Week 12 Recap

At 6-7 last year Peach finished in the dreaded 7th spot with Stilt slipping into the 6th seed at 7-6. This year our 7th and 8th seeds could both be 7-6. Basically the playoffs have started already. Half the playoff field has yet to be determined!!! Of course the Commissioner's Hand, Marc Pitonzo, will cover all of the playoff implications in his weekly playoff predictor page later this week and I see no reason to steal any of his thunder just now (especially after stealing a victory from him this week). Pitz will do the predicting, I will do some recapping since we had some pretty important matchups this week that set the stage for the most exciting week 13 in the history of fantasy football. NO HYPERBOLE! Ok maybe a little.

There was a massacre where Titus beat Kirby by more then 70 points to put himself atop the 7-5 teams. Larsen and Stilt pulled the ole "getting the job done" and got to the coveted 7-5 level. There was also THE upset of the week when the Mark Ingram show dealt Pitz his second loss in so many weeks. There was the clash of the titans between Dan and Jason! Dan looked came across as a resident on Mount Olympus...and Jason was very mortal. A goat, even, if you will. Finally there was the epic desire of two teams battling it out tooth and nail, with Will coming across victorious and making next week very exciting!

Wu Rule #1 - Jason - REALLY? REALLY? REALLY? All of that and then nothing? If you didn't know, Jason doesn't make bets. He however is not against talking about bets, proposing bets, and backing away from them. Look, if you haven't been reading my blog (well then I'm sure you aren't right now) I am a huge believer in Fantasy Karma. Jason just had to face Karma face to face (FACE!)....and this is how it ended. Add a McCoy toe injury in there as well and wow, that is some awful karma. It is a good thing he has that first round bye locked up, so that McCoy has plenty of time to heal. I have a feeling we won't be hearing much from the league leader in the near future.

Just The Tip Drill - Pitz - Speaking of karma. With the Saints running the ball (FINALLY!!! I don't see good Karma in Sean Payton's playoffs) I get a text from Pitz. "It's a good thing this game [the IDP matchup] isn't close or I'd be having a heart attack. A yard here yard here, no biggie." I cannot make this stuff up, but at that exact moment Mark "The Great" Ingram dashed 38 yards past a number of New York Football Giants defenders who had come up with numerous places they would rather be then chasing after the fleet footed rookie. The effort was terrible and just that quickly the NFL and IDP games were both over. It is at this moment that I would like to give the Ma-Ti award for worthlessness this week to Mr. Mike Wallace. 2 catches, 17 yards, 1.7 points. Bravo, Mikey. Bravo.

Black Rice Act II - Dan - Damn. Do you know how much fun it was just dogging the top teams? Two terrible losses from our 1 and 2 seed and this blog was starting to get fun for me. Sadly I can't rip Dan's team. I can't figure out if it's because I have his second round pick, or because I just can't say no to that dashing quarterback on his team, but I don't hate Dan as much as I normally do. Don't worry. It will come. Just not there yet. Outside of Fantasy Karma the other theme for this week is that, was this not the definition of fortune favoring the bold? Dan takes an idea from Jason and basically lays it all out there, loser loses their best running back. We aren't talking about Jackie Battle and Montario Hardesty here folks. This bet would have had one team lose Arian Foster or LeSean McCoy. High stakes. That's why everyone was all in. This was the most intense bet anyone has ever presented in our short leagues history. The Gods don't like when things are taken away from their followers. Wait...Dan used to do predictions...those are gone...AHHHH...my head hurts now. Calm down, calm down, just listen to Wayne. I need to end this and what better way then to talk about Burritos. Did I hear somewhere that Chipotle now has brown/black rice? Did I make this up? Did Dan make this happen? Do I really want a burrito? Yes....to the last question. I don't know to the rest.

