Rigatoni Farfalle Linguine Week 9 November 5, 2002 **** RFL WEEK IN REVIEW **** RUDY GIULIANI'S "WISDOM"? Did anyone else hear what the former mayor of NYC said on Larry King last night? Claiming to be quoting someone else's saying: "If you're not a Democrat when you're 20, you have no heart. If you're not a Republican by the time you're 40, you have no brain." BENCH TEAM! These guys' asses languished on their respective sides' pines last weekend: 21 B Johnson (Golden Years) 12 A Thomas (Everyone Go Deep) 10 TJ Duckett (Raider Hater) 9 T Streets (Las Ranas De Mayan) 9 J Porter (Ghetto Fab Bindys) 1 J Shockey (Fat Bastards) 14 J Hall (AC Milan) 76 points... 16-0 ... 140-3-1 through 9 weeks WEDNESDAY IS PRINCE PASTA NIGHT Highest scoring team: AC Milan - 65.3 ppg Lowest scoring team: Repulsive Punk Asses - 40.2 ppg Toughest defense: Repulsive Punk Asses - 40.4 ppg Softest defense: The Kavir Dwellers and Raider Hater - 55.8 ppg League scoring average: 47.8 ppg (last year 37.3) Getting to the bloody point... on to WIR #9! -------------------------------------------- STANDINGS Ragu Division Team W L T GB PF PA STK Golden Years 5 3 1 3 439 421 W3 Repulsive Punk Asses 5 4 0 3.5 362 364 W3 Ghetto Fab Bindys 4 5 0 4.5 470 452 L3 Chinks in the Armor 3 6 0 5.5 439 422 W1 Classico Division Team W L T GB PF PA STK AC Milan 8 0 1 - 588 389 W3 Furious Gefilte Fish 6 3 0 2.5 411 397 L1 Spitz34 3 6 0 5.5 420 484 W3 The Kavir Dwellers 3 6 0 5.5 409 502 L5 Prego Division Team W L T GB PF PA STK Las Ranas De Mayan 5 4 0 3.5 507 481 L3 TheFreakinBlackHawks 5 4 0 3.5 386 394 L1 Samurai Sumos 3 6 0 5.5 426 398 W1 Raider Hater 3 6 0 5.5 379 502 L1 Hunt's Division Team W L T GB PF PA STK Cleveland Steamers 6 3 0 2.5 421 391 W1 Everyone Go Deep 5 4 0 3.5 428 408 W1 Fat Bastards 4 5 0 4.5 428 454 L4 Junior Mints 3 6 0 5.5 375 429 L1 -------------------------------------------- WEEK 9 IN REVIEW **************** ************************** **** GAME OF THE WEEK **** ************************** Furious Gefilte Fish 34 Repulsive Punk Asses 50 pregame spread: FGF by 6 How can a team be the lowest scoring squad in RFL - yet not only have a winning record, but also have the inside track on a playoff spot?!? Richard is getting it done with the stiffest D in RFL. That Roy Williams trade-down-and-pick on Draft Day is clearly paying off. In this week's GOTW, Richard went with a Bengal QB (the 4th QB on his roster), 2 Jet WRs, a former Jet TE, and bad-hands Alstott. Brodz apparently suffered from the byes of Greasy and Ed, but KWatson probably scored more than Ed would have. Furious Gefilte Fish PK Vanderjagt is pushing for bust of the year - as he is 31 pts behind Morten Andersen (that's nearly 4ppg!) and in 11th place overall among PKs. Brodz needed more separation from his WRs. Instead... TO and THolt only outscored HWard and SMoss by a single point. joey 2 kevan 3 kwatson 8 to 11 tholt 6 heap 3 v-jagt 1 kitna 17 alstott 9 chrebet 2 hines 10 smoss 6 brady 1 stover 5 -------------------------------------------- Las Ranas De Mayan 31 Chinks in the Armor 64 pregame spread: LRDM by 10 It has been a *long* time since a Wang-helmed club was installed as a double-digit underdog. Clearly, Chinks in the Armor were inspired to perform beyond their means - as Ahman and Keyshawn posted some huge numbers. Even rent-a-RB/WR Chad Johnson struck paydirt for CitA. Stan was so confident heading into this game that he didn't even bother finding a real TE to fill in for Tony Gonzalez (Paul Newman was handed the spot for the week). Even though Wang picked the wrong starting QB again (Bulger had 10), Vick was able to keep it close against Culpepper. Between TStreets (9), JStew (4), WDunn (3) and JWells (2)... Stan made the wrongest call at