Gary, Ali and Wally all got 12 "bonus" points in Week 1 - as 4 of their 5 RB/WR/TEs broke the 50-yard barrier. They each also won their respective games.
Joebob, Brodz and Vesh each managed only 1 out of 5 hitting the 50-yard barrier. They each lost their Week 1 matchups.
The new rule influenced the outcomes of 2 games. Kevin would have beat Stan and Vesh would have beat Cals under the pre-2k rules. All 4 of these guys voted *for* the new rule, so the point is moot.

WHAT HAPPENED?!?

In celebration of Brian Grayeski's shutout loss in Week 1 of 1999, here is the Week 1 all-RFL shutout squad of RFL2k: SMcNair (Stan), Emmitt (Wang), TDavis (JoePa), CCarter (Joebob), Muhsin (Shivan), TGonzalez (Brodz) and JCarney (Kevin).
The League's decision to schedule Draft "neighbors" (i.e., 1 vs 2, 3 vs 4, ...) against each other in Week 1 made for an interesting week of matchups. While #16 (Cals) beat #15 (Vesh) and #14 (Wang) beat #13 (Joebob) in the Astroglide Division, only one other "higher seed" managed to win (#10 Shivan over #9 JoePa) out of the remaining 6 matchups. 1, 3, 5, 7 and 11 beat 2, 4, 6, 8 and 12 respectively.
Enough random babbling... on to WIR #1!

****************************
**** GAME OF THE WEEK ****
****************************
Joebob (Na Brown's Boys) 18
Wang (Fire in the Hole) 22

Although the point output of this contest was the 2nd most lame of the week, there was oodles of Monday Night Madness. Jeff Wilkins never got a shot at a FG while he put through 5 PATs. So... 100 yds plus a TD for McCaffrey was all Joebob needed to steal a W in RFL2k's 1st GOTW. Easy Ed got the 100, but never got a look from Greasy in the red zone. Wang survived killer 0's from Emmitt and Amani. Joebob was hurt by Krissy Heppner's Krispy Kreme.
Scrub win for Wang (i.e., FITH was not among the top 8 scoring teams, but backed their way into a W due to a favorable opponent matchup for the week).

chandler 6 bettis 0 basil 0 carter 0 mccaffrey 6 walls 6 heppner 0
rjohnson 3 emmitt 0 jstewart 5 toomer 0 tmathis 9 sharpe 0 wilkins 5
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Gary (%$!@#&) 51
Adam (Curly Back Hair) 40

Elam wins this game for Gary early in MNF, and Edgerrin single-handedly eclipsed Gary's *total* 17-game RB production in 1999. Qadry outpoints his older brother Rocket - while a major source of disgust was Kitna. If ever a performance was worthy of negative points, Kitna probably would've gotten about a minus-24 for his game against Miami. Stephen Davis and his $90M equals 15 pts for Adam, while TDwight and ABecht weren't productive - as contract envy looks to rip this fledgling franchise apart.
Scrub loss for Adam - a tough initiation to RFL.

kitna 0 ejames 21 rhett 3 westbrook 3 qadry 12 lafleur 0 elam 12
b'lein 3 sdavis 15 garner 6 rocket 5 dwight 0 becht 0 mare 11
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Ali (Heirs to the Ayatollah) 58
Clark (Indecipherable Jive Talk) 27

Who needs receivers when your QB can simply run the ball in for TDs repeatedly?!? Heirs to the Ayatollah are looking into replacing Chrebet, Green and Wycheck with TBoselli, WRoaf and OPace. MFaulk looks like he's ready to repeat his 1999 performance. For Clark's IJT, EGeorge and GAnderson looked good. TJones and FJones did not.

c'pepper 18 mfaulk 21 rsmith 6 chrebet 0 jgreen 3 wycheck 3 delgreco 7
vINTy 3 egeorge 9 tjones 0 pickens 0 hayes 3 freddie 0 anderson 12
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim (Carpet Bombers) 43
Brodz (-nameless-) 36

Tim needed 300 and 3 from Warner on MNF. Warner delivered 400 and 3. Longwell outpointed Hollis, and Jimmy also showed well for Carpet Bombers. Fred put up his 18 for the season (does anyone remember Richard Huntley's 21 in Week 1 from last year?). Jerry Rice will see to it that he gets all of Fred's future red zone touches.
Scrub loss for Brodz.

warner 18 wheatley 3 watters 3 jsmith 9 mayes 0 coates 0 l'well 10
banks 3 asmith 0 beasley 18 harrison 6 moulds 0 gonzalez 0 hollis 9
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Wally (Crazed Beagles on the Run) 22
Richard (-nameless-) 15

