The Football Club

Week 2 MVP Award Winner–
The Beav (30 Points)

Week 3 Main Page Column

Early season jumps from the bottom half of the Points Standings to the top half are somewhat commonplace during the early part of the season.  But they aren’t usually done in quite as dramatic fashion as what we saw from Week 2 MVP Award winner The Beav this past week.  The Beav stepped up and scored 30 Points on a very difficult week of picks and jumped from 17th Place to 3rd Place in one week.  The Beav proved that he is going to be a force to be reckoned with this season, both personally and as part of long-time team Transformers.  Looking at The Beav’s picks, it is obvious that he started out brilliantly by picking Miami with DJ.  He followed this up by getting an extremely difficult Double Stakes of Buf-St.L, both Games of the Week with Phil & Indy, and then topping it off by nailing a Triple Crown with NYG-Sea-SD.  The MVP Award Runner-Up was fast charging Captain Insano with 27 Points.  Both these players have moved up into the Top Five and are putting extreme pressure on current club leader Papa Tuna who now stands at 50 Points with 2 Weeks at #1 after 2 weeks of play.  If Papa Tuna wants to match the amazing record of 17 Weeks at #1 that Unknown Artist pulled off back in 2007, he is going to need to make better picks than he did in Week 2.  Rounding out the Top Five, we have a couple of familiar faces that have decided to join the party.  Defending 2011 Club Champion Captain Jack Sparrow stepped back into the spotlight along with 3-time Club Champion The Rickster as they are now tied for 4th Place with 41 Points.  Looking back to Week 2, a lot of club members were frustrated when Seattle soundly beat Dallas to disrupt the Triple Crown.  However, 3 club members wisely had picked Seattle over Dallas and had also picked NYG and SD.  By doing this, they became our 3 Triple Crown winners for the week and scored 7 valuable Points– The Beav, freespirit, and Captain Insano.  As usual, I’m also going to post my list of shame for those who picked Oakland with Double Jeopardy and took a -1 Point from their final score– Papa Tuna, Hoosier Daddy, Drummer Boy, Bob Swerski, Captain Insano, The Rickster (who should have learned from last week when Oak burned him), Captain Jack Sparrow, and Fuegoburns.  The lesson learned is obvious, if you select DJ (now TJ), make sure that you get it right and don’t cost yourself valuable Points.

Head to Head Weekly started back up last week with a grudge match between Hoosier Daddy and Papa Tuna.  If you’ll recall, this heated rivalry started back in 2010, when Papa Tuna ruined Hoosier Daddy’s bid for a first-ever perfect 10-0 season by beating him 34-26.  That would be a tough loss to take, especially knowing that his only loss came when he scored 26 Points, good enough to beat just about anyone else.  Then, in 2011, Hoosier Daddy got sweet revenge when he beat Papa Tuna 3 times in one season– 23-22, 20-18, and 18-17 (SB Tournament).  So what would happen this season?  It was all decided on Monday night when Papa Tuna’s pick of Atlanta led him to victory over Hoosier Daddy by a score of 20-14.  Another interesting match took place between steveluvsal and 2011 defending Super Bowl champion Rad Dad.  Rad Dad took his winning streak from last season into this match and was hoping to get off to a good start.  But in a nail-biter, steveluvsal knocked off Rad Dad 18-17, thus sending him to his first defeat this season.  In other matches, C Master V’s return to the club was successful, as he beat Bob Swerksi 17-13.  And despite both scoring the second lowest Point totals this week, Catfish and Caveman pulled out a 10-10 tie with each other, which is much better than a defeat.

