-League Meeting Preview!
-Even Kent can't stop that freight train
-An MIISFFL first (we still have some left?)
Ladies and germs it is that time once again, the most IMPORTANT date on the fantasy calendar outside of the draft and Menace Bowl itself!
It's time for the 5th annual MIISFFL
LEAGUE MEETING!!!
Yes folks, it's the one week where we ask everyone to get off their lazy rearends, and make no excuses. Schlep yourselves to BUFFALO WILD WINGS COLUMBIA, look your opponent in the eye and tell them what you really think. This year, I am sad to report that JP will not be able to make the League Meeting since he has tickets to the Buccaneers (Big Deers?) visiting the Washington Patrick Smalls, and this is an acceptable excuse for absence. Besides, considering his record, one might think it's addition by subtraction.......AHEM!
Moving on, League Meeting week also doubles as the official MIISFFL "Rivalry Week." The schedule takes on special significance this week as the matchups are all divisional and we decided to pair off folks that have a special kind of hate against each other. Therefore, this week in the mashup we will not start with the match recaps. They will be later. Let's take a look at this year's "rivals!"
Eddie vs. Sean-Eddie dispatched Sean already earlier this season in week 3...along with everybody else on his schedule. For the first time ever, we have a team entering the League Meeting at 10-0 (and on a mind-boggling 16 game overall winning streak). When the schedule came out, this was supposed to be a tantalizing NFC matchup pitting last year's title combatants. Sean still has quite a bit to play for in the heart of the wild card race, but Eddie is just positioning himself to play out the string, with a conference championship already all but locked up.
Zach vs. Chris-Zach is the one primarily responsible for getting Chris to join the league, so it is fitting that these two pair off in a rivalry matchup. Zach may end up regretting the decision to let Chris take over Andy's roster from last year as he has been a major player in both the wild card and AFC conference title races. Zach has certainly crashed back to earth after winning the title in his inaugural season in 2011. Visions of Carolina Cam Newton dance in his head...and needless to say, watching Chris do so well with Newton in tow, is making Zach a little catatonic.
The look in his eyes says it all. Losing to the commissioner and losing your franchise QB to an ACL will do that to you.
Daniel Snyder...er...Patrick Small is g/etting married this coming summer,but before then he will be taking on his groomsman-in-chief Jeff Newman. Newman is preparing especially hard for this one. After all, he does have to do his part in punishing the bachelor before the wedding. What better way to do it than by humiliating him in fantasy? The good news for Small is that the Redskins come off bye this week and he will have his full arsenal of Morris and Reed ready to diffuse the ticking mom bomb. In their first matchup, Patrick had his way with Jeff on his way to a weekly pot score of 174 in week 4.
There was a time when Tom was ready to "Kent Touch This." Then week 1 happened and it was all downhill for the Xtreme Dream Team. Remember that thing about calling yourselves a dream team? Yeah, it still hasn't worked. Since then, the two have continued to move in opposite directions, setting up a somewhat lazy rivalry matchup. Kent is in the thick of the AFC conference title race, and Tom is just trying to resurrect his season, perhaps suffering more punishment than even he could have bargained for. Nevertheless, a win in this matchup could very well springboard Tom forward to a surprise wild card.
The commissioner is taking on the Never Nudes in a matchup that harks back to the golden years of MIISFFL, years when the commissioner actually won championships, and plowed through Gaz on his way to winning them. However, since those years Gaz has continued to have great success in the regular season, only to flub in the playoffs. The commissioner has not even sniffed the playoffs since 2010. This year, both Gaz and the commish are in similar situations, Gaz taking a page out of the Humble Eddie playbook of mailing in the season on the message boards. The commish did defeat Gaz in week 1, only to lose the next 4 and once again become irrelevant. Gaz also has the dubious distinction of being the only player to lose to JP this season. Something to be proud of!
Finally, when the schedule was released in August, Dewey scoffed at the notion at JP being his "rival," despite the fact that they are the only Bucs fans in the league. JP's poor season has been well documented, but Dewey's has not been much better, mirroring the success (or lack thereof) of their favorite real teams. JP will be passing on the League Meeting this year, and Dewey will be waving the banner of shame in his stead.
Indeed it will be an exciting week of riveting rivalry action over cold drinks and hot wings. However, let's now take a look at last week's action.
What can I say, no matter what Eddie tries to make sure he loses, he always finds a way to win. With his winning streak now at a mind boggling 16 games, he finds new ways to steal victory from the jaws of defeat. Kent provided the best test yet, and looked prime to drop the Monday night hammer with Greg Olsen going over 100 yards. Yahoo projections going into the 4th quarter had Kent as a 98-2 favorite. The only thing that would have saved Eddie was a long touchdown in garbage time to Kelvin Benjamin. So what happened? Cam Newton threw a long touchdown in garbage time to Kelvin Benjamin. I think everyone from this day forward in MIISFFL is going to start coming up with their own humble pie recipes as Eddie is now hated for his humility...but I'm pretty sure a 10-0 record and not losing a game in a calendar year has more to do with that. This win clinches at least a share of the NFC title with still 4 weeks to play. Unbelievable.
