[League Update] Week 11: Dressing is the best part of the Thanksgiving meal

Written while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Go Cary Band!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Before you sit down to stuff yourself with dressing and get into awkward political conversations, don't forget to set your lineups! We've got three games today and this is the next to the last week of the regular season.

The league this year is made up of haves and have-nots. The haves: The Williams Household, with Big Kahuna Burger and Get Off My Dak still tied for first at 9-2. The next closest team is Watt A Girl Wants two games behind, and there are three teams tied for fourth at 6-5. Right now, that's your championship playoff.

Now for the have-nots. More than half the league has a losing record. There are two teams at 5-6, and then a six-way tie for ninth at 4-7 (including yours truly). Two of those teams won't make the consolation bracket. Remember: The tie breaker is points for, which is unfortunate because mine is AWFUL.

Now onto the

Awards

The highest scorer of Week 11 was Academic Probation with 115 points, beating Dolphins of Old (61). Dolphins has now lost three in a row and is down in that 4-7 group. Welcome to the basement!



This week's Sad Trombone Award technically goes to PerpetualMotionSquad for a no-show 33 point performance in a loss to Muscular Mathletes (67). But he does have a pretty good excuse for a possibly historically low point total: He ran his first marathon last weekend! Congrats, man. That's awesome. So I won't make any more fun of your team.

Instead, I'm going to give an honorary Sad Trombone to Blaupunkt, which has now lost six games in a row and is down in the basement with the 4-7 crew. See -- Blaupunkt is at least as bad as the Mullets are, but because his epic losing streak is happening at the end of the season noone is noticing. It's unfair. Oh well, now we're in the same boat.

The Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions goes to Watt A Girl Wants. Last week I grumbled about how she had 50 points on her bench an 100 points on her team. Well, this week she still had about 50 points on her bench ... and 55 on the team. Ouch. There were multiple bad decisions, but we'll focus on leaving Rashad Jennings (18.9) and Adam Theilen (12.5) on the bench and starting Kyle Rudolph (1.2) and Randall Cobb (8.4). And it didn't help that AJ Green got hurt in the first quarter. But because of these poor decisions, Get Off My Dak got a 73-55 win, and has now won six in a row.

This week's Grumble Grumble Award goes to the chief grumbler, Cant Be That Hard. It all came down to Monday night. Cant Be That Hard had a slim lead, but Houston's Hopkins and Miller did just enough for Off Constantly to get the 88-84 win. Grumble text from Morgan: "I'd rant about how much I hate MNF, but let's be honest, I only hate it when it's costing me games. Having said that, Lamar Miller can suck eggs."

The Most Ridiculous Headline Written by an NFL.com Computer:

Most of the headlines were boring this week but this one came out of nowhere with some really good descriptive language. Way to go, computer.

Other scores from Week 11

- Jeff Fisher's Mullet 90, Theon's Deflated Balls 74: Four wins in a row ... still in last place.
- There's no 'I' in team 108, SugaLumps 89: 20 points for a defense? Dadgum. 4 sacks, 2 interceptions, 1 TD and a return TD.
- Big Kahuna Burger 108, Blaupunkt 68.5: From Blaupunkt: "Go ahead and give me the sad trombone award. 5 losses in a row after a hot start.

"*I also felt sad playing my ACTUAL trombone yesterday because I sounded bad. #backtothepracticeroom"

It's actually six in a row, but the point stands.

The Book of Faces

Some good advice from Theon's Deflated Balls: "Word of advice: Set your lineups before the tryptophan hits."

Haiku, You ku, We all Ku

Thankful, by Eve

Turkey's on the grill
All the family are here
Now time for football.

Everyone have a safe and fun and happy Thanksgiving!

[League Update] Week 10: The first playoff projections ... and collusion?!?

Written at the very last minute, as usual.

Alright, we're going to keep this thing short because I've only got two hours until Sunday kickoff and we've all got things to do, right? Right.

A quick look at the standings shows that the Williams household is running this b****, tied at 8-2. I should probably find an embarrassing picture of both of them to make the Twitter profile picture ... stay tuned.

I would yell about COLLUSION or some mess, but I know they're both too competitive for that to be the case. Unless ... their competitiveness compelled them to team up and beat the rest of the league to get spots in the championship, and then all the winnings go into a shared bank account ... I don't like it. COLLUSION.



Behind the (Trump voice) Colluding Williamses we have Watt A Girl Wants at 7-3, Cant Be That Hard and Theon's Deflated Balls are tied at 6-4 and There's no 'I' in team is sitting in sixth at 5-5.

