The Football Club

Today we had quite a few surprising results across the league that caused club members to struggle for the most part.  In fact, 11 club members are struggling with single digits going into the Monday night game.  The only two players who did really well were Staubach and freespirit, who will be battling out on Monday night to settle the MVP Award winner for the week.  Only one player got the Triple Crown of Det-Balt-Wash and that was Fuegoburns.  And nobody got the Double Stakes of Cle-NYG.  Three players picked Cleveland and four players picked NY Giants, but nobody picked them together.  10 club members got both Games of the Week right with NYJ & Miami– Captain Jack Sparrow, Catfish, freespirit, Captain Insano, Papa Tuna, The Cat, TK-421, Double-Double, Annie-mal & Staubach.  And while 16 people correctly picked TB with TJ, two players took a 2 Point loss when they picked KC with TJ– The Beav & Fuegoburns.  The Monday night game will settle a lot, including deciding who will be in 1st Place.  For the Monday night game, 13 players have Denver, 14 players have San Diego, and 1 player remains undecided.  It should be a big game that will shake up the club standings quite a bit.

Tonight, the Autopicker continued its dismal season of picking in behalf of the club by picking the losing team Pittsburgh in behalf of everybody.  With the Titans victory, the Autopicker fell to 2-4 on the season.  Wisely, three club members realized the foolishness of trusting the Autopicker and switched their pick to the Titans– Caveman, freespirit & Fuegoburns.  And with that, they picked up 2 Points that nobody else got.  Well done.

Week 5 MVP Award Winners–
Iceman, Mr. T & Catfish (33 Points)

Last week, we had three players step up big time with 33 Points to achieve the highest score of the year so far and tie for the Week 5 MVP Award– Iceman, Mr. T, and Catfish.  The key to each of these player’s success was to pick all of the major categories successfully.  All three got both Games of the Week, the Triple Crown, the Double Stakes, and the Sunday Night game.  However, there still was room for improvement, as all three players ended up taking -2 Points from their final score by picking Cin TJ.  If they had picked a little bit more conservatively, they would have had 35 Points.  Even with falling into this trap, all three players had excellent weeks they can be proud of.  Iceman turned his MVP week into a new peak position as he became the new No. 1 player in the club.  He was able to dethrone Papa Tuna and end up 1 Point ahead of him in the Current Standings when all was said and done.  And thus ended Papa Tuna’s dream of matching Unknown Artist’s record 17 Weeks at #1 accomplished 5 years ago.  Unknown Artist has been monitoring the Current Standings and had predicted last week that Papa Tuna’s efforts to match his record would fail, because he said there were too many players within a few Points of overtaking 1st Place.  So now the attention shifts to our new No. 1 player Iceman, who has surpassed all expectations for a rookie player.  Iceman’s next mission is to try to match Captain Insano’s rookie season 4 Weeks at #1, which was accomplished back in 2006.  Catfish was very pleased with winning his second MVP of the season.  When he received the good news, Catfish released an official statement saying: “What? I’m shocked! 2 MVPs in one season.  Wow.”  Catfish, who started the season at #1, has now moved back up in the standings to the No. 6 position, a mere 1 Point out of the Top Five.  In the same spot is our third Co-MVP winner– club legend Mr. T.  Mr. T has been quietly working his way up the standings and now finds himself only 13 Points from being on top of the club.  Rounding out the Top Five, we have two players tied for 3rd Place– freespirit and Rad Dad.  freespirit has pretty much been flying under the radar this season, being a second year veteran player who last participated in the club back in the 2000 season when The Cat was our Club Champion.  But freespirit brings a lot of picking experience to the table and is just as likely to win the club title as anybody else in the Top Ten.  Meanwhile, Rad Dad has come seemingly out of nowhere to inject himself into the Top Five, only 10 Points out of 1st Place.  Rad Dad is a very dangerous player who can go on a run of successive great weeks, as he proved last season during the Super Bowl Tournament.  Finally, Captain Insano tumbled down to No. 5, despite scoring 25 Points.  That’s a tough break when you have a good week like that and still drop in the standings.

