NBD - Thanksgiving Extravaganza

Here we are at Thanksgiving weekend, which coincides with the final weekend of the fantasy regular season. It seems like just yesterday that I was posting my draft review, and already we're at the doorstep of the playoffs. With almost the entire season behind us, and in the spirit of this holiday weekend, I thought I'd take a look back and see what the highlights were for each team. Even if you're team was atrocious this season, even if you've been out of the playoff picture for weeks, even if your last win was on September 22nd, there's always something about your fantasy team to be thankful for.
So let's peer around the cornucopia-and-gourd centerpiece and hear what each team is thankful for this Thanksgiving:
The Dutch Rudders are thankful for...
Plaxico Burress. As a man who has owned many shitty fantasy teams in my day, and rooted for many shitty sports teams, I can tell you that sometimes the silver lining to that cloud can be a player or players who are just comically bad. Like not just losing, but losing in hilarious fashion. On the last-place Dutch Rudder team, that honor belongs to Plaxico Burress. Plax's season has been a comedy of errors, with a strong start (29 points in his first two games) followed by poor performances, constant injuries, team suspensions, and now, just yesterday, the revelation that he got shot in the thigh in a club. And you know who shot him? Not some rabid Philly fan. Not some playa-hater. Not the disgruntled boyfriend of a man Plax had cuckolded. Nope. Plaxico Burress managed to shoot himself. You just can't make that up. Maybe he figured his hamstring was bothering him so much that the best idea might be to shoot it off. Maybe if Derek's 3-9 record is giving him a headache, he can take a similar approach.

Mephistopheles is thankful for...
Week 12. There is nothing lamer than a guarantee that goes unfulfilled. The thing about sports guarantees is that there's no repercussions, really. Such luminaries as Chris Webber, Chad Johnson, and Kobe Bryant have all made guarantees that they weren't able to follow through on, and they weren't fined by their leagues, made to give money back to the fans, or retire from the WWE. But they all looked like suckers. So when Ray confidently announced in the Week 10 Review comments 'i will spoil someone's finish,' he was setting himself up to look like a fool, especially when his 3-7 record to that point gave him no reason to be optimistic. But in Week 12, his players decided that they had his back. With big days out of Drew Brees, Greg Jennings, and Warrick Dunn, the Devil's Rejects had their second-highest scoring day of the year and pretty much knocked the defending champions out of the playoff picture. Well-spoiled, Mephisto.

Pubers and the 'Fro are thankful for...
rookie running backs. Having won the league two years in a row, Colly can't be too disappointed in having a down season (though I should note that his threepeat dreams are not completely mathematically dead yet). But with the experience of those two championships under his belt, he probably also won't be content to be an also-ran for long. To that end, Colly spent his draft assembling a team for the future, grabbing not one or two but three rookie running backs: Chris Johnson, Darren McFadden, and Felix Jones. McFadden and Jones have spent most of this season in the trainer's room, but when they have appeared they've shown flashes of what could be future brilliance. Chris Johnson, on the other hand, has been a solid contributor all season long, and should only get better as the years go by and LenDale White gets phased out of Tennessee's system. We may see any or all of these guys on a scary P&B roster next year, one that will once again threaten for a title.

Woody's Warriors are thankful for...
the waiver wire. Having drafted Brian Westbrook and Carson Palmer, both of whom suffered serious injuries during the course of the season, no one has been more reliant on the waiver wire than Woody. Normally, that's not necessarily a good thing, and certainly the Warriors' losing record reflects the damage done by those losses, but Sherwood has actually done a pretty good job with his waiver-wire pick-ups, despite the fact that he is Chinese and not in any way Hawaiian. Going into Week 4, after Westbrook first went down, Woody picked up Correll Buckhalter, who went on to have weeks of 15 (week 4), 24 (w6) and 17 (w7). Going into Week 5, he grabbed Kyle Orton, who chipped in 22 and 15 in the next two weeks. And more recently, he added Tennessee kicker Rob Bironas. Say what you will about kickers being unimportant, but Bironas has put up weeks of 11 (w8), 13 (w9), and just a few days ago, a monster day of 17. I'll take that from my kicker any day. In all, the Warriors have gotten 351 points this season from players acquired after the draft, highest in the league in that category.

