Week 13 Recap

All I wanted to do was talk about the really exciting really close game that put/eliminated one of us from the playoffs, and there wasn't one match up that was worth breaking down. Sorry, but Peach getting crushed on Monday night is hardly worth me dedicating an entire blog to. Instead I think I'm going to go another route. Right now would be a perfect time to reflect upon quite the enjoyable season. Some can do it positively, some with regret. In reverse order I'm going to go team by team and guess what each owner is thinking right now.

crash and burn - will - 2-11 - In all honesty this record would probably be a win or two better had he not traded Rodgers, but by no means was this a good team. In the last game of the regular season crash and burn had lost with Death still waiting to play Welker and Woodhead on Monday night. Twice this season Will set the record for least amount of points scored in a week. So how did he get here? Will came into the draft thinking "I want to leave with Aaron Rodgers", and hot damn he did. Unfortunately for Will he still needed to draft 14 more players, whoops, wasn't prepared for that. Will's second round pick is partly my fault. He asked my opinion and I told him "if Steven Jackson hadn't fallen to me, I was looking very seriously at drafting DeAngelo Williams". I was quite honest, but that is quite the swing in good fortune. His next two picks were wide recivers Miles Austin (solid pick) and Sidney Rice (OOOOOOH, wait....he's not the guy thats going to be injured all year is he?) When two of your top four picks spend more time on the PUP and IR well you cant be surprised that you are in last. On a positive spin for Will, he does have Rodgers coming back next year and the number one pick for next season. So thats nice.

ProtectYourNeck - Jason - 4-9 - Ugh. I want to bash this team so bad, but I just can't. 5 weeks ago, would you have thought this team would have had 4 wins? Remember in the middle of the season when Jason wouldn't even start full teams? I really want to rip his draft, but HE WASN'T THERE. That's probably what Jason is regretting more then anything else going into next season. Here's the weird thing. His team won the last 3 games he has played, and he has only made 13 moves this season.  I'm not really sure what to make of Jason as a player. He could be someone to watch for next year, seeing as how he basically paid out $50 to experiment with fantasy football. He could also just have been really lucky over the last 3 weeks. Once thing that will be fun to see is how well he drafts next year, you know assuming I have been feeding him Svedka for 3 hours before his first pick and I convince him to give me the #2 overall pick for my 6th rounder and a bottle of vodka.

Gunners Treble - Lars - 4-9 - That's right. Not only did you tie Jason for the second worst record, but you ended up with the worse of the two draft picks. That is going to be a problem for Lars because if you look at how he drafted this year you can see he needs all the help he can get. Micheal Turner was a good pick. I have no argument there...but listen to the next 6; Larry Fitzgerald, Ryan Mathews, Joseph Addai, Vincent Jackson, Jermicheal Finley, Philly's D. Unlucky? At times. Poor decision making? Yeah, that too. Lars' draft did have one move that had everyone impressed, he did not take a QB until his last two picks. He had drafted Brett Favre before Favre had even decided to play. Gutsy, and at first it looked genius, then around week 3 it seemed pretty dumb.  Lars will have an early pick next year, but looking up and down his team you have to wonder who are his keepers going to be?

Just the Tip Drill - Pitz - 5-8 - Did you ever think that by the end of the season that we wouldn't be able to laugh at Pitz and Jason? Makes me sad. Well unlike Jason, Pitz did do something to better his team. He brought in Micheal Vick when Vick was still a huge question mark, upgraded his draft for next year, and got rid of all of his Bengals and Cardinals which has to be good for something. This week Pitz handled Titus and moved him out of his cushy first round bye. He had big games from Vick (29.88), Branch (12.4) and Jones (10.7). The best part? Not one player Pitz started this week was on his roster week 1. Gotta know when to sell right?

nephew w/out the n - Kirby - 5-8 - All season long we made fun of Pitz's team, and praised Kirby's. Oh don't worry Kirby will be fine, its just bad luck. Well they ended with the same record. Guess he really did have bad luck this year. Kirby early on in the season rode the hot hand of Mike Vick, little did he know that was his team's MVP. The tandem of Eli Manning and Donovan McNabb just haven't been able to fill the void that Vick left on this team. Trading away his second round pick probably wont help his cause in reaching the postseason next year.

TheBlairWhiteProject - Peach - 6-7 - Hmmmm. What did this team do wrong? Strange. Seemed to do everything right. How did he not make the playoffs? What did he do? What did he do?

