal Roster Chris Johnson to only 4 points (breaking his streak of consecutive 100-yard rushing games). Then Pittsburgh's offense sucked so bad that our top receiver Hines Ward didn't get a single point.
The Renal Bench outperformed the starters with Mark Clayton and Nate Washington individually outscoring both Ward and Bowe combined, and with Clinton Portis outscoring both Chris Johnson and Pierre Thomas combined as well. So the People can take solace that the Renal Bench looks to be rather deep, especially once our trade of Drunk Driver Braylon Edwards for Sydney Rice goes through. Yeah, Rice is out until after the halfway part of the season, but Renal Failure is investing in the future.
Are you on the right track toward retirement? What about college for your children? What if you have to play Renal Failure again in Week 11? Or if Braylon Edwards has to drive you to the doctors?
We did get two things right from our preview last week: one was that Tom Brady would exceed his projected total, but 24 points is far from throwing a bear into orbit. The second was that Dwayne Bowe's performance could only go up, and it did. He quadrupled his point output from last week from 1 to 4 points. But the Philly offense was clicking under Michael Vick, only allowing David Akers to kick 5 extra points instead of the plethora of field goals we thought he'd be booting. Hell, we didn't even get the predictions on our opponents right, as Rashard Mendenhall had a poor showing for the Steelers, Michael Turner left the Atlanta game early, and Tony Romo outscored Tom Brady.
Fact: Don's squad showed up this week ready to rumble and ours didn't. Watch out for the Eunuchs. They may not have balls, but they've got some strong bear-chucking arms.
Now, getting back to our original point about bad fantasy weeks. Last season, we didn't have our bad week until the Championship Game (losing 127-62 to La Machine, the only time that year we scored under 80 points), so we're hoping now that we've got this bad week out of our system we'll be able to run the table and win the league championship.
Fact: Both previous HBFFL champions La Machine and Fantasy Virgin (aka Joe O. faking being his wife Leigh) started their seasons 1-1. See, the trends are still with Renal Failure, so if the rest of the league thinks they can jump on top of the People's Champion, you'd best be backin' up off us.
We never met our daddy...
Week Three sees the Bald Spots coming into the People's House to test Renal Failure's resolve. The last time these two teams met was the infamous Tom Brady 60-point game of '09 that gave birth to the best fantasy football catch phrase ever: throwing a bear into outer space. What new saying will be conceived this time around? Perhaps our preview later this week will have some clues. Until then, go read some books before irony takes that ability away from you.
___________________________________________________________ Renal Failure is not a dimension of sight or sound but of mind. A really sick mind.
Ryan Grant may be out for the season, but Renal Failure is far from finished as we gear up for a Week Two slugfest with Week One's highest-scoring losing team The Eunuchs. Grant's loss hurts but is not a fatal blow to our season because The People's Champion drafted well and will be starting Pierre Thomas in Grant's place (and because Rambler snatched up Brandon Jackson off the free agent list mere seconds after the story of Ryan Grant's season being over hit the ESPN ticker, selfish bastard), ensuring that our ground attack will keep putting up points for us.
As of Thursday, the Yahoo! Match-up has the Eunuchs up 84-83 on the People's Champ, but this supposedly low scoring affair is deceiving. Both Tom Brady and Chris Johnson have tough match-ups against the Jets and Steelers, and their projected scores of 19 and 16 reflect that, but you also have to remember that they are Tom Brady and Chris Johnson. They exceed expectations habitually. We call this duo Bear NASA because they are always tossing bears into outer space.
Throwing a bear into outer space = awesome fantasy day (except for the bear, who dies cold and alone in the vacuum of space thanks to Lou Ferrigno)
Also, Yahoo! projects Tony Romo to have a slightly better day than Tom Brady (21-19), which we're not buying, mainly out of our hatred for Dallas. But we've got one of Romo's favorite targets Jason Witten on the Renal Roster to cut into those Romo points, and word from Yahoo! is that Romo's opponents this week, the Chicago Bears, are soft against tight ends.
Hakeem Nicks threw a bear up for the Eunuchs in Week One, and while the Giants/Colts game looks to be a pass-happy affair I wouldn't count on another 25 point day from Nicks. On the People's side, however, Hines Ward could easily have another 1oo yard receiving day for 15 points, and maybe even add a touchdown as well. And Dwayne Bowe's production can only go up from Week One's single point.
Mendenhall and Turner for the Eunuchs will likely have big days, so what Week Two will come down to is the kicker and the Defense/Special Teams, and traditionally that is where Renal Failure dominates. The Eagles tend to stall in the red zone so that means more field goals for David Akers, and the Saints are playing a struggling 49ers squad. The Eunuchs have Mason Crosby of the Saints doing the kicking, and the Saints know how to punch it into the end zone on a regular basis. Plus the Pittsburgh D is not going to have its way with Vince Young, Chris Johnson, and a surging Tennessee Titans offense.
Renal Failure's in-house consultants Ninja Vicki and Samurai Cathy suggest that Don should pick up Ryan Grant and start him this week, as well as trade Chris for Sidney Rice and start him too. Be bold, Don. Be bold!
Neither team will likely breach the century mark in points, but they'll likely get to the 90's and the Wild Card (bitches!) likely will get to 2-0 because the trends state that when Renal Failure starts the season 1-0 they won't lose again until November.
_______________________________________________________ ---Renal Failure got to be the People's Champion by winning the People's Primary.
