Raider Foe Lickers Week 17 January 12, 2003 **** RFL WEEK IN REVIEW **** THE AUTUMN WIND http://www.geocities.com/winbaby_66/autumn.html The Autumn Wind is a pirate Blustering in from sea With a rollicking song he sweeps along Swaggering boisterously His face is weather beaten He wears a hooded sash With a silver hat about his head And a bristling black moustache He growls as he storms the country A villain big and bold And the trees all shake and quiver and quake As he robs them of their gold The Autumn wind is a Raider Pillaging just for fun He'll knock you 'round and upside down And laugh when he's conquered and won BENCH TEAM! These guys' asses rode the pine on Week 16: 15 T Green (AC Milan) 12 Z Crockett (Golden Years) 12 L Betts (Chinks in the Armor) 18 R Wayne (Cleveland Steamers) 13 Key Johnson (Chinks in the Armor) 6 C Fauria (Cleveland Steamers) 7 M Vanderjagt (Furious Gefilte Fish) 83 points... 16-0... 252-3-1 through 16 weeks These guys' asses rode the pine on Week 17: 22 M Hasselbeck (SPITZ34) 18 A Zereoue (Everyone Go Deep) 10 Z Crockett (Golden Years) 14 W Chrebet (Repulsive Punk Asses) 10 B Finneran (Fat Bastards) and T Glenn (Junior Mints) 9 E Conwell (Raider Hater) 6 P Dawson (TheFreakinBlackHawks) and J Hanson (Everyone Go Deep) 89 points... 16-0... 268-3-1 through 17 weeks JUST WIN, BABY! Highest scoring team: AC Milan - 59.6 ppg Lowest scoring team: Golden Years and TheFreakinBlackHawks - 42.6 ppg Toughest defense: AC Milan - 42.6 ppg Softest defense: Raider Hater - 53.9 ppg League scoring average: 47.6 ppg (last year 37.3) Getting to the bloody point... on to WIR #17! --------------------------------------------- STANDINGS Otis Sistrunk Division Team W L T GB PF PA STK Repulsive Punk Asses 10 7 0 4.5 787 735 W1 Chinks in the Armor 8 8 1 6 881 815 W2 Ghetto Fab Bindys 8 9 0 6.5 853 827 L1 Golden Years 7 9 1 7 724 785 L3 Ted Hendricks Division Team W L T GB PF PA STK AC Milan 14 2 1 - 1014 724 L1 Furious Gefilte Fish 10 7 0 4.5 791 827 L2 The Kavir Dwellers 8 9 0 6.5 830 865 L1 Spitz34 4 13 0 10.5 750 870 W1 Lester Hayes Division Team W L T GB PF PA STK Las Ranas De Mayan 9 8 0 5.5 908 850 W2 Raider Hater 7 9 1 7 755 916 W3 Samurai Sumos 7 10 0 7.5 789 776 W1 TheFreakinBlackHawks 7 10 0 7.5 724 822 L3 Aundray Bruce Division Team W L T GB PF PA STK Fat Bastards 11 6 0 3.5 850 745 W6 Cleveland Steamers 9 8 0 5.5 752 795 W1 Everyone Go Deep 8 9 0 6.5 792 806 L2 Junior Mints 7 10 0 7.5 739 781 L1 -------------------------------------------- WEEK 16 IN REVIEW ***************** ************************** **** GAME OF THE WEEK **** ************************** #2-Furious Gefilte Fish 25 #3-Fat Bastards 49 pregame spread: FGF by 3 Ouch, baby! At the worst possible moment, it all came apart at the seams for Brodz. Greasy got yanked against the Ray-duhz, TO decided to sit out against the CB-less Cardinals, and MGramatica's point-scoring potential was put in the hands of Shaun King. The end result... Furious Gefilte Fish scored less than 32 for the 1st time all season. Coming off a most gosh-awful 26-23 win in the quarterfinals, Zach's Fat Bastards were able to crank it up to 49 in the semis. Despite a 2nd straight week of dreadful passing game output, Zach was about to triumph comfortably thanks to the ground game of Charlie and Eddie. greasy 0 shipp 5 trung 0 koren 5 holt 11 heap 3 mgram 1 favre 5 garner 14 george 17 keenan 2 rice 1 shockey 6 j-kow 4 -------------------------------------------- #1-AC Milan 52 #5-Repulsive Punk Asses 39 pregame spread: ACM by 1 No Priest? No problem! Tiki and Timmy stepped up to pick up the slack due to the end of Priest's season. Tiki went above and beyond his 9.6 ppg average, and TDwight scored his first 9 pts of the season. PRamsey and the AC Milan PK also chipped in with solid performances - somewhat masking a 3rd straight week of poor numbers from the pass catchers. But 52 pts certainly didn't put this game comfortably beyond Richard's grasp. Repulsive Punk Asses was averaging 53.4 