Everyone Run! It's the Five-Oh!

As of this date there are two events that are considered the worst things to ever happen to Canada. One is the trade of Wayne Gretzky from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings in 1988. The other happened this Sunday as What the Canuck?, Canada's representative in the Humor Bloggers Fantasy Football League, fell in the biggest game of the year to the People's Champion, The Wild Card, the Macho Fantasy Football Donkey Wrestler, The Duke of New York...

The now 5-0 Renal Failure... the Great One... the Noble Laureate of the HBFFL.

Not that everything went well for the Great One in Week 5. The People's Champ panicked on Sunday morning about the health of the Manning known as Eli and benched him, and he punished us for our sin by putting up more points in less than one half of football (20) than Shaun Hill did in two (14). RB's Maurice Jones-Drew and Steve Slaton had awful days as well (5 and 8 points respectively), which we suspect was additional punishment for doubting the Holy Spirit of the Manning Trinity. Such anemic performances would sink most teams, but that's why those teams aren't The Wild Card (bitches!).

For this truly was the week of the Wide Receiver in the land of the Macho Fantasy Football Donkey Wrestler. Hines Ward put up 14 solid points and T.J. Houshmandzadeh exploded for more points than letters in his name (19). Add on the 11 points the Eagles Defense gave us and the 7 points Dallas Clark leeched off the Manning known as Peyton, and The Duke of New York (who truly is A-Number-One now) had just enough to pull out a victory.

Of course, it greatly helped the People's cause that most of the Ducky's starting lineup neglected to show up this week. When the kicker outscores both your running backs combined, trouble is abound no matter how awesome the Lord your Peyton is.

So as the winner of the biggest game of the young HBFFL season, the Great One deserves something more for his victory than just undisputed first place. Something from the Ducky. And so we'll be appropriating for ourselves Chris Berman's favorite phrase when talking about Canucklehead's precious Buffalo Bills...

"Nobody circles the wagons like Renal Failure."

Yeah, it's ours now.

---Renal Failure says that just happened.

Tuesday Morning QB: Angering The Football Gods

I knew it was going to be a bad week when my opponent, Lobo of Predator Press sent me an e-mail early Sunday afternoon:

"MAN you are catching a lot of bad breaks today! Did u anger the football gods or something?"

I think I must have.

So how do you know you've angered the football gods?

When Big Ben and Ronnie Brown score more than your entire team!

They had 52 points. My team had 46 points to Lobo's final team total of 119 points.

The leading scorer for my team was...Glenn Coffee with 12 points, followed by SJax with 10. They were the only two in double digits.

David Garrard almost made it to double digits, giving me 9 points. But Randy Moss with his 3 and DeSean Jackson (DJax) and Dustin Keller with a combined 0 points were the real disappointments.

Later Sunday evening, Lobo noted in an e-mail to me and Chris Cameron of Angry Seafood that as penance for my angering the football gods that I "should dance in circles naked around [my] television after sacrificing a live chicken or something."

I responded:

"I usually listen to the games on NFL Sirius because we don't have cable so it will probably be the radio I'll be dancing in front of. I may have to forego the live chicken because we have a cat and I think he might go a little crazy.

"A dead chicken, maybe? He could have fun with that. I'll just have to make sure the feathers are out first and only let him 'nom' on the dead carcass for a few minutes before I take it away from him."

I also should hasten to add I'll forgo the "naked" part too.

Photos to follow next week.

2009 HBFFL MVP Week Five

1.(tie) Roddy White 38
Googlyeyed Goons



1. (tie) Payton Manning 38
What The Canuck?

3. (tie) Tony Romo 34
Team Duckgirl

3. (tie) Donovan McNabb 34
La Machine

(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)

2009 HBFFL Week Five Results and Standings

Results



















Standings

Game of the Year Preview - Renal Failure vs. What the Canuck?

There can be only one 5-0 team!

