BIFL - Playoffs Rounds 2 & 3 Review

Yuh-Yeah-Yeah-Yeah-Yeah-Yeah.
I think I did it again. It's all over, folks, and your champions - for the third time in four years - are the Ass-Ramming HotCocks.  And while the first two championship teams had quite a bit of carry-over, the only player in common between the 2007 Champs and this year's was London Fletcher. What up, LFB! I believe that's what you call a dynasty, and it's also a big middle finger to anyone who doubted my #1 Power Ranking. Who's laughing now?

...actually, it's Shoaf and Bardey, who are splitting my winnings due to the fact that I owe them both a bunch of money. Oh well, I'll always have my imaginary trophy and the history page of the BIFL site. And this blog entry, which chronicles the final two rounds of the playoffs... after the jump.

NBD - Playoffs Rounds 2 & 3 Review

It was a wild and woolly ride, but we've reached the end. The 2009 NBD Season has come to a close, and your new Champion is... the Wild Stallions! Congratulations to DeYoung, who squeaked out a championship win in probably the closest NBDBowl that any of us will ever see. DeYoung will take home $650 for his defeat of Colly's Who Gonna Check Me Boo? in the Finals. Colly himself takes home a decent chunk of change as well, earning $300 for the 2nd-place prize as well as $150 for winning the regular season. Finally, Elliott's F You Tom Brady will have their entry fee refunded for nabbing 3rd place. Congrats to all the money-winners and to everyone for another fun season. For details on how these guys managed to grab their cash (and bobblehead/t-shirt), read on...

BIFL - P & P Wrap-Up

So I've decided not to do any Previews & Predictions for the playoffs (other than my Playoff Power Rankings), meaning that the record books on my picking accuracy have closed for the year. I finished up Weeks 12 and 13 with a solid 9-3 run, bringing my season total to 46-26. That's a .639 record, which I'd wager is better than ESPN's predictions. But unsatisfied with merely being right on nearly two-thirds of my picks, I decided to delve deeper and see if there were any particular trends to my picking or teams that I was more or less right or wrong about. The results:

NBD - P & P Wrap-Up

So I've decided not to do any Previews & Predictions for the playoffs (other than my Playoff Power Rankings), meaning that the record books on my picking accuracy have closed for the year. I finished up Weeks 12 and 13 with a solid 9-3 run, bringing my season total to 48-24. That means I picked the winner in exactly two-thirds of the NBD match-ups this year, which is a record I'd put up against any so-called "professional" fantasy writer. (That's right, Brandon Funston. I'm talking to you.) But unsatisfied with merely being right on 67% of my picks, I decided to delve deeper and see if there were any particular trends to my picking or teams that I was more or less right or wrong about. The results:

BIFL - Playoffs Round 1 Review

Gee, with Donovan McNabb sipping Mai Tais in St. Barth's, Anquan Boldin working on his much-anticipated alto sax jazz fusion album ("Return of the Q"), and Chris Johnson browsing eastern North Carolina's yard sales and swap meets (a Sunday habit dating back to his college days), the bye week-laden HotCocks and I had almost forgotten that there were BIFL games last weekend. Bereft though the league must have been at our absence, I figured I'd do some write-ups anyway. Here you go:

NBD - Playoffs Round 1 Review

Whoever gave the go-ahead to the series of Gap ads currently in heavy rotation featuring grade school children performing cheerleader-like chants deserves to have this done to him or her:

...and not just being swung, encased in a sleeping bag, into a tree, but the whole thing. They should have to go, with friends, to a cabin in the woods for a weekend of debauchery. They should be made to feel all the nervous, giddy excitement of a teenage girl ready to lose her virginity in a tent. And then a hulking, undead beast in a ghastly mask should machete his way into that tent, zip them inside a sleeping bag, and beat them to death against a tree.
God damn I hate those commercials. Now that I got that out of my system...

Round 1 of the 2009 Playoffs doubled as Family Feud week and tripled as a generational war, with the Toobins and Tarasovics squaring off in a pair of quarterfinal match-ups. While I would have been happy to claim familial superiority by seeing my dad and I both advance to the next round, I take solace in the fact that if my blood was not entirely successful, at least my age group was. For further details...

