Razzle-dazzle Flim-flam-flummox Loosey-goosey - Week 6 - October 14, 2003 **** RFL WEEK IN REVIEW **** WHEW!!! Cals was really sweatin' it out Friday night! His beloved alma mater... the big, bad Wolverines of the University of Michigan (umich for those in the know) were getting their asses whooped by Minnesota's Golden Gophers. These aren't your ordinary Gophers or simple brown Gophers. These aren't even Bronze or Silver Gophers. They're GOLDEN Gophers. Anyway... Minnesota was smokin' the Wolverines 28-7 at the start of the 4th quarter (and 35-14 later in the 4th). But thanks to a few well-timed "hail mary"s from the lips of Cals, Michigan was able to outscore Minnesota 31-7 in the 4th quarter - pulling a remarkable 38-35 win out of their asses before a huge throng at the Metrodome. WHAT IN THE NAME OF TUNA?!? Bill, you're messing up the grand plan! You're leading the Cowboys to too many wins this year! We need to finish last in the division this year. We need to get a better draft position. We need a last place schedule for next year. We'll make a run at the Super Bowl next year. All this winning this year isn't helping! And to top all that off... 6 (SIX!) Cowboys started - and scored - on RFL teams this week. The cowpokes who did the deed: Q Carter, T Hambrick, J Galloway, T Glenn, A Bryant and B Cundiff. Not even in the heyday of the original triplets did this many Cowboys see RFL action. Emmitt, M Irvin, Novacek and the PK would get starts, but Troy A and A Harper usually were only bye week subs. And look for more Cowboy points this coming weekend - as DAL takes on DET! BENCH TEAM! These guys' asses languished on their respective teams' pines last weekend: 17 B Johnson (Midget Tossers) 10 J Bettis (Spankin It...) 10 D Staley (Dirty Sanchez) 12 J Morton (West Coast Offense) 12 S Smith (Big Brown Boys) 9 F Jones (West Coast Offense) 0 D Copperfield () 70 points... 15-0-1 this week, 91-3-2 through 6 weeks. OPTICAL ILLUSION Highest scoring team: Spunk Monkeys - 54.0 ppg Lowest scoring team: The Axis of Evil - 36.5 ppg Toughest defense: Manchester United - 33.5 ppg Softest defense: The Axis of Evil - 51.3 ppg League scoring average: 42.3 ppg (down from 43.0 thru last week; last year 47.6) ...on to WIR #6! -------------------------------------------- STANDINGS Hocus Pocus Division Team W L T GB PF PA STK Angry Starfish 3 3 0 3 249 260 W1 Chocolate Love 2 4 0 4 263 281 W1 The Hustlers 2 4 0 4 230 243 L1 The Axis of Evil 1 4 1 4.5 219 308 L1 Smoke and Mirrors Division Team W L T GB PF PA STK Spunk Monkeys 6 0 0 - 324 227 W6 Big Brown Boys 5 1 0 1 274 226 W4 West Coast Offense 3 2 1 2.5 244 238 W2 BoyzInTheChineseHood 2 4 0 4 234 258 L3 Bamboozler Division Team W L T GB PF PA STK Manchester United 5 1 0 1 253 201 W1 Dirty Sanchez 4 2 0 2 281 265 L1 The Belching Brides 2 3 1 3.5 246 254 W1 Wet Noodles 2 3 1 3.5 232 229 L1 Bait and Switch Division Team W L T GB PF PA STK Love Touch 3 3 0 3 246 246 L1 Midget Tossers 2 4 0 4 296 275 L4 samurai penguins 2 4 0 4 240 274 W1 Spankin It... 1 3 2 4 230 276 L1 -------------------------------------------- WEEK 6 IN REVIEW **************** ************************** **** GAME OF THE WEEK **** ************************** Dirty Sanchez 56 (4-2) Spunk Monkeys 70 (6-0) pregame spread: DS by 1 Vesh gave Zach his best shot, but came up short. Ahman had his best game so far as a Dirty Sanchez - and Kordell and Sharpe checked in with their 2nd best efforts of the season... but Vesh's D had no answer for McNair-Mason. All was quiet on the Spunk Monkeys front. Not a peep was heard - despite the indignity of being made underdogs while being the only remaining undefeated team. Clearly Zach was busy putting in this Titan (McNair-Mason) component of the Spunk Monkeys' gameplan. The combined 45 points posted by the pair of Titans was more than enough to compensate for the 10 point deficit in the highly-anticipated head-to-head showdown between Ahman and Priest. Ahman put up the bigger digits, but his costly fumble in OT deprived the Pack of their chance to beat Priest and his Chiefs. This team-first attitude on Spunk Monkeys will carry them far. While Ahman's me-first attitude could be the undoing of Dirty Sanchez. On the plus side for Vesh, he continues to get quality starts from his scrap-heap QBs (J Blake