RB/WR. But even all the right moves would not have been enough to make up for the 33 pt margin. c-pep 4 dillon 5 jwells 2 conway 9 driver 3 newman X feely 8 vick 2 ahman 20 chadj'son 8 moulds 4 keyshawn 19 ricks 0 nedney 11 -------------------------------------------- Raider Hater 37 AC Milan 69 pregame spread: RH by 2 Who picked Raider Hater to be the team that ended AC Milan's run at an undefeated season?!? Did Drew hack in as guest bookmaker for last week's WIR?!? Clark was clearly not impressed - subbing in strong understudy performances from TMaddox, MWilliams and DPatten for TGreen, PHolmes and JHorn. But even without the 30 understudy pts, Clark still would have won the game - as Tiki, Peerless and Martin combined for 39. DBoston has been a huge disappointment for Drew thus far - currently ranking 22nd among WRs. Boston (2nd team All-RFL last year) is even 14 pts behind RMoss! MBennett has started developing nicely under Drew's tutelage. But after exploding out of the gate with 62 Week 1 pts, Drew hasn't seen 50 since. Scrub loss that should have been a tie for Drew (2-1.5) - instead of 3-6, he "deserves" to be 2-6-1. peyton 14 duce 3 bennett 13 boston 0 chambers 3 alge 0 omare 4 maddox 10 tiki 20 moe 15 pprice 11 patten 5 mcmike 0 mgram 8 -------------------------------------------- Samurai Sumos 40 Junior Mints 31 pregame spread: SS by 3 After an 0-5 start, Mike has gone 3-1 in his last 4. DMcNabb continues to battle PHolmes for MVP consideration (but MFaulk is closing fast). LaDainian is now only 1 pt behind Deuce for 3rd place among RBs. The Pittman, RMoss, CBradford, FJones portion of the Samurai Sumos lineup obviously didn't pull their weight this week, but each had shown signs of life in the 4 previous weeks. Want a sign of how far Joebob has fallen? Look no further than the quartet of pass-catchers filling out the Junior Mints starting lineup: Cris "all he does is turn the ball over" Carter, Terry "all he does is cash paychecks" Glenn, Derrius "all he does is take up space" Thompson, and Bubba "all he does is carry Donald Driver's jock strap" Franks. Last week, Wang sat at the bottom of the standings. This week it's Joebob. mcnabb 12 lt 9 pittman 2 rmoss 2 bradford 3 freddie 1 peterson 11 kerry 7 martian 10 cris 1 terry 1 derrius 0 booba 1 cortez 11 -------------------------------------------- Golden Years 33 TheFreakinBlackHawks 28 pregame spread: GY by 1 Ugh. 5 total pts for Emmitt, Tim Brown, I Bruce, Riemersma (the umich connection) and Tit-for-Tuthill. And yet... Cals still won - with his lowest point total of the season! MFaulk is averaging 24ppg in his last 3 starts - after averaging only 10.2 in his first 5. TCouch is performing barely adequately, but Cals left 21 BJ pts on the Golden Years bench this week. For the fourth straight week, TheFreakinBlackHawks failed to score more than four pts (combined) from the 2 WR and TE spots! And with Fusilli Jerry filling in for SDavis this week at RB - and a return to form(?) by THenry, JoePa had no chance for victory. Although... had JoePa started RGardner instead of the MIA SDavis, JoePa would have actually won this game. Scrub win for Cals (1.5-0) - his tie with Clark in Week 6 should have been a loss. sofa 9 faulk 19 emmitt 2 tibrown 0 ibruce 1 riemersma 0 tuthill 2 garcia 13 fusilli X thenry 3 pinky 3 bryant 0 jdavis 0 wilkins 9 -------------------------------------------- Everyone Go Deep 52 The Kavir Dwellers 49 pregame spread: EGD by 1 Despite benching A Train's 12 (behind Troy Brown and Laveranues Coles?!?), Gary was able to barely eek out this win over The Kavir Dwellers. Ali's A Twain made things very interesting by being the highest scoring player of the week. After a few appearances on BENCH TEAM, AZereoue finally got