As Chris so correctly and dutifully reminded us in the comments of our last post, he had a four-game winning streak against Renal Failure going into Week 4 of the 2011 season. Emphasis on "had" because the People's Champion has finally wrought revenge on Chris with a decisive 137-76 victory over the highest scoring team in the HBFFL, thus ruining his perfect season and knocking him out of first place.
Revenge is a dish best served cold... and it is very cold in space... where the bears are thrown...
Admittedly, Purple Drank had a very off week compared to their hot start. Matt Schaub put up an anemic ten points, the Rob Gronkowski gravy train ran out, only trickling a single point vs. Oakland, and Mike Wallace and Stevie Johnson underperformed. Even with 11-points, Alex Henery disappointed because he missed two easily-makeable field goals for the Eagles. Only the RB's Ray Rice and Michael Turner turned in notable days for Chris's Purple Drank.
And how does a 61-point loss to Renal Failure feel like? That bad, huh?
The Renal Roster finally got clicking this week, reminding this forgetful league of why Renal Failure is the HBFFL's most dangerous team. Johnson & Johnson lit it up, with CJ2K finally getting into the swing of things with a servicable 16-point day while Megatron just keeps jumping in the end zone and pulling down passes week after damn week (21 points). Tony Romo worked through his broken ribs to give us a big 27-point performance. Brandon Lloyd finally got involved in the Broncos offense, showing everyone why he was first in the league in receiving yards last year with a delicious 18 points. Jason Witten continues to dominate the tight end position with 15 points. Even the New York Jets defense got into the spirit of whooping up on Chris with a 20-point day of their own, assisted by Billy Cundiff's 10-spot. LeSean McCoy had an off-day with only 10-points, but after Ronnie Brown's Wildcat abortion at the goal line we have a feeling Shady is going to be getting a lot more red zone chances.
The Joker... Mortal Kombat... see, it's all circular, man. We bring that shit around...
So with Chris's loss, LOBO inexplicably rises the top of the HBFFL standings at 4-0. But LOBO has little time to enjoy the view, as a dangerous trio of teams sit at 3-1 ready to pounce: Purple Drank, Bourbon Blasters, and Renal Failure. And you can't forget about teams like Bald Spots and NoNames sitting at 2-2, hungry for a chance to move up in the standings and make a name for themselves. And it's not over for What the Canuck?, Future Ex-Cons and The Un-Ramblers yet, because as LOBO and Renal Failure proved last year you can easily turn a shitty first half of your season around, get hot for the playoffs, and make it to the championship. Multiple Scorgams at 0-4... uh... oh, well you look very pretty in that hat.
We now enter the tricky part of the Fantasy Football year, when most teams start having bye weeks and we see just how managers adjust to not having their usual whole starting cast available, especially if injuries have hit their lineups already. We'll have our Week 5 preview vs. The Un-Ramblers later this week. Until then, stay thirsty my friends, and lay off the Purple Drank.
Renal Failure is the defending 2010 HBFFL champion, the defending 2010 FTWL champion, and The People's Champion. Renal Failure is also an original member of the HBFFL and the band Survivor, but quit the band in disgust when they wouldn't go with his "Eye of the Mongoose" song idea.
Week 13 brings Renal Failure not only a third shot at revenge at Chris for 1) ruining our perfect season in 2009, 2) beating us in the 2009 HBFFL Championship Game, and 3) beating us in Week 4, but it also gives your People's Champion the opportunity to kill La Machine's playoff hopes in 2010 and that we believe will wound Chris the most. It's as if we've played a long game of revenge (though not as long as the revenge game in the movie Oldboy), allowing Chris climb so high that it makes the fall we've inevitably planned for him even more injurious.