After that, we have six teams tied at 4-6 and two teams tied at 3-7 bringing up the rear. Yeah, I've won three games in a row and am still sitting in last place.

Including this week, we only have three more weeks left in the regular season, so it's time to look at some playoff projections.

If the playoffs started now, here's how it would look in the Championship Bracket.

And here's how it would look in the consolation bracket.

The only two teams not playing in any playoffs under this scenario would be the two 3-7 squads -- OC and the Mullets. (I forgot that we expanded the playoffs to six teams last year. I actually have a chance to make it in! )

OK, now onto the

Awards

The highest scorer for Week 10 was Watt A Girl Wants with 119 points in a win over There's no 'I' in team, which scored 87.



The Sad Trombone was Muscular Mathletes, for I think the third time this season? I asked Courtney across the table because I don't feel like checking. She wouldn't confirm, but did say "got a damn symphony going over here." So three sounds right. She scored 54 points in a loss to ME. More on that later.

The Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions goes to PerpetualMotionSquad, which did not pay enough attention to the Jets QB situation and started a not starting Ryan Fitzpatrick. That 0.00 really hurt, especially when Ryan Matthews scores 27 points and you lost by just 18 -- which is exactly what Sam Bradford scored on the bench. Academic Probation won this one 106-88.

And this week's Grumble Grumble Award goes to the whole league, aimed at Watt A Girl Wants. Not only did Eve have the highest dadgum score in the league, she also had 50 points sitting on her bench. Most of us are scrambling to even put a lineup together and she's just letting 50 points chill. SHARE THE WEALTH, EVE. Not cool.

This week's Most Ridiculous Headline Written by an NFL.com Computer:

I know my game has been picked two weeks in a row, but that's just so visceral. And now let me quickly gloat about Inscoe House Bowl 2016. I WON!!! WOOOOOOOOOO. Actually, there wasn't much gloating. Last week was full of Ls, with the Tar Heels being dumb in Durham and the Panthers Panthering like only the Panthers can -- and watching the game in the stands with my mom and step-dad -- two big Chiefs fans. I was so salty. The only redeeming thing of the weekend was that the Mullets came through again. But it felt hollow, knowing that it was just another L in a long line of Ls for Courtney ....

... BUT I WOOOOOOOOOON!!!!!!

Other scores from Week 10

- Theon's Deflated Balls 94, Off Constantly 84: David won this at least in part because Cairo Santos made all of his field goals, including the game winner against the Panthers. Bittersweet.

- Cant Be That Hard 105, SugaLumps 92: SugaLumps made two mistakes here: Trusting the Panthers defense and starting Bryant over HausChakaKhan in the kicking game.

- Big Kahuna Burger 78, Dolphins of Old 62: BKB overcame a not-so-Tom-Brady-esque Tom Brady performance to get back to her winning ways.

- Get Off My Dak 97, Blaupunkt 64: Probably no one in the world was more excited to hear that Dak Prescott would keep his starting job than Jeremy. The season could be totally different if Big Jerry jumps back on the Tony Romo train.

The Book of Faces

As Academic Probation pointed out, "This site is awfully quiet when Mullet is winning." It is, sir. It is indeed. So we're going to use this section for some #analysis, brought to us by Get Off My Dak.

He writes: "Here is a thought...this could be the first time ever the league saw a champion repeat. I will probably get blown out by Eve this week (that's just Watt she does) but I still have a strong case for making the playoffs."

This is true. We talked about it early on, but this is true. Not only has no one ever won back to back championships, but no team has won two championships in the history of the league. GOMD (then known as Free Crab Legs) won it last season, and also won the regular season title last year.

Jeremy is the only player to have ever won the regular season twice (back in 2012 as Correctamundo, but he lost in the championship game).

The closest a defending champion has ever come to winning it again was when the first RWC champion, Sergio, finished third in 2012.

On the other end of the spectrum, the worst finish by a defending champion was by Blaupunkt, who finished 13th in 2013. We call that Panthering.

---

No poem from Eve this week, probably because I didn't even post about it until a couple of hours ago. My fault, not hers.

UPDATE: After publication, Eve sent in a poem. Enjoy.

Better late than never. 

A haiku by Eve (and Kelly)

If Corey had been
On top of of his shit this week
Y'all'd have a haiku.

Boom. Done an hour before kickoff. Enjoy the games, everybody!

[League Update] Week 9: Corey Wins Again (Or “We Definitely Couldn’t Let Him Write This Again”)

Corey note: A few weeks ago I convinced Morgan to write the blog post for this week. Not sure if he actually remembered agreeing to this, but he still did it. Enjoy.