earlier, Kordell now, and vINTy on the bench). Sharpe has also come from nowhere to reclaim his TE crown - and perhaps former BC RB M Cloud will become Pickup of the Year material. The downside for Vesh... why does Troy Brown have 6 starts? For Zach, Priest showed signs of busting out of his slump. Zach still can't figure out the TE thing - as Teyo Johnson scored bench pts for the 2nd straight week. Zach is still hanging on to M Bennett. With a healthy Bennett and some TE production (Zach is the only GM with 0 TE pts after 6 weeks), could Spunk Monkeys spurt all the way to a 17-0 season?!? kordell 8 ahman 23 cloud 7 streets 4 troyb 0 sharpe 9 v'teri 5 air 17 priest 13 tjduck 2 dmason 28 djax 3 clewis 0 edinger 7 -------------------------------------------- Manchester United 37 (5-1) Boyz In Th Chin Hood 31 (2-4) pregame spread: MU by 4 Wang held a 3-pt lead heading into Monday Night Madness. With P Price and the PK looking to hold off M Bulger, Wang was fairly confident he could scrape by with a scrubby win. But then Bulger commenced running and gunning all over the hapless Falcon D. The only thing more lame than the ATL D? Doug Johnson! And this guy doesn't want to sit on the bench behind M Vick?!? He should be happy he's got a job in the NFL - period. DJ stinks to the high heavens! Even Joebob would have completed more passes than DJ did in this atrocious 36-0 loss to STL! DJ is single-handedly sinking what should be a fine RFL offense. Bulger ended up with a goal, 2 assists and a bunch of yellow cards - totalling 19 pts. Aside from the Man U PK, no other starter for Clark pulled his weight. The fact that Wang's T Maddox did his best to freeze out Amos and Hines helped BITCH's cause a little. But the 2 total pts from Price/Rice/Chambers/Heap killed Wang. bulge 19 amos 0 joeyg 3 heinz 4 koren 1 kbrady 2 cahney 8 abrooks 9 sdavis 10 pprice 0 rice 1 chmbrs 1 heap 0 wilkins 10 -------------------------------------------- The Belching Brides 43 (2-3-1) Wet Noodles 41 (2-3-1) pregame spread: TBB by 7 Despite yet another disappointing performance from Kerry and Tiki, Stan managed to coax a victory over Ali thanks to an OT TD toss to E Kennison. A 3rd disappointing Bride was C Garner. The implosion of the OAK passing game has had a negative trickle-down effect on Garner's ability to put up nice yardage totals - and hit paydirt here and there. The 4th Bride doing more belching than beaming - D Stallworth. NO QB A Brooks is struggling mightily just to keep J Sucks barely happy - leaving precious few balls thrown Donte's way. But Donte's not helping himself with a slew of drops. Ali ended up losing because only one Wet Noodle was able to find the endzone - Rod. Q Carter was a curious choice to start at QB. Ali's choice came down to Q at home against the Eagles or P Ramsey at home against TB. History seemed to point to Q really struggling with the blitzing Eagles. But Ramsey probably wouldn't fare much better against a TB D stung by IND's come-from-behind win last Monday Night. K Faulk's 5 was an improvement over Emmitt's 3 ppg average over the 1st 5 weeks. And E George actually did better than his 3.8 ppg. kerry 6 tiki 6 cgarner 4 donte 1 eddiek 9 booba 6 cundiff 11 qcarter 3 egeorge 4 kfaulk 5 marvinh 7 rods 11 pollard 1 l'well 10 -------------------------------------------- Spankin It... 35 (1-3-2) samurai penguins 59 (2-4) pregame spread: SI by 8 There was a teeny bit of madness in this game - as samurai penguins led 38-33 with T Holt to hold the 5-pt lead against W Dunn. Warrick never got untracked - even when D Johnson lost all confidence (and deservedly so) in his ability to throw the ball downfield. TJ Duckett instead got the vast majority of the ATL backcourt touches. Richard's pair of Chiefs (T Gonzo and Mort) did plenty of Spankin, but McNabb's injury clearly has him hamstrung. Spankin It... also has woes with Timmy B (sucks and/or Gannon sucks), TO (dropsies), and Laveranues (he promised he'd do better last weekend!). The oddsmakers correctly foresaw T Holt and S Moss having a huge impact on the outcome of this game. Holt blackjacked, and S Moss scored more than R Moss this week. JoePa also got TDs from W Green (the *other* BC RB) and R McMichael (thank goodness yahoo got that one right). JoePa is now back in the hunt for a postseason