Friday, December 27, 2013

[League Update] Week 16: iwishiwouldhaveplayedtuba wins the third RWC championship

It's official: iwishiwouldhaveplayedtuba is the third Royale with Cheese fantasy football champion!

tuba, the No. 3 seed, beat No. 4 Cant Be That Hard 104-72 in last week's championship to claim the title.

Both had pitiful quarterback performances (CBTH's Stafford for 6.78 points, tuba's Tannehill for 3.28) but tuba got a huge boost from Pierre Garcon (20.4) and LeSean McCoy (28.2).

tuba finished the season 10-6. Can't Be that Hard finished 9-7.

tuba is the third different league champion we've had in the three years of the league.

A new league champion means a new Twitter avatar and a new entry to the Champions Bar on the right. That also means a new awkward photo. Here it is:

That's a good look, Mark.


Congratulations, iwishiwouldhaveplayedtuba. Despite autodrafting your team and benching your entire team for one week, you managed to win this 14-team fantasy league. That's quite a feat. I think.

In the ever-meaningless third place game, Jeff Fisher's Mullet showed up a week late and beat Muscular Mathletes 109-70. I think Peyton and Decker were pretty good, but I'll be honest with you: I have no idea. Courtney and I didn't even check the score until late Sunday night and, even then, didn't really pay much attention. We were too busy getting drenched and watching the Panthers make a ridiculous comeback in Bank of America Stadium. It was awesome. Much more rewarding than a fantasy win, though I'm sure I'm only saying that because I wasn't in the championship.

The Reservoir Dogs won the consolation bracket with a dominating 84-36 win over Correctamundo. This was more about what Correctamundo's players didn't do than what the Dogs did.

No Correctamundo player scored more than 10 points. Russell Wilson was the closest with 9.52. Reggie Bush scored 2.4, Brandon LaFell scored 1.3 and Vernon Davis got a big ol' 0 (he did play).

In the final matchup of the week, Academic Probation won the seventh-place game with 100-69 over Getting over the hump. If you thought the third-place game was meaning less, I can only imagine how much these two cared about the consolation bracket consolation game.

Now for the final weekly awards of the 2013 season.

The Mullets scored a league-high 109 points during championship week.

The Sad Trombone Award is going out in style, carried by Correctamundo and his 36.12 points. This is Correctamundo's second Sad Trombone in three weeks after scoring 36 in Week 14. It's still no Blaupunkt Sad Orchestra.

The final You Got Lucky Award goes to The Reservoir Dogs, which played Correctamundo and scored the league's lowest winning point total: 84.



Ain't-a-one of these kids old enough to be up all night gettin' lucky. And leopard-print shirt guy is winning at life.

The Tweets of the Week go to Jeremy, for sending out these two hilarious videos. Take time to watch them.

There are games this weekend, but they don't matter to this league anymore. Enjoy them without worrying about fantasy points. Six of you have already been doing that for two weeks.

Thanks to everyone for playing this year. It's been a great season and I'm glad you all were a part of it. Thanks for trash talking, for reading this blog and for caring enough about your team to set a lineup (most) every week. And thanks most of all for humoring me and my nerdy ideas, like this blog, the Twitter account and my videos. You guys make this fun for me and I appreciate that.

Courtney and I are planning to host a Super Bowl Party that will double as a Royale with Cheese post-season party. There will be laughs, dramatic reenactments and maybe some awards. Full details will come later, but the Super Bowl is Feb. 2.

Also, this is the point where if you have any proposals for next season, send them to me and we'll start putting them up for votes.

If I can get tuba to do some kind of Q&A, that will come in a follow-up post. Until then, I hope everyone had wonderful holidays and has a very happy new year.

Corey
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Wednesday, December 18, 2013

[League Update] Week 15: tubas, Cant Be That Hard to meet in the championship

Dec. 15, 2013, will forever be remembered as Black Sunday in the Inscoe household.

It was the day that both the Muscular Mathletes and Jeff Fisher's Mullet -- the No. 1 and 2 seeds, respectively -- lost in the Royale with Cheese semifinals.

No. 3 iwishiwouldhaveplayedtuba (soon to be renamed whatever the heck the score of that Texas game was) and No. 4 Cant Be That Hard will meet in the third RWC championship game this week. The two have something in common: Their real names both start with "M." But, more importantly, they are both first year teams in the league.

I'm not sure what that says about them, this league or about the meaning of life, for that matter. (Insert cheesy line about how "It must not Be That Hard" here.)

tuba beat the Mullets in the first semifinal 101-80. All but two of tuba's players and his defense scored more than 10 points in the semifinal game. The Mullets were mediocre, at best. Andre Johnson had 1.8, the law firm had . 4 and Eric Decker had 4.2. And after scoring more than 30 points each of the past two weeks, Peyton Manning had just 17.