---

Written while STILL recovering from Election Night hangover. Guys, elections are tough.

So, Jeff Fisher’s Mullets won again this weekend. For those of you keeping score at home that’s TWO IN A ROW. And it DOUBLED his win total on the year. Since nobody wants to listen to him gloat, I volunteered to write this week’s post.

It was an interesting week. Everybody and their grandmother was on a BYE. Some of us scrambled to find options on the waiver wire. Others of us decided that their wife’s birthday was more important and basically gifted Corey Win Numero Dos.

Also, Chris Boswell attempted at Rabona kick, and it was AMAZING!

What it should look like:


What actually happened. (Stupid NFL won't let me embed the video so you have to click the link.)

Both of our lovely ladies at the peak of the leader board lost this week, so the Williams Household is now tied at 7-2 atop the league standings. Watt A Girl Wants is next at 6-3, followed by 3 teams at 5-4 to make up the current playoff picture. Five teams follow at 4-5, 2 at 3-6, and our wonderful Commissioner is bringing up the rear at 2-7 (and more than 260 points back in Points For).

Now, without further ado, let’s hand out the hardware for this week.

The Awards

The highest point scorer this week was There’s No ‘I’ in Team – Mike Evans lead the way with a 27 point performance, and 4 other players broke the 10 point mark during a 110.74-82.46 victory over Blaupunkt



This week's Sad Trombone goes to Big Kahuna Burger, who was beaten 85.12-59.38 by PMS. Katie had 6 players score 5 points or less this week, but she is still in first place, even if she no longer leads in Points For.

This week's Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions goes to SugaLumps. If he had started Doug Baldwin, Matt Bryant, and the Dolphins D, he’d be looking at 109.2-106.78 win. Instead, he’s staring down the barrel of a 15 point loss to Theon’s Deflated Balls.

The Grumble Grumble Award goes to, well, half the damn league. With half of the known world on a BYE this week, many people had to start whatever they could grab off of the junk heap or players in bad match ups. Off Constantly had almost half the roster off this week, while 4 other teams had either 4 or 5 players off.

This week's Most Ridiculous Headline Written by an NFL.com Computer:

For the sake of Corey’s dignity, I’m going to present this one without comment. Mullets win, 91.34-70.02.

Other scores from the week

Academic Probation 79.56, Muscular Mathletes 70.30: Despite a strong 30 point outing from Latavius Murray, the Mathletes couldn’t seem to get anything else going. Oh how the tables have turned in the Inscoe household

Get Off My Dak 96.48, Dolphins of Old 82.32: Another stellar game from its namesake has Get Off My Dak in 2nd place. I never thought I’d say this, but I kind of feel bad for Tony Romo right now. Annnnnnnnd, it’s gone.

Can’t Be That Hard 96.86, Watt A Girl Wants 81.08: Almost 28 points from Matt Ryan got me my 3rd win in a row, and all I can think about is how much I’d like to punch him in the face. Having to stick with his hot hand while he decreases the odds that the Panthers make the playoffs every week is just an awful feeling.

Quote of the Week

Further proof that Corey can’t do anything right, he went from failing at Fantasy Football to failing at tanking. At least he’s self-aware enough to recognize the problem. I think Sam Hinkie is still looking for a job. Maybe he can help out.

This week’s Thursday night game is between Baltimore and Cleveland. The poor Browns are still winless and, per ESPN, have a 15% chance of losing out. Be sure to set your lineups before kickoff at 8:25 EST.

Haiku. Do you?

Once again, Eve provides us with another wonderful piece of poetry:

No cheese stands alone.
Whelp. The election's over.
Now for more football.

[League Update] Week 8: I WOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNN

I was gonna write this earlier this week but I was too busy hanging out with Melissa Joan Hart, so there. *drops mic*

It's a beautiful day. The sun is shining. The air has that crisp, cool feel of fall. It's the kind of day where you feel like anything could happen. It's a day full of hope and promise. A team that has suffered for so, so long without winning anything finally had a moment to celebrate this week. It brought tears to the eye.

I'm talking, of course, about Jeff Fisher's Mullets. Because I WOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNN WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

(Oh yeah, and the Cubs also did good.)

It finally happened. I won a game. My team isn't total trash. Well, it kind of still is. I'm still in last place. But it's a slightly less aggressively burning garbage dump of a team. And I'm not going to go 0-14 and, right now, that feels like winning a championship. And I get to do this:

Teams that are still winless through Week 8:

- None because I WOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNN WOOOOOOOOOOOO.