berth. mcnabb 5 wdunn 2 tibrown 0 TO 2 lcoles 3 tonyg 13 mort 10 tbrady 2 wgreen 14 smoss 6 tholt 21 ike 3 mcmike 7 mare 6 -------------------------------------------- Midget Tossers 28 (2-4) West Coast Offense 36 (3-2-1) pregame spread: MT by 2 The losing streak continues for Drew - and Midget Tossers also took a huge hit to their former highest team scoring average. Gary's three-of-a-kind Raiders were the difference in this game, but perhaps the Raiders O wasn't the right one to latch onto for the 2k3 season. The South Coast component of West Coast Offense did most of the damage for Gary this week - as Keyshawn and J Horn both struck paydirt (don't see this happening too many more times this season). D McAllister and I Bruce managed to grab large chunks of yardage. For Drew the WR crisis continues to cost him - as the Midget Tossers' starting WR duo combined for a mere 2 pts for the 3rd straight week. Had Drew accepted Wang's offer of R Wayne for L Gordon and had Drew started Wayne instead of Mushy, Midget Tossers would have won this game - and Wang still would have lost. No Midget Tosser starter scored - or threw for - a TD this week. bledsoe 4 thenry 5 jlewis 7 muhsin 0 abryant 2 shockey 4 jreed 6 gannon 6 deuce 6 keyshawn 10 jhorn 7 ibruce 5 jolley 1 j-kow 1 -------------------------------------------- The Hustlers 27 (2-4) Angry Starfish 28 (3-3) pregame spread: TH by 5 Talk about Monday Night Insanity!!! Angry Starfish led The Hustlers by a single point heading into MNF action, and Tarang had the ATL PK to kick 2 PATs or a FG for the win. 60 minutes later... Mike's fabulous special teams held Tarang's PK scoreless! In a blowout, chances are that ATL would score a garbage TD or 2 - or at least kick a FG to avoid the shutout. But Tarang's only shot in this game came at the end of the 1st half - when Feely lined up for a 60-yd FG. That's when Mike's expertly coached special teams came up with the game-saving block. Mike survived LT's bye week thanks to a strong game from Favre - and thanks to a solid defensive performance. Tarang managed to get an ok game from J Garcia and a TD from E Conwell, but was hurt by the subpar performances from C Portis, J Smith and the aforementioned PK. Not only has Doug Johnson dragged down the numbers of P Price and A Crumpler and W Dunn and TJ Duckett... he's also dragged the PK down with him! Have I mentioned how AWFUL D Johnson is yet? garcia 9 portis 3 tglenn 2 jsmits 3 keenan 4 conwell 6 feely 0 favre 11 atwain 0 andrej 2 plaxico 3 gardner 5 bmiller 2 elam 5 -------------------------------------------- Chocolate Love 41 (2-4) Love Touch 26 (3-3) pregame spread: CL by 19 Joebob vs. Cals... ah, the history surrounding this storied rivalry! I remember the time when Joebob locked Cals' players in their locker room, left 10 bags of cheetos in each locker, and pumped marijuana smoke into the room. Whenever a Cals player did manage to waddle their way open, the combination of cheeto fingers on the QB and WRs prevented Cals from completing any passes. And then there was the time Cals sent a horde of hookers to the hotel where Joebob's team was staying the night before a big showdown. Joebob's club showed up to the game without any sense of urgency - and with lots of butt cramps - paving the way for a huge Cals win. There were no such (reported) shenanigans in this matchup - just a slew of Love Touch starters (Culpepper, Onterrio, R Moss, P Warrick) out on their bye weeks. Cals didn't even have a spare roster spot to get a healthy QB into the lineup! All Joebob needed was the 27 T Green and R Williams pts. Thank goodness that's all Chocolate Love needed, because their 4 other non-PK starters averaged 1.5 pts. Cals did manage to cover the spread - as Darnerian (who?!?) was Cals' leading scorer. green 17 rwilliams 10 pittman 4 amani 2 lelie 0 fauria 0 v'jagt 8 snake 0 atrain 5 kevan 2 jreed 2 mccants 9 declark 1 jhall 7 -------------------------------------------- The Axis of Evil 31 (1-4-1) Big Brown Boys 34 (5-1) pregame spread: TAoE by 10 Big Brown Boys just keeps on winning! With a roster decimated by byes and injuries (J Harrington, M Vick, D Boston, C Rogers), and with the top-scoring bench WR this week (S Smith's 12)... Shiv was still able to pull off an amazing upset of Brodz' The Axis