BIFL - Week 13 Review C & Power Rankings 2.2

As promised, we finish off the Week 13 Reviews with a Power Ranking of the Playoff teams. As usual, I took a scientific approach, setting my personal feelings and biases aside (note: not really) and looking at the statistics. Here's what I came up with:

NBD - Week 13 Review C & Power Rankings 2.2

The Playoffs kick off with a bang this week, with intriguing cross-familial match-ups as Toobin the Elder takes on Sovic the Younger and Sovic the Elder takes on Toobin the Younger. Colly and DeYoung would seem to be in positions of advantage, having Byes for the first round, but are they really the favorites here? To find out, I decided to create some Playoff Power Rankings.

BIFL - Week 13 Review B & Power Rankings 2.1

As promised, we're accompanying this week's re-caps with some new Power Rankings, divided into two divisions. The first we'll cover here: The 2010 Keeper Power Rankings for the Consolation Bracket. Your 2009 season may be over, boys, but all that means is that the 2010 season starts a little bit sooner for y'all. Here is an (extremely) early look at the year to come:

NBD - Week 13 Review B

There's actual NFL football happening right now, but I'm not done with last week's re-caps, nor do I get the NFL Network. So as far as I'm concerned, it's still Week 13.

BIFL - Week 13 Review A

The dust has settled, the air is cleared, and the 2009 BIFL regular season has come to an end. We now know who is in the playoffs and who is out. Congratulations to Dekker, Souts, Billy, Bardey, Will and me: your second season starts now. To the rest of you: better luck next year. Later in the week I'll be publishing two new sets of Power Rankings, one ranking the playoff teams and their odds of success here in the post-season, and one ranking the consolation bracket and the strength of their keepers for next season. For now, though, let's dive into the last week of Biffle aught-nine.

NBD - Week 13 Review A & Power Rankings 2.1

Well, here we are. The 2009 NBD regular season has reached its conclusion, and for some of you the long slumber of eight months of fantasy hibernation begins. But you know I wouldn't leave you with only the bitter anguish of your disappointing seasons to tide you over. As my parting gift to those of you out of the playoffs, I'm starting this week's game reviews off with a 2010 Keeper Power Rankings list. The remaining teams will be profiled later this week in my 2009 Playoff Power Rankings. Enjoy

BIFL - Week 13 Previews & Predictions

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NBD - Week 13 Previews & Predictions

Here we are in the last week of the regular season, and maybe my last P&P of the year (haven't decided yet whether I'm gonna preview the playoffs or let them speak for themselves). I had planned on including some power rankings here, with one bracket for the playoff teams and another for next year's contenders, but then I woke up at noon with a hangover after some holiday festivities last night. So we're going for some super-brief predictions, and I'll publish the rankings later on today.

Deadlock, featuring Stephen Tobolowsky #4

It was a good week for the Deadlock last week, nailing three of four bets and bringing me into an imaginary positive balance (+$20). Time to turn that into some real (fake) money.

New England (-4.5) at Miami
Here's what Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and co. have done after losses this season: beat Atlanta by 16, beat Tennessee by 59, beat New York by 17. You think they're not gonna come out angry after that embarrassing loss to the Saints last week? You think Belichick doesn't have the Wildcat figured out by now, especially in its watered-down, Ronnie Brown-less version? Much as I hate them, Pats are gonna roll in this one.
$40 on the Patriots

San Francisco (-1.5) at Seattle
Neither of these teams is very good, but they are in the same division. The Niners won their first face-off this season, in San Fran, so I'm thinking that divisional parity will win out in this one and even things out. The Seahawks have won two of their last three, and the 49ers pretty much need this one to stay alive, playoffs-wise. That's when teams that aren't very good (like this one) crumble.
$15 on the Seahawks

Minnesota Vikings (-3) at Arizona Cardinals
The Cardinals have been up-and-down all season long. The Vikings have been exclusively up. Way the fuck up. They look awesome. This seems too easy, and probably is. But...
$30 on the Vikings

Baltimore Ravens (+3) at Green Bay Packers
It's December, time for toughness. From what I've seen so far this year, Baltimore has it and Green Bay doesn't.
$15 on the Ravens

BIFL - Week 12 Review B

I just can't get enough of these animals fighting. We're picking up right where we left off...

NBD - Week 12 Review B

For all intents and purposes, this post will wrap up the NBD regular season. Sure, there is still some jostling for position among the playoff teams to be done; and the bottom half of the league still has some work to do determining their draft lottery odds, but that's about it in terms of suspense. So before the write-ups, I thought it might be fun to look back at some things I observed back at the beginning of the season and see how they turned out.

