Where's the Beef?

Congratulations to "wend-e" for winning week 11. When writing this blog my rule of thumb is assume every player is a guy unless the user-name is so obvious it is a female ... or if I know the person is in fact a female. Sexist for sure but I guess I feel guys usually win each week but this week I think the winner is a female, does "wend-e" translate to "Wendy" I say it does.  So SHE had a great week 11, SHE was 13-1 going into the Monday night game and for the 4th week in a row a player had the week clinched Sunday night.  Her only loss prior to Monday was an OT loss so she was on the cusp of looking at an undefeated week heading into Monday night.  And for those 11 players who are already 3-0 in week 12, win the next 13 and double your money. 

This blog is very tardy, it wasn't really the holiday that caused it to be late at first. I had planned on doing it first thing Tuesday morning but my dog "Fenway" got sick Monday night and I had to rush him to the ER, after a few tense days I am happy to report he seems to be doing great, but for a few days it was scary so many things in my life got pushed aside.  The good news is he seems to be back to normal so I can now get back to making fun of people here.

Unfortunately because I am jumping into this so late and three games in week 12 have already been played and those results are already factored into the season stats it is hard to sum up week 11. I know the top 5 or 6 sports pretty much remained the same and I have been shitting the bed the last few weeks and dreams of winning money for my ski vacation in February is fading quick.  "tabaccy" is still clinging to the bottom spot and is determined to be the biggest lose.  

A quick random fact from week 11,three of the starting 32 QB's in week 11 were Boston College alums (Atl, Sea, Car) amazing,  BC AKA "QB University".

Over in the survivor pool we had what is now a trend where someone fails to make a pick, this week filling that role was "Emmado" and we said bye to "Gravy Train" who was eliminated when Cincy failed to hold a 100 point lead at home vs. Buffalo.  21 remain, 5 with no loses. Looks like this is going to head for the playoffs. Make sure you hold back a few playoffs teams that will be playing in the first week. You don't want to get that far and lose because you have no teams left to pick. 

Nomar Fact of the Week

Nomar was originally drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 5th round of the 1991 draft, but did not sign so he could attend Georgia Tech

The Itsy Bitsy Spider Walks His Way to Victory ....

In what turned out to be a wild week of games "Spider" won week 10 with a 12-2 record, this marked the second straight week a player clinch the weekly top spot on Sunday, congrats to you!  The complete opposite was "Tony  and Bill 2" who mirrored "Spider" and went 2-12.  The biggest jump this week were "Slaughter" up 33 spots and "Fresh" who jumped 34 spots, the weekly winning "Spider" jumped 25 spots into 9th place overall.   Only two teams received less than 30% of the picks, Carolina 33 players (27%) and Denver 31 players (25%), Denver pounded KC who seems to be fading just as I predicted they would do in this blog a few weeks ago.

Four games this week stand out to me that had bettors across the land screaming for joy or screaming for murder.

Baltimore +1.5 @ Atlanta, Baltimore up 21-17 with less than 40 seconds left, then inexplicably Roddy White is allowed to blatantly commit offensive pass interference, knocking the DB to the ground to get open by 15 feet and scored the game-wining touchdown.

Jets @ Cleveland +3.5, 85% of OT games are decided by a field-goal so those 52 players who took Cleveland+3.5 had to feel good when the game went into OT and really had to feel good when the game was tied with less than 2-minutes left and Cleveland had the ball.  Problem was Cleveland had the ball inside their own 5-yard line so instead of playing not to lose AKA play for the tie Eric Mangini plays to win and the rest is of course history.

Houston +1.5 @ Jacksonville, another game  that was heading for OT until Doug Flutie snuck onto the field and tossed a Hail Mary that was answered and those 67 players who had Houston and hoped they had a chance in OT were instead handed a big fat L.

Detroit +2.5 @ Buffalo, Buffalo up 14-6, less than a minute left, those 66 players who took Buffalo all rooting for Detroit not to score, then Detroit scores making it 14-12, now those 66 players rooting for Detroit to convert the 2-point conversion so the game goes to OT .....  well you guessed it, 2-point conversion fail, Buffalo wins by 2, spread was 2.5. 

 I lost all four of those games but at least I still had the Survivor pool to fall back on.. right?