Pro Bowl Weekly also got under way, with all 8 teams competing against each other.  Since we have an even number of teams this season, there will be no bye weeks, but each team will play a full schedule of 12 games.  The 2011 defending Pro Bowl Champions Wild Animals got off to a good start by sinking The Black Pearl 58-47.  This was actually a rematch of last season’s Pro Bowl Championship game, which Wild Animals won by a score of 88-67.  Despite a name change and a promise by The Black Pearl’s captain that his team would find a “tasty” meal with Wild Animals, they proved to be too tough to tame.  The strongest Week 2 team was Transformers, who combined to score 66 Points and deliver a crushing blow to sentimental favorite Team Baby Tuna by over 20 Points.  I can already hear the sound of Baby Tuna crying in my ears after that devastating loss.  And in the battle of newly formed teams, Beasts of the Bay and Dark Lords of the NW battled to a 50-50 tie.

Today’s games featured quite a few upsets that threw the club into chaos during Week 2.  Many club members struggled… as an example, 11 people missed both Games of the Week.  But after the Sunday night game concluded, there were a few stand out players for Week 2.  The Beav had brilliant picks across the board and he has clinched a share of the MVP Award with 30 Points going into Monday night (which means he has a potential Week 2 score of 36 Points).  The scary thing about the Beav’s picks is that he missed the Sunday night game when he picked Detroit.  If he had picked SF und, he could have been headed for a 40 Point week.  The next best player was his Transformers teammate Jacuzzi Splot, who scored 23 Points.  Right behind those two was Captain Insano, who reasserted his dominance with 21 Points.  Which brings me to the Den-Atl matchup.  For the Monday night 6 Point game we have 14 club members with Denver and 10 with Atlanta, along with 1 undecided at this point.  Should be a great game.  Going into Monday night’s game, the Top Five has not fared so well.  The scores so far are Catfish (10), Papa Tuna (14), MJD Hogg (11), Nighthawk (10), and Bane (14).  So those players really need to get tomorrow’s pick right or they could be in trouble.  And that means the door is open for everyone else to pick up some major ground.

For the Thursday night game this week, 5 club members abandoned the Autopicker and switched to Chicago– The Cat, Captain Jack Sparrow, Dixie Slick, Jacuzzi Splot, and Fuegoburns.  We will see how things play out during the game.  Should be a great matchup.

Also, a brief note that the former team Victorious Secret has officially changed their name.  They will now be known as The Black Pearl.

Week 1 MVP Award Winners—
Catfish & Papa Tuna (30 Points each)

Week 2 Main Page Column

I borrowed my Week 2 headline from Dixie Slick, who proclaimed “It’s the Week of the Fish!” on the Club Shoutbox.  Dixie Slick was talking about the Week 1 success of both Catfish and Papa Tuna, who each scored 30 Points to win the Week 1 MVP Award and debut at No. 1 in the 2012 club.  Catfish came into the 2012 club with low expectations.  I’m not sure if I’m supposed to reveal this, but if you look closely at the logo image that Catfish chose for himself, you will see that it reveals something interesting.  The catfish is feeding along the bottom of the lake.  Yes, it’s a bottom feeder.  Hence the reason that Catfish chose his name for this season, in view of the struggles he has gone through in the Points Standings the last couple of years.  So it is great to see Catfish debut atop the Points Standings.  Having already secured a Peak Position of #1 and an MVP Award for the season, even if Catfish flounders the rest of the year, he can view it as a successful season.  Well done, Catfish.  As for myself, I was very pleased to have only missed 3 games in Week 1– Dallas, Arizona, and Tampa Bay.  Of course, they were costly ones (a combined 14 Points), but it was nice to still be Co-MVP along with Catfish.  Don’t forget, everyone, that I always turn in my own picks to the entire club when I post them to the Club Shoutbox before kickoff of all games.  I only ask that you don’t view my picks until you turn in your own picks.  Two players tied with a No. 3 debut– Nighthawk and MJD Hogg.  MJD Hogg is no stranger to the top of the standings and has held the No. 1 spot for several weeks for each of the past two years.  Nighthawk is returning to the club after a 3 year absence (he sat out 2009-2011 due to serving at Bethel and pioneering).  When he left the club, he had achieved the seemingly impossible in 2008.  He won both the Club Championship and the Playoff Picks Championship in the same season.  The interesting thing about Nighthawk’s Playoff Picks title in 2008 that most people don’t know, is that he won that title despite missing game picks, over/unders, and stat questions for 2 entire playoff games.  Remember, there are only 11 playoff games during the Playoff Picks.  So he skipped 18% of the picks, but still won.  That’s how dominant he was that season.  The reason he skipped, and he probably doesn’t want me to mention this, is that he forgot to turn in his picks for the Saturday Divisional Games.  But instead of turning them in late, in an act of excellent sportsmanship, Nighthawk just took 0 Points for the entire day.  And that’s one of the things I have always appreciated about all you club members, everyone always shows excellent sportsmanship.  Thanks for that.  Moving on to No. 5, club veteran Bane debuted in that spot with 25 Points to round out the Top Five.  Bane looks like he is going to be a ruthless force to be reckoned with this season, pulling out all the stops to stay in the Top Five and possibly win the club title.  His only setback last week (which cost him the MVP and No. 1 debut) was trusting the Raiders on Monday night.  Another club member who has to be very frustrated with the Raiders right now is club legend The Rickster.  The Rickster was hanging out with some Raiders fans on Monday night and they encouraged him to jump ship on San Diego and change his pick to the Raiders on Monday night, assuring him that the Raiders would win for him.  The Rickster finally agreed and changed his pick.  But it backfired and cost The Rickster 6 spots in the standings.  It’s a good thing that the season has just begun and The Rickster will easily be able to make up the lost ground.