Here's the worst part. I considered starting DeAngelo Williams, since Jonathan Stewart was out for the Panthers. But he's been pretty mediocre all year; His highest score is 11.7, which he did in Weeks 3 and 6. Had I started him, his 22.8 points would have given me 102.56, barely beating tuba. But I didn't, so I'm in the third-place game.

Not even an early Christmas present
could help the Mathletes.
Cant Be That Hard beat the Mathletes 133.70-88.72 in a matchup that was over in the first half of the Kansas City Chiefs game. Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles had a crazy game, scoring five total touchdowns and finishing with 51.5 points. That more than made up for an 8.3-point outing by Matthew Stafford.

That Jamaal Charles performance is the best single-player performance in league history, beating Tampa Bay running back Doug Martin's 51.2 last season.

So, once again, we have tubas and Cant Be That Hard in the final. Early projections have Cant Be That Hard winning 123-119, but we all know how flimsy those projections can be. These two teams have met once before, but it gives us no insight because tubas benched all his players. I have a feeling he won't be doing that this week.

We won't be doing a video preview of the championship since Morgan is in Mexico drinking lots of fruity drinks with umbrellas. I would love to have a huge group Hangout at the end of the season, though. And maybe a league/Super Bowl party/awards ceremony? Watch out for details on that.

I was worried about having to play the Mathletes in the final and the tension that would cause in the house. I'm not worried about the third-place game causing any marital problems. Sure, it will be competitive, but not like the two of us in the championship would be. Early projections give the Mullets a 118-110 edge. When we played earlier this season, Andre Johnson scored a bunch of points to help me score a 122-103 come-from-behind win.

In the consolation bracket we have No. 8 Correctamundo taking on No. 7 The Reservoir Dogs in the final. Once again, the top two teams in that bracket lost in the semifinals. These two played in Week 7, when The Reservoir Dogs won 90-83.

Correctamundo beat Getting over the hump 76-69, getting 16 points from Reggie Bush and 9.8 from Calvin Johnson on Monday night.

The Reservoir Dogs beat Academic Probation in a high-scoring game 110-104. The Dogs got 21 points each from Kirk Cousins and Dez Bryant and another 19 from Rashard Mendenhall.

That leaves No. 5 Getting over the hump and No. 6 Academic Probation playing in the seventh-place game.


Cant Be That Hard, obviously, was the top scorer in the semifinal week with 133.

The Sad Trombone goes to Getting over the hump for scoring a league-low 69 in Week 15, even though it should go to me and my lovely wife.
And the You Got Lucky Award goes to Correctamundo, who is lucky enough to play in the consolation final! Dream big.


I am glad that so many random people have covered this song on YouTube. This is the highlight of my week. 

There is no Thursday night game this week, so you've got until Sunday to figure out your life. And there are no teams with a bye. Set those lineups if you're in the playoffs! Best of luck to our two finalists. I can't wait to see whose picture will grace the blog and Twitter account.


Poll results

Both proposals were voted down 6-4 this past week, meaning we will not be doing a keeper league or allowing the league champion to pick the draft order.

If there is anything you want to propose we change about the league next season, let me know via email (corey.inscoe@gmail.com), tweet, comment or text. I am always open to suggestions, Any proposals will be put up to a league vote.

Wishing everyone sure hands and strong ACLs,

Corey
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Tuesday, December 10, 2013

[League Update] Week 14: PLAYOFFS!


Here's our video preview of the championship playoffs. It's long, but worth it.


We made it! Well, some of us did.

The third regular season of the Royale with Cheese league is finished and it's time for the playoffs.

First off, congratulations to regular season champion and the season's top scorer Muscular Mathletes. They have come a long way from winning our first Sad Trombone award of the season.

Here are the brackets:

Championship

  • (1) Muscular Mathletes (11-3, 1,394 points) vs. (4) Cant Be That Hard (8-6, 1,263)
  • (2) Jeff Fisher's Mullet (9-5, 1,324) vs. (3) unc79michiganstate65 (8-6 1,393)

