Roundtrip From London Week 1 September 12, 2002 **** RFL WEEK IN REVIEW **** THE YAHOO! EFFECT I guess the main thing that will happen this season is the addition of "17" to my schoolboy 12 x 12 multiplication table days. Emmitt rushed for 67 yds? Quick, is that 3 or 4 RFL pts?!? Amani ran up 134 receiving yds? How many yardage pts is that? Overall... perhaps it's more fair to award a pt for every 17 yds, but I personally enjoyed the days of holding out with the 3 pts until a guy hit each 50 yd threshold. FOOTBALL IN THE UK Yes, everyone knows that all the lame non-Americans think "football" really means "soccer." And the thing that makes Europe even more lame is the total non-coverage of FOOTBALL. I got to spend last Sunday watching the 4th (and "deciding") test match between England and India. What sport was it, you ask? Cricket! Oh, boy! Wouldn't you know it... the huge underdog English team put up 515 runs in the "top half" of the 1st inning (something in the 200s is more normal)! But then India came back with 508 runs in the "bottom half" of the inning. This inning took nearly 4 days. During the balance of the 4th day, England scored about another 100 runs - and then the match was called a tie. What the @#$%?!?!? I spent about 2 hours watching this crap! I *deserve* a winner and a loser! Maybe if they didn't stop the game for lunch and tea breaks every few hours, they would have been able to finish! BENCH TEAM! These guys' asses languished on their respective teams' pines last weekend: 15 SMatthews (Brad, Terrible Towels) 17 WDunn (Stan, Las Ranas De Mayan) 20 QMorgan (Mike, FatJapInSanJose) 11 HWard (Richard, Repulsive Punk Asses) 9 DStallworth (Drew, Raider Hater) 10 ABecht (Gary, Everyone Go Deep) 11 DBrien (Ali, The Kavir Dwellers) 93 points... enough to smoke JoePa's top-scoring TheFreakinBlackHawks by a blackjack! Getting to the bloody point... on to WIR #1! -------------------------------------------- STANDINGS Heathrow Division Team W L GB PF PA STK Ghetto Fab Bindys 1 0 - 66 55 W1 Chinks in the Armor 0 1 1 58 68 L1 Golden Years 0 1 1 55 70 L1 Repulsive Punk Asses 0 1 1 24 52 L1 Gatwick Division Team W L GB PF PA STK AC Milan 1 0 - 68 58 W1 The Tards of Bas 1 0 - 32 31 W1 The Kavir Dwellers 0 1 1 55 66 L1 Terrible Towels 0 1 1 42 72 L1 Stansted Division Team W L GB PF PA STK TheFreakinBlackHawks 1 0 - 72 42 W1 Raider Hater 1 0 - 62 26 W1 Las Ranas de Mayan 1 0 - 52 24 W1 FatJapinSanJose 0 1 1 40 61 L1 Luton Division Team W L GB PF PA STK Fat Bastards 1 0 - 70 55 W1 Cleveland Steamers 1 0 - 61 40 W1 Everyone Go Deep 0 1 1 31 32 L1 Junior Mints 0 1 1 26 62 L1 -------------------------------------------- WEEK 1 IN REVIEW ******************* ************************** **** GAME OF THE WEEK **** ************************** 1-cals (golden years) 55 15-zach (fat bastards) 70 pregame spread: cals by 3 Oh, the humanity! Back in the day, Cals would have made quick work of a Week 1 challenge from a rookie GM. The homecoming of Golden Years' QB BJ (back in MN for the 1st time since his Viking glory days) went well as he matched BFavre pt for pt. But Zach's Fat Bastards ran roughshod over #1's rushing D to the tune of 40-15 - as EGeorge and CGarner *each* outpointed #1's pairing of Marshall and Emmitt. To add insult to embarassment... Zach's respect-lacking WR duo of Jerry and Keenan fell only 1 pt shy of #1's highly regarded pairing of Tim and Isaac. At least old farts Wesley and Morten held up well in this contest. #1 needs more from his Rams. Zach might have WR issues. bj 11 mfaulk 12 emmitt 3 tibrown 8 ibruce 3 walls 8 mort 10 favre 11 egeorge 18 cgarner 22 jrice 1 keenan 9 shockey 2 j-kow 7 -------------------------------------------- 2-wang (chinks in the armor) 58 7-clark (ac milan) 68 pregame spread: clark by 4 Jamir M, Jamir M, wherefore art thou, Jamir M?!? When Brown LB Jamir Miller went down in CLE's first exhibition game this summer, little did #2 know that the floodgates had opened for #2i's Priest. 