Renal Failure, once thought dead and buried at 2-5, has rattled off five big wins to not only get to 7-5 but to position themselves in a dominant position should a playoff spot go down to the Points For tiebreaker. Over those five victorious weeks, Renal Failure has scored 90, 132, 124, 123, and 166 points to rocket up the second-most amount of Points For in the league (only 3 behind the now Frank Gore-less Ramblers). And it's someone different on the Renal roster throwing a bear into orbit each week. Sometimes it's Tom Brady, other times it's Peyton Hillis, or Chris Johnson, or Brandon Lloyd, or Dwayne Bowe, or even worse a combination of this unholy fivesome.
Dwayne Bowe isn't jumping... he just levitates around the field until it's time to place his feet in the end zone.
Now the People are going to have to work from behind this week because Chris made the smart move of starting LeSean McCoy at running back. Shady McCoy put up a big 24 points vs. Texans. All right, Chris. Well played. You're going to make the People's Champ work for this win, eh? We can do that. We neutralized Arian Foster's 36-point day back in Week 9 with Peyton Hillis' 38-point day, who says Hillis can't do it again?
Chris is also starting Eli Manning and Marcedes Lewis, who he got off us in that trade for Peyton Hillis and Brandon Pettigrew. Could this be the trade revenge game, like the ones we regularly have against Mr. Unfinished Rambler? Or is this game where Chris regrets giving us Peyton Hillis (we're not starting Pettigrew this week) and everyone else in the HBFFL gives Chris the stink-eye and says with a sneer "Thanks Chris for being responsible for saving Renal Failure's season, jackass. Now we have to deal with that asshole talking shit about being in the playoffs."
Do not defy the will of Ines Sainz, Chris. She will smite you with impotence...
Yahoo! has Renal Failure winning 102-87, but that doesn't mean much with Shady McCoy exceeding his projected score by 11 and Renal Failure exceeding their projected score for the past five weeks. If La Machine wins, they keep their season alive for another week. If Renal Failure wins, they don't clinch a playoff spot just yet but they put themselves in the driver's seat for one and continue to control their own destiny, which is just how they like it. Besides, we don't need to be reminded what losing feels like; we did enough of that earlier in the season.
When was the last time Renal Failure lost a game? The answer is above, but you may have to watch the video a few times to pick it up.
___________________________________________________________ Renal Failure sees no reason why there has to be Thursday night games. Really, outside of Thanksgiving they serve no purpose.
Renal Failure threw a bear so hard into space, it blew up the sun and most of the galaxy...
Casual readers of the Humor Bloggers Fantasy Football League blog may have the idea that the natural rival for Renal Failure (aka The People's Champion, The Wild Card, and the Macho Fantasy Football Donkey Wrestler) would be teams like La Machine (who beat Renal Failure in last year's championship game) or The Ramblers (for Rambler's penchant for smack-talking and the Dallas Clark game of '08) or Predator Press (because of LOBO's hijacking of Ines Sainz). But let us add another name to the list of potential natural enemies, Bryan and his Bald Spots. Why? Because each time Bald Spots and Renal Failure play, it's a fucking bloodbath.
Since coming into the HBFFL in 2009, the Bald Spots have played Renal Failure (one of only five remaining original members of the HBFFL) three times. The first time was the infamous Tom Brady 60-point game that brought forth the term "throwing a bear into outer space." Bald Spots had Tom Brady but Renal Failure survived to pull out the 123-100 victory. Jump to 2010, in Week Three the Bald Spots have four players on their roster throwing bears into space to blow out Renal Failure 156-86, the 70-point margin of victory being at the time the largest by any team in 2010 to that date.
But then came Week Twelve... the long-awaited rematch between the Bald Spots and Renal Failure. With revenge on their minds, the People watch Tom Brady throw a 46-point bear past Babylon 5 on Thanksgiving and were mightily impressed, if not sleepy and little drunk from all the turkey and rum that afternoon. But little did the People know that they had luxury box seats for an event that would exceed a mere Orbital Bear Warning or Bear-Force One. This was what we'll call Bearmageddon. Sunday rolls around and Peyton Hillis slams a 42-point bear into the Battlestar Galactica. The crew mistakes the bear as a furry cylon and attempt to kill it, failing miserably. Again the People are pleased, but their Champion puts on the Billy Mays beard, snorts a line of coke, and says "Wait, there's more!" Dwayne Bowe steps up in the 4 o'clock game vs. the Seahawks and launches a massive 40-point bear into the fucking Gamma Quadrant. The motherfucking Jem'Hadar are looking at each other and saying "Was that a goddamn bear that flew past us?" This Brady/Hillis/Bowe tri-lateral commission of throwing bears at science fiction TV shows combined for 128 points by themselves. When Sunday came to a merciful end, the final score was 166-76 in favor of your People's Champion.