Grundle Stains - Titus - Ok. Hypotetically speaking. You're about to play Titus and the fantasy God of Predictions says to you "Ray Rice  will score single digit points, Megatron won't break 11, and RunDMC wont play" don't you take that every damn time, and twice on Sunday??? Sorry, but how often do you really get to use the saying "twice on Sunday"? I enjoyed saying it. Anyway, all of those things happened to Titus this weekend, and yet he scored 103 points. Help me Norm. Well it all makes sense when you realize that Jordy Nelson scored 2.7, and Kevin Smith left his game in the first half on a stretcher. WAIT. No it doesn't. It makes sense when you realize that he got 45 points from a kicker and a defense. Yup. And Pitz wrote last week that you cant win with kicking and defense. We all feel a bit upset right?

FreshPrincesofBelAir - Stilt - What a unified victory for team Stiltner. All team members came together as one on this day. Wes Welker (22.6) was the center of attention, and had all the right moves in his white jersey. He was making it look so good that no one could take their eyes off him. Cam'Ron (19.62) kept the party going, and the Ravens defense (18.00) came through during a happy family occasion. Great victory Stilt. You should be very proud and happy of what you accomplished this week. I know we are all thrilled for you and wish you the best of luck as you continue to move one step closer to getting that ring. AHHHH HA!!!

ZUnstoppableForce - Lars - YES! Get to be Debbie downer again. Yes, Lars did get the win. You are correct, but shouldn't there be just a little bit of concern going against Titus next week in a win and you're in game right after scoring the 3rd fewest points this week? The only two people who had worse weeks were 4-8 Kirby, and Lar's 3-8 opponent Hittner. Ok the downer lasted long enough. Strong possibility we may see from Mr. Beanie "26 points on the bench" Wells again soon. Also I'm sure he will have Miles Austin and the bum hamstring at some point, right? No #3 pick could be that big of a bust. Ok I meant to stop with the downer stuff. Look a win is a win is a win. Lars had a crap week, but he gets to fight another day, and really that's all we try to do in this league. Not like winning ugly has stopped Jason, and all that did was get him first place for the regular season.

Rodgers rejects - Will - Well that was rather impressive. At 5-6 Will's back was against the wall, and a loss to Alec would have all but sure that Will would have his second consecutive season watching the playoffs from home. Or ya know somewhere that you can watch fantasy football playoffs. I'm sure there is such a place. The rejects were anything but this week as they demolished the field pumping out 140 points, which Dan will tell us just how good of a score that is (I don't feel like looking it up). Just one week after I insulted Will for giving up a 3rd rounder for Cedric Benson, the Bengals running back scored 19 points. No surprise here but Aaron Rodgers put up over 20 points for the rejects, but the surprise is that he did not lead the team in scoring (20.4). No sir, that distinction goes to the epic performance of one Jimmy Graham. Remember how we all thought Will was reaching for Graham in the fourth round? Sheesh. Though there is someone who wasn't that thrilled with Grahams performance however.

Grundy Grabbers - Alec - Yea. Alec was that guy if you didn't pick up on that. I had the good fortune to be with Alec on Monday night as we rooted against Jimmy Graham, Brandon Jacobs and of course neither one of us wanted to see Pierre Thomas to ever be on the field. Alec was tending bar at his work of course and was only able to take in so much of the game at certain times. Which made it all that more depressing watching his reactions to Mike Tirico yelling "Touchdown, New Orleans". There would always be a deep breath then a slow turn towards the television, then what felt like an eternity was actually just a second long process of Alec attempting to piece together what number the receiver is wearing and all coming together as Alec's head would drop back and he would stare at the ceiling in an odd combination of rage and apathy. It was almost as if he was fully aware that he was on the path to another high scoring defeat, similar to the one he had against Kirby in week 2, and it burned him up inside that there was nothing he could do to stop it. There were a few moments of joy for the barkeep though, like every time the Giants offense was on the field. Upon Jimmy Graham's last touchdown which put Will ahead permanently there was no slow process for Alec. No, this time was just a quick immediate screaming of  "FUUUUUUUUUCK". Then a slew of other obscenities. We sat at his bar doing side work and closing down shop while throwing back a few end of the night brews. The two of us could not have been feeling more different (get to that later). Alec just kept driving home the point though the entire time we talked "My team is too good to be in this position". It would appear as if he is right, but he still is. The good news for Alec is that Tommy Touchdown plays the Colts this week, that should help as he attempts to control his own fate.