Snoopy is on Fire scrubbed their way to victory in this ugly display of RFL action. Without the new 50-yard rule, Wally would have won 10-9. Yuck! Marcus Robinson was the difference in this game. Brunell showed signs of life for Richard. pEnis looked flaccid.
Scrub win for Wally.

manning 3 dunn 3 kfaulk 3 marcus 9 freeman 3 riem'ma 0 j'kowski 1
brunell 6 enis 0 kaufman 0 moss 3 keyshawn 3 bubba 0 gramatica 3
----------------------------------------------------------------------
JoePa (Black Ops) 24
Shivan (Nasty Pimps) 44

Black Ops needed 27 for a miraculous Monday Night Comeback, but Terrell Davis came up lame, and THolt didn't get any endzone lovin' from Warner. Shiv's Nasty Butt Pimples got rave reviews for the performances of Alstott, Priest and TOwens. The curtain might be coming down on Favre. JoePa got good WR numbers, but the RB situation has a black cloud look about it at the moment.

gannon 3 tdavis 0 canidate 0 galloway 9 holt 6 sloan 0 hanson 6
favre 3 alstott 15 priest 9 muhsin 0 towens 9 roland 0 conway 8
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Stan (The Armchair QB Adventure Playset (tm)) 28
Kevin (Minnesota Nice) 27

A strong first half of MNF action for Rod Smith meant a Week 1 victory for Stan. Curtis Martin and Ricky Williams did well for Kevin, but Rod's support team of Dayne and Keenan was the difference. Kevin's last minute subbing of TMartin in for DAlexander was costly.
Scrub win for Stan.

mcnair 0 dayne 9 cloud 0 rod 9 mccardell 6 dudley 0 brien 4
b'soe 3 cmartin 18 rw''ms 6 jreed 0 tmartin 0 alex'der 0 carney 0
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Vesh (-nameless-) 36
Cals (Fresh Squeezed) 40

Vesh was done in by goose-eggs from Shaun, Tim, Albert and Ken - wasting Duce's blackjack. Cals got a stellar performance from Cade - and actually won the Stover vs. Vanderjagt matchup. In the new age of "3 points for 50 yards," the WR matchup in this game was downright pitiful.
Scrub loss for Vesh.

bj'son 6 duce 21 alex'der 0 tibrown 0 connell 0 dilger 0 v'jagt 9
mcnown 18 jamala 3 biaka 6 isaac 3 crowell 0 pollard 0 stover 10
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Where's the damn Gamebooks?!?

Much to my dismay, NFL.com has seemed to stop publishing their Gamebooks this season. So unless NFL.com returns this valuable resource (or unless anyone else knows of an alternate resource)... I will need to do the following:
1) for position eligibility, I will go by the positions listed in the NFL.com rosters (e.g., the Vikings' Kleinsasser is listed as a "RB" - not a TE, and Kordell is listed as a "QB" - not a WR).
2) for whether a player played in a game or not, I will go by the most comprehensive boxscore I can find - not just boxscores with passers, rushers and receivers... but also ones listing tackles, fumble recoveries, etc.

Dibs/Empty Roster Spot ContrOversy:

Just as Vesh brought the "if he starts..." controversy to a boil in Week 1 of last year, Vesh has done it to us again with the "preemptive dibs" controversy of RFL2k. Granted... Kyle Brady might score a TD or 2 this season now that Damon Jones is out, but as Cals noted in his protest email... I figured that "JuJube Dawson and Greg Brady are of sufficient quality [lack thereof] to cause any controversy." Consider this "loophole" closed and expect further connivings from Vesh (the Al Davis of RFL) in the future.

Entry fees:

We'll try last year's policy regarding entry fees again. Since we are all respectable MEN in this league, save for the obvious exceptions (Wally and Joebob to name names [Shiv's manly voice and Week 1 victory - in that order - got him off the exception list]), I will not collect entry fees until the end of the season. Except in the case of Joebob - where I might *never* see his entry fee.
Once we know where all the RFL bucks should go, I will tell each GM where to send his $. Anyone got a problem with that?

*************************************************
RFL GM Profiles: Clark Goebel, GM, Indecipherable Jive Talk
*************************************************

As far as the League's Office knows, Clark's ties to RFL go back to when Clark's Big City Blade Runners and Chris' Bust a Nut by Bombyx entered the League as a result of sharing a home with Commish #1 in Los Altos. The following is a revealing interview with Clark by the Barbara Walters of RFL, Joe Pynadath:

RFL Week in Review Editing Staff: Clark, after being a relatively quiet member of RFL the past few years, you sure have started this season out with a bang. I think the Alliance that you started took everyone by suprise. Now the questions - are you the leader/founder of this alliance? And how powerful is your group - really?