4 rushing TDs?!? What the heck?!? But apparently all the extra time Clark used to make his 1sst round pick enabled him to see that Priest would be running against a Jamir-less Brown D in Week 1. MVick and EMoulds were bright signs for Wang. He will hope that these Week 1 performances will carry through the rest of the season. Keenan getting a TD instead of Keyshawn was NOT what Wang wanted to see. Clark was happy to get a big W without much production from his passing game. Dilger stinks. Scrub loss for Wang. vick 17 ahman 11 wgreen 1 keyshawn 4 moulds 12 ejohnson 2 elam 11 trent 9 priest 32 tiki 9 horn 6 price 4 dilger 0 mgramatica 8 -------------------------------------------- 9-mike (fatjapinsanjose) 40 16-vesh (cleveland steamers) 61 pregame spread: mike by 5 Perhaps Foge wasn't as high on crack as some of you thought he was - as preseason #1 Vesh rumbled over FatJapInSanJose. Despite subpar performances from TWheatley and SSharpe, Vesh got stellar, balanced numbers (56 pts) from his other starting 5 - and the Smiths should be hard to keep up with once they really get going. Mike could be in for a long season of ups and downs - as most of his starters have the look of boom-or-bust performers. 58 yds for RMoss?!? We were expecting at least 100 (and 2 TDs) each and every game this season. Goose-eggs for Plaxico and Freddie?!? They're quite capable of so much more. And a mere deuce for the Bus?!? I guess it *was* against that fierce Pats D. mcnabb 13 bettis 2 hearst 8 rmoss 9 burress 0 freddie 0 cahney 8 kordell 13 tomlinson 14 tyrone 4 rod 8 jimmy 8 sharpe 1 l'well 13 -------------------------------------------- 10-joepa (thefreakinblackhawks) 72 6-brad (terrible towels) 42 pregame spread: joepa by 6 TheFreakinBlackHawks take the early lead in the Steamroller race - thanks to an incredible 27-pt outburst from THenry. JoePa's 'skins also added up to 27 - while JGarcia and THeap came in way under projections. A little more is expected of JMorton, but perhaps not that much more. Brad's Terrible Towels wasted an outstanding game from "The Missile" - as no one thinks he'll score 16 again. Edgerrin came through with a decent number of yards, but the pre-partially-torn-ligamented Edgerrin would have at least scored a TD or 2. ABrooks looks primed for a very nice season - while stocks in MPittman and MMuhammad took a huge nosedive. If JoePa can find a 2nd WR to pair with Gardner... Aglione Bowl, here he comes! garcia 7 sdavis 14 thenry 27 morton 0 gardner 13 heap 1 wilkins 10 brooks 11 ejames 5 pittman 3 qadry 16 muhsin 3 conwell 2 peterson 2 -------------------------------------------- 14-gary (everyone go deep) 31 8-brodz (the tards of bas) 32 pregame spread: gary by 1 Tough loss for EGD II. Any 1 of 4 starting lineup decisions would have resulted in a win: starting QB TBrady over Bledsoe (net 6 pts) starting RB #2 LSmith over WR#3 Troy or Laveranues (3 pts), starting TE Becht over Chamberlain (7 pts), starting PK Nedney over Stover (6 pts). All of Gary's starters underwhelmed this week - so perhaps all their biorhythms will be in sync next weekend. Brodz' 'tards won in a most scrubby fashion - being the lowest scoring winning team of the week (scoring 20 pts fewer than Stan's winning toads). We expected prolific aerial assaults from these 2 teams. We got a $200 bag full of duds. Brodz' Greasy was the only player to hit double-figures, and I read that he almost got pulled in favor of Beuerlein! Scrub win for Brodz. bledsoe 8 atrain 9 harrison 8 trbrown 1 lcoles 1 byron 3 stover 1 greasy 10 kevan 3 to 2 holt 5 mccaffrey 8 sloan 0 v-jagt 4 -------------------------------------------- 5-ali (the kavir dwellers) 55 3-shiv (ghetto fab bindys) 66 pregame spread: shiv by 9 Ali's running game came through against Ghetto Fab Bindys' favored RB duo - and Air McNair surprised RGannon by a deuce. But Shiv dominated The Kavir Dwellers at WR, TE and PK. Ricky Williams has quieted his preseason critics a little with a nice game, but 0 receiving yds?!? The man's got small hands! Thrash and Toomer were also solid for Ali, but The Kavir Dwellers needed one of the 2 to step up big. Shaun Alexander struggled a bit in his first attempt to justify his #3 overall selection. But MarTay Booker and Chad Lewis showed very promising signs for Shiv's season on the road to redemption (which is apparently somewhere near Chicago). Vinatieri (the *real* Super Bowl MVP) PKed well for the Bindys. Scrub loss for Ali (26-7 in bench pts over Cals). air 