A few other notes about returning and rookie club members.  C Master V has returned to the club and formed a new Pro Bowl team called Dark Lords of the Northwest.  C Master V is also a very tough competitor, as seen with his No. 6 debut.  So that team will be a team to watch.  We have two new rookie players in the club this season– Iceman and Fuegoburns.  These two rookies are brothers and they both know quite a bit about football.  Iceman showed off his skills by bailing on The Autopicker and picking Dallas on Wednesday night.  It will be interesting to watch these two rookies and good friends of ours battle it out for the Rookie of the Year honors.  And wouldn’t it be amazing if one of them could pull off a Club Championship or perhaps a Super Bowl Head to Head Championship?  We will see.  I’m sure that Catfish is thrilled to have them on his team Mighty Megalodons.  When Iceman learned that he had been signed to Mighty Megalodons, he issued a statement saying “It’s an awesome name, and we shall make the Catfish proud!”  Along with Dark Lords of the Northwest, the other new Pro Bowl team this season is Beasts of the Bay, formed by Nighthawk, Bob Swerski, and Captain Insano.  You might recall that Nighthawk was the original founder of one of the great Pro Bowl teams of all time, Victorious Secret.  But after Nighthawk took a hiatus from the club, Captain Jack Sparrow took over full ownership of that team and led them all the way to the Pro Bowl final last season with teammates Rad Dad and Caveman.  It will be an interesting match-up when Nighthawk’s new team goes up against his old team for the first time.  As a final note, Nighthawk was in service recently with club legend and Hall of Famer Unknown Artist.  Nighthawk happened to ask Unknown Artist the question that every club member wants to ask him– ‘When are you going to come out of retirement?’  Unknown Artist later released a statement to Club Headquarters saying “I’ll come out of retirement when I have time and right now I’m busy but when I come out of retirement everyone’s gonna have to watch out.”  Only time will tell whether or not Unknown Artist makes good on his threat and returns to the club.  Head to Head Weekly also starts up this week.  This season, we have 4 divisions of 6 players each.  At the end of 10 weeks of play, the top 2 players in each division will receive a bye week in the Super Bowl Tournament.  The match-ups this week were decided by alphabetical order within the divisions, and it has produced some early season showdowns, including Hoosier Daddy vs. Papa Tuna and Double-Double vs. MJD Hogg.

Just a quick note that the updates are mostly finished for Week 2.  I’m still waiting on a couple of the Pro Bowl team names to be submitted, and then I will write a Main Page Column.  Until then, feel free to check out the newly posted Current Standings, Week 2 Picks Sheet, and Head to Head Weekly pages.