On Sunday, Sean looked like he had a chance to run away and hide from Jeff in the early game block, and built for himself a seemingly comfortable 46 point lead going into Sunday night (and still with Zach Ertz to play on Monday). Not only did Sean look like he was going to win this game, but also dominate in the chase for the weekly pot. Then...Aaron Rodger versus the Bears happened. The Bears are gawd-awful on both offense and defense, and not even the magic touch of Andrew Kent could life Cutler's spirits (more on that later). The woeful Bears defense was abused 6 ways from Sunday by Rodgers to the tune of a 50-burger. That is not a misprint...a 50-burger! Jeff turned that 46 point deficit into a 4 point lead, but he was out of players and Sean still had to be feeling good with Ertz ready to drop the hammer. Now, Sean just wishes Rodgers had put up a few more points to make that margin 8.62, he knows he would have covered that. As it stands, Ertz only caught one ball, and it was not enough as Jeff steals a win behind Rodgers' arm.
Not only did Sean lose out on a key win at the last minute, he also lost the weekly pot thanks to Ertz Donut's dud. No, Jeff didn't take that one either, although he did come close. Going into Monday night, Jeff's miracle comeback put him into position to take the $5 prize...but then Darren Sproles happened! Oh right, the commissioner had already dismissed Zach in a fantasy first. In 3 years, this is the first time that Zach and your commissioner had EVER played each other. Crazy, right? Well, let's just say the schedule makers did the commish a favor in putting Zach on the schedule this year instead of 3 years ago. Zach couldn't quite eek out 100 points, and his starting QB ended up with a torn ACL. Meanwhile, both Sanders and Orange Julius found the end zone twice on Sunday, but I still needed a minor miracle to catch Sean/Jeff for the weekly. Then Darren Sproles, slippery as butter, scored two first quarter TD's (including one on a punt return), to just squeak my score past Jeff's for the commish's second (that's right, folks..TWO!) weekly scoring pot (barring stat corrections of course, which have victimized me before...)
Patrick continues to be relevant in the wild card race, despite the Redskins being on a bye week (hey...even the Skins can't lose when they don't play!). Andrew Luck was also on bye, so Patrick took a chance and started the San-chize on Monday night. Gaz had the Philly defense, who recorded a bunch of takeaways and scored 2 TDs of their own for a count of 37. Yet, that was still not enough as Sanchez found the end zone twice, and didn't turn the ball over once, giving Patrick an 11 point win. However, Patrick's squad took a hit as Delaney Walker got concussed by one of Ray Lewis' understudies in Baltimore. No worries though...Jordan Reed will be back next week, and so will Alfred Morris! When the Redskins make yet another miracle run from 3-6 to win the division.......never mind.
Dewey did Kent a favor by knocking off Chris 117-107. After 5 straight wins following a 1-2 start, Chris has all of a sudden sharked his way back down to Earth, not being able to take advantage of Kent's recent misfortunes. As a result, Patrick has now pulled even with Kent and the shark to make a 3-way tie at 6-4 for the lead in the AFC. With Sean also lurking at 6-4, it will make for quite a wild card race (Eddie having already essentially won the NFC). How did Chris end up losing this one? In short, Carolina Cam was not the Carolina Cam of 3 years ago. Interceptions and sacks galore had him wallowing in the negatives for most of the night on Monday. A couple of garbage time TDs (including an aforementioned one to Kelvin Benjamin) brought Cam back over the Mendoza Line. That combined with 24 from Mike Evans for Dewey's column proved to be the difference as all the other scores looked like they balanced each other out.
Finally this week, JP backed up his first victory of the season with...another loss. After the upset of the season last week, Tom took advantage of a Bo Knows Techmo squad that might have gotten a little cocky after knocking off Gaz last week. Once again, Tom took a page out of the Eddie Humble Pie playbook and did not say much, and with the win is able to keep pace with the wild card leaders, although it is still an outside shot at 4-6. This loss officially eliminates JP from any playoff contention as he can only finish as high as 5-9, while all the wild card leaders can bottom out at 6-8. Tom's $951 MVP Justin Forsett hit paydirt twice in one of the few instances where that early-season FAAB splurge paid dividends for the Xtreme Dream Team.
We've already previewed the League Meeting earlier in the mashup, now it's up to you to GET TO BUFFALO WILD WINGS COLUMBIA!
6191 Columbia Crossing Circle
Columbia, MD 21045
That will be where the League Meeting will be taking place. I will get there early on Sunday to save tables as the expectation is that 11 of you will be there! Come, look your opponent in the eye and don't hold anything back!
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