12 rwilliams 18 antowain 3 thrash 7 toomer 7 wycheck 2 akers 6 gannon 10 salex'er 10 jlewis 4 mason 6 booker 17 clewis 7 vinatieri 12 -------------------------------------------- 13-joebob (junior mints) 26 11-drew (raider hater) 62 pregame spread: joebob by 2 We're going to have to ask League Historian Stan to check the Chronicles to find the last time #1, Joebob and #2 all lost on the same weekend! Apparently a new age is truly dawning on RFL. Thanks to scrub wins by Brodz and Stan, the Apocalypse has been averted for at least 1 week. This box of Junior Mints was totally stale. Mediocrity is expected of Kerry. But for C-Mart, D-Mac, D-Jax, T-Glenn and BF to combine for 11?!? Woe is Joe. Rookie GM Drew (Reeder - not Wagner) burst out of the gate with plenty of hate - as Peyton, Duce, DBoston and CChambers hated on Joebob to the tune of 44 pts. Even Algae got into the action with a TD. Drew even showed some nice GM skills in starting WR#3 Galloway over MBennett. kerry 6 cmartin 2 deuce 6 djax 0 tglenn 3 booba 0 edinger 9 manning 13 duce 9 boston 14 chambers 8 galloway 5 algae 6 omare 7 -------------------------------------------- 12-stan (las ranas de mayan) 52 4-richard (repulsive punk asses) 24 pregame spread: stan by 8 Hmmm... here was the matchup of 2 GMs testing out the newfangled online starting lineup system. Stan tried to start the gimp (JStewart), but yahoo gave him Eddie the Eagle instead. Richard flat out didn't pick a 2nd starting WR or a PK - giving yahoo free rein to quick pick WChurchill and MThatcher for the Punk Ass starting lineup. The Las Ranas De Mayan passing game dominated this contest - as Daunte and his 3 pass catchers combined for 41 pts. Richard got a decent game from Fred - is he hurt yet? But KWarner's thumb flared up on him - and CPortis, KRobinson and MPollard could manage only 1 bucket a piece. Stan can put WDunn in for JStewart next week. Richard looks to figure out the nuances of online GMing in time for his showdown with #2 next week. Scrub win for Stan. c'pepper 13 dillon 1 Eagle X kevj'son 8 conway 9 tonyg 11 feely 10 warner 6 ftaylor 12 portis 2 koren 2 churchill X marvcus 2 thatcher X -------------------------------------------- Transactions Team ---- ADD ---- DROP look 'em up for yourself on yahoo! ******************************************************** WANG'S WEEKLY WRINKLE ====== ====== ======= ugh. "Everyone Go Deep" and "Cleveland Steamers"... yes, those team names were pretty cool last year. but that was LAST YEAR! i know you guys (gary and vesh) are smart enough to come up with a new team name every year. so obviously you 2 think those names are so cool, they deserve a 2nd season in play. well... i hate to break it to you, but they're not. c'mon... roll up those sleeves, get a little elbow grease flowing, and input a little original creativity to the League. that brings us to richard... after naming his team "The Everyday Tokers" in y2k, richard has failed to provide any name in 2001 or 2002. ...not to mention failing to name his fantasy baseball team this year, either! with a new home and a new son and all... there's *GOT* to be a new team name in there somewhere! and brodz, you promised on draft day that you'd be changing from "The Tards of Bas" to something acceptable. you're not going to back out on us, are you? finally... there's "FatJapinSanJose" and "Raider Hater". we've already mentioned the inadequacies of these "team" names coming out of Draft Day - and yet there they still are. i'm afraid to say it... but it seems that RFL is headed the way of baseball in america, sumo wrestling in japan, and the dodo bird of mauritius. was it that long ago when each GM came up with an original team name every season? how can the WIR staff be called upon to write worthy WIRs when the GMs put in such non-efforts for the not-so-difficult task of naming their teams? 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... I will not collect entry fees until the end of the season. 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: ************************************************* NOTE FROM WIR EDITORIAL STAFF: Joebob! Where's the profile?!? 