Superbowl Shuffle Championship Week 16

It’s finally here. The last week of the season. We’ve had joy we’ve had fun we’ve had seasons in the sun but the wine and the song like the seasons have all gone. That’s right I just typed that. We’ve had 5 teams with the same season record (6-7) and half those teams made the playoffs. Quite a bit of parity for a 12 team league. How’s your season ending? For some of you it's ended like this:

And for others it will end like this:

(I want these moves. Full video here: Kill killin it)

I just want to let you all know I’m proud of you. If this was a soccer league for 5 year olds I’d give you all awards. Actually know know what? Wait a sec….OK here you go:

Feel free to print it off. Bring it to Christmas dinner. Post it on Facebook.

You guys made this year really, really fun and I hope you all can come back next year.  But there can only be one Highlander and that Highlander will be Let’s Get Physical or Team Kent. Congrats to both teams. Let’s Get Physical got physical with Big Blows, who put the blow in Blows last week. Team Kent continued his late season domination as the #1 seeded Savannah Pickles picked the wrong time to lay an egg. That egg turned out to be Jimmy Graham expending more energy complaining about penalties more than running routes. Or it could be Matthew Stafford deciding to model his throwing motion after Dan Quisenberry….just for fun.

Let’s look at the tale of the tape for the championship. Take a look a the matchup projections picture below:

Team Kent has been riding the Peyton Manning like this monkey rides this dog:

What’s nuts about these projections is PM should get 29.8 points. “Preposterous!” you’d say (if you actually said something like that in real life.)  But Manning has done this 6 of the last 16 games, and we really haven’t seen this face this year:

Here’s something else that’s crazy: here are the names of the high scorers that got Kent into the champeen ship last week: Demarco Murray, Rashad Jennings both with over 20 points. That’s right, the perpetually injured Murray on a dysfunctional, pass happy Cowboys team, and a backup that couldn’t get the starting role on the Jaguars the last couple years. Calvin Johnson is usually the anchor for this team however he’s slowed down lately and is dinged up.

Will this random, Mean Machine like group continue their hot streak for one more week?

Let’s Get Physical has the fantasy gem all stars this year. Eric Decker and Julius Thomas decide who’s going to dominate each week in the locker room right before the game. Eddie Lacy is making the Packers offensive line look professional for once. And when Dez Bryant does something he goes all out whether it’s this:

or this:

Filling out their lineup has been a Phillip Rivers who has clearly replaced himself with the younger Rivers via some type of Delorean using garbage as fuel. And finally Danny Woodhead, who looks like RB2 for a nine man high school football team.

If the fantasy talking heads saw this team, they’d swoon from having the vapors and then declare this team the champion immediately.

But the game still has to be played. Here’s what’s at stake:

1st place - $30 gift card

2nd place  - $15 gift card

Just a reminder we’re still playing for the rest of these spots too:

Highest scorer for the entire league (did not take 1st or 2nd place)  -  $10 gift card  

Consolation - $5 gift card

8 seed  - Prize: Nothing Absolutely Nothing!

Last Place: Not a threat, just a promise. If you get last place will immortalize you on the blog. I’ll get some pictures of you mark my word. I’m sure your 7th grade class picture will do. Believe it or not there have been a few hits from places I know our members aren’t located so it is public I’ll figure out a way to get the word out

Hope you and your families all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I’m sure I’ll post a recap after the holidays to tie a bow on this season (Christmas tie in!). Good luck to all.

BTW, had to share this as I'm certain my fantasy week this week will end like this:

Super Bowl Shuffle 2013 Playoffs Week 2

It was snowing and freezing in what felt like half the games last week where you the networks had to computerize the yard markers. There were some huge injuries to Reggie Bush(Sorry Mono, lesson learned, never warmup before a game) and Ryan from the office still couldn’t play.  So of course it had to be a low scoring, pedestrian week right? Well….If you had played against Josh McCown, Andrew Luck, and Lesean McCoy you didn’t think so. 99 TDs were scored in 14 games last Sunday. That’s not even counting the single digit temperature shellacking Josh McCown gave the Cowboys (This Josh McCown).