Lassard Blows Harris is thankful for...
equal or superior teams. I just spent way more time analyzing Papkin's schedule than I cared to, and at this rate I won't be done with this posting (in which I plan to include not only these 'thankful' bits but also a Week 12 review and Week 13 preview) until 3am, but I will share with you the fruits of my labor. There are always teams, in whatever sport, that are said to play down to their opponents (this year's Skins could be called guilty of this). Papkin, on the other hand, seems to play up to his opponents. When taking on opponents this season who've had the same or better record, LBH is 5-2. That's pretty good, and it includes wins over Matt Haller, Michael Toobin, and Jon DeYoung, all of whom are amongst the league leaders. So why isn't Papkin there as well? Well, maybe it's because against teams with a worse record than his, he's 1-3 this season. That includes losses to our two bottom-dwellers, Ray Tarasovic and Eric Sherwood. If this trend continues, Sam should be especially thankful that he's taking on the higher-ranked Burke City Giants this week, and if a victory there gets him into the playoffs, he'll presumably have better and better teams to play each week.

Chapel Hill Croakies are thankful for...
Monday Night Football. Win or lose, there's nothing better than having your game come down to a Monday-night match-up. The NFL/ESPN muckety-mucks don't always do the best job of scheduling good games for MNF, but any game is fascinating when it's the only one on and your fantasy fate depends upon it. And no one in the league has had more games come down to Monday night match-ups than Elliott. Two of those face-offs, his Week 1 victory over Stadler & Waldorf and his Week 8 loss to the Burke City Giants, were decided by less than a point. It doesn't get any better than that.

Tri Steeg Area is thankful for...
Defenses. Did you know that Kex leads the league in points from Defenses this year, averaging 11 points per game? Did you know that he's changed his Defense 7 times, going Seattle->NYGiants->Tampa Bay->Washington->Tampa Bay->Arizona->Tampa Bay->Oakland? And did you know that he's 5-1 this season when his defense scores 9 or more points, and 1-5 when his defense scores 8 or less? In his ultra-important match-up with the Croakies this week, he'll be extra-thankful if the Oakland D can get into double digits against Kansas City.

Stadler & Waldorf are thankful for...
the second half of the season. After my 0-4 start, I had pretty much given up on my team as a group of laughable losers. But since then. I found a couple key fill-ins (Matt Ryan, Le'Ron McClain) and the guy's who'd been letting me down (Andre Johnson, Ryan Grant) had been picking me up. Over the last 8 games, Stadler & Waldorf are 6-2, which is as good as any other team over that stretch. We still may not make the playoffs (Colly is seeing to that thanks to a huge Thanksgiving), but for the first time in years my NBD squad is alive on the last weekend of the season, and I actually have a legitimate rookie keeper (Matt Forte) heading into next season.

Wyld Stallyns are thankful for...
Luck. As you go down the league standings, there's a pretty strong correlation between points scored and record. Up at the top, ?Donde esta Deeter? has scored 169 more points than his brother at the bottom, the Dutch Rudders. That's a difference of 14 points a week, which seems significant explain the difference between an 8-4 team and a 3-9 team. What's harder to explain is that the Dutch Rudders are not the lowest-scoring team in the league. That honor belongs to the Stallyns, who despite their mere 82 ppg average, have run up a record of 7-5 and a nearly guaranteed spot in the playoffs. How is this possible? Well, from Weeks 6-11, no opponent scored more than 80 points against DeYoung, and only two of those even scored more than 70. With Steven Jackson returning today, the Stallyns should finally be back to full strength, meaning that while luck carried them through the regular season, they might be ready for talent to carry them through the playoffs.

Burke City Giants are thankful for...
the run game. The Giants this year have been rock-solid on the basis of their rushing game, featuring Michael Turner, Marshawn Lynch, and DeAngelo Williams. Those guys are number 3, 7, and 15 on the NFL leading rushing yards list this season, and that's reflected in the fact that the BC Giants lead the NBD in rushing this season. Turner has been a bit of a roller-coaster, Lynch has had a hard time finding the end zone, and Williams didn't come on until later in the season, but combined they've always picked one another up and led the Giants to a playoff berth.

