Week 12 MVP Award Winner–
Hoosier Daddy (31 Points)
Back in 2009, Hoosier Daddy carried out his first hostile takeover of the Club Points Standings. Back then, he started out the season with 2 Weeks at #1. After a short four week break, he jumped back on top with another 7 Weeks at #1. He then lost the top spot for a single week before finishing off the season with another 3 Weeks at #1 to win the 2009 Club Championship. Here we are three years later and Hoosier has once again seized control of the club with a commanding 10 Point 1st Place lead with a mere five weeks left. When it gets this late in the season and a player can take control of the top spot by a double-digit margin, the rest of the club has reason to worry. Hoosier Daddy took over the top spot the old fashioned way– he won the Week 12 MVP Award with 31 Points. I think what propelled Hoosier Daddy into making such great picks last week was seeing himself stuck in the First Round of the Super Bowl Tournament. He did not want to get sent home from that competition right off the bat, so he thought over his picks and willed himself to victory. Hoosier’s great picks included 1 Game of the Week, the Triple Crown, Double Stakes, and Sunday Night game. Congrats on taking over 1st Place in dominant fashion, Hoosier, and best wishes on keeping the top spot over the final five weeks. Hoosier’s success was aided by the embarrassing failures of both Papa Tuna and Captain Insano. They both needed to deliver great picks at crunch time but instead stumbled and bumbled with only 19 Points and 18 Points. That won’t get it done. So those two players better step it up and turn things around quickly. In contrast, two players who are stepping it up and delivering huge correct picks at just the right time are Rad Dad (29 Points last week) and Iceman (26 Points last week). You can see why those two players currently round out our Top Five. The Week 12 MVP Award Runner-Up was Dixie Slick with 30 Points. As she herself noted on the Shoutbox, if she had only gotten either the Monday Night game pick or Over/Under pick right, she would have been the MVP. But still, she has bounced back big time and is now just 10 Points away from jumping into the Top Five for the first time this season. Let’s hope that she can do it! Dixie Slick is one of three players that show brilliant wisdom when picking Triple Jeopardy. Dixie Slick is 7-0, freespirit is 4-0, and Annie-mal is 4-0. All three of our girls have perfect records at picking TJ this season. And all three avoided the TJ trap pick last week of Wash@Dal. Keep in mind that when I select the TJ game each week it is designed to fool all of us and set up the potential to lose 2 Points. But the girls seem to know how to handle it just fine. Maybe we can learn something from them in that regard.
The Super Bowl Tournament started up this week with the dreaded First Round. It’s lousy to get stuck playing in the First Round before the fun begins and have the potential to have your Head to Head season end so quick. As I looked down the results of the First Round of play, the one thing that struck me was that pretty much all of the favorites one. In Conference One, 3 of the 4 higher ranked seeds one. In Conference Two, all 4 of the higher ranked seeds won. That’s 7 out of 8, with the one exception being 10th ranked Annie-mal’s mild upset of 7th ranked Nighthawk by a score of 17-14. The end result is that we have some titanic showdowns coming up this week in the Wild Card Round. The biggest one that jumped out at me was the battle between (5)Hoosier Daddy and (4)Double-Double. These two great players have been close friends for over 20 years and neither one is interested in going home. So let’s see what happens when they do battle. Another match pits (10)Annie-mal against (1)Mr. T. Seems like a mismatch, doesn’t it? Think again. Mr. T has struggled mightily the last three weeks, ever since he started out 8-0 and the pressure got to him. Last week, he only delivered 11 Points. That won’t be enough to advance to the Divisional Round. So Mr. T better do a little bit extra research this week if he wants to avoid suffering the upset of the year. The two matches pitting (6)Captain Jack Sparrow vs. (3)Rad Dad and (8)C Master V vs. (2)Papa Tuna are also battles between long-time friends. Who will survive? If Captain Jack wants to survive, he is going to have to score a little more (or maybe a lot) than his 13 Points from last week, because that won’t cut it against the likes of Rad Dad. Over in Conference Two, all four matches will be interesting. We will have (8)Iceman taking on his teammate (1)Catfish. Catfish certainly doesn’t want to be sent packing as the top seed. So he will be bringing his A-game with the picks this week. Then we have (7)The Cat taking on (2)Captain Insano. The Cat narrowly survived an upset bid by (10)Fuegoburns last week, when The Cat tied him 14-14 and advanced as the higher seed. The Cat proved that he has nine lives, but he used eight of them up when he pulled off the tie last week with such a low score. So he better get back on track. (6)Dixie Slick is meeting (3)Drummer Boy. This is a match that I simply cannot predict. It should be the most closely contested battle in the tournament this week. They haven’t played each other yet this season. The final match will see resurgent player (5)The Rickster taking on (4)Bane. Bane has excelled at Head to Head this season and nearly won his division. The Rickster is a 3-time Super Bowl Champion. But he won his last title back in 2010. So he’s hungry again. Translation– this is a very dangerous match for Bane.
Pro Bowl Weekly has reached its final week of play. Daddy & His Boys have secured the #1 seed and already know their First Round opponent during Week 14. They will be playing against cellar dwellers Beasts of the Bay, who continue to misfire on all cylinders. This week, the two teams meet in a tune-up match. But the real match doesn’t happen for another week. The rest of the team matches this week will decide the final seedings for the tournament. Keep in mind that no teams receive bye weeks this season.