What’s more, take a look below at the top 20 scorers in our league last week. Show of hands, who had Da’rick Rogers and Jason Campbell? Nobody even had Andy Dalton last week in our league

That being said all the top seeds except one won in our league (Sorry again Mono) just maybe not the way we’d expect. The #1 seed advanced by 20 points even with a Monday Night surge by Boy’s Club’s Josh McCown’s 42 points. Replacement Refs just missed a huge upset over Let’s Get Physical by six points. Who knows what would have happened if there weren’t some key injuries to AP and Gronk in the middle of the game. And the big Mono Peligroso vs Team Kent saga now shows Kent is 3 of 9 against his archenemy. Kent isn’t winning the war but he won this battle and continues his rampage across this league.

#1 Pickles vs. #5 Kent - Will this be the Superbowl Shuffle championship one week early? Denver was disappointing on Thursday but Manning still got 20 points. It’s basically Manning and Megatron vs. Stafford and McCoy. This guys have superstars but it will be the 4th and 5th tier guys that will swing this matchup.

#2 Big Blows vs #3 Let’s get Physical - The Thursday night game wasn’t any fun for either of these teams. but that game isn’t all they need. They need big games from their heavy hitters. Physical needs Dez Bryant to make some big plays against a terrible defense. The Blows need Roethlisberger and Vincent Jackson to carry them like they have the last couple weeks. This could be a close one

I won’t get into the details with the rest of these teams. Just know there is still plenty to play for. In fact here are the prizes for this year:

1st place - $30 gift card

2nd place  - $15 gift card

Highest scorer for the entire league (did not take 1st or 2nd place)  -  $10 gift card  

Consolation - $5 gift card

8 seed  - Prize: Nothing Absolutely Nothing!

Last Place: Not a threat, just a promise. If you get last place will immortalize you on the blog. I’ll get some pictures of you mark my word. I’m sure your 7th grade class picture will do. Believe it or not there have been a few hits from places I know our members aren’t located so it is public I’ll figure out a way to get the word out

Here’s to some craziness this week too.

Superbowl Shuffle 2013 Week 14

It's playoff time y'all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Booooyahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!






































Well it's finally here. The culmination of all those weeks on the waiver wire and setting up those rosters. Now all that's left is to play it all out to see who is the best team. No more power rankings, no voting, comparative rankings and debates. I don't mean to bring up a sore subject too soon but I just witnessed Michigan State beat Ohio State after winning 24 straight games. This left only 1 undefeated team in the country, Florida St. Ohio St. was undefeated until the very end. Do those teams meet in the NCAA Championship? No, it's going to be Auburn 12-1 vs Florida St. probably because Auburn beat #1 Alabama by doing this crazy thing:

After ward Twitter exploded Twitter explodes and sports "analysts" rejoiced to have something to do for 40 hours the next week. So Auburn got to play in the SEC championship so they would play Alabama for that Championship right because they were #1 the whole season? No because they were in the same arbitrary division. So that means Alabama has one less game than then res....Ok I give up it's too dumb to explain.  there's a bunch of 11-1 teams and a bunch of 12-1 teams and none of them have a shot to play in the National championship because of who or when they lost to the other team. Basically it's like the NCAA basketball tourney except everyone is a bubble team at all times.

I don't have the patience but I wonder if NCAA did the same thing how many Butler's, NC State's and #3 in the nation teams would have missed out on getting to the National Championship because they didn't win or lose to the right people.

I'm not saying Ohio State should still be int he National Championship their defense looked rough the last 2 games and they were outplayed by Michigan St tonight. But...wouldn't you want to see all these teams play it out to decide it all?  This will start to a small degree in 2014: Playoff system so we'll see how it goes.

Fortunately for us we don't have to debate. It's all going to happen out there on the field...er Internet. On to the Playoff brackets!


