Author: admin

I had a chance to visit with Nighthawk and Baby Hazel while in Southern California this week.  We thought club members might enjoy seeing this photo.

Week 16 MVP Award Winner –
Fearless Tuna (38 Points)

Fearless Tuna had a huge week, scoring 38 Points to tie for the Highest Score of the Year and win the Week 16 MVP Award.  In a strange twist, this was the least amount of effort that I put into making my picks this season. As some of you may have noticed, I turned in all of my picks on Monday morning (prior to the Week 15 Monday and Tuesday games being played) since I was going to be out of town and wasn’t expected to have computer access.  Wisely, I did change two of my picks well prior to kickoff when I found out that starting and backup QBs would both be out on two teams.  But it just goes to show that sometimes it doesn’t help to overthink your picks and sit on them all week right up until kickoff.  The Week 16 MVP Award Runner-Up went to none other than Drummer Boy on a week when he needed it the most.  Drummer Boy’s 35 Points propelled him back into 1st Place by the slimmest of margins.  Not to be outdone, #3 Double-Double scored 34 Points and #2 The Sad Salmon scored 33 Points.  Those are incredible Point totals posted by the top three players in the club, which means the final 2 weeks of the season are shaping up to be an amazing grand finale.  With 2 weeks left, I would say that only those currently in the Top Five have a realistic shot at winning the Club Championship.  As things stand now, the Top Five consists of #1 Drummer Boy, #2 The Sad Salmon (1 Point back), #3 Double-Double (14 Points back), #4 Stinkerbell (16 Points back), and #5 Captain Insano (22 Points back).  Let’s see what happens this week and if Drummer Boy & The Sad Salmon can keep up the tremendous high scores that they keep posting.  It won’t be easy and may not be realistic to expect such fireworks and 30+ Point weeks from the top players but you never know.  The information below has been copied over from the Super Bowl Tournament and Pro Bowl Tournament pages.

Super Bowl Championship match: (5) Bob Swerski (8-6) at (4) The Sad Salmon (10-4).  The Super Bowl Championship match between Bob Swerski and The Sad Salmon promises to be a thrilling conclusion to the Head to Head season. In this match, we have a seasoned veteran who is a past champion taking on a second-year player who has exceeded all expectations in the club and become a force to be reckoned with. Bob Swerski has a strong Super Bowl Tournament resume that clearly establishes him as the second best Head to Head player of all-time, behind only The Rickster. While The Rickster is the only player to own 4 Super Bowl titles, Bob Swerski is not far behind with 2 titles of his own. If Bob can win this match, that would allow him to reach 3 Super Bowl titles (adding to his previous wins in 2009 & 2018). The Sad Salmon’s only previous experience in the Super Bowl Tournament took place in 2020, when he reached the Divisional Round before falling to eventual champion The Rickster by a score of 22-20. In looking at Head to Head results for this season, how do these two great players stack up? During the Head to Head regular season, both players finished in 3rd Place in their respective divisions. So you could say that they played fairly mediocre. However, both excelled and took their play into another gear once the tournament got underway. Bob Swerski began his tournament by crushing Captain Insano 38-22 in the Wild Card Round to send a message to everyone else that he came to play. Then in the Divisional Round he made quick work of freespirit 24-15 to move on. Finally, in the Conference Round, Bob defeated Captain Jack Sparrow by two field goals 32-26 to reach the championship match. What can we take away from these matches? One thing that is noticeable is that the margin of victory has shrunk in every round as the competition has gotten stiffer, but Bob has still gotten the job done every time. The Sad Salmon delivered an absolute spanking as he began his tournament in the Wild Card Round when he ousted defending Club Champion Mr. T by over two touchdowns 25-10. So while Bob Swerski won his first match by 16 Points, The Sad Salmon pretty much matched him as he won his first match by 15 Points. In the Divisional Round, Salmon handled the frustrating situation of having to battle a teammate with class, as he beat Slick Chick by a touchdown and a field goal 26-16. Finally, in the Conference Round, he met up with MJD Hogg, who himself had been obliterating every opponent in his path by large margins. But The Sad Salmon gave MJD a dose of his own medicine as he soundly thumped him by two touchdowns 33-19. Salmon’s average margin of victory in his three matches was a whopping 13 Points, while Bob’s was also a very respectable 10.3 Points. So what can we expect when these two players collide? They have met only one time in Head to Head play during their careers. It was in Week 6 of the 2020 season and it was won by Bob Swerski when he defeated The Sad Salmon by a touchdown 18-11. That victory will give Bob a slight mental edge going into this one, knowing that he has beat Salmon before. However, this will be an extremely close match. Just last week in the club, The Sad Salmon scored 33 Points and Bob Swerski scored 32 Points. I think this Super Bowl championship match will be settled by 3 Points or less. I don’t think we will see a blowout victory by either player. And we could see a potential tie game, which would give the victory to the higher seed. It sure will be interesting to see what happens and who raises the trophy and becomes the 2021 Super Bowl Head to Head Champion.