corn on the kolb - Kirby - How long can you go with a team named after Kevin Kolb? Nobody who ever had Kolb on their team, neither fantasy nor forreal football would keep kolb in their name. Is that the reason that Kirby only has 4 victories this year? No, but it still is fun to discuss. The kolbs (lower cased and all) were responsible for the second lowest score of the week of the week, but still find themselves in solid position to avoid being the dreaded last place team. The only exciting part of this team is Victor Cruz and the 27.7 points the nondrafted player scored this week.Kirby  can say that he is right now one of two players to have yet to make the playoffs. Last year he ended up with the number 5 overall pick, and this year he appears to be on his way to moving up one more spot to get the 4th overall. That is no guarantee of course. This team could still climb up that draft board. Yea...I really had nothing here... I would like to point out one gianantic flaw of Kirby's team this week. Sitting on his bench was Pittsburgh's defense (13.00) facing Kansas City and Tyler Palco. He started the Giants (-4.00) against Drew Brees. And I thought Hittner was tanking.

Do You Like Apples? - Hittner - As you can see by his point total this week Hittner has stopped paying attention to the league entirely now as there is no point since the trade deadline is over. There are two things about this team that do not surprise me though. First of all the highest scoring player this week for Hittner was Tim Tebow (16.42). Of course he was the highest!!! The only surprise to me is that Tebow wasn't the highest scoring overall player. He's TEBOW!!! The other thing that about this team that failed to surprise me was that Hittner's bench was 12 points away from tying his starters. How many weeks has this guy been tanking it? Oh right he "HAS" to start James Starks. I think he wants to. He is eying up the #2 overall pick. OOOOH my spiky haired friend, be careful with this game you're playing. It could backfire on you quickly.

Marchioness Disaster - Death - It's story time again. Week one on Thursday night after a pass interference call the Saints were on the 1 yard line against the Green Bay Packers, with 0 seconds left in the game. In an interesting move Sean Payton hands the ball off to a rookie running running back who gets stopped and the Packers start their march to perfection. Death started Ingram against Pitz that week and was rewarded with 4 points for the decision. If Ingram gets in I still do not beat Pitz, but I do think it changes the dynamic of the rest of the season. Since then you could see Sean Payton's hesitancy to give Ingram the ball in those situations. He feels more confident in having Drew throw (can only argue so much there). I also have to question if the number of carries would have increased throughout the season if Ingram punches that in and wins such a high profile game. Unfortunately none of these things happened and Ingram and I have both felt the sting of that outcome. Mark gets about 9 carries a game, and I have been battered all season about drafting the rookie so high (when that wasn't even my worst pick). So when Ingram took the toss and sprinted 30 yards past the entire Giants defense to win me the third game of my season, yes I did embrace it a little more then I should have. A piece of my heart grew 22 sizes that day. My prophecy hasn't come true yet, but Mark Ingram won me a game. Assuming Jahvid's head hadn't stopped working this season, and I had one or two more Ingram moments like this year may have been alot more fun for me. Ah well. I'll just embrace an angry Ingram centered email from Pitz as the highlight of the year.      

The Tolbert Report - Peach - This has not been a good run for Peach. While he seemed to be turning a corner at the end of last season, he appeared to get lost Mr. Magoo style and keep stumbling towards the bottom of our standings. He is already one of two teams that has failed to make it to the playoffs in either of the two seasons and soon enough could be the first person to have the number 1 overall pick twice! We've only had 3 drafts!!! Not the best showing for a guy who works for ESPN. Hey! Atleast he has his Eagles!!!

Whelp, that's all I got for this edition of as the IDP powers. I am going to leave you all with this little nugget. EVERY MATCH UP HAS SOME IMPLICATION THIS WEEK!!! (And we all know about implications) We may be figthing for a playoff spot, we may be fighting for a first round bye, we may be fighting to not be beer bitch, we may even be fighting the urge to bench LeSean McCoy, but ethier way we are all fighting. And thanks to a reminder from Hittner and Coach V, WE WON'T GIVE UP, NEVER GIVE UP!!!