In other words, Bryan of the Bald Spots...
You also get to star in the next three Rush Hour movies with Jackie Chan...
And even scarier? It could have been a whole lot worse. Chris Johnson who usually throws up big number days for the People had a big fat zero against Houston. Meanwhile on the People's Bench Fred Jackson once again had a monster day, putting up 26 big points against a usually-impenetrable Pittsburgh defense. Even Green Bay running back Brandon Jackson had three points, and if we had played either of them instead of Johnson we would have beaten the all-time record for points in a game of 168, as scored by Joe masquerading as his wife Leigh back in 2008 in a game against The Ramblers. But still 166 is the highest amount scored by a team in 2010, though the 90-point margin of victory is only the second-highest this season as LOBO beat the Eunchs last week by 108. But we think that shouldn't count because absentee owner Don is barely fielding a lineup anymore.
Oh, and Brandon Lloyd continues to dominate at the WR position with a great 17-point day that was overshadowed by all the bears going off into space around him. Matt Bryant had a respectable 8 points while the Cleveland Defense should have done better than the meager 5 they got against a weak Carolina team.
With their awesome performances this week, and the bad weeks for Roddy White and Terrell Owens, Dwayne Bowe and Brandon Lloyd are now first and second in scoring among wide receivers in the HBFFL, officially making them most dangerous WR combo in the league. Tom Brady moves up to seventh in QB scoring, even after a few mediocre weeks, and Peyton Hillis jumps from fourth to second among RBs. But even though Chris Johnson's zero points knocked him down to fourth in RB scoring, Renal Failure now has the highest scoring active RB duo in the HBFFL now that the Ramblers' Frank Gore is done for the season.
Bald Spots didn't have such a good day with their roster. Philip Rivers only had 9 points because the Chargers defense and Mike Tolbert did most of the scoring against the Colts, whose struggles resulted in Pierre Garcon earning a meager 7 points which were five more than Anquan Boldin managed. Adrian Petersen's sprained ankle only allowed him to earn 12 points and TE Tony Moeki's short-yardage TD reception accounted for his only points of the day. If not for David Akers' 14 points and the Oakland Defense's 11, things would have gone much worse for Bryan and his Bald Spots. Much worse.
According to Yahoo! and basic math, with our optimal lineup with TE Jason Witten's 9 points replacing Brandon Pettigrew's 6-point day vs. the Patriots and Fred Jackson's inexplicable 26 points replacing Chris Johnson's bed-shitting goose egg Renal Failure would have had 195 points. That is absoludicrious, and we don't use that term lightly.
Who scored more points than this guy? EVERYBODY!
Even more absoludicrous is the fact that the Brady/Hillis/Bowe Order of the Triad outscored every other team in the HBFFL this week. Hell, we could have started Sam Bradford at QB and we'd still have had a 156 point day because Sam The Future had 38 vs. the Broncos. Hines Ward's 15 point day on the bench almost seems quaint compared to most everyone else's day on the Renal Roster. We almost want to take Mike Williams (2pts), Brandon Jackson (3pts), Sidney Rice (2pts), and Chad Ochocinco (4pts) aside and ask them why the hell they're slacking so much. At least Chris Johnson can blame his shitty day on having a quarterback named Rusty. Shit... Rusty Smith was looking more like Rusty Venture against the Texans. He sure didn't give the Texans the ol' Rusty Trombone out there this week. The Volunteer State cries out for the return of Kerry Collins.