Pro Bowl Championship match: (2) Daddy & His Boys (8-5-1) at (1) Wild Animals (9-3-2).  The 2021 Pro Bowl Team Championship match is a showdown for the ages which will settle the debate about who is the greatest Pro Bowl team of all time in the club.  This is because Daddy & His Boys and Wild Animals are the only two Pro Bowl teams to each have won 3 titles.  Daddy & His Boys raised the trophies in 2000, 2007 & 2010, while Wild Animals raised the trophies in 2005, 2011 & 2018.  Despite having six championships between them, these two teams actually only squared off in the Pro Bowl title match one time – in 2007 when Daddy & His Boys def. Runner-Up Wild Animals 61-57.  However, they have met one other time in the tournament, and that was just last year in 2020 when (6) Wild Animals def. (3) Daddy & His Boys 60-38 in the First Round.  To get an idea as to who might have the edge in this 2021 championship match, let’s take a look back at their meetings during the regular season.  This season in Pro Bowl Team Weekly, they played against each other twice.  And they split those meetings, with Wild Animals (barely) winning the first match 74-73 and Daddy & His Boys winning the second match 54-43.  There is not much we can glean from that, except that these are two very good teams which don’t lose by much when they do lose.  And that is exactly what we would expect from the top two seeds in the tournament.  Daddy & His Boys consists of (current ranking) #1 Drummer Boy, #8 MJD Hogg, and team captain #10 Hoosier Daddy.  Wild Animals consists of (current ranking) #3 Double-Double, #7 The Rickster, and late addition #15 freespirit.  That might sound odd, but the team went through a recent change when team captain The Cat retired for the season and thus Wild Animals signed freespirit (who was a free agent not on any Pro Bowl team) for the tournament.  In the Final Four, both teams faced surprisingly stiff competition from the lowest seeds as (1) Wild Animals def. (6) Polar Bears 85-75 and (2) Daddy & His Boys def. (5) Tough Puffins 79-78.  But they both got the job done and advanced to square off against each other in an epic title match that will probably never be topped.  I’m not sure who I would give a slight edge to, as these two teams are quite evenly matched.  The argument could be made that Wild Animals may struggle and collapse having added a new teammate for the tournament run.  But the argument could also be made that Daddy & His Boys could implode with the tremendous pressure on Drummer Boy’s shoulders trying to win not only this trophy but also the Club Championship.  I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I think all six players will bring their “A” game and that this match will be settled by 5 Points or less.  Let’s get this championship match started and see what happens.

Week 15 MVP Award Winner –
Captain Insano (31 Points)

Captain Insano is peaking at the right time as he scored 31 Points to win the Week 15 MVP Award.  The key to his success last week included getting both Games of the Week, all three Point Spread games, and being the only player in the entire club to correctly pick NO over TB on Sunday night.  Despite adding to his Triple Jeopardy woes with another loss of -2 Points (and a league worst 2-12 record), Captain Insano jumped into 3rd Place and is now only 5 Points out of reaching the top spot.  (Not to beat a dead horse, but if he had never selected Triple Jeopardy this season, he would currently have a 1st Place lead of 5 Points.)  We congratulate the Captain on showing no mercy to the rest of the club and continuing his climb up the standings.  The Week 15 MVP Award Runner-Up is shared by two other players in serious contention for the title: Stinkerbell & The Rickster, who both scored 28 Points.  Well done to both of you.  Now let’s take a quick look at the current Top Five.  We had a long-time coming changing of the guard in 1st Place this week.  The Sad Salmon finished off his remarkable run upstream to the top by finally taking over 1st Place by the slimmest of margins.  #1 The Sad Salmon now holds a 1 Point lead over #2 Drummer Boy.  What a great, exciting battle for 1st Place these two players are putting on for the rest of us!  Not to be outdone, #3 Captain Insano is 5 Points back, #4 Stinkerbell is 7 Points back, and #5 Double-Double is 14 Points back.  This is still anyone’s championship trophy to raise with 3 weeks left in the season.