Winner's Bracket


#1 Savannah Pickles vs #8 Team Boy's Club - The Savannah Pickles started out the year dominating the league with McCoy and Stafford with strong starts. Near the end of the year he hit a 3 game skid which almost lost him the #1 spot. His sister, Team Boy's Club, had the same end of the year skid but managed to pick up just enough wins earlier in the season to put the brakes on. If you look at the numbers this may be a sibling rivalry but it's not a true rivalry as the Pickles seem to have too much firepower. Keys: If Boy's Club get get a bunch out of McCown, Jackson, and Fitzgerald. Maybe there's a chance but the Pickles are too stacked.
#4 Mono Peligroso vs #5 Team Kent - I love this matchup and I-eeee-I-eeeeee-I have always loved....this matchup. Truth be told Mono Peligroso leads this matchup 6-2 all time against Kent but some of those games were really close and Kent won the Champioship against Mono holding off an epic Monday Night comeback where Michael Vick needed like 5 passing yards or 1 rushing yard to put Mono over the top. Not to mention the bad blood that always happens after being college roommates for a few years.
# 3 Let's Get Physical vs #6 Replacement Refs- Let's Get Physical has been solid all the way around the entire season not sustaining any losing streak for very long mainly because of fantastic waiver wire choices like Danny Woodhead and Julius Thomas. Doesn't hurt to have Eddie Lacy and Eric Decker on the team too. The Replacement Refs had a solid draft but have had an up and down season due to Tom Brady inconsistencies, Offensive issues with the Vikings for Adrian Peterson. This lead to some serious losing streaks but the team has put up good numbers week to week to get them into the playoffs and should put up a tough fight
#2 Big Blows vs #7 Team Cantona - Aaron Rodgers and Knowshon Moreno, and some hot receivers are what got the Big Blows here. They laid an egg last week with a chance to be #1 seed and lost out based on points.  With Rodgers hurt and some tough matchups to start the playoffs it's gonna be a tough road. If Rodgers is back and the Broncos don't decide to rest starters they could make the repeat run. Team Cantona came into the league last year almost exclusively among the elite teams all year with a tough loss in the playoffs. This year has been a tough one with some key injuries challenging depth and underperformance by Eli Manning and more recently Andrew Luck. You aren't ever out of it with Jamaal Charles.


Loser's Bracket


#9 Rain Dancer vs #10 Silver Bullets - Rain Dancer decided to be the warehouse for all the most hyped and apparently the most overrated draft picks of the season. CJ Spiller, Lamar Miller, Dwayne Bowe, RG3. But Bobby Rainey (who?), AJ Green, and the return of Andre Johnson could help them salvage the season. The Silver Bullets have shown how you can have Drew Brees and Cam Newton and still get 10th seed. With a 3 game losing streak, a 4 game losing streak and a 4 game winning streak, it seemed to be on teh shoulders of who started at QB. Whether Wes Welker and Antonio Brown can actually get passes and if the Ravens offensive coordinator remembers Ray Rice is in the lineup. Which streak will the Bullets start in the playoffs?
#11 Levanger's Bangers vs #12 Spatula City Spatulas - The Bangers seem to make all the right moves with their roster with Keenan Allen, Desean Jackson, Frank Gore and Tony Romo unfortunately they hit a 6 game losing streak with a good portion of these games losing by a small margin leading to an uncharacteristically underperforming season. They still have the talent to make a run for consolation. let's see if Allen is for real and if Romo will do Romo things, good or bad. Spatulas were also uncharacteristically  underperforming. The Spatulas loved overrated players so much this year they bought the company. Who would have seen all the drama with the Falcons and Matt Ryan or with Trent Richardson. Josh Gordon could help them make a run and the waiver activity throughout the year could make the season somewhat redeemable.

I'll announce the prizes for 1st, 2nd, Highest scoring, etc next week.

Good luck today!

2013 Week 13

Well this is the end of the regular season y'all. I've already said all the thank yous possible. I was basically this: http://youtu.be/8HgWANva9Xk on Thursday. Someone calm me down. 