Renal Failure's winning streak is now at five games, bringing the People's record up to 7-5 and placing them in a three-way tie for third in the league with Predator Press and the aforementioned Bald Spots. Renal Failure wins the tiebreaker because after this day of chucking bears into space we now stand as the second-highest scoring team in the league behind The Ramblers (but only by three points). Two games remain in the regular season, and Renal Failure has to go through 6-6 La Machine and 6-6 What the Canuck? to run the table and guarantee themselves a spot in the playoffs.
But the People believe in Renal Failure, because Renal Failure believes in Ines Sainz.
Victory. Sweet, sexy victory...
___________________________________________________________ Renal Failure has a five game winning streak in three out of the four leagues we're in. We only have a two game winning streak over in that 14-team league of Chris's but that doesn't matter 'cause we've been out of the playoff race over there since Week Five.
Zorro Cat looks forward to a Renal Failure victory this week...
It's a rematch from last year's championship game, though both teams are far from championship form this year. The Failure and The Machine are 1-2 and have had their issues in the early stages of the 2010 season, with La Machine having trouble with the autodraft and Renal Failure losing Ryan Grant after the first game and having the Bald Spots throw four bears into orbit on us last week.
The Yahoo! projections show Renal Failure dominating La Machine 103-79, and as pleasing as it is for us to see the People's Champion winning our revenge game by such a large margin, we find the numbers a bit inflated.
Chris Johnson is projected for 28 points against Denver, but high projections like that are never to be trusted. And while we're fine with Tom Brady's 24 projected points vs. Miami, we're not so sure of New Orleans DEF's 11 point projection. Even Pierre Thomas's 13 projected points seem highly optimistic, even against a bad team like Carolina.
Ninja Vicki and Samurai Cathy suggest La Machine start Alex Smith this week...
La Machine is going to depend on Matt Schaub and Cedric Benson to have big days because Ray Rice has knee troubles and will probably see a bunch of his carries given to Willis McGahee. There's the newly-acquired Peyton Hillis sitting on Chris's bench, but really, does the defending champion want to put his trust in a member of the Cleveland Browns?
Roddy White's been paying dividends at WR, but Terrell Owens hasn't been setting the world on fire. La Machine could start Braylon Edwards in TO's place, but then that would put Chris on the shit-list of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and those women are relentless. (Side Note: The Westminster Dog Show people have been burning a dog house on Rambler's lawn for having Michael Vick on his roster. And you don't even want to know what the Lifetime Network has been doing to LOBO for having Ben Roethlisberger on his team.)
One edge La Machine might have is that he has New England's Stephen Gostkowski kicking for him, and if Renal Failure's bear-chucking machine Tom Brady stalls out against Miami, Gostkowski could get some field goals.
Gostkowski blesses you, my child...
Without a doubt, this is the most important game on the Week 4 schedule. The winner goes to 2-2 and gets back into the playoff hunt; the loser goes to 1-3 and sees their road to the post-season become that much more difficult. Still, La Machine started the 2009 season 1-3 and won the championship, so it's not an impossible position. So since it's a familiar place for Chris, he should drop to 1-3 and try to recreate his magical run of '09 while Renal Failure tastes Week 4 victory. And just to bring balance back to the universe, Renal Failure should run win the rest of their games and duplicate their magical 12-2 regular season from '09 as well.
The People have waited a long time for vengeance against La Machine, the team that ruined our perfect '09 season and then took the championship from us. Revenge is a soup best served hot and steaming and poured in your lap, and we've got a cauldron of chicken noodle heating up for Sunday.
___________________________________________________________ Renal Failure also likes lobster bisque, but finds its too thick for proper vengeance-filled crotch scaldings. You want a thinner broth that will seep through the fabric and the zipper.
by 2010 HBFFL Champion Renal Failure
Renal Failure is the defending 2010 HBFFL champion, the defending 2010 FTWL champion, and The People's Champion. Renal Failure is also an original member of the HBFFL and the band Survivor, but quit the band in disgust when they wouldn't go with his "Eye of the Mongoose" song idea.