of Evil. Shiv plugged Vesh-reject J Blake into the QB slot and got a baker's dozen. Shiv also scoured the WR free agent pile to come up with J McCareins - whose 4 pts proved to be the difference in this one. Shiv also got a Troy H TD against PHI to round out the scoring. The Axis of Evil has been more like The Axis of Bad Intent thus far this season. With the WR situation apparently coming together nicely (D Driver returning from the head injury and B Shaw taking the P Price position away from J Reed), and with Emmitt giving way to M Shipp... Brodz' lineup was beginning to have the look of a varsity team. But Peyton could only toss 1 TD pass against CAR, and no other TAoBI starter was able to get a sniff of the endzone this week - dooming Brodz to yet another defeat. Particularly damaging was Shaun A's inability to recapture a bit of his Sunday Nitro magic. peyton 8 salex'er 6 shipp 5 driver 3 bshaw 3 dallas 1 mgram 5 blake 13 fredt 5 troyh 8 chrebet 0 mccareins 4 alge 1 akers 3 -------------------------------------------- WANG'S WEEKLY WARBLE ====== ====== ====== There seem to be a few things about RFL that are unclear to a GM or 2. I will address those issues now. TRADE PROCESS In my first years as Commish #2... I would receive an agreed-to trade (via phone call or email) from the 2 parties, and then I would rule if the trade was valid or not. In certain cases when either my judgment might have been clouded or I wasn't 100% sure about rendering a verdict, I would ask a few other GMs for their opinion. Last year, I decided to establish a Trade Jury/Panel. The 3 primary judges were Stan, Clark and me. I chose Stan and Clark because they've been in RFL for a while, and because they seem to be on top of things. For any trades that involved 1 of the 3 of us, I chose JoePa as the 1st alternate judge. If there are any trades that involve 2 of the top 4 trade judges, Vesh will be the 2nd alternate. So, the trade process is currently as follows: 1) One of the trading GMs emails the trade to me (while CCing the other trading GM) or 1a) I receive notification from yahoo that 2 GMs have agreed on a trade 2) I send the trade to the balance of the Trade Panel 3) If a majority of the Trade Panel does not legitimately say "No" to the trade within 24 hours of the email to the Trade Panel, 4) The trade is OKed. Now the gray area would be if a GM decides he wants to pull out of a deal between when the Trade Panel OKs a deal and when I click the "OK Trade" button on yahoo. I have decided that in such a case the trade will go through. Philosophically the trade has been approved. The only remaining technicality is my clicking of the "OK Trade" button on yahoo. In the case of the "vetoed" trade last week, Clark emailed that he wanted to pull out of the trade before I had the chance to forward the deal to Stan and JoePa. I wanted the trade to go through. I advised Clark he could afford to deal a QB (out of Bulger, Hasselbeck, Couch) for an upgrade at TE (K Brady-to-D Jolley). I would have preferred to have faced a Bulger-less Clark this past weekend. I would have beaten Clark this past weekend had he started H'beck or Couch and Jolley instead of Bulger and Brady. But when a GM states his desire to pull out before the proposed deal even gets to the eyeballs of the Trade Panel, the only result can be the nixing of the deal. WAIVER CLAIMS From the beginning days of RFL, Cals instituted the notion of a "dibs period" for free agent pickups during certain points in time during a week (particularly on the weekend). If a single player was claimed by more than 1 team, the team with the worst record had priority. Those days ended last season when we went to yahoo. yahoo sets its own priority levels for us GMs. At the end of the draft, the GM drafting last gets top priority for the 1st player he claims off waivers. Once a GM claims a player on waivers, his priority level drops to 16 - and every GM previously behind him in priority level moves up a notch. Anything else anyone finds puzzling? ************************************************* RFL GM Profiles: Joshua Veshia, Dirty Sanchez ************************************************* RFL Week in Review Editing Staff: Vesh promised to have his interview done next week. Or is he stringing us along like he did last