his 1st start of the season. With JBettis also on the roster, Gary seems to have protected himself well from the flaming out of LSmith. Ali had his regular starting lineup back in action - after 3 weeks of "misadventures." And even though the Dwellers responded with their highest point total in 5 weeks, it wasn't even good enough to cover the spread. Scrub loss for Ali (0-2) - he actually "deserves" to be 5-4. bledsoe 9 azereoue 9 trbrown 2 harrison 13 lcoles 3 becht 7 hanson 9 air 4 ricky 3 atwain 25 thrash 2 amani 2 wycheck 0 akers 13 -------------------------------------------- Fat Bastards 31 Cleveland Steamers 46 pregame spread: FB by 3 Raider Lover Zach accidentally started Deion Branch this week - thinking he was the genetically cross-bred result of clones of PrimeTime and former Raider superstar Cliff Branch. Sorry, Zach. This DBranch only puts up goose-eggs. No Fat Bastard was able to crack double-digits - dragging the Fat Bastards down to their 2nd lowest output of the season. All Vesh would need on this day were the 32 points from Brady, Quincy and RON DAYNE! Yes, RDayne actually scored his first 3 pts of the season! Somehow Brandon Stokley snuck in to another game. Didn't Stan say that Stokley had no business starting games in RFL?!? In looking at Vesh's starting lineup, it's hard to envision this team winning. But perhaps the return of Edgerrin and SSharpe will brighten Vesh's future outlook. carr 3 egeorge 5 garner 9 rice 4 branch 0 bmiller 2 j-kow 8 brady 18 hearst 2 dayne 3 quincy 11 stokley 0 fauria 6 l'well 6 -------------------------------------------- Spitz34 37 Ghetto Fab Bindys 27 pregame spread: NL - Stan was talking like Brad would be favored, and that simply didn't compute. But thanks to a total stinker mailed in by Shiv's not-so-Fab team, Brad was able to win his 3rd straight game. SPITZ34 QB Chad Pennington outscored Shiv's entire "star-studded" backfield (Gannon, Shaun Alexander, and Jamal Lewis) 15-14! And J Smith matched the pt total of Shiv's other 4 starters 13-13. In Ghetto Fab Bindy's last 3 contests (all losses), Shiv is averaging less than 37ppg. Shiv's "triplets" (Gannon, Alexander and Booker) are having trouble performing consistently together. And Jamal Lewis has cooled off considerably. Brad's wheeling and dealing has obviously strengthened his WR corps (Rod Smith, J Smith, P Burress). And the RB situation (FTaylor-SMack, TJones) actually has promise. But Pennington should not be able lead this team into the playoffs. Scrub win that should've been a tie for Brad (0.5-3) - instead of 3-6, he "deserves" to be 5-3-1. Brad tied Drew in bench points. p'ton 15 fredt 0 tjones 2 jsmith 13 plaxico 4 pollard 2 hollis 1 gannon 6 shalex'er 5 jlewis 3 mbooker 2 dmason 2 chad 1 vinatieri 8 -------------------------------------------- Transactions Team ---- ADD ---- DROP look 'em up for yourself on yahoo! ******************************************************** WANG'S WEEKLY WRINKLE ====== ====== ======= Sorry. No time to whine and cry and bitch and moan today. I actually had a decent topic, too. :-( ************************************************* RFL GM Profiles: Vesh? ************************************************* RFL WIR Editorial Staff: Vesh? Did Brad lose your interview in the Sony mailroom?!? 