Matt Ryan Loves Dogs is thankful for...
consistency. Generally, a fantasy team will suffer through a week or two each season where, simply by random coincidence, everyone on the team lays an egg, and a week or two where everyone steps up. Look over almost any of our team's histories and you'll see a 120-point win on the there somewhere and a 60-point loss. MRLD, on the other hand, owes their winning record to consistency. There 43-point variation over the course of the season is the lowest of any team in the league, and even the lowest of those (a 72-point performance in week 7) produced a blowout victory thanks to the historic ineptitude of Mephistopheles that week.

?Donde esta Deeter? is thankful for...
Clinton Portis. In general, I've steered away from naming single players that people should be thankful for, but as an owner of Portis in another league, I can tell you that owning him this year has been utterly awesome. I don't know how Haller feels about it, but I have historically leaned away from drafting Redskins because I don't like to have my fantasy hopes and real-life hopes wrapped up in the same team/players, mainly because the bad days would be doubly depressing. But Portis hasn't really had any bad days this season, as he leads the league in rushing, and it's always fun watching him do it. Nothing makes me happier than when he grabs on to the back of his blocker's shirt and rides him down the field to a first down. I'm considering changing this league to a points-per-block scoring system just so that we can reward Portis more for how hard he plays on every down. CP, we love you, baby. and I'm guessing that the league-leading Deeter squad loves you most of all. (Sidenote: Haller, I'm thankful that you were able to use the appropriate Spanish punctuation and diacritical marks in your team name. I'm especially impressed that you remembered the acento over the 'o' in donde. Lots of folks forget that; you've made this maestro happy.)

Okay so now it's 11:30am on Sunday and I still have reviews and previews to write before the game starts. I'll be thankful for a burst of inspiration here. Let's dive in.
Week 12 Review:
Stadler & Waldorf 92.36, CH Croakies 64.74
You know who's been hooking me up lately? Tony G! Gonzo, who is apparently the favorite target of Tyler Thigpen, dropped 17 on E's head in Week 12, which was more than any of the Croakies went for. Instead, their top performers were Jason Campbell (15) and Adrian Peterson (14). Without much support beyond that, including a negative score for the Green Bay D, this game was a walk in the park for Matt Forte (25), Andre Johnson (12) and the rest of the S&W crew, giving them their fourth straight win.

Pubers & the 'Fro 85.34, Mephistopheles 107.42
I've already mentioned how important this victory was, for morale purposes, to Mephistopheles up in the 'thankful' section, so I won't get too into that here. I will note that the 29 points out of Mephisto's running backs are his highest combo since Week 3 from that positions, further underscoring the importance of Drew Brees to this team. On the other side of the field, Colly will be happy to see Tony Romo (23) back to his old self, though it may be too little, too late as far as the Pubers playoff hopes are concerned.

The Dutch Rudders 78.96, Woody's Warriors 81.90
Whoo! This was a tight one between two of the league's cellar-dwellers. Some huge days were had here, with the Rudders' Randy Moss (31) lighting it up 2007-style, and the Warriors' Balti Defense (26) lighting it up 2000-style. That 5-point difference between top scorers might have won Derek the game, if he hadn't gotten a -.1 point day out of LenDale White, consigning him to another week of defeat. Woody didn't bring much to the table besides that Defensive bonanza, but in a low-scoring game like this, 13 from Calvin Johnson, 12 from MJD, and 10 from Jeff Garcia are enough to get it done.

?Donde esta Deeter? 116.36, Matt Ryan Loves Dogs 85.04
Both these teams are already in the playoffs, and will likely both get byes in the first round, but Deeter made a definitive statement in Week 12 that his is the team to beat. MRLD was cruising with 5 consecutive wins coming into this match-up, but came up against a brick wall of scoring in trying to grab his sixth. Early in the season I was ascribing Haller's success to the Cutler-Marshall combo, but it was everyone except those guys that came to play this week. The Chicago D (20), Rian Lindell (18), Steve Smith (17), Clinton Portis (16) and Peyton Hillis (16-dammit that's another waiver-wire star we let fall to Haller) all contributed to establishing ?DED? as the team to beat in NBD.