ppg over the last 9 weeks. However... much to Richard's dismay, none of his starters managed to hit double figures - the first time this has happened since just before his strong 9 week stretch began. So... Richard fell in the semis for the 2nd year in a row. ramsey 9 tiki 15 tdwight 9 horn 3 price 2 stevens 4 christie 10 brooks 7 portis 9 kevan 2 hines 4 muhsin 7 marvcus 6 nedney 4 -------------------------------------------- Las Ranas De Mayan 64 Golden Years 13 pregame spread: LRDM by 15 What the heck has happened to Cals' team?!? True... an 0-3 (32.3 ppg) stretch in Weeks 11-13 was a bit concerning - and had Cals on the verge of slipping out of the Playoffs. But Golden Years had apparently stopped the bleeding with a 56-30 rout of Stan in Week 14 - securing the 6th seed for Cals. But losing 26-23 in the quarters, and now 64-13 in the consolation bracket?!? Where's that Minnesotan pride?!? BJ faked some injury during pregame warmups - forcing the *real* snake, Kenny Stabler, to run Cals' inconceived O on this day. Las Ranas De Mayan showed no mercy to the former Commish - as WDunn and the PK both single-handedly outscored Cals' entire club. c'pep 7 dillon 7 wdunn 15 driver 9 streets 5 tonyg 3 feely 18 snake X emmitt 1 j'vicius 1 tibrown 4 ibruce 2 jolley 0 jreed 5 -------------------------------------------- The Kavir Dwellers 55 Cleveland Steamers 26 pregame spread: TKD by 10 30 for Tooo-mahh?!? Perhaps he'll be a 2nd round pick next year? Cals and Wang saw that Amani had talent during his UMich days, but nothing to indicate a 30 pt game in the NYG offense! The rest of The Kavir Dwellers weren't much to write about, but McNair and the PK sort of did Ali proud. As for the Cleveland Steamers, Vesh's squad really stunk it up for the 3rd week in a row. Quincy's 11 last week is the only double digit performance for a Steamer in the last 3 games. Edgerrin is now 4 TDs behind James Mungro. mcnair 8 ricky 3 atwain 3 thrash 2 amani 30 wycheck 0 akers 9 brady 6 hearst 8 ejames 0 quincy 2 chad 2 sharpe 4 longwell 4 -------------------------------------------- Everyone Go Deep 39 Ghetto Fab Bindys 50 pregame spread: EGD by 2 MHarrison's 13 moved him ahead of TO in the WR point race. If TO sits out again next week, Gary's Marvin should take the crown back again - after finishing 2nd the last 2 seasons (to TO and RMoss in 2001 and y2k respectively). For the 14th time in 15 Shaun Alexander starts, Shiv's W/L outcome hinged on whether Alexander scored double digits or not - 7-1 when he does, 0-7 when he doesn't. Ghetto Fab Bindys now advance to the Scrub Bowl Championship to face... bledsoe 3 bus 3 mungro 1 mharrison 13 lcoles 10 becht 1 bryant 8 gannon 13 shaun 16 jamal 5 porter 0 mason 9 chad 2 v'teri 5 -------------------------------------------- Samurai Sumos 34 Raider Hater 58 pregame spread: SS by 5 ...Raider Hater. Drew completely dominated this matchup against his roomie - as Peyton, Donte and Chambers teamed up for 40 passing attack pts. Duce also posted a deca in the rout over Mike's Samurai Sumos. RMoss failed to hit double digits again - a feat he's only accomplished 4 times in 15 starts. Surprisingly Mike is only 1-3 in those games anyway. kitna 6 lt 8 pittman 1 rmoss 9 dhall 0 brady 3 cahney 7 peyton 18 mbennett 3 duce 10 donte 12 chambers 10 alge 0 omare 5 -------------------------------------------- TheFreakinBlackHawks 27 Chinks in the Armor 53 pregame spread: TFBH by 4 Wang's arch-nemesis T Pinky tried his best to lead TheFreakinBlackHawks to victory, but JoePa's other 6 starters couldn't match Pinkston's drive and/or intensity. Even Chinks in the Armor castoff E Johnson couldn't break through JoePa's 1 pt ceiling on TE pts. This makes 6 1's and 10 0's for JoePa's starting TEs so far this season. Former Celtic (and Jacksonville Bull) D Brown led CitA with 15. garcia 8 thenry 2 jallen 0 pinky 9 gardner 3 ej'son 1 wilkins 4 vick 14 ahman 7 dee 15 moulds 2 ttaylor 9 stalex'er 2 elam 4 -------------------------------------------- Spitz34 