Over in Head to Head Weekly, the big story continues to be the perfection of Mr. T.  Mr. T did it again by winning another match to improve to a perfect 4-0 on the season.  His victim this week was MJD Hogg, who got roughed up in an 11 Point loss 33-22.  Mr. T is set to square off against his final divisional opponent C Master V this week.  If Mr. T claims the victory, he will have a clean sweep of the division at 5-0 and be halfway to a perfect Head to Head regular season, something that has never been done before.  This week marks the final week of divisional play in Head to Head, as the next four weeks after will all be matchups outside of player’s own divisions.  If you have a specific rival you wish to play against, let me know and I will put it on the schedule for you.  In Division One, Papa Tuna and Rad Dad have both taken a commanding 3-1 division lead.  In Division Two, Double-Double is also 3-1 and only 1 game behind division leader Mr. T.  In Division Three, The Rickster remained undefeated and improved to 3-0-1.  Catfish also remained undefeated at 2-0-2.  They may not like having those ties on their records, but ties are better than losses.  Over in Division Four, we have one very dominant player, and her name is Dixie Slick.  At 3-1 she sits on top of the division and emphasized that point by driving Captain Insano insane when she beat him 27-25 last week in a very close match.  Looking at Pro Bowl Weekly, we had some extremely close matches last week, which just goes to show that every Point by every team member counts.  Daddy & His Boys sunk The Black Pearl by a score of 75-74.  And Wild Animals defeated Dark Lords of the NW 71-67.  In another nail-biter, Team Baby Tuna crawled past Beasts of the Bay 74-69.  But the highest team score of the week belongs to the ferocious Mighty Megalodons, who pummeled Transformers 85-52.  Mighty Megalodons, to the surprise of many experts, now have a 3-1 record and continue to be tied for 1st Place with great teams Daddy & His Boys and Wild Animals.

Things returned to normal in The Football Club for many members this week, as we had many people with high scores upon the conclusion of the Sunday games.  Leading the way was Iceman, Mr. T, and Catfish, all with 29 Points heading into the Monday night game.  8 players correctly picked both Games of the Week with Pit & Sea– Iceman, Mr. T, Catfish, Fuegoburns, Rad Dad, freespirit, The Beav, and Staubach.  20 players nailed the Triple Crown with Atl-Balt-Min, too many to list out individually.  But I’m sure they are all glad that they were able to take home the 7 Point prize.  This week, we had two brilliant and fearless minds in the club– The Beav and The Cat.  These two players both picked Miami with TJ and scored 3 huge Points that nobody else did.  In contrast, 16 players flopped miserably and took a devastating -2 Points from their final score by picking Cin TJ.  I won’t list them all, but you know who you are.  All of you (including me) better be more careful with the Triple Jeopardy option next time.  Bad news for Papa Tuna.  His efforts to match Unknown Artist’s 17 Weeks at #1 have come to an end.  Iceman picked up 5 Points on him when Sea def. Car, thus ending Papa Tuna’s control of the top spot.  Since they have the same picks for Monday night (Hou und), it is a mathematical certainty that Iceman will become our new #1 player with a 1 Point lead over Papa Tuna.  Nice job, Iceman.

Club member Bane was the only player bold enough to switch from The Autopicker’s pick of Arizona to St. Louis on Thursday night.  If you’ll recall, in my weekly e-mail I predicted that quite a few club members would jump ship and switch to the Rams, being that the Rams were at home, had just beaten Seattle, and were only 1 1/2 point underdogs.  Yet, the only person who showed enough courage to abandon the unreliable Autopicker was Bane… and now he has himself 2 extra Points that nobody else got.  Well done, Bane!  That’s a great start to this week.