Wyld Stallyns 79.52, Burke City Giants 94.12
This was another important match-up to determine pecking order at the top of the league, and this victory guaranteed a playoff spot for Michael Toobin and put DeYoung at risk to get tossed. Once again, the Giants were led by their running backs, with DeAngelo Williams and Marshawn Lynch combining for 36 points. Lance Moore (23) also proved once again that he is top dog in the Saints' receiving game, which must have been frustrating for DeYoung, who watched his Marques Colston come away with a respectable, but notably lesser, 13-point outing. Ultimately, though, when 4 of your players (Julius Jones, Jason Witten, Eddie Royal, and the Miami D) combine for less than 7 points, you're not going to win many games.

Lassard Blows Harris 58.26, Tri Steeg Area 96.30
[Oh my god Deacon Jones is crazy.] Thanks to Thursday games and my lateness in writing these Notes, we're already a game removed from Donovan McNabb's atrocious Week 12 performance, but let's not forget that he got benched for Kevin Kolb, taking .9 points away from the LBH total. Then again, even if he'd posted this week's 29, that wouldn't have put Papkin in contention against a Tri Steeg team that got 50 points out of Terrell Owens and the Tampa Bay Defense. Peyton Manning (17) also provided strong support in a game kept Manning alive in the playoff hunt.

12:12am. Let's knock out some predictions (that, thanks to the Thursday games, will be well-informed).
Week 13 Preview:
Stadler & Waldorf (6-6) vs. Pubers & the 'Fro (5-7)
Oh no. After all this late-season comebacking, my team is already down 66-0 heading into Sunday, and potentially getting shut out of the post-season. I don't even have any good match-ups to look forward to, and success from my QB, Matt Ryan, will likely be negated by the guy he passes to, Roddy White, on the other team. The magical run may be over for Stadler & Waldorf, but it's been quite a ride.
Pubers by 10

CH Croakies (6-6) vs. Tri Steeg Area (6-6)
I'm pretty sure that the winner of this game will definitely be in the playoffs, and the loser will definitely be out. It doesn't get any simpler than that. The Croakies' Larry Fitz and Tri Steeg's TO have already had solid starts, but a meager 3-point showing from Elliott's Kevin Smith has gotta hurt. With so many players on the same teams or in the same games on either side of this match-up, it's gonna be difficult to call, but I like Peyton Manning going against Cleveland to lead the way for Kex.
Tri Steeg by 7

The Dutch Rudders (3-9) vs. Mephistopheles (4-8)
Don't underestimate the importance of the clash between these two losers. A 12-point victory for Derek would relegate the Chief to a second straight year of a last-place finish, a fate he's eager to avoid. Derek is off to a good start, with an outstanding Thanksgiving from LenDale White and a decent performance from Marion Barber before he had to leave the game. Then again, Ray's squad has Denver, New Orleans, and St. Louis on the opponents list, meaning they've probably got some big games left to come. In the end, I see the Rudders carrying the day, but Mephisto maintaining his penultimate spot.
Rudders by 5

?Donde esta Deeter? (8-4) vs. Woody's Warriors (5-7)
On Wednesday, I surely would have picked Haller to win this Wolfpack match-up. But that was Wednesday. On Thursday, Brian Westbrook exploded. And so did Rob Bironas. I can't just ignore that.
Warriors by 9

Wyld Stallyns (7-5) vs. Matt Ryan Loves Dogs (8-4)
I see big things for Steven Jackson coming back fresh against tired defenses over the next few weeks. But not this week, where he'll still be getting his legs back. And MRLD's Thomas Jones vs. Denver and Dwayne Bowe vs. Oakland look like very strong plays to me.
MRLD by 8

Lassard Blows Harris (6-6) vs. Burke City Giants (8-4)
I really, really, really need Michael Toobin to win this game so that Papkin doesn't pass me in the standings. And my predictions record is way over .500. So I'm gonna hope I can combine those two things and make a hopeful prediction a reality, even though I don't really see it happening.
Giants by 3

Last week: 5-1
Overall: 47-25

Good luck to everyone this weekend. And to those of us whose seasons are ending this weekend, I hope you've at least had a season to be thankful for.