31 Junior Mints 32 pregame spread: S34 by 6 When you get 14 from Chad Pennington, you figure you've got a win in the bag, right?!? But alas... 1 total pt from FTaylor, the TE and PK doomed Brad's SPITZ34 to their 7th straight loss. It certainly didn't help that Joebob countered with 19 from Kerry! What's gotten into Kerry and Amani?!? Might the G-men actually have players (Kerry, Tiki, Amani, Shockey, Dayne-ee, Ike-ee and Daluiso-ee) worth drafting next year?!? The win means Junior Mints managed to avoid the last place game next week! p'ton 14 fredt 1 plax 7 jimmy 6 rod 3 ricks 0 hollis 0 kerry 19 deuce 1 martian 6 terry 1 cris 0 booba 0 chandler 5 -------------------------------------------- WEEK 17 IN REVIEW ***************** *************************** **** AGLIONE BOWL XIII **** *************************** #3-Fat Bastards 50 #1-AC Milan 33 Hmmm... if a preview of this game had been written, what would have been said? Rookie GM Zach riding his hot Raiders (Garner proving to be quite a solid RB, Rice pushing Tim Brown off to the side, Seabass kicking his way up the charts)... Clark looking for a 2nd consecutive Aglione Bowl triumph - despite having a wheel (Priest) fall off in the quarterfinals... For Zach, it would be time for Favre to step up (Packers needing a win over the J-E-T-S for NFC homefield advantage). For Clark, his quality WRs - JHorn and PPrice - had underwhelmed in 3 consecutive games. It's hard to say who would have been made the favorite, but the spread would not have been more than 2 pts either way. So... what happened? For Zach, Favre didn't really step up - as the Jets destroyed the Pack. But Charlie and Eddie really came through for the 2nd straight week - to overcome a *very* week performance from the Fat Bastard WRs (1 for Rice, goose-egg for Ivory-Wayans). And from the TE spot, Shockey finally came up with his first double-digit performance of the season - as he finally let his play match his mouth/'tude. For Clark, a 2nd consecutive Ags Bowl championship was not to be. Cals' End Zone Bones of '93 and Head Hunters of '94 remain the only teams to claim back-to-back Ags Bowl trophies for one GM. Tiki was game once again for AC Milan, but Clark's passing game was virtually non-existent (8 combined pts for Trent, Joe, Peerless and Jerramy). If Moe was Priest, Clark would have had a shot. But alas... Moe was no Priest. favre 6 garner 13 george 13 keenan 0 rice 1 shockey 11 j'kow 6 trent 2 tiki 15 moe 2 horn 2 price 3 stevens 1 christie 8 -------------------------------------------- PS2 Bowl - 3rd Place: Repulsive Punk Asses 61 Furious Gefilte Fish 57 Brodz picked the wrong Ram QB, and it cost him the game. Had Furious Gefilte Fish gone with JMartin instead of SCovington, Brodz would've won 70-61. This managerial miscue overshadowed some fine performances from Kenny, Koren, Todd and Martin. For Richard, Portis came up with his 2nd best game of the season (moving up to 3rd in overall RB pts) - and Repulsive Punk Asses would need nearly every last pt to hold off Brodz. The difference between 3rd and 4th in the Playoffs is 25 RFL bucks. brooks 2 portis 26 kevan 5 hines 8 muhsin 5 marvcus 8 nedney 7 covington 0 shipp 3 watson 9 koren 12 holt 4 heap 14 mgram 15 -------------------------------------------- Atari 2600 Bowl - 5th Place: Las Ranas De Mayan 53 The Kavir Dwellers 44 After Stan's disappointing scrub loss (73-57) to Brodz in the quarterfinals, Las Ranas De Mayan was able to close out the season with 2 consolation bracket wins - and pocket 25 RFL bucks. Stan worked his newly found Culpepper-to-Streets duo in this one. The Kavir Dwellers finish the season 8-9, but could have been much more of a factor had Ali not waited until Week 8 (R Williams' bye week) to start managing his team. Giving away games in Weeks 6 and 7 (bye weeks of his other 6 starters) turned out to be costly - literally and figuratively. c'pep 20 dillon 3 wdunn 3 driver 0 streets 15 tonyg 2 feely 10 mcnair 2 ricky 22 atwain 9 