"Our lives changed like the weather But a legend never dies"


Captain Tony

Just as Jimmy Buffett sings in that song your lives have changed, this week it was lights-out for me (literally) as the Giants couldn't play with the lights on or off and lost.  Dallas basically fucked me this season, they lost when I picked them to beat Jacksonville at home then won when I picked them to lose @ NY Giants.  I should have listened to my own advice last week and took Buffalo. Or just took Tampa Bay like it seems everyone else did. But nope .. so along with 7 others who took the Giants and "Stateman" who didn't make a pick we are O-U-T of your lives and out of the running.  22 are left, 8 have no losses.   But as Buffett says "a legend never dies" so I will still make my Survivor pick here the rest of the season with the rules in place that I can't take a team I picked this season. Why? Because I can and I want to still play! Just leave me alone and let me make a pick. My pick this week: Baltimore! 
PS... The old dude to the right is the "legend" Captain Tony Jimmy Buffett wrote that song about.

 Fins up ...^

Nomar fact of the week...
On May 10, 1999 Nomar had 3 HR including 2 Grand Slams and 10 RBI vs. Seattle.

Peace and LOVE .. Peace and LOVE

A pretty boring week 9 in the pool, the week was clinched on Sunday by "Sonnylove III" so Monday's game meant nothing in the small scale.  But congrats to "Sonnylove III" for taking home the bacon with an 11-2 record.  Over all the top two season standing remained the same with "Clay Davis" and "Bob W" holding the 1-2 spots.  The biggest jump of the week was from the aforementioned "Sonnylove III" who jumped 28 spots.  The biggest loser this week, "Baker1919" down 34 spots.  

Put this into the category as being blinded by your favorite team, only 16 players (13%) took Cleveland to cover vs. the Patriots and cover they did,  they covered the shit out of the Patriots on defence, offense, special teams, coaching, water-boarding, the Buffet line..... The line for that game looked surprisingly low but that is why Vegas does what it does. This week Cleveland plays the Jets and once again it is a low point spread (Jets -3)  something tells me we will see more than 16 players picking Cleveland this week.  The half-a-point bug bit again this week with Indy +2.5 losing 26-24. I had Indy and as one of those Patriots fans this was a perfect result, Indy lost but covered. 

This week also starts the Thursday night games which for some, like me sucks because my cable provider doesn't offer the NFL Network so my options are go to a bar or watch the online-nfl.com Red Zone coverage which is awful. They cut in and out of the game with 3 studio hosts who are just terrible. 

Random fact, in total counting regular season and playoffs there are 267 NFL games (256 regular season games, 11 playoff games) 130 games have been played this season, we are just about at the mid-way point.  If you are one of the players at or near the bottom 20 or so spots now is the time to get hot,  it is not an easy task this late into the season to jump many spots. Just look at this week only 10 players out of 124 jumped more than 15 spots.  For some, like 6 that have occupied the bottom spots most of the season:  "who dey", "Johnny Law", "mustang", "tammy", "ruby eiseman" and "tabaccy" you are as good stuck in a Chilean mine, hope is lost, loved ones have given up, there is no capsule on the way with help, just keep losing and hope you can be the biggest loser of the season. 

Mirroring the regular pool the Survivor Pool was equaly boring this week. Sure two players were knocked out but one was for stupidity "Frenchy" picking Minn for the second time this season and "ONEMORBET" who is one of the few players I know so I'll go easy on him but he did not even bother to make a pick O those plumbers. ...  I was a bit surprised to see that no one took New England this week, I figured someone would have jumped all over them but as I said last week there are no dominate teams this season and looks like most people agree. Picking teams in the Survivor pool this season is just like being at a brothel, you pick and you pray you survive.  29 are left, 9 with no losses. This week if I was one of the 9 with no losses I really would consider taking Buffalo at home vs. Detroit.  It is such a risky pick for a player with 1 loss but if those 9 players are looking for a high risk that could have a huge payoff look at Buffalo.   The scary part about this pool, if Buf could have won two-weeks ago at Bal and last week @ KC (they lost both in OT) and Det could have held onto that 10 point 4th quarter lead this week at the NYJ (Det lost in OT)  20 of the 29 remaining players would be gone including 7 of the 9 players who currently have no losses.  That could be the difference this season between this pool going into the playoffs or ending weeks before.


Nomar Fact of the Week
Nomar has the highest single season batting average for a right-handed Batter, in the Post WW II Era (minimum 400 at-bats) with a .372 average in 2000.