So to me all that's left is scenarios. The great thing about this year is there's a lot of parity. I've updated the magic numbers but let's throw them out this week because it's all situational now. Here's a few numbers:

3 - teams already made the playoffs (Big Blows, Savannah Pickles, Let's Get Physical)

9 - teams are playing for the last 5 spots 

3  - teams need a win OR need 3 of the 5 remaining 5-7 teams to lose (Peligroso, Cantona, Silver Bullets)

5 - teams are 5-7 and need a win AND need a 3- 5 of the 5 5-7 teams to lose. If you are one of these teams and you lose then you need 4- of the 5-7 teams to lose AND you need to win the "Points For" tiebreaker (Silver Bullets, Team Kent, Levanger's Bangers, Replacement Refs, Rain Dancer)

1 - team is 4-8 and would need to win AND need 4 out of the 5 5-7 teams to lose AND win the "Points For" tiebreaker. Not impossible but going to be a tough road.(Spatula City Spatulas)

0 - 5-7 teams play each other today so all 5-7 teams could lose today making today wide open for anyone 

Does your head hurt? Mine does. Here,  this may be easier to understand: 

This is just brilliant. "You need to take some 2x4s and 1x8s and just shimmy it." Props to Mike Reid for the link.

Bill Murray seems to make the right choices. And even if he makes bad choices (See: The Man Who Knew Too Little, Space Jam, Quick Change, Mad Dog and Glory) He still fits in a few brilliant moments). BTW see him in Zombieland. Even if you don't want to watch the movie (which is good if you can stomach the zombie kills) fast forward to his part, it's fantastic. Besides the classics (Meatballs, Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, What About Bob?, Groundhog Day) check out the dramatic work (Lost in Translation, Get Low, Hyde Park on the Hudson). 

I especially want to highlight Hyde Park on the Hudson. It's no Lost in Translation but he carries the film, and is the first time I forgot the character he was playing was Bill Murray. Don't even get me started on co-owning the St. Paul Saints.  

Just goes to show, if you make film choices based on movies you believe in more than movies you get paid the most for and not be afraid to do some dramatic work, you can keep your integrity and relevance...or you can be Chevy Chase or Dana Carvey.

Here'e hoping you can make choices you believe in over what seems to get you the most gain. Both in life and in fantasy football. 

Here's the Power Rankings:

Power Rankings

Let's Get Physical has now made the playoffs and could still get the 1st or 2nd spot. The top spot is Big Blows to lose if they lose and Savannah Pickles win then we're looking at another "Points For" tiebreaker. Special mention to Silver Bullet's who have surged forward with a 4 game winning streak going from 1-7 to 5 -7. Also to Team Kent who has a 3 game winning streak and leads the rest of the league better watch out for in the playoffs as he leads everyone else in the league in Points For with 70 more points than the next highest scorer. Rain Dancer drops significantly after a tough loss last week. 

Here's the playoff picture:

Let's see how much this changes after this week. This is gonna be fun.  Everyone have a great week! Hope you make the playoffs!

Ryan

PS- The noon games are almost done and I couldn't resist posting this from today's Vikings game: 

*shopping for Patterson jersey currently*

2013 Week 12

Flipping through the channels this week I noticed something that blew my mind. Eddie Murphy was on a talk show. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen Eddie Murphy in something that wasn’t a terrible movie. Here’s what’s even weirder, the set looked exactly like the Arsenio Hall show...because it was the Arsenio Hall Show. The set had the couches instead of the desk, the band was still where it always was, and the there was still a Dawg Pound. It was almost like this show has been around the last 20 years much like Leno and Letterman have been. The interview was actually very entertaining and you could tell they were good friends by how comfortable they were with each other.

But then subsequent interviews showed the real thing. You can only have so many friends as guests. You can only get the crowd to go “Woof! Woof!” and do that index finger high five thing so many times. When you’re cool and confident you can interview people with only an ottoman in between you. When you lean in too far and overlaugh like you’ve downed 7 Red Bulls, you start to think talk show hosts have desks for a reason. It led me to think, remember when Arsenio was the best talk show host in the world?

It was only for 5 years but he was.

Arsenio came in at a time when culture was changing. Whether it was changes to the political, racial, gender, health, musical or fashion landscape, it was all changing rapidly during the 5 year period Arsenio was on. Whether it was AIDS awareness or the LA riots, Arsenio was the talk show young people went to to see relevant guests talking about these issues rather than ignoring them.