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 126 D McNabb (Samurai Sumos) 103 R Gannon (Ghetto Fab Bindys) 99 A Brooks (Repulsive Punk Asses) RB 158 P Holmes (AC Milan) 123 M Faulk (Golden Years) 111 D McAllister (Junior Mints) 110 L Tomlinson (Samurai Sumos) 106 T Henry (TheFreakinBlackHawks) 94 S Alexander (Ghetto Fab Bindys) WR 79 T Owens (Furious Gefilte Fish) 77 E Moulds (Chinks in the Armor) 71 M Harrison (Everyone Go Deep) 68 P Price (AC Milan) 67 J Horn (AC Milan) 67 C Conway (Las Ranas De Mayan) TE 59 T Gonzalez (Las Ranas De Mayan) 42 S Sharpe (Cleveland Steamers) 31 R McMichael (AC Milan) PK 79 M Andersen (Golden Years) 77 D Akers (The Kavir Dwellers) 73 J Feely (Las Ranas De Mayan) -------------------------------------------- RFL ALL*STARS ************* QB 18 T Brady (Cleveland Steamers) RB 25 A Smith (The Kavir Dwellers) 20 A Green (Chinks in the Armor) and T Barber (AC Milan) WR 19 Key Johnson (Chinks in the Armor) 13 M Harrison (Everyone Go Deep) and J Smith (SPITZ34) TE 7 A Becht (Everyone Go Deep) PK 13 D Akers (The Kavir Dwellers) ************** Week 9 total: 115... not exactly Kraft mac and cheese -------------------------------------------- NEXT WEEK's ACTION **** GAME **** OF **** THE **** WEEK **** 7-AC Milan (8-0-1, 65.3) vs. 15-Fat Bastards (4-5, 47.6) Clark Edge Zach TGreen -- BFavre PHolmes <- EGeorge TBarber -- CGarner JHorn <- JRice DPatten <- DBranch RMcMichael -- BMiller JHall -> SJanikowski Will Clark be able to finish the regular season as the first-ever undefeated Steamroller champion?!? Remaining on AC Milan's schedule are: Fat Bastards (4-5), Ghetto Fab Bindys (4-5), Furious Gefilte Fish (6-3), SPITZ34 (3-6), and Cleveland Steamers (6-3). The one team who will not have a shot at Clark this regular season is Rich's Repulsive Punk Asses. Isn't it ironic? Clark looks to have quite a few favorable matchups this week. TGreen and PHolmes will trip the light fantastic against SF. Tiki will be racking up yardage against the Vikes. And JHorn will be going up against the weak Panther D. Even though DPatten is a tangible dropoff from the bye'd Peerless, at least he's better than Zach's DBranch. Zach has some tough choices to make. BFavre is a little banged up - but facing the Lions. Once the Pack rolls up a big enough lead, Favre will undoubtedly come out in favor of Pederson again. Zach's backup, D Carr, will be facing a revitalized Titan D. On the flip side, Zach has EGeorge going against the Texans. CGarner, JRice and Seabass will be in MNF action against the Broncos. And Zach has undermined JShockey's all-Rookie team selection by turning to BMiller of late. Clearly... Fat Bastards have gone the way of the Raiders over the last month. A most promising 4-1 start is on the verge of getting overrun with the 4-game bender Zach is currently riding. We expect the Raiders to put up some good numbers against the Broncs, and Zach will certainly need such an effort to avoid getting embarrassed. **** 10 down, 4 to go... Clark by 11 **** -------------------------------------------- Other Tilts: 11-Raider Hater (3-6, 42.1) by 8 over 2-Chinks in the Armor (3-6, 48.8) Drew's RBs are coming along nicely. Wang will be missing Moulds and Keyshawn. 12-Las Ranas De Mayan (5-4, 56.3) by 4 over 9-Samurai Sumos (3-6, 47.3) Stan gets Tony Gonzalez back. Mike has to counter with Freddie and a void at RB/WR. 13-Junior Mints (3-6, 41.7) by 5 over 10-TheFreakinBlackHawks (5-4, 42.9) Joebob gets Deuce loose again. JoePa has JGarcia, JWilkins and 5 jokers (THenry out on bye). 14-Everyone Go Deep (5-4, 47.6) by 1 over 1-Golden Years (5-3-1, 48.8) Gary has a glut of RBs, but is missing Bledsoe. Cals might have too many byes to overcome. 4-Repulsive Punk Asses (5-4, 40.2) by 3 over 5-The Kavir Dwellers (3-6, 45.4) Richard is at (relative) full strength for this game. None of Ali's players have a bye this week. 3-Ghetto Fab Bindys (4-5, 52.2) by 6 over 16-Cleveland Steamers (6-3, 46.8) Shiv should bounce back from his 3-week slide. Vesh's hopes ride on gimpy Edgerrin. 8-Furious Gefilte Fish (6-3, 45.7) by 2 over 6-Spitz34 (3-6, 46.7) Greasy returns to lead Brodz' high-flying passing attack. Brad should have enough guns to keep this one close.