It's All About The Color System ...

   

From Wikipedia:

"In colorimetry, the Munsell color system is a color space that specifies colors based on three color dimensions: hue, value (lightness), and chroma (color purity)."

This is who won the pool this week, a fancy term for a color swatch chart.Wonderful!

Congrats to "Munsell" winning this week with 11 wins, the week came down to a tie in wins between "Munsell" and "The Highlanders" they both finished with 11 wins, "Munsell" had the better tie breaker thus they are now $125 richer.

Over all "Bob W" finally had an off-week (by his standards) going 6-7, ... and is no longer in the #1 spot, "Clay Davis" and "Bob W" each have 71 wins  but "Clay Davis" has the better tiebreaker they occupy the top spot.  With 71 wins the average wins per week for the top spot is 8.8, is around the historically end of season average. 

I fully admit I mailed in last weeks blog, I could not see a thing, the eye problem is still there, I am getting my new contact lenses at 12:30pm today, I'm not very happy about it because those fucking plastic things make my eyes so bloodshot it looks like I walked off the set of a Cheech and Chong movie but at least I will be able to see better. So this blog will try to have all sorts of random useless info to make up for last week.  With the shitty grammar you have all come to expect.

Some facts from this past week: every home team was favored, noone scored more than 40 points, the most points scored by any team was Tampa Bay with 38, six teams scored 10 or fewer points, the NFC West is on pace to have the division winner with a .500 record or worse, every team except New England has at least 2 losses, 29 of the 32 teams have at least 2 wins, Denver started 6-0 last season, since then they have gone 4-14.

The NFL Pool pick favorite this past week was New England 100 (81%) players took them, if you were one of the few who took Buffalo 39 players (31%) or Detroit 45 players (36%) you were rewarded handsomely as both teams covered.  And over the past 3 weeks player; "1", "Clay Davis", "The Highlanders" and " Zeus" have been the 4 hottest players with 27 wins each in that stretch.

Over to Survivor land we go... First, I feel bad, not because I suffered my first loss (more on that later) but last week I chastised "Sagamore Squad" because he stupidly made his Survivor pick using the "comments" section of the pick page which wasn't recorded then cried about it when he was not given proper credit and an exception was made for him. I called him out and ridiculed him because well I can ridicule anyone without fear of being confronted in person, and those of you who know me, I think I can run faster than you anyway. If I thought "Sagamore Squad" knew were I lived I would never called him a Ritard, I hide behind my keyboard, I admit it..  So this week what does Sagamore Squad" do? He takes KC.... AGAIN, 2-weeks in a row he had to know this wasn't allowed - right?   Part of me thinks he did this because he really is dumb and didn't understand the rules but part of me thinks he did it because he felt bad after last week, he knew he was called out here and decided to quit rather than risk any more humiliation.  If this is why he made a duplicate pick I really feel bad but happy to have one less person around.

We started have 31 players left, 9 with no losses. Everyone jumped onto KC this week, 21 players took them and once again Buffalo tried to shake the earth with an upset @ KC and like last week in Baltimore they got into OT but fell short.  I took my first loss with Dallas (did I mention I couldn't see well last week), it was bitter sweet because I hate Dallas but I also hate losing.  My pick was between Dallas and Washington, both lost so I wasn't too pissed off for taking Dallas. I was going on the "new QB, Dallas isn't THAT bad" theory ... Fuck me!   Now going forward is there really a dominate teams this season. New England.. I wish, they are 6-1 but since the moss trade they have had 35 offensive drives, only 3 have been 10 plays or more... 2010 Patriots meet the 2009 Broncos, hey I am a Patriots fan but I am a realist.  Are there really and safe picks anymore? New England @ Cleveland this week seems to be safe but Clevelnd won in New Orleans in their last game. I preach taking chances early in the season and save the good teams for post October but now at the midway point there are no real great "Lock" teams. It is starting to look like this thing may end in a few short weeks which will be good for me because I could use the money for Christmas.

Until next time ...


Nomar Fact of the week
On October 12, 2005 Nomar Garciaparra rescued two women who had fallen into Boston Harbor. He was with his uncle in his Charlestown condominium at about 10 p.m. when they heard a scream and a splash. A witness said  "It was crazy. Nomar was like jumping over walls to get to the girls and the other guy leaped off the balcony. It was unbelievable."

Is there anything Nomar can't do?