Clark Goebel: The alliance was started by me, but it is only as strong as its members. The alliance started during the draft when Ali took Culpepper one spot ahead of when I was going to take him. From then on we worked as a team to draft players. Most of the members of the alliance prefer to not be exposed but they are a part of something new to the RFL.

RFL: Well, let's just lay it on the table now. It was quite obvious from the draft at SONY, that Commish Wang wanted nothing to do with the Alliance. Did the Alliance take that as a slight? And is his job in jeopardy?

CG: No not at all. That isn't what the alliance is about. We all think that Wang does a great job as the acting commish (with the exception of a small voting issue) and we have no intention of taking over the RFL. But, we never say never!

RFL: A lot was noted about the help you were providing GM Pat Callery. Was that out of mere pity? Or does he actually offer something to the alliance? Let's face it, father time passed Cals by many moons ago and he can use as much help as possible.

CG: Pat has made some *really* bad draft choices in the past and in order to pull him into the alliance, we had to guide him into the right direction. Anytime we bring someone into the alliance, we offer something. We could even help you out, Joe.

RFL: Enough about the alliance - Rumors are rampant that your RFL teams have been losing so much money year in and year out that you are still stuck in that rat & ant infested house in Los Altos. Even GM Callery was able to buy his way out. Do you feel like you're ruining RFL's image by living in such a mess?

CG: What kind of a question is that? Of course the rfl image isn't tainted by such a classic living situation as 405. This place has history, and it is allowing me to humbly stay put in an expensive Bay Area market until I find my castle. If anything the RFL should be proud of that strategy.

RFL: After seeing a recent increase in married GM's in the league - Pat, Brodz, & Guru to name a few, are you feeling any pressure to tie the knot?

CG: Again you question my life strategy in the RFL environment. And there is a strategy behind it all. There is plenty of time in a GM's life to play the married man role, and there is no need to rush that kind of commitment... but we'll see.

RFL: What is a BladeRunner? And how is it linked to you?

CG: Simply put, one of the best movies of all time!

RFL: Our sources have told us that your athletic teams this year had quite a poor showing in both b'ball and football. What's going on? Should we expect the same from your RFL team?

CG: My locally organized athletic teams are put together to keep a group of friends involved in sports. It isn't based around talent. But with the RFL team, I have picked the players (based upon availability) that I think have the talent to excel and bring me to the top. But if they play anything like they did this first week, I am doomed for last place once again.

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
18 Daunte Culpepper (Heirs to the Ayatollah)
18 Cade McNown (Fresh Squeezed)
18 Kurt Warner (Carpet Bombers)

RB
21 Marshall Faulk (Heirs to the Ayatollah)
21 Edgerrin James (%$!@#&)
21 Duce Staley (vesh)
18 Fred Beasley (brodz)
18 Curtis Martin (Minnesota Nice)
15 Mike Alstott (Nasty Pimps)
15 Stephen Davis (Curly Back Hair)

WR
12 Qadry Ismail (%$!@#&)
9 Joey Galloway (Black Ops)
9 Terance Mathis (Fire in the Hole)
9 Terrell Owens (Nasty Pimps)
9 Marcus Robinson (Crazed Beagles on the Run)
9 Jimmy Smith (Carpet Bombers)
9 Rod Smith (TheArmchairQBAdventurePlayset(tm))

TE
6 Wesley Walls (Na Brown's Boys)
3 Frank Wycheck (Heirs to the Ayatollah)
0 Everyone else

PK
12 Gary Anderson (Indecipherable Jive Talk)
12 Jason Elam (%$!@#&)
11 Olindo Mare (Curly Back Hair)
10 Ryan Longwell (Carpet Bombers)
10 Matt Stover (Fresh Squeezed)

Gary	Advantage	Tim
EGrbac		KWarner
EJames		TWheatley
ERhett		RWatters
MWestbrook		JSmith
QIsmail		DMayes
DLaFleur		BCoates
JElam		RLongwell

This is one of three Week 2 matchups featuring a clash of undefeateds. Elvis is a good #2 QB, but going up against KWarner is too much to ask. Fortunately for Gary... the balance of his starting lineup has numerous matchup advantages against Tim's squad. Edgerrin and Errict should outscore Tyrone and Ricky by about 9. Westbrook and Qadry should outscore Jimmy and DMayes by 3 or 6. Elam should also win the PK battle. For the Carpet Bombers to surprise %$!@#&, it looks like Tim will need at least 2 "extra" TDs - maybe one each for Mayes and Coates.

**** The skinny: %$!@#& by 7 ****

©1999-2000 RFL Inc.
All rights reserved.

Revised: September 6, 2000