And Then....
Rambling heading into the '04 playoffs, week 1...
So here we are, and....
"THE PLAYOFFS ARE TODAY-DAY-DAY" (think
of a nice echoing announcer saying that)
Bulldog: Jon's Little Bastards (10-4) [*takes 2nd divisional tiebreaker
over LRH - see rules page]
Husky: Wong's Wong's LD's (8-6)
Bison: Jon's Flying Hellfish (9-5) [*takes 3rd divisional tiebreaker over
Jugs]
Wildcard: Jason's Little Red Horse (10-4)
As far as how seeding goes....you could look at the rules, but I'll be a nice guy and tell you...
#1 - (10-4, 100-52-2) Little Red Horse
#2 - (10-4, 98-56-0) Little Bastards
#3 - (9-5, 107-46-1) Flying
Hellfish
#4 -
(8-6, 82-71-1) Wong's LD's
Again, if I need to tell you that #1 plays #4 and #2 plays #3, I will bring a tack hammer to next year's draft and hit you on the head cause you are a retard, so don't make me tell you that.
Now some of you may have noticed that the LB's won the Bulldog Division and Jason's LRH was the wildcard, but LRH got the #1 seed. It was very very very close, but since Jon's LB's went 5-1 in the division as opposed to Jason's 4-2, he wins the division tiebreaker, but since we re-seed all four playoff teams, Jason had the overall tiebreaker over Jonny by almost the slimest of margins. Does all this matter....well, no, but I'm sure someone could get worked up about it and start a thread on the board (I'm just guessing it WON'T be any of the teams actually in the playoffs).
So since most of the focus was on who did make the playoffs, how about those that didn't....
Mike won. Yes, that makes 2 out of 3 to close the year for him. Not a bad finish to an 0-11 start. That gives Mike some momentum and a nice high pick for the '05 season. The question for Mike will once again be....just who will he keep?
Nookie lost again. That's 5 in a row and finishes all by himself as the 2nd worst team. Other than Mike (whom Ben outscored by about 8 per week), Ben scored 14+ points less per week on average than anyone else in the league, that is ugly.
Next from the bottom are the 6-8 teams, Rico's GOO and Juice's Juice. Rich's team had a chance every week, but then Peyton quit putting up 45 every week and that, along with 'Wonger-gate 2004' kept Rico out of the playoffs. Juice went on a brutal midseason slide after the Portis trade debacle, which got even worse since once Portis started to perform, McGahee outdid him anyway. So, sucks to be these two guys, but they'll be sitting alright with a high first rounder in '05 (well, at least half of them will).
On to the 7-7 teams....that's Jonny, JC and Smitty. Jonny is in the same boat as Rico....and I picture it as a small dingy with some Jimmy Buffet music and a couple topless island girls, but that boat is also sinking due to their QB's. Daunte's play early kept Jonny in the race with Wong and Daunte's play late gave Wong the division. Smith had another Smithesque year, he put up a lot of points, had more scored against him and didn't make the playoffs. A notable milestone that I talked about in earlier Ramblings was met this past week as Smitty becomes the first BIG franchise to get to the 10,000 point plateau. JC's team finishes at a LRH-like 7-7 record and can attribute that entirely to injuries. Steve Smith's broken leg, Jamal Lewis's screwey ankle, Lee Suggs injured whatever, Todd Heap's injured foot, etc... If not for Shaun's consistent numbers, this team would have easily had 4 more losses.
That leaves Jugsie at 9-5 as the last team out....and also the team that gets 1 whole ping pong ball in the hat next August. Jugs's team had an up and down year and almost got there but was one 'Antonio Gates' short of a Bison title. I know Jugsie (and I) thought Gates would be a good late round sleeper and I remember we both gave Suomala an atta boy when he grabbed him, but none of us could have forseen the fortunes that have been the '04 Chargers offense. Nevertheless, Jugs is in the same place as Mike and Ben right now and that is the outside looking in. He can at least hang his BIGFFBL visor on the fact that he kicked the snot out of Wong's team to close out the year (for the 3rd consecutive and 4th out of 5 years).
So on to the playoff teams and some stats since Jugsie got us going with the stats this past week on the message board.
We'll start out with Wong's LD's. Wonger's boys finished at 8-6 in the lowest scoring division in '04 (Husky: 5392 pts, 96.1 avg). His team put some points up, but nothing in comparison to the other three postseason teams. Wong averaged/st.dev 105.7/25.8 for the year and 116.3/29.8 in the final four weeks. That tells you he was putting up more points late in the year but the higher standard deviation tells you he wasn't as consistent down the stretch.
As for the 'Fish. Suomala held off Jugsie and JC down the stretch to win his first Bison title since '02. Suomala put up a lot of points..a total of 1612 which is good for #4 all time in this league. That comes out to an average of 115.1/27.2 per week for the year and an even more impressive 126.5/24.6 for the final four weeks. Suomala's team rose to the occasion in the last month and upped their scoring while tightening up the spread of their points as shown by the smaller st.dev value.