MotorBoaters - Stilt - 7-6 - Crazy last couple of weeks. This team was 6-1 going into week 8, then proceeded to drop its next 5 games! Matty Ice must have had a few games on the road. In Stilt's defense I don't know if there is a team who had to deal with as many injuries as he had to all year. Taking a look at his first 6 draft picks (Andre Johnson, Rashad Mendenhall, Pierre Thomas, Dallas Clark, Greg Jennings, Pierre Garcon) all but Mendenhall have dealt with some kind of injury throughout the season. I think that should be expected though if your going to draft numerous players named "Pierre". Well the team is starting to look as healthy as it can be (Clark is on the IR, and a different team) and ready to make a playoff run. Kinda fun to start talking about teams who did things right!

TheHeaphopapotamus - Death  - 8-5 - Solid first two picks in Drew Brees and Steven Jackson, but after that there wasn't much help. Brandon Marshall and Jahvid Best are still on the team, but other then Todd Heap (who was his last pick in the draft. Not just a clever name) no other player he drafted is left on the roster. This team is a good example of how you can build a winning team through waiver wire and free agency, along with knowing right match ups (most of the time at least). Did anyone notice the upgrade to Pittsburgh's D? Thanks Jason!

Grundy Grabbers - Alec - 8-5 - Took two great talents in Adrian Peterson and Tom Brady who both slipped in the draft, and Alec has had a very good first season of fantasy football. He hit on other draft picks like Percy Harvin and Santonio Holmes. Has hit a bit of a hiccup right now as he has lost his last 4 games. I personally expect him to make that 5 in a row after this week. No reason to talk any more about this bitch ass.

Velour Fog - Titus - 9-4 - 2 game losing streak. What happended to all the good teams going into the final stretch? For Titus it would appear that his gem pick up of RunDMC (second best nickname in football, its why I can never write "Darren McFadden") has started to slow down, and we all know that Ray Rice gets lost on his way to the endzone. Know who doesn't get lost looking for the endzone? MEGATRON (best nickname in football, hands down). Calvin Johnson has been a beast, and kind of a steal in the 3rd round. Include Philip Rivers (2nd round) and Matt Forte (4th round) and there is no question in my opinion that Titus had the best first 4 rounds of the draft.

Do You Like Apples?? - Hittner - 9-4 - Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Hillis, Jeremy Maclin. What do these three players all have in common? They all start for the hottest team in the league right now, and none of them were drafted by Bill Murphy. That's right, Hittner is the second overall seed and didn't even draft his own team. Might be time to find another excuse there Jason. Hittner has killed the waiver wire all season ending up with other supporting players like BenJarvus Green-Ellis (yes he will be known as the Law Firm from now on in this blog), Stevie "Hands of God" Johnson (please notice that his name is Stevie, and not Steve), and even to a lesser extent Micheal Crabtree (I don't have a cute nickname or really needed to mention Crabtree, but I really wanted to name 3 players). Ok this is running long, just know Hittner's team is going to win.

White Rice - Dan - 11-2 - Just like Hittner, Dan took a decent draft and made himself a dominant team. Kyle Orton and Brandon Lloyd don't seem like much to get excited about initially, but the two of them have joined forces with Chris Johnson and Arian Foster to make this team the force that it has been. Unlike most teams backing into the playoffs Dan has still managed to run off 4 wins in a row and would appear to be ready for a strong playoff push. Earlier in the year I wrote a post about how Dan is similar to Darth Vader. Well right now I'm starting to wonder if Hittner might be Luke Skywalker. Stay with me. Hittner's team was no treat early on in the season, while Dan came out of the gates just destroying people.  The two finally meet up in week 8, just like Luke and Vader meet in Empire Strikes Back. Dan won that match by cutting off Hittner's hand with a lightsaber (this is 100% factual). So now you get the feeling that while the rest of us battle (think of Titus as Han Solo and Stilt as Boba Fett, and Alec is the Death Star and I'm Wedge Antilles, oh yea I went there) the feeling has to be that the two Jedi will meet again ala Return of the Jedi. Only this time HITTNER is actually stronger, and is able to return Dan to the good side. Of course if CJ2K forgets to show up and the Denver offense starts to stall without Josh McDaniels, well then I will need to come up with a new movie correlation.

Well now that this post is done it's time to focus on the playoffs. After last nights game Titus has the big lead with 13 points coming from the right foot of Adam Vinatieri (so glad that I'm not typing about Reggie Wayne's huge day). It's put up or shut up time, or as Master Yoda says...."Do or do not. There is no try."