Add to the fact Carson and Letterman were so vested in the audience of 35 and up viewers they would never take the risk of inviting cutting edge celebs at the time which young audiences would only be interested in. Celebs such as MC Hammer, Andrew Dice Clay, Mike Tyson, Jason Voorhees, Vanilla Ice, Snoop Dogg, Sam Kinison, WWF wrestlers, 2Pac and presidential candidate Bill Clinton were often overlooked initially by the bigger networks but proved to be a “must see” for younger audiences.

It seemed like anything could happen. Sometimes it was planned and sometimes it wasn’t. Here’s a link to some of the random things that happened. Some of  these would never happen on a talk show again:

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/arsenio-hall-show-top-late-night-moments/story?id=16604430#

I was only 11 when he started but remember foregoing NBA games, MLB games, MTV (back when it was actually music), and anything else during that time to watch the show on the weekends. Did I live in a small town, have a mullet and double rimmed glasses? Did I wish I had a fade haicut, gold chains, and gold parachute pants? Yes and yes.

In fact I was convinced my ticket to becoming the most popular kid in my school was if I wrote a letter to MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice and they held a concert on the wooden stage in the school’s gym and then invited me up on stage to dance with them...that didn’t happen.

OK enough fun talking about the 90’s I could do remember when about this constantly (Like remember when Coolio was a legitimate artist, had #1 hits and even won a Grammy? Can you imagine him next to Jay Z or any other legenday hip hop artist today?) but let’s to a fantasy football remember when. Like remember when Ray Rice was a top 3 starter? Remember when Ryan from “The Office” was indestructible and didn’t have a creepy mustache Creepy ? Remember when the New England Patriots were an offensive juggernaut and had character guys on their roster? Remember when we all drafted a bunch of running back as if they would dominate scoring this year? Remember your opening day lineup? Opening Day

Much like life and late night talk shows, the only constant in fantasy football is change. I’m sure there are plenty of remember when’s from this year and others. Here’s to you rolling with the changes and hoping a few breaks go your way to end the season.

Please see the Power Rankings below. This week the Blows took over the top spot by beating the Pickles and clinching a playoff spot. Last week could be a preview of the championship game.

We’ll also see some teams clinch soon as you can see the magic numbers (number of wins and final playoff spot losses needed to make the playoffs) are shrinking. Believe it or not everyone still has a chance. If you are 4-7 and can win 2 and have some of these 5-6 teams lose the next 2? You are in. Even if you have a tie in your record you still have a chance as the tiebreaker is who has the most “Points For” between the tied teams. So get in as many points as you can then next 2 weeks.

Power Rankings Week 12

Believe it or not everyone still has a chance. If you are 4-7 and can win 2 and have some of these 5-6 teams lose the next 2? You are in. Even if you have a tie in your record you still have a chance as the tiebreaker is who has the most “Points For” between the tied teams. So get in as many points as you can then next 2 weeks. Here’s what the picture looks like this week:

Week 12 Playoff Picture

Have a great week everybody. I’m sure I’ll remind you all about the football extravaganza on Thanksgiving day.  May you and your families have a great Thanksgiving if I don’t talk at you prior.

2013 Week 11

Hope you all had a great week 10. Thank you to all the servicemen and Veteran's and their families who have sacrificed so much for the freedoms my family and I are afforded every day. Your service has afforded me the ability to provide for my family, exercise my beliefs, and even allows me to do the little things like writing this stupid blog. 

I wrote something last night which I thought was long and insightful and as I read it today it started to sound like a high school term paper. But not the kind of term paper with anything personal on it or with a vulnerability to endear anyone to it. More like a cross between Wikipedia and an over the top Amazon review:

Like this Mr. Mister "Welcome to the Real World" album review: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1Z05SFFACM46J/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000002WBS&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

NOT this Mr. Mister review (although maybe I should try it next time): http://www.amazon.com/review/R395JRNKAMNKFF/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B000002WBS&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

I know I wrote plenty of papers for high school but honestly the only one I remember writing was for my German class. It was a fiction story completely in German. I could pick any subject I wanted. I picked OJ Simpson. And not the OJ that jumped over luggage. I don't even remember what the story was about, I just remember copying and pasting a grainy picture of a white Bronco in the middle of the paper, as if a jpg file was going to get me extra points. "Here's my OJ Simpson fan fiction completely in German, Frau Olsen. "A" please!" 