The Super Bowl Tournament Conference Round is all set with two exciting matches to find out who reaches the Super Bowl final this season.  In the Divisional Round last week, 3 out of 4 of the matches resulted in upsets.  In the first match, (7) Captain Jack Sparrow stunned (1) Drummer Boy 20-19 by a single Point to advance.  Their match was actually a rematch of the 2007 Super Bowl final when Captain Jack def. Drummer Boy 16-10 to win the trophy.  In the second match, (5) Bob Swerski def. (3) freespirit 24-15 to advance.  Bob Swerski is looking to add a third trophy to his collection and remind everyone why he is the second best Head to Head player of all time.  It will be interesting to see who wins the showdown this week between (7) Captain Jack Sparrow and (5) Bob Swerski to advance to the title game as the representative of Conference One.  Moving on to the third match, (4) The Sad Salmon beat his teammate (9) Slick Chick 26-16 to reach his first lifetime Conference Round match.  This was a rematch of last year’s Wild Card Round when The Sad Salmon also won, but by a tighter margin of 16-12.  For the fourth and final match, (7) MJD Hogg def. (6) Nighthawk 25-4 in a blowout.  I’m starting to feel like MJD Hogg is the favorite to win this tournament as he has dominated both of his matches.  He won his first match by 15 Points and his second match by 21 Points.  If this trend continues, he will beat The Sad Salmon by 27 Points.  I’m just kidding about that because The Sad Salmon is actually the favorite as they square off this week, but you never know what might happen.  Head to Head play is unpredictable and anything can happen on any given week.  Only one of these two great players – The Sad Salmon or MJD Hogg can represent Conference Two in the title game.

The Pro Bowl Tournament got underway last week with the First Round.  And we had some completely unexpected results with two upsets taking place.  (6) The Polar Bears def. (3) McTriple Play 60-56 and (5) Tough Puffins def. (4) The Gridiron Guardians 66-49.  That means last season’s defending champions The Gridiron Guardians are eliminated and will not repeat as champions.  However, the only thing which the #5 and 6 seeds have achieved by winning is a date with the #1 and #2 seeds in the Final Four.  They are going to face some brutal competition against two teams vying to be known as the greatest Pro Bowl team of all time.  Will it be a short run through the tournament for (5) Tough Puffins and (6) The Polar Bears?  Or will we see a miracle run by one (or both of them) to the Pro Bowl final?  We will find out this week as the Final Four matches take place with (6) The Polar Bears at (1) Wild Animals and (5) Tough Puffins at (2) Daddy & His Boys.  In the second match, there is some extra incentive for each since The Sad Salmon and Drummer Boy are players on each.  It should make things interesting.

Greetings club members,

As I will be out of town, I have posted the Week 16 Picks Sheet in advance here on the site.  Due to backpacking with my family on Catalina Island on the Trans Catalina Trail without internet or computer access over the next week, I will be unable to update the Current Standings after the completion of the Week 15 Tuesday games tomorrow.  (I had made arrangements to update everything from my hotel room on Monday night, but once the NFL moved some games to Tuesday, that was no longer possible because I have to catch a boat on Tuesday afternoon.)  However, you have everything you need to turn in your picks for Week 16 and see how you and everyone else did.  In the post below this one, you can see all club member’s picks for Week 15.  Once the games have been completed, this will allow you to total your score and everyone else’s, including anyone you may be playing against in the Super Bowl or Pro Bowl Tournaments.  (Once you view this sheet and see what other people have picked, you may not change your picks for Monday or Tuesday.  Club rules do not allow for switching your picks to “go for the win” in Head to Head or Pro Bowl team matches.  So before you view everyone’s picks, just make sure your own picks are locked in and final for the Monday and Tuesday games.)  The club will be back to normal next week in Week 17 as I will be able to complete the updates of everything.

-Fearless Tuna

Week 16 full picks now posted.  (Mon morning 9:50am).  All players are welcome to view my picks once they have turned their own in for the week.

Here are all of the club’s picks for Week 15. This is being posted before the final 3 games take place on Monday and Tuesday, so you will notice there are no scoring totals on the bottom.  However, you will be able to calculate your total Points for the week along with everyone else’s once the games have been completed.  Once you view this sheet and see what other people have picked, you may not change your picks for Monday or Tuesday.  (Note: Drummer Boy & Fearless Tuna have LV on Tues, not Cle.)