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 17 M Vick (Chinks in the Armor) 13 D McNabb (FatJapInSanJose) 13 K Stewart (Cleveland Steamers) 13 P Manning (Raider Hater) 13 D Culpepper (Las Ranas De Mayan) RB 32 P Holmes (AC Milan) 27 T Henry (TheFreakinBlackHawks) 22 C Garner (Fat Bastards) 18 E George (Fat Bastards) 18 R Williams (The Kavir Dwellers) 14 L Tomlinson (Cleveland Steamers) 14 S Davis (TheFreakinBlackHawks) WR 17 M Booker (Ghetto Fab Bindys) 16 Q Ismail (Terrible Towels) 14 D Boston (Raider Hater) 13 R Gardner (TheFreakinBlackHawks) 12 E Moulds (Chinks in the Armor) 9 K McCardell (Fat Bastards) 9 R Moss (FatJapInSanJose) 9 C Conway (Las Ranas De Mayan) TE 11 T Gonzalez (Las Ranas De Mayan) 8 W Walls (Golden Years) 7 C Lewis (Ghetto Fab Bindys) PK 13 R Longwell (Cleveland Steamers) 12 A Vinatieri (Ghetto Fab Bindys) 11 J Elam (Chinks in the Armor) -------------------------------------------- RFL ALL*STARS ************* QB 17 M Vick (Chinks in the Armor) RB 32 P Holmes (AC Milan) 27 T Henry (TheFreakinBlackHawks) WR 17 M Booker (Ghetto Fab Bindys) 16 Q Ismail (Terrible Towels) TE 11 T Gonzalez (Las Ranas De Mayan) PK 13 R Longwell (Cleveland Steamers) ************** Week 1 total: 133... 24 more than Week 1 last year! -------------------------------------------- NEXT WEEK's ACTION **** GAME **** OF **** THE **** WEEK **** 12-Las Ranas De Mayan (1-0, 52.0) vs. 11-Raider Hater (1-0, 62.0) Stan Edge Drew DCulpepper <- PManning CDillon <- DStaley WDunn -- DStallworth KevJohnson -> DBoston CConway -> CChambers TGonzalez << ACrumpler JFeely -> OMare Recently Stan has been getting off to horrible starts (1-4 or 0-5 or some such thing), gets on a nice winning streak around the middle of the season, and then falls just short of a playoff spot. After a scrub win last weekend, Stan is looking at potentially going 2-0 after this weekend's showdown with Rookie GM Drew. Could this season's Las Ranas De Mayan squad be the reincarnation of Stan's '98 Aglione Bowl champion Foxy Brown?!? Drew was a 2-pt underdog to Joebob last weekend, but came through with a resounding 62-26 win for franchise victory #1. A win this week would send Raider Hater well on their way to a playoff berth in their inaugural season. Daunte's running skills should give him an ever-so-slight advantage over Peyton. Boston and Chambers should give Drew a sizable edge in the 2 WR slots, but Drew's weak running game could do him in in the end. Dillon will be looking to bounce back this week, and TGonzalez should provide Stan with the winning margin. **** The Haters get licked in this one, Stan by 5 **** -------------------------------------------- Other Tilts: 4-Repulsive Punk Asses (0-1, 24.0) by 4 over 2-Chinks in the Armor (0-1, 58.0) If Rich figures out the yahoo thing, his starters are due to bust out this week. Wang's starters can't seem to find the endzone. 9-FatJapInSanJose (0-1, 40.0) by 6 over 7-AC Milan (1-0, 68.0) Defending Champ Clark looks to move to 2-0 with increased production from JHorn and PPrice. Look for Mike's squad to put up a really big number this week. 10-TheFreakinBlackHawks (1-0, 72.0) by 2 over 16-Cleveland Steamers (1-0, 61.0) JoePa has the shot at a wire-to-wire Steamroller - and will need a 2nd WR and TE Heap to step up. Vesh is still scrambling to fill his WR/RB starting position. 6-Terrible Towels (0-1, 42.0) by 3 over 14-Everyone Go Deep (0-1, 31.0) Neither of these guys expected to be 0-2. One will be after the weekend. Gary might be in deep WR#2, WR/RB trouble. Edgerrin should score more for Brad this week. 8-The Tards of Bas (1-0, 32.0) by 7 over 5-The Kavir Dwellers (0-1, 55.0) Brodz' passing attack should get untracked against Ali's porous air defenses. Ali will try to counter with Air, Ricky and balanced production from the other 5 spots. 1-Golden Years (0-1, 55.0) by 1 over 3-Ghetto Fab Bindys (1-0, 66.0) Cals *will* get better production from Faulk and Bruce. Shiv's team is looking better and better - must be the whisky goggles. 15-Fat Bastards (1-0, 70.0) by 9 over 13-Junior Mints (0-1, 26.0) Joebob can't drop to 0-2 against rookie GMs, can he?!? CMartin's uncertain condition (and the abundance of quality backup Jet RBs) isn't helping. Zach won't get 40 again from his RBs, but should get more than 12 from the pass catchers.