We'll discuss this in more detail soon. For now let's focus on the top of the table, where the other half lives.

Big Kahuna Burger is still at the top of the league with a 7-1 record, while Watt A Girl Wants and Get Off My Dak sit tied for second at 6-2. Then there's a little separation, with 7 teams tied at 4-4. The race for the final championship playoff spot is shaping up to be really, really interesting.

At the bottom, with me, you've got Academic Probation at 2-6, and PerpetualMotionSquad and Off Constantly at 3-5.

And just because I told you I'd do this, in the other league Off Constantly started I'm tied for first at 6-2. Really feelin' both sides of the table this season.

The Awards

The highest point scorer this week was Jeff Fisher's Mullet -- WHAT?!? Yeah, that's right. Not only did I win last week but I scored more than anyone else in the league with 113 points. This is a new world that we live in, y'all. I'm coming for you. And this is despite the fact that Jamaal Charles, one of the people that Get Off My Dak traded me to help my crap team, is having surgery and went on IR because of course he did.




This week's Sad Trombone goes to the Muscular Mathletes for the second week in a row. The Inscoe household is trending in opposite ways at this point. You could blame it on the fact that I managed her team for two weeks while she was out of the country, and that my bad mojo rubbed off on it. You could blame it on that.

This week's Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions goes to Off Constantly. Off Constantly had LeSean McCoy in the R/W/T spot, and he scored a big ol' 0 (was he even active?) as SugaLumps beat Off Constantly by 2. A number of players on Off Constantly's bench -- Reed (15.9), Brown (10.9), Woods (5), Henry (15.7) -- scored more than enough to give Off Constantly the win. But it didn't happen, and yet another person beat Off Constantly last week. I'm really looking forward to beating Off Constantly this week. I've been looking forward to it. It's gonna feel so good.

The Grumble Grumble Award Theon's Deflated Balls. He easily could have earned the Johnny Football Award, but I'll give him this one instead. Here's why: The Panthers finally won another freakin' game, and you'd assume that in a Panthers win comes a big game for Greg Olsen, arguably the best receiver on the team. NOPE. Somehow Olsen was only targeted three times and caught one pass for 11 yards, giving the TE 1.1 points. Balls lost to Watt A Girl Wants by 2.

This week's Most Ridiculous Headline Written by an NFL.com Computer:

Waxes. And I love that they decided to talk about Academic Probation's losing streak, not the fact that I hadn't won a game all season. Which brings me to ...

The Outscored By Inscoe Award goes to Academic Probation, who has the dubious honor of being the first team to lost to Jeff Fisher's Mullets this season! The Mullets not only won, they dominated in a 113-62 win. I had a good feeling after the Sunday morning game, when I had 35 points from just two players. I usually get that many points from more than half my team. But finally, for the first time all season, everyone showed up. I even left some points on the bench. It was a good day.

And as he said in the Facebook post, Karma is a bitch.

[tweet]

Other scores from the week

Big Kahuna Burger 88, Muscular Mathletes 55: Analysis from Cant Be That Hard: "I'm sitting here thinking that whoever has JStew is having a good game. Then I look, and he's riding the bench for Big Kahuna Burger." What must it be like to be able to leave a starting running back on your bench??? Also, this is BKB's 6th straight win. Watt A Girl Wants has also won 6 straight.

Get Off My Dak 95, PerpetualMotionSquad 81: "Watching my Win against Get Off My Dak slip away 0.10 points at a time...." (Channelling Chris Berman) A little Dak'll do ya.

Cant Be That Hard 107, Blaupunkt 100: A high-scoring affair here and it all turned on a HUGE performance Jordan Howard, who scored 26 points for CBTH on Monday night. It's the kind of comeback you always hope will happen but never actually does.

Dolphins of Old 98, There's no 'I' in team 72: Gronk doing Gronk things, like scoring his 69th touchdown.

Gronk said his mom was so proud of him for scoring his 69th career touchdown. #Patriots pic.twitter.com/0SXQa2aAtq

— Chad Amaral (@chad_amaral) October 30, 2016

The Book of Faces

Two winners I want to highlight this week:

- "Man, my arm is sore." -SugaLumps. I literally just got this one today.
- "Looking at everyone's Game Centers like BYE BYE BYYYYE" -Big Kahuna Burger.


Seriously, though: If you haven't looked at your lineups yet you should. It seems like half of the league is on bye this week somehow.

Haiku for you, Haiku for me

Eve's back with her weekly poem, and this one's just beautiful. We'll end with it:

We all can't believe
That Corey finally won.
It's just like the Cubs.