thrash 7 amani 3 wycheck 0 akers 1 -------------------------------------------- Xbox Bowl - 7th Place: Cleveland Steamers 31 Golden Years 28 For the peace-of-mind of the League, League Founder Cals didn't slip any further (from his 23 and 13 pt outputs in Weeks 15 and 16). But Golden Years' 28 Week 17 pts was the 3rd lowest output of the season for Cals. Tim Brown scored 19 pts over his last 9 starts of the season. Pathetic. Not even Pinkston-esque. Vesh would not have beaten any other team this week, but thankfully for Cleveland Steamers... they were not playing any other team this week. Tom, Edgerrin and Chad sort of showed up for this one. brady 9 hearst 3 ejames 6 quincy 1 chad 7 sharpe 0 l'well 5 sofa 1 mfaulk 3 emmitt 0 tibrown 1 ibruce 9 jolley 6 jreed 8 -------------------------------------------- Scrub Bowl Championship - 9th Place: Raider Hater 34 Ghetto Fab Bindys 32 Drew was the other rookie GM to go 3-0 in the "after-season." We guess it's kind of ironic that a Raider lover and a Raider hater would both go 3-0 in the last 3 weeks. MBennett might actually be pushing his way up to late 1st round (or early 2nd) for the 2003 Draft! Shiv was doomed by the three-of-a-kind nadas (Jerry, Derrick and Chad). Shaun did not score 10+, so Ghetto Fab Bindys fell to 0-8 in such games. peyton 6 mbennett 11 duce 3 donte 3 chambers 3 alge 2 omare 6 gannon 4 shaun 9 jamal 6 porter 0 mason 0 chad 0 v'teri 13 -------------------------------------------- GameCube Bowl - 11th Place: Samurai Sumos 34 Everyone Go Deep 31 Mike, the 3rd rookie GM, improved to 2-1 in the "after-season" - making the 3 rookie GMs a combined 8-1. Samurai Sumo's only postseason loss was to Drew. The only questionable move (or non-move as circumstances might have dictated) was the benching of Mike's beloved Charger QB Brees' 17 behind Kitna. Gary's club limped to the finish line at 8-9 - as MHarrison pulled himself once he saw that his overall WR pts crown was secure. The Bus also rested himself for backup duty in the Steelers' playoff game - forcing Mark Van Eeghan into the fray. kitna 10 lt 4 pittman 6 rmoss 6 warrick 1 brady 1 cahney 6 bledsoe 13 vaneeghan X mungro 7 mharrison 1 lcoles 6 becht 0 bryant 4 -------------------------------------------- GameBoy Advance Bowl - 13th Place Chinks in the Armor 72 Junior Mints 54 There's no love lost whenever Wang and Joebob square off against each other - even when they don't know they're facing each other (due to the unfortunate lack of a WIR16). These 2 GMs must have sensed it, because Junior Mints came up with their 3rd highest pt total of the season - and Chinks in the Armor came up with their 2nd highest. CMartin and DJackson combined for their best game of the season for Joebob. It was too little too late - as WGreen (another too little too late culprit) scampered for 22, and Stephen Alexander scored the first TE TD of the season for Wang. vick 9 ahman 3 willie 22 moulds 10 key 2 stalex'er 13 elam 13 kerry 8 deuce 6 martian 12 djax 11 n'cutt 1 booba 8 chandler 8 -------------------------------------------- Intellivision Bowl - Avoid 16th Place: Spitz34 50 TheFreakinBlackHawks 34 Brad promised the League great things this season - due to the fact that he'd have a team of drafted players. But in the end... even a win to avoid 16th place left 4-13 SPITZ34 1 game short of Brad's 2001 5-12 band of Draft leftovers, Blue Collar Workers. Dave Casper filled in at TE for Ricks. Of course, JoePa completed his binary season of TE pts with a 0: 11001100000100010. Amazing! And had superstar Cowboy WR A Bryant not come up with 16, TheFreakinBlackHawks would have finished last - all by themselves - in overall pts. p'ton 15 fredt 10 plax 5 jimmy 2 rod 9 casper X hollis 9 garcia 0 thenry 4 tyrone 4 abryant 16 gardner 3 ej'son 0 wilkins 7 -------------------------------------------- Transactions Team ---- ADD ---- DROP look 'em up for yourself on yahoo! ******************************************************** WANG'S WEEKLY WRINKLE ====== ====== ======= How can a GM with such impressive RFL knowledge and cunning as I have finish out of the Playoffs?!? How can I *dominate* fantasy baseball leagues year after year - and yet be so hit-and-miss in RFL?!? The answer to these questions must be found in the fact that RFL uses such a small sampling of stats each week. The superior knowledge of a fantasy sport GM must become more of a tangible asset when the depth of his roster is employed. When using a mere 7 players to face-off against a foe each week, even the weakest opponent can have 2 or 3 players capable of scoring big points that week (and frequently a big game from 1 player is all an RFL team needs to win on any given weekend). Just ask the USA basketball team (P Pierce, B Davis, M Finley, R Miller, et al.) that got humiliated at the World Championships in Indianapolis in 2002. Even ass-backward 3rd world countries can throw together a 7-man rotation with 2 or 3 scorers. Have one guy get hot from 3-pt land, and all of a sudden... the Red, White and Blue are losing to Argentina, Yugoslavia and Spain - and finishing in 6th-place. How can we fix what's broken in RFL? 1) We cut back from 16 GMs to 10. 2) We each start 14 players instead of 7. 3) We each draft 20 players instead of 12. What our 16 teams started this past season: [NOTE: A team started a 3rd WR over a 2nd RB 57 times (21% of the time).] 1 QB = 16 QBs per week 1.8 RB = 28.8 RBs per week 2.2 WR = 35.2 WRs per week 1 TE = 16 TEs per week 1 PK = 16 PKs per week What 10 teams should start next season: 2 QBs = 20 3 RBs = 30 4 WRs = 40 1 RB/WR = 10 2 TEs = 20 2 PKs = 20 Instead of drafting 192 players (16 GMs, 12 players each), we'd draft 8 more (10 GMs, 20 players each). Instead of starting 112 players (16 GMs, 7 players each) each week, we'd start 140 (10 GMs, 14 players each). Displaying quality of GM's-manship through quality of roster depth is what fantasy sports is all about. It's about time RFL fell into step with the rest of the fantasy world. ****************************************************** RFL GM Profiles: ****************************************************** RFL WIR Editorial Staff: Stay tuned for another Commissioners' Fireside Chat in the Year in Review 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 212 D Culpepper (Las Ranas De Mayan) 189 R Gannon (Ghetto Fab Bindys) 177 P Manning (Raider Hater) RB 265 P Holmes (AC Milan) 216 R Williams (The Kavir Dwellers) 203 C Portis (Repulsive Punk Asses) 201 L Tomlinson (Samurai Sumos) 189 S Alexander (Ghetto Fab Bindys) 186 D McAllister (Junior Mints) WR 162 M Harrison (Everyone Go Deep) 157 T Owens (Furious Gefilte Fish) 143 H Ward (Repulsive Punk Asses) 118 A Toomer (The Kavir Dwellers) 117 R Moss (Samurai Sumos) 114 J Horn (AC Milan) 114 E Moulds (Chinks in the Armor) TE 83 T Gonzalez (Las Ranas De Mayan) 65 T Heap (Furious Gefilte Fish) 64 B Franks (Junior Mints) PK 138 J Feely (Las Ranas De Mayan) 133 D Akers (The Kavir Dwellers) 128 R Longwell (Cleveland Steamers) 128 S Janikowski (Fat Bastards) -------------------------------------------- RFL ALL*STARS (Week 16) *********************** QB 19 K Collins (Junior Mints) RB 17 E George (Fat Bastards) 16 S Alexander (Ghetto Fab Bindys) WR 30 A Toomer (The Kavir Dwellers) 13 M Harrison (Everyone Go Deep) TE 6 M Pollard (Repulsive Punk Asses) and J Shockey (Fat Bastards) PK 18 J Feely (Las Ranas De Mayan) ************** Week 16 total: 119... raiders 28 broncos 16 -------------------------------------------- RFL ALL*STARS (Week 17) *********************** QB 20 D Culpepper (Las Ranas De Mayan) RB 26 C Portis (Repulsive Punk Asses) 22 W Green (Chinks in the Armor) and R Williams (The Kavir Dwellers) WR 16 A Bryant (TheFreakinBlackHawks) 15 T Streets (Las Ranas De Mayan) TE 14 T Heap (Furious Gefilte Fish) PK 15 M Gramatica (Furious Gefilte Fish) ************** Week 17 total: 128... raiders 24 chiefs nil -------------------------------------------- NEXT WEEK's ACTION None. :-( Wait 'til next year!