Week 14 MVP Award Winner –
Fearless Tuna (27 Points)
In an e-mail to club #1 player Stinkerbell last week, I told her: “I’m only 19 Points behind you now! Although that is like a whole week’s worth of points I’m not giving up.” Usually, being 19 Points behind somebody is nothing to be happy about, but I’ve been picking well lately. Two weeks ago, I managed to correctly pick LA Chargers over Pittsburgh. And last week, I correctly picked Cleveland over Carolina and was 1 of 5 players to claim both Games of the Week. That helped me to score 27 Points and take home the Week 14 MVP Award. The MVP week propelled me into a tie for 3rd Place with Rad Dad, with both of us now being 11 Points out of 1st Place. This is Year Seventeen of The Football Club and I have yet to win a Club Championship. And that’s actually fine, because I’m not sure how I would feel about winning my own competition. I did have one idea about what I would do if that happened, but that still seems highly unlikely at this point. Even so, I’m going to keep trying my best over these final three weeks. The Week 14 MVP Award Runner-Up was a tie between Nighthawk and Slick Chick, who both scored 25 Points. Slick Chick seemed to be a little down over her frustrating season when she stated over on Club chat: “ Happy sails and trails to all as Slick Chick fades into the sunset“. But interim coach Captain Jack Sparrow responded with a friendly pep talk: “There is no crying or failing in our club. We are all winners in the end as we always have each other. It's been my honor do battle with you all as we make it fun and keep our integrity.” After getting the coaching encouragement, Slick Chick responded by having an outstanding week. Similarly, Nighthawk has been struggling quite a bit this season, at least in the Points Standings. He also stepped up and had a great week as well. Well done, Slick Chick and Nighthawk. In looking at the current Top Five, #1 player Stinkerbell continues to maintain her lead, but it has now shrunk down to 5 Points. In her e-mail to turn in her picks this week, Stinkerbell said: “Bob Swerski and I are lounging around in Cancun. Even if I don’t have a good week. I won’t care.” While she was enjoying her margaritas and seafood, she did do well enough to score 19 Points on the week. However, if she wants to secure the club title (which is well-deserved after logging 12 Weeks at #1 so far), she is going to need to step up and deliver some outstanding picks and have a monster week soon. She really needs to win another MVP Award if she can. #2 player Double-Double was able to get 2 Points closer to overtaking Stinkerbell last week. I guess great minds think alike because those two had mostly the same picks last week, with the exception of two of the Point Spread Games and one player selecting Triple Jeopardy. However, now Stinkerbell and Double-Double are not only battling each other, but they have to worry about co-#3 players Fearless Tuna and Rad Dad. Also, The Cat is sitting comfortably at #5, ready to pounce at the first opportunity. He is now only 14 Points away from 1st Place himself. Any of these five players, or even perhaps the 6th Place player Captain Jack Sparrow and the co-#7 players Captain Insano and The Rickster, have the potential to win it all.
Moving on to the Super Bowl Tournament, we had four Divisional Round matches last week. One match was close, while three of the matches were all won easily by a touchdown. Let’s run through the matches one-by-one. In the closest match, (3) Bob Swerski def. (9) Captain Jack Sparrow 21-19. And with that, Captain Jack Sparrow’s dream run through the tournament came to an abrupt end. Bob Swerski previously won the Super Bowl title in 2009, so he knows how to make big picks at just the right time to beat his opponents. In this case, the match really came down to a critical mistake that Captain Jack made when he picked Wash with TJ. That fumble proved to be too difficult to recover from and Bob Swerski was able to advance. In the other Conference One match, (5) Rad Dad def. (7) MJD Hogg 20-13. The main difference in this match was Rad Dad getting one Game of the Week with Detroit, while MJD threw an interception by missing both Games of the Week. Even so, MJD Hogg had a nice run to the Divisional Round. Moving over to Conference Two, (1) The Rickster def. (7) Drummer Boy 21-14 in the first match. The Rickster is the highest seed left in this tournament and he is a 3-time Super Bowl champion as he raised the trophy in 2005, 2006, and 2010. That makes him the clear favorite to win this tournament. The Rickster was leading Drummer Boy 15-14 going into Monday night, but Drummer Boy happened to have picked Minnesota. (Keep in mind that no players have access to view another player’s picks, so Drummer Boy had already picked Minnesota when he first turned in his picks.) But Minnesota lost the game and thus The Rickster cruised to victory. In the final match, (3) Nighthawk def. (5) The Cat 25-18. This match was decided mainly by the Detroit-Arizona Game of the Week. The Cat had Arizona, while Nighthawk had Detroit. The Lions victory helped Nighthawk win the match and advance to the next round. While Nighthawk did win a Club Championship in 2008, he has never won a Super Bowl Championship. So you’d better believe he will do everything he can to win this tournament. And thus, our Conference Round matches are set with four players left. We have (5) Rad Dad (6-3-3) at (3) Bob Swerski (8-4) and (3) Nighthawk (8-3-1) at (1) The Rickster (10-2). These are going to be two absolutely fierce battles. Which two players will win and advance next week to the Super Bowl Final? Will it be an all-Glen Ellen final with Rad Dad vs. The Rickster? Or could it be an all-family final with Bob Swerksi vs. his son Nighthawk? We will find out next week.
The Pro Bowl Tournament got under way last week and we had two very closely contested First Round matches. In the first match, (3) Transformers def. (6) The Mega Powers 71-67. I was sad to see my own team get eliminated in a 4 point loss, but congratulations to Transformers on advancing to yet another Final Four. They are such a good team. In the other match, (4) McTriple Play def. (5) The Black Pearl 65-62 by a field goal. The Black Pearl put up a valiant fight, but they just didn’t have enough firepower this season to avoid getting sunk in the First Round. And with that, the Final Four of the Pro Bowl Tournament is now set with all four top seeds advancing and doing battle next week. These are going to be two really good matches to watch.