It's the biggest game of the year. The clash of the undefeateds. Renal Failure vs. What the Canuck? It's like the Super Bowl and the Stanley Cup had sex at the World Series and produced a baby swaddled in a Green Jacket. At stake is utter dominance of the HBFFL. Such an epic event of this magnitude deserves and in-depth preview and careful dissection.

Quarterback
Unluckily Renal Failure's QB machine Philip Rivers is on a bye this week. More unluckily is that backup Eli Manning has a heel injury and his status is unsure for Sunday's game vs. Oakland. In case Eli is scratched ten minutes before kickoff, the People's Champion has Shaun Hill on the bench as an emergency replacement, and his matchup against Atlanta doesn't seem too bad. The Manning on the What the Canuck? side, however, is healthy and has the weak secondary of the Tennessee Titans to throw on. Also Peyton always gets five points up front every week just for being Peyton Manning.

Advantage: Canuck wins the battle of the Mannings.


Running Back
The Ducky has Fred Jackson against Cleveland, who stops no one. The Wild Card (bitches!) of the League brings out the ultimate wild card in Maurice Jones-Drew with a sweet match-up against Seattle. It's close, but Jones-Drew is fourth in points among RB's, Jackson is sixth. But Jackson still has to deal with Marshawn Lynch returning to the Buffalo lineup and taking away touches.

Advantage: Renal rocks the power of the hyphen.


Wide Recievers:
RF starts Hines Ward and either TJ Houshmandzadeh or Jerricho Cotchery (not quite sure yet). Ward produces steady but not outstanding numbers, Housh finally woke up last week and has a good match-up against a weak Jacksonville secondary, and Cotchery's been solid this season but his numbers might decline with Braylon Edwards' addition to the Jets lineup. Canuck has T.O. and NY Steve Smith. T.O. has been bollocks so far this year and an injured Eli Manning may have an adverse effect on the big numbers NY Smith's been putting up lately. But if Eli has a big game, it's safe to say Steve Smith will too.

Advantage: Canuck has too much upside potential to discount.


Flex
Renal Failure's has Steve Slaton, but would play Pierre Thomas if he weren't on a bye. Aside from last week, Slaton has disappointed and Arizona has cracked down on the run this year. What the Canuck? starts the 5th leading scorer among RB's Willis MacGahee in the flex spot, but Cincinnati has also bulked up their run defense this year.

Advantage: Canuck runs bartertown.


Tight End
Canuck loses the 2nd leading scorer among TE's Antonio Gates to a bye week and has to start Marcedes Lewis in his place. Renal Failure starts the #1 TE in the league Dallas Clark, formerly the People's Scourge but now he's the People's Bonus because it's a super bonus when you have a tight end who has more points than all but three wide receivers. And the better Clark does, the more he eats into Peyton Manning's numbers.

Advantage: Renal ends up on top.


Kicker
Neil Rackers (21 points) vs. Rian Lindell (25 points), but Rackers was on a bye last week.

Advantage: Push.


Defense
Canuck is going with the Giants Defence (the socialist Canadian spelling) instead of his beloved Buffalo (betrayer!) against Oakland. Renal has the Eagles Defense(the manly American spelling, not to mention those 31 points in Week 1) coming off a bye week against an awful Tampa Bay team with a rookie quarterback starting.

Advantage: Renal stacks the line.


So it looks like it's a 3-3 tie between Renal Failure and What the Canuck? But the Yahoo! Matchup says The Wild Card is projected to win 93-89 over the Ducky (or at least it did as of Thursday night), but the Yahoo! computers have a favorable outlook on Eli Manning's health. Plus, you're dealing with the Wild Card here. You can't predict what the Wild Card will do. That's why they're the Wild Card.

Oh, and the People's Champion is skipping giving themselves a name this week for beating Team DuckGirl. But if the Macho Fantasy Football Donkey Wrestler wins this week against What the Canuck? he'll give himself two.

---Renal Failure has fear? A thousand times no! Well, maybe only 500 times this week.