Snow Snow Snow....Only 22 days until Winter begins...From the healthy, Norton virus protected notebook of your commish. Tuesday November 29th, 2005 8:56 PM Rambling after week 12... So are any of you out there getting as nervous as me that the Vikings might actually make the playoffs? I think you all know why I'm nervous -- I think that playoffs = another chance for Mike Tice. This guy seems to have more lives than a kitty. I would have lost a lot of money a couple years ago had I been given the opportunity to bet whether Mike Tice or Steve Mariucci would be coaching their respective NFC North teams longer. No way would I have guessed that Tice would outlast the good old Yooper. Oh well, I also never would have guessed that Joey Harrington would still be getting starts for the Lions. And well.....the Packers keep losing, so I have that going for me. And Ryan Johnson didn't make an appearance at Arrowhead this past week - maybe this week he'll come in and I can tease him a bit. Daunte whom? I would say that Daunte can go down whatever path TO takes on his way out of Philly. I will take Brad Johnson for the next 5 years and be quite happy thank you. Chad Johnson -- gotta love it. Even the announcer for the Bungles game this week noted something to the effect of, "And Johnson scores....what does he have up his sleeve this time?", before Chad putted with the pylon after his TD. He's gotta work on his Tiger fist-pump though. Ryan Fitzpatrick? Wow. Best thing to come out of Harvard since Lemon Lyman. LaDainian Tomlinson -- let's stop calling him "LT2" since he is going to go down much bigger than the original. (And for those of you who might doubt that - just remember that you have to handicap Taylor a little since he was in the New York market where everything gets a bit inflated - see Eli Manning). Webster's definition: Goat. A placekicker for the 1) New York Giants or 2) New York Jets this past week. I'd like to see Tony Dungy not play the ridiculous game of "I've gotta rest my guys to keep them fresh..." when one of the best things for the NFL in a long time could be the Colts run at the 72 Dolphins. (Not that the NFL needs any help in the promotion department, but if the Colts don't make a real run at the undefeated season - no one ever will it seems like and that means we'll all hear about the over hyped Dolphin team every year for the rest of our lives) Reviewing the Randy Moss trade from the past off season.....both teams got a big fat ZERO out of that one if you ask me. Napoleon who? And you gotta be kidding me that no other team in the league would have offered us more than that for Randy. A non-football note to remind both you all and me.....Letterman has Oprah on the show on Thursday night. It is a must see. I have no support as to why other than after two years or whatever it has been, there's gotta be something good going down when Oprah finally visits the Ed Sullivan. Let's move on to the BIG....... So we are done with divisional play.....and Smitty ran the table this season going 6-0 in the Bulldog Division. Pretty good job....Jugs wasn't far behind in going 5-1 in the Bison Division. I think those stats say something since both those guys have clinched playoff berths with two weeks to go. I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise since at this point of the season the divisional games have been half the schedule....but that also means that when it is all said and done, the divisional schedule is less than half the regular season schedule, so a guy COULD go 2-4 in the division and run the non-divisional table to go 10-4, but it just isn't likely. So again, no surprise that Wong is leading his division with the aid of a 4-2 divisional record -- and note Rich is hot on his heels at a game back with the same divisional record. So why don't we look at the old....IF THE PLAYOFFS WERE TODAY-AY-AY-AY-AY-AY So speaking of those old tiebreakers....let's review the Fantasy Superior's message board commentary of this week as to those tiebreakers. Jugs is right....the first two divisional tiebreakers are on the standings page every week. The next one which is the running divisional total (out of the possible 42 divisional matchups -- that's 3 games times 14 weeks for those of you who are wondering) is not. Since the Bulldog and Bison Division champions are already crowned, let's focus on the Husky Division. Let's look at each team individually.... Wong's LD's -- simple, Wong holds his destiny at this point. Win twice
(week 13 Juice, week 14 Fantasy Superior) and he is in. Lose either of
those matchups and GOO is in play. Lose both of those matchups and Tang is
in play. If Wong is tied with GOO at the end of the year, GOO has the
tiebreaker. If Wong is tied with either Tang or Nookie at the end of the
year, Wong has the tiebreaker. Team Tang -- Can win the Division, but must get two wins, have Wong lose twice and get some help. Team Nookie -- Can not win the division. It is still possible that the entire division goes 8-6 which would be very impressive, but at this time Nookie would lose out on the wildcard tiebreakers to all of the other three guys in his division -- but it is close enough so that could change over the next two weeks. In summary.....all these teams are playoff eligible - along with Air JC and The Flying Hellfish. I'll run a detailed analysis of the potentials in next week's Ramblings, but there are WAY too many scenerios right now to cover this topic in full depth tonight. As for this week's big games..... Fat British Pigeons (9-3) vs. The Flying Hellfish (7-5) Those three matchups right there are going to be HUGE in clearing up the playoff picture. As commish I am quite satisfied in the number of teams that have a shot this year as we come to a close.....as a team owner I think it sucks cause I am going to have to really crack the whip at practice this week to keep guys like Aaron Brooks focused so I can compete with the rest of ya'll (yea that's right, I typed ya'll - just trying to connect with the southern players on my team). Anyways....should be a good finish. I didn't even get to elaborate on something Mike brought up to me this week, but I'll give it a good paragraph here. Mike mentioned that he only had a couple players on his team from winning NFL teams. So me, being the (push glasses up here) excel nerd I am, put some numbers together and found that Mike is on to something.....BIG teams that consist of players from NFL teams with more W's have more BIG wins. For example, Jugs skill position starters from this past week (QB, RBs, WRs, TE) average 7.25 NFL wins between them. Mike's have only 5.00 and Juice's even less at 4.83. For us math guys...there is a fairly significant linear trend in the data when comparing all kinds of different combinations of fantasy wins vs. player's NFL wins. What does that mean? Well, maybe its just an anomaly for this year, but if not, there is yet another strategy to tackle for the 2006 BIGFFBL draft. On to humor.....with a nice hint of the holidays of course A little boy was sitting at the dinner table and asked his father, "daddy, how many types of boobies are there?" The father smiled and said, "well son, there are three. when a woman is in her 20's, they are like melons, firm and rounded. when she is in her 30's and 40's, they are like pears, still firm but a little droopy. when she is in her 50's and later they are like applesauce filled balloons." The boy half nodded somewhat pretending to understand. Then, his sister asked her mommy who was listening to all this, "mommy, how many types of wieners are there?" To this the mother replied, "honey, there are also three. when a man is in his 20's, it is like an oak, firm and strong. when he's in his 30's and 40's it is like a birch, a bit more flexible, but still reliable. when he's in his 50's and older it is like a christmas tree." The little girl and father looked confused, "a christmas tree?" the little girl asked. "yes," the mother replied, "it is dead from the root up and the balls hanging on it are for decoration only." Need I say more? BIGFFBL senior writer Jeremy Carlson sounds off whenever he feels like it on www.bigffbl.com |