Consolation

  • (5) Getting over the hump (8-6, 1,227) vs. (8) Correctamundo (7-7, 1,247)
  • (6) Academic Probation (7-7, 1,318) vs. (7) The Reservoir Dogs (7-7, 1,284)
Some observations, about this past week and the season as a whole. 
  • You had to be .500 to make the playoffs. All of the 7-7 teams made it. The first teams out were 6-8. I like when it breaks evenly like that. 
  • Cant Be That Hard should be thanking unc79michiganstate65. Hard was the one playing unc when he had his "protest" and benched all of his players. Not saying that Hard wouldn't have won, but it's nice getting a guaranteed W. 
  • Speaking of unc and the protest, that team was the second-highest scorer on the season, just one point behind the Mathletes. And it got 0 points one week. 
  • Monday night was a big one for several teams. Cant Be That Hard and Getting over the hump were going head-to-head in Week 14, with the winner making the championship playoff. But GOTH couldn't get enough out of Romo and Gould to get the win. 
  • The Reservoir Dogs must have been hurting the most after Monday night. A win would have put Dogs in the championship as the fourth seed, but they fell 5 points short of a win over Chicks Dig Scars. Dez Bryant just couldn't get that second touchdown.
  • Speaking of Chicks, they finally broke the losing streak with a nice win in the last week of the season. Not to beat a dead horse, but the Chicks were in first place earlier this season and ended up missing both playoffs after a 7-game losing streak.
  • Muscular Mathletes' league-high 1,394 points on the season is actually the lowest league-high total in the three-year history of the league. Correctamundo scored 1,431 last season and Gangster Teddy Bears (which actually finished fifth in the regular season) scored 1,438 points.
  • The top seed going into the playoffs has only won the league championship once when Taking it to the next level did it in 2011, the first year. Last year's league champion, Blaupunkt, was the second seed coming into the playoffs.
  • This is the first time in the short history of the league that the previous league champion hasn't made the championship playoff. Blaupunkt didn't even make the consolation playoffs.
  • The best single-game performance by an individual player this season was in Week 1, when Peyton Manning scored 46.28 points. That's still less than the highest single-game performance by a individual player in league history, which came when Doug Martin scored 51.2 points in 2012.
  • PerpetualMotionSquad had a strong finish to the season, winning three weeks in a row. It also had a strong finish last year and still started horribly this season. But after being alone in last place, PMS actually finished in a tie at the bottom with Blaupunkt and Something.
  • PMS is also the only team that has been in the league more than one year and never made the playoffs. Four teams have made either the championship or consolation playoffs all three seasons: Correctamundo, Getting over the hump, Academic Probation and Jeff Fisher's Mullet.
  • I think that's all I have, but I accidentally hit return on my bulleted list and don't feel like deleting it. 
There's a lot of business to take care of this week, so let's move straight to the awards. 

Everyone give a standing ovation to unc79michiganstate65. It scored a league-high 164.25 points this week. That's the highest single-week score in league history, easily passing Blaupunkt's 144.12 score from Week 2 in 2012. The stars aligned for unc. Josh McCown, Marques Colston, Jimmy Graham, LeSean McCoy and Matt Forte all had breakout games in Week 14. Unfortunately for Panthers fans, two of those teams helped Drew Brees slice-and-dice the Panthers' secondary. I may or may not have cussed out Mark in a text message because of that. 



This week's very Sad Trombone award goes to Correctamundo, which fell all to pieces when it mattered most, scoring 33 points in Week 14. It's no Blaupunkt Sad Orchestra, but it came at a worse time. 

The You Got Lucky Award goes to Something, which actually had the second-lowest point total of the weekend but was lucky enough to play Correctamundo. 



Now to other league business. 

I am putting forth two proposals for the league. When this post goes up, there will be two poll questions on this blog, in the right rail. I'd like for you to vote on them. Majority wins, whether I like it or not. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. 

Proposal 1: Make this a keeper league. 

There is functionality in NFL.com Fantasy that allows "keepers." That basically means that each team can keep a certain number of players from one season to the next. I propose we allow one keeper per season. That means that if you have a player that you want to keep going into next season, you can. For example, if I wanted to keep Peyton Manning, I could. I would still have to draft the rest of my team next year.

Note: To clear up some confusion, you don't have to keep a player each year. Those who don't keep a player will just have an extra draft pick. (Here's the keeper help section on NFL.com: http://www.nfl.com/fantasyfootball/help/custom-keepers.)

The keeper essentially takes the place of one of your draft picks. It looks like the default is that it takes the place of your first draft pick, but that could be changed. We can decide that if the vote comes out in favor of keepers.

Thanks, Katie, for asking the question. 

Proposal 2: League champion chooses the draft order. 

In the interest of giving us something to play for and something to win, I propose that the league champion is the one that sets the draft order for the next season. They can choose the order based on any rationale they choose. The only criteria is, obviously, every team must have a pick. To balance it out, I say that we still keep the "snake" system, where the draft order reverses between each round. So if you pick first in the first round, you'll pick last in the second round, and then first again in the third. 

Again, these polls are on the right side of the blog. Please vote by next Tuesday, if possible. It's only two clicks. 

This week's Thursday night game is between the Chargers and the Broncos. No teams have a bye week. 

Wishing you sure hands and strong ACLs, 

Corey
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Tuesday, December 3, 2013

[League Update] Week 13: Manning to Decker, Manning to Decker, ManningtoDecker MANNINGTODECKER!