The LB's finish strong and are on a 7 game winning streak as the playoffs commence. They have won their 2nd consecutive Bulldog Division crown and 3rd in five years (which is definitely saying something). Jon's guys put up the 5th most points ever in a season with 1608 and set the bar quite high for the most points in a single week with 183. His average of 114.9/22.0 for the year are quite impressive and in the last four weeks his team has been unbelievable with a 136.5/34.7 average. That st.dev looks higher than the other guys, but it is a bit skewed due to the LB's 183 point outburst. His low over the past four weeks is 102 and it is interesting to note that he is the only playoff team to have 100+ in each of the past 5 weeks.
Finally, Jason's Little Red Horse finally broke the curse of 7-7 to put up double digits in the win column. Not only that, but his overall performance grabbed him the #1 playoff spot which doesn't mean a ton in this league except for some bragging rights I suppose. (cause we don't have the stupid assed 'home field advantage' points in the playoffs - and no one say 'hmm, that's a good idea, cause it IS NOT'....but that's another thing I can bitch about at a different time). Jason's team started really really really strong and then cooled off a bit. Just like those HHS boys to be lazy and take it easy once they think they have everything locked up. While, I suppose we could also blame it on the new addition to the house there in late October....and on that note, if you are interested in taking on 2 kids and 2 dogs for the holidays, Jason and Missy wouldn't mind a few days off I think. Anyway, for the year, the LRH went for 112.1, 21.7 which are some of the most consistent numbers of any team in the league this year. In the past 4 weeks though, Jason has taken it a bit rough only getting 102.5/22.6. But don't let that fool you cause the last two weeks have seen the LRH machine be over 115.
So what does all this tell us about next week? Well, nothing of course except that we have 4 high scoring teams in the playoffs and there should be two solid matchups this week in the '04 BIG playoffs.
I'm going to move to some NFL thoughts and then sign this thing off before I get my daily hit of primetime TV in the form of ABC's 'According to Jim' (which I highly recommend - and think of Trush as you watch it).
NFL (mostly Vikings) Thoughts...
Mike Tice is a damn fool. 3rd and inches at a non-crucial point in the game, you DO NOT challenge that ever. I don't care how obvious it seems to be, but we've all seen way too many times where it looks obvious but the ref then removes his glasses before going under the hood and concludes something different from the blurs he sees. I said this to my roommate at the time and Jugsie I think said something similar on the board....you have a F'n HUGE QB. If dumbass Dainty can't sneak for an inch in TWO DOWNS, he (and the o-line) have no place on a Sunday grid iron.
Mike Tice is a damn fool - part deux. Game winning drive, 70%+ completion QB under center and the best WR in the game flanked out wide left (or slot, whatever, that's a minor detail). What do you call when you need a TD to win and go a game up on the Pack? Of course, you don't throw a fade to the best WR in the game, you have the WR throw the ball. Duh, don't you remember seeing Owens or Harrison or Mason throwing the ball in crucial situations each Sunday? Wait, NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. Red has the chance to punish Tice for his stupid stupid coaching by not paying him a $1 million bonus on the 1st of the year. I think Red is a smart enough man to realize that Tice has not earned that money in any way shape or form.
Now about Randy Moss....he looked good again on Sunday. Too bad he had to push himself to come back early cause I think had he just sat it out, he would have fully healed earlier and looked like this at least a week earlier than now (that probably got a bit confusing, but I think you know what I'm getting at).
Mike Tice is a damn fool - part 33 1/3. I heard recently that he had an option to trade away Michael Bennett before the deadline. WHY THE HELL NOT? He sucks. He's not good. Sure he's fast, but has he broken a run for more than 8 this year? I highly doubt it. Onterrio has much more 'football speed' if you ask me and as long as we can keep the needles out of his arms, he will be a very good back for us.
Speaking of our RB situation....my roommate and I were discussing the odds that the Vikings draft Maurice Clarette this coming spring....I think the odds are better than you might want them to be (and I want those odds to be ZERO). I figure it's either us or Denny Green.
Next week we have the Lions....in D-Town. First off, I'm glad Randy and Co. wear their helmets most of the time on the sidelines cause you know there will be flying projectiles coming out of the crowd in that neck of the country. I'm also thankful that Joey will still be under center (at least for the start) cause he is absolute horse crap. I've probably said that 6 or 8 times over the last couple years, but maybe I'm just hoping that someday Matt Millen will stumble across this column and get some sense into his head and get a new QB. That way when we beat the Lions (wait, IF we beat the Lions), I can think to myself it was a real win, not just a win cause Joey sucks so bad.
Speaking of QB's that suck, here's a thought for you....is Mike Tice a bad enough coach that had Eli started the game earlier in the year when the Giants kicked our rears at the Dome, would we have fared any better?
Speaking of Mannings....are the Colts now changing their play calling since Peyton is sure to pass the record in order to not pass Dan by too much? Earlier in the year they were coming out 4-wide with 1st and goal at the 3, now Edge seems to be seeing paydirt a bit more often. I think there might be something to that.
Finally, since all the readers here are guys (presumably), you're all down to 10 days before you need to begin Christmas shopping. Don't worry if you forget again, I'll give you another heads up a week from today with the next Ramblings....
Need I say more?
BIGFFBL senior writer Jeremy Carlson (TEQ) sounds off whenever he feels like it on www.bigffbl.com