Hmm, um, I don't know where they're not...

From the healthy, Norton virus protected notebook of your commish.  Tuesday November 20th, 2007 7:15 PM

Rambling after Week 12...

Bet you didn't know that a pig can run a 7 minute mile.  Well, I'm sure not all pigs, but they said so on the History channel, so it must be true.  That brings me to the thought - are some television stations more trustworthy than others?  I suppose in my mind it is that way.  If John McHale (host of Talk Soup) told me a pig could run even a 10 minute mile, no way I'd believe him - but if Max Raphael (narrator for Modern Marvels) told me that racist chickens lay eggs with no yolks, I'd probably believe it.

Moving on to Sean Taylor.  For those of you reading this who don't know (I can think of only one Denverite - if that's the right term) about the Sean Taylor deal - he was a Washington Redskin defensive back that was shot in his own home during a robbery a couple days ago.  He passed away due to the massive amount of blood he lost from his leg wound.  Too bad, he was really a huge talent and just coming into his time as one of the premiere big hitters in the league.  Sadly, the Miami-Dade police were quoted as to be looking for an "unidentified suspect".  Hmm, sounds like an easy description to locate....good luck CSI Miami.  Ala the nightly news, Sean Taylor, dead today at the age of 24.

As for skirting around an issue while still touching on it, it sure seems like the NFL has seen a large turnover in the number of opening day starting RBs vs. the starters in week 12.  Doing some research showed that the Bills (Lynch), Broncos (Henry), Texans (A.Green), Chiefs (L.J.), Dolphins (R.Brown), Raiders (who cares, they're now starting a white guy), Bears (Benson), Packers (can't even remember the original starter), Giants (Jacobs), Seahawks (Shaun) and Bucs (Cadillac) have a different starting back and the Vikings (AP), Titans (Brown) and Saints (McAllister) could also fit in that group.  Seems like a lot - but it is 14 out of 32, less than half.  What are the odds of having all four of your RBs in this group - pretty low.  Roughly in the neighborhood of 5% chance.  Hard to say how to foresee all this - what were the odds that Ricky would get regular season carries this year?  How about Priest Holmes?  Who's next, Barry?  Emmitt?  Who knows, maybe Tiki will be back to save Tom and Eli over in NY before the year is out.

Speaking of Eli - can a QB play any worse?  (the correct answer is 'yes' since I didn't mention something like "not counting Joey Heisman" or "ignoring all McSuck games when he was on the Air JC roster" in my question)  He was pretty bad though - "how bad was he" is what the studio audience would like to know - he was bad enough that as I took my usual 2nd half Vikings game snooze, the booing from the Meadowlands crowd during the defensive touchdowns was loud enough to wake me.  I'm just waiting for Jeremy Shockey to go absolutely nuts on the sideline like TO did a few years ago - you just wait, it'll happen.

On to the BIG for a while....

Only two weeks left, and there is still a lot to be decided.  We do know that the Fish, Nookie and Little Red Horse are all eliminated from the playoffs.  The wIZards and Tang will both be eliminated with either a loss of their own or a Kinger win.  From there it gets a bit more technical.  Smitty's Pigeons can't win the division, but with a couple wins and some help could sneak their way into the wildcard.  The LB's and Juice are going to battle out the Bulldog title with the other hoping to pick up the wildcard.  Either JC or Mike will win the Bison, but with Mike holding the tiebreaker and a one game lead, a win or a JC loss will clinch it for Mike.  Finally, Jugs will need a couple wins, but still finds himself in the running for the wildcard.

If it all ended today....(just the regular season - not the world)

Bulldog - Little Bastards (8-4)
Husky - Team Kinger (7-5)
Bison - Drunken Sailors (9-3)
Wildcard - Team Juice (8-4)

Golden Toilet - Flying Hellfish (2-10)

How do I see this closing out?  Well - starting in the middle - the Husky Division.  Kinger needs only one win - but it's no easy road with him closing out against Air JC and the Drunken Sailors.  On the other hand, he could wait for both the wIZards and Tang to lose one of their final two - they both play Jugs and Juice (and I don't see Jugs and Juice losing both of their final two).  So -- Kinger will take the Husky Division.

Ok, ok, I know - really went out on a limb there - kinda like saying that I think the Patriots will make the Super Bowl (or "the big game in Arizona" - apparently someone has the rights to "Super Bowl" so other stations can't even use the term - stupid if you ask me, just wait till someone copyrights "presidential election" or something similar so the other stations have to call it "the big vote")

So, on to the Bison.  Speaking of Bison, a great product being made out in the Dakotas somewhere is a Buffalo meat energy bar.  I've had one and they are excellent.  A little pricey, but probably right on par with anything old Jack Link puts out from Minong.  See the Tanka bar at...www.tankabar.com.  And back to our show...  Mike needs only 1 win or 1 Air JC loss to clinch the division.  The Sailors close out with the Red Horse and Kinger.  Not easy matchups, but not the toughest in the league either.  On the other hand, JC finishes off with Kinger and the Fat Pigeons.  Do I see Air JC winning both these and Mike losing both of his?  Nope.  Mike and the Drunken Sailors will win their first Bison Division Championship this year.

Up to the Bulldogs.  Juice and Jon are tied up with Jon holding the tiebreaker.  The tiebreaker is nice, but the schedule is even nicer.  Juice has a fairly easy closing against a pair of 5-7 teams, Tang and wIZards.  The LB's, who get my vote at this point for best team (I'll explain that in a bit if I don't forget), close out against a pair of 2-10'ers, Ben and Suomala.  I'd argue that Suomala might be a tough matchup considering that he's gotten some good play out of his QB and WR's lately, but I don't think they'll be tough enough.  Gotta go with the easy schedule - the Little Bastards win their 4th Bulldog Division Championship.

The tough call is the wildcard.  Jugs, like Juice, gets to close against the 5-7'ers.  Good matchups, but the loss against Suomala in week 12 may have been the step back that the Superior won't be able to regain.  Smitty's Pigeons will finish off against the 'Fish and Air JC.  Based on my Division winners, that leaves JC and Juice in the wildcard hunt as well.  I see Jugs, Juice and JC splitting their last two and Smitty sweeping his.  That would put Juice or JC in at 9-5 depending on how the tiebreaking cards fall (and currently Juice would have that one).

As for picking the champ - I'm going with the LBs.  Looking at how the season has gone, I'd have a hard time picking Smith over them due to how consistent Jon's team has been.  Think about some of these stats - 11 weeks out of 12 at 100+, the other week was at 98.  They're currently on an 8 week 100+ streak.  That's the longest such streak since Jugs ran off 8 in a row to close out the 2003 season and since Smitty had a 13 week streak to close out his record 2002 season.  Averaging 115+ per week, on pace for the 5th best season of all time.  I know Smitty is averaging more points (on pace for 1736, 2nd best all time), but Jon's standard deviation is MUCH lower (16.1 vs. 36.9).  Those mind numbing college statistics professors will tell you that means Jon's team has consistently put up the big points while Smith's big total has included some very high and very (relative to Jon C. not to Jon S.) low totals (highs of 195 and 167, lows of 59 and 75).  The big points are nice - but the consistent points are even better - that's why I think the LBs have the guns to be the first 3 time BIG champion.

I hope I'm wrong (at least about my team's chances).

Need I say more?

BIGFFBL senior writer Jeremy Carlson sounds off whenever he feels like it on www.bigffbl.com