BIFL - Week 12 Review A

Sometimes when I'm sitting around, thinking about writing up game reviews or previews or what have you, I use the internet as my "muse," surfing around randomly to find something to inspire my editorial voice.

Sometimes when I'm sitting around, somewhat lifted, I think about animals fighting.

But not until tonight did it occur to me, whilst posting, to Google image search "animals fighting." I will let the results speak for themselves, and guide us through this week's re-caps.

NBD - Week 12 Review A

With a triple-header on Thanksgiving Thursday, and nearly every single game involving some players from the Monday Night Saints-Pats tilt, this may have been the most prolonged week of NBD excitement and suspense to date. Now that it's over, though, you'll all have to savor it for a few weeks because the regular season is, for all intents and purposes, over. Sure, there is still some jockeying to be done for playoff seeding, but the six post-season contenders are decided. Congrats to Joe, Elliott, Jon, Michael, Ray and me. To the rest of you: better luck next year. Let's see how we got to this point...

Sovic's Magical Monday Night

In two weeks, when each of my fantasy teams bows ingloriously out of the playoffs, I'm likely to gnash my teeth, hang my head in shame, and wonder why it is that I spend hour upon hour, season after season putting so much time and effort into this imaginary game that brings me so much pain and sorrow. When I do, I will try to remind myself of last night, when everything that could go well for my fantasy portfolio did. Let's take this league by league, from the least miraculous to the most:

BIFL: Ass-Ramming HotCocks (me) vs. Charm City Murder (Andre)
After Sunday: Andre held a 20-point lead (97.5-77) with no one left to play. I held a good chance of catching him, with a trio of Saints (Pierre Thomas, Marques Colston, and Robert Meachem) left to go. I felt confident, but with Thomas splitting carries with Bell, Colston coming off of a few down weeks, and Meachem catching about two passes a week (fortunately, they were usually touchdown passes), there was no guarantee.
On Monday Night: With the Saints offense clicking on all cylinders, this went from a Menomena to a phenomenal ass-whupping. When Robert Meachem caught a 38-yard touchdown pass with 1:50 left in the first half, the HotCocks went ahead and never looked back.
Final Score: HotCocks 123, Murder 97.5

NBD: The Death Panel (me) vs. Woody's Warriors (Sherwood)
After Sunday: Woody held a seemingly insurmountable 52-point lead (101.6-49.4) but was done for the week. Still to play for the Panel: Drew Brees, Laurence Maroney, and the Saints Defense. This combination seemed relatively hopeless, in that a good day by Brees (obviously necessary to my comeback hopes) would probably lead to more passing and less running from the Pats and Maroney, and even if Maroney had success, it would cost the Saints D.
On Monday Night: The absolutely perfect storm of fantasy scoring. Breesus Christ came through with his biggest game since Week 1; Maroney was the only thing working for the Patriots; and the Saints gave up some scoring but got those points back with turnovers and sacks. Somewhere around the end of the third quarter/start of the fourth, we blew by Sherwood.
Final Score: Death Panel 111.84, Woody's Warriors 101.6

Uberleague: Drunk Drivers: Live-Saving Nerds (me) vs. I am Dr. Galazkiewic (Larson)
After Sunday: This one was over, done, finito. I was only down by one point, but each of us had a player yet to go. Mine: kicker John Carney, averaging about 7.5 points per game. His: quarterback Tom Brady, guaranteed Hall of Famer, one of the best QBs of all time, averaging 18 points per game. Unwinnable.
On Monday Night: Though the Pats offense tried to keep pace with the Saints, the touchdowns came from the run game (see: Laurence Maroney in the NBD game) and Brady was throwing picks and taking sacks. Meanwhile, John Carney chugged hideously through the game, bouncing PATs off the uprights and missing field goals, but scoring points nonetheless. When Carney missed a 37-yarder with 5:26 left I was worried, but the Pats started the next drive with Brett Hoyer under center, and a victory was iced.
Final Score: DDs: Life-Saving Nerds 81, I am Dr. Galazkiewic 79

Three huge comebacks. Three wins. And maybe, just maybe, all three teams sneaking into the playoffs. This is not even to mention the fact that the Saints' win brought me my biggest Deadlock success to date, having nailed three of four picks this week. Truly, this was a Monday Night never to forget.