2 to 1 odds she called my guidance counselor and refused to grade it. I also named myself Helmut, ate some pickled herring, sang preschool songs, and shot a video impersonating Richard Simmons while gyrating in short shorts (no Nair involved) in my high school German class. So basically it was anything goes as far as I was concerned in my Ivy league prep German class.

So anyway here's the power rankings for this week. Props to Savannah Pickles who is the first get into the playoffs this year despite losing last week. It's been quite the run for the second year team and this team keeps making moves to set themselves up for the playoffs. This week it's #1 Pickles vs #2 Big Blows which could mean #1 seed for the playoffs. Big game.

I also want to call out the Silver Bullets and Team Kent who had convincing wins last week and who are surging in terms of points scored and over all opportunity to make a run to make the playoffs. We have 4 teams with 4-6 records so we'll be seeing quite the movement each week for a playoff spot. Every team is still in it and so it will make the last 3 weeks pretty entertaining...at least for me in my weird puppet master commissioner mind. Well here they are, take a look:

Power Rankings

Here's the playoff seedings so far. At this point the Bangers make the cut. Can they shake off the 4 teams under them? 

Just a reminder to all, not only do you need to win but they need to score points these last weeks. The playoff seeding tiebreaker is "Points For" so if you have a tie in terms of records the higher seed will be the team with the higher amount of points earned over the entire season.

Projected Playoff Seedings

Well, good luck this week, I guess since it's past most of the games, hope you had good luck this week. Since this post isn't the multimedia extravaganza it normally is, in honor of Veterans day, please to present:

I soooo wish this was my brother in law but of course it isn't. Although get a few in him and I'm thinking he's breaking out his Moves Like Jagger...75 year old Jagger heyooooooo. If he's reading this, this weeks blog is brought to you by a ghost writer, I'm not actually writing this week. The person writing this week is from Denmark... you wouldn't know him. Anyway, if I could move like this in sweatpants, let alone a uniform,  I would literally crash weddings every week. There is no public forum I wouldn't break out the boombox and start playing Billie Jean.

Going to work on my popping and locking right now. (Translation: shoulder is popping out of joint, and knees are involuntarily locking)

Have a good one everybody

2013 Week 10

Not much to say this week. Just wanted to get out the power rankings for this week. As I write, the Vikings won...and the Jags won. We had a chance folks, and we still have a chance. Maybe we’ll get Manziel, maybe we’ll still get the Duck. Maybe we’ll just bring back Gus Frerotte. But maybe, just maybe we can be so bad that we can get Teddy Bridgewater. Believe in your dreams everyone. Shout out to the Redskins who took one half to realize we were trying to tank and decided all that pass protection and tackling wasn’t needed anymore.

Well our league doesn’t allow tanking. In true David Stern fashion you can be the worst for a long time it’s just a matter of percentages as to what draft position you get. And when I say percentages,  I mean percent revenue received off of large market TV contracts. Congrats LA Clippers, Chicago Bulls, and Orlando Magic, you earned it! Also have you heard the rumors about Y2K and the moon landing? *quick clicks on the following link: http://bit.ly/Mnpz8q to get back to reality*

Well here’s the Power Rankings this week. I’ve also included the Magic Number for each team in the playoff race. This is basically the combination of wins by your team and losses from the last seed of the playoffs (currently Levanger’s Bangers) to lock up a playoff spot. So Savannah Pickles needs a win today or a loss by the Bangers to lock it up while Team Kent needs to almost win out or at least have one of those 4-5 teams to go on a 4 game losing streak. Good luck with all that. 

Special shout out to Team Kent. Not only has this team racked up over 1000 Point For and is 2nd only to Savannah in points this year but also leads the league in Points Against with over 1000. I’ve never seen anything like it. Will a large correction be on the horizon for the next 4 games with Payton Manning? Who in the 4-5 melee will make it to the playoffs? Will Mono Peligroso make another inevitable run to the championship no matter what his record is? What is a Mono? or a Peligroso for that matter?

All this to be answered in the weeks to come. Have a good one everybody.