If the season ended right now, here's how the playoffs would look:

Championship

  1.  Muscular Mathletes -- 10-3 (1,292 points for)
  2. Jeff Fisher's Mullet -- 8-5 (1,201 pf)
  3. Getting over the hump -- 8-5 (1,145 pf)
  4. Academic Probation -- 7-6 (1,234 pf)
Consolation
  1. iwishiwouldhaveplayedtuba -- 7-6 (1,228 pf)
  2. Correctamundo -- 7-6 (1,214 pf)
  3. The Reservoir Dogs -- 7-6 (1,191 pf)
  4. Cant Be That Hard -- 7-6 (1,168 pf)
On the bubble
  • Dolphins of Old -- 6-7 (1,059 pf)
  • Big Kahuna Burger -- 6-7 (1,058 pf)
No chance
  • Chicks Dig Scars -- 5-8 (1,041 pf)
  • Blaupunkt -- 5-8 (998 pf)
  • PerpetualMotionSquad -- 4-9 (1,013 pf)
  • Something -- 4-9 (1,002 pf)
Let's take a closer look at these groups. 

1) The Muscular Mathletes are the only team that has clinched a championship playoff spot going into Week 14, the final week of the regular season. They did it with a huge 129-105 win over Correctamundo, thanks to Cam Newton (27 points), Alshon Jeffery (36) and the Detroit Lions defense (22). 

Jeff Fisher's Mullet and Getting over the hump are tied for second place at 8-5 after both won in Week 13. As best as I can tell, those two teams have clinched at least an appearance in the consolation playoffs. 

Academic Probation is one of five teams tied at 7-5, but gets the final championship playoff spot because of the "Points for" tiebreak. The team has won three games in a row to get in this position. 

2) The difference one game can make. Correctamundo came into Week 13 tied for second but dropped out of the top four after a loss to the Mathletes. 

Only one of these four teams -- The Reservoir Dogs -- won its last game. tubas took a loss to Big Kahuna Burger and Cant be that hard learned just how hard it can be against the Mullets (much, much more on that later). 

I like that all of the teams tied at 7-6 are in right now. I hope it works out in a similar way after next week. I'd hate to see a team miss the playoffs based on "Points for." But it could happen. These four teams are in a precarious position with two teams just one game behind them on the bubble. 

3) Winning is crucial for Big Kahuna Burger and Dolphins of Old. 

BKB is on a roll as of late with three straight wins. Getting a fourth straight won't be easy. BKB faces the Mathletes in the season finale. But BKB did come out on top 121-56 when these two teams met in the season opener. 

The Dolphins have had a roller coaster season, never winning more than two games in a row. They lost their last game to 93-78 to PMS. They'll face the Mullets in the season finale. The Dolphins beat the Mullets 124-122 in the season opener. 

4) Chicks Dig Scars has had one of the worst collapses I can remember in this league. The team was alone in first place early this season, but has since lost seven straight games, falling out of a chance at the playoffs. 

Blaupunkt is the defending league champion and started the season 2-0, but has since lost eight of its last 11. It's easy to see why: Blaupunkt is the only team that hasn't scored at least 1,000 points this season. 

I really thought PMS would break through this year. Its owner knows how to play, he seemed excited, but something kept holding him back. PMS started 1-8 and never really recovered, even though it has won three of its last four games. 

And then there's Something. Something has lost five straight games, all by at least 19 points. And this is the team owned by the guy who said on Facebook we should get rid of some of the dead weight in the league and that he always set his lineup (he didn't). 

So there you have it. There's a lot on the line in this final week. With fantasy implications and the Panthers playing the Saints Sunday night, my stress level will be very high this weekend. 

Now for the awards! 

I'm sure you expected me to brag at the top of this post. I wanted to, really. But I held back. Until now. WOOOOOOO!! Peyton Manning to Eric Decker not once, not twice, not three times, but FOUR TIMES for touchdowns.

Just one of the beautiful throws ... and catches.
Courtney and I were actually in the car on the way back from Cary during the game and I had her checking the score. Every time she did, Decker had scored another touchdown and I did a little dance. By the fourth, I was bouncing up and down and giggling like a maniac. Then Steven Jackson had a 20-point game with two touchdowns. It was just glorious. 

All that is to say that my 133 points was the highest this week, barely beating the Mathletes. 

That brings me to TWEET(s) OF THE WEEK: The one where Morgan tries to get me to trash talk and then gets mad when I do. 


This week's Sad Trombone goes to Something, which continued its slide down the standings with a 59 point showing in Week 13.

And the next to last You Got Lucky Award goes to Getting over the hump, which had the lowest winning score (86) in Week 13 and was lucky enough to play Something.


This week's Thursday night game is between the Texans and Jaguars. Figure out what you want to do with those players before Thursday night.

No teams are on a bye in Week 14. (Hooray!) Make sure you set the rest of your lineup by Sunday. This is not the week to forget!

Wishing you sure hands and strong ACLs,

Corey
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