season? This has been an RFL interview. The rights to all proceeds made from this interview belong to the RFL WIR and exclusively to the RFL WIR. ******************************************************** SEASON POINTS LEADERS ********************* QB 79 S McNair (Spunk Monkeys) 65 P Manning (The Axis of Evil) 62 J Garcia (The Hustlers) RB 101 A Green (Dirty Sanchez) 90 P Holmes (Spunk Monkeys) 73 J Lewis (Midget Tossers) 62 R Williams (Chocolate Love) 60 T Henry (Midget Tossers) 56 S Davis (Boyz In The Chin Hood) WR 68 M Harrison (Wet Noodles) 64 R Moss (Love Touch) 59 T Holt (samurai penguins) 51 D Mason (Spunk Monkeys) 44 H Ward (Manchester United) 40 C Johnson (The Belching Brides) TE 38 S Sharpe (Dirty Sanchez) 31 T Gonzalez (-) 26 A Crumpler (Big Brown Boys) PK 64 M Vanderjagt (Chocolate Love) 56 J Elam (Angry Starfish) 50 J Wilkins (Boyz In The Chin Hood) -------------------------------------------- RFL ALL*STARS ************* QB 19 M Bulger (Manchester United) RB 23 A Green (Dirty Sanchez) 14 W Green (samurai penguins) WR 28 D Mason (Spunk Monkeys) 21 T Holt (samurai penguins) TE 13 T Gonzalez (Spankin It...) PK 11 B Cundiff (The Belching Brides) ************** Week 6 total: 129... same as last week... a coincidence? we think not. -------------------------------------------- NEXT WEEK's ACTION **** GAME **** OF **** THE **** WEEK **** Chocolate Love (2-4, 43.8) vs. The Hustlers (2-4, 38.3) Joebob Edge Tarang T Green <- J Garcia R Williams -- C Portis M Pittman <- L Betts A Toomer <- K McCardell A Lelie -> T Glenn C Fauria -> E Conwell G Anderson -- J Feely This is the 2nd leg of the IFEJ round-robin tournament. Big Brown Boys will face The Hustlers in Week 9 to conclude 2k3's IFEJ-tournament-within-the-season. Shiv's Big Brown Boys beat Joebob's Chocolate Love in Week 5, so Tarang will look to eliminate Joebob this weekend - and setup a winner-take-all matchup against Shiv in Week 9. Normally T Green would not get an edge over J Garcia, but Green gets the hapless OAK D on MNF - while Garcia will have to face TB. The #1 RB matchup will be most intriguing. R Williams will be taking on the Pats, while Portis will be at the improved MIN D. How improved is the Vikes D? Perhaps we'll find out this weekend. The Pittman-Betts matchup should be close, but Pittman (at SF) gets a slight nod over Betts (at BUF) this week. Amani is a better WR than Keenan, but he'll be facing a tougher D. Joebob's Lelie will also test the Vikes D, while T Glenn faces Detroilet - advantage T Glenn. Neither TE is anything worth writing home about, but Conwell is going up against ATL. Neither PK is any good either. Joebob was running IFEJ before Tarang had gotten out of diapers. Shiv's been running things at IFEJ HQs of late. But perhaps it's time for Joebob to step back into power again. **** Tarang shows Joebob a little love - and respect. Chocolate Love by 3 **** -------------------------------------------- Other Tilts: Midget Tossers (2-4, 49.3) by 8 over Boyz In Th Chin Hood (2-4, 39.0) Drew's high scoring average keeps him in a decent position to break ties into a playoff spot. A loss for Wang here virtually knocks him out of playoff contention The Belching Brides (2-3-1, 41.0) by 1 over Manchester United (5-1, 42.2) Stan's backfield is due to bust out. Clark might be missing a bit too much firepower to win this one. Dirty Sanchez (4-2, 46.8) by 17 over Wet Noodles (2-3-1, 38.7) Vesh should be able to bounce back nicely following his defeat at the hands of Zach. Ali's offense will be minus some major horsepower this weekend. Spunk Monkeys (6-0, 54.0) by 6 over samurai penguins (2-4, 40.0) Zach keeps rolling towards a perfect season. JoePa needs C Dillon to keep this one somewhat close. If Dillon can't go... West Coast Offense (3-2-1, 40.7) by 2 over Angry Starfish (3-3, 41.5) Gary might need to wean himself off those Raiders. Mike is due to give one back after stealing a win last week. Love Touch (3-3, 41.0) by 14 over The Axis of Evil (1-4-1, 36.5) Cals gets 4 of his major players back from their bye. Brodz loses 3 of his top players to their bye. Big Brown Boys (5-1, 45.7) by 5 over Spankin It... (1-3-2, 38.3) Vick is now talking about how Shiv might not need him this season. McNabb's thumb is hurting Richard more than Vick's absence has hurt Shiv.