First or Third Egerdahl Memorial?...

From the healthy, Norton virus protected notebook of your commish.  Tuesday December 18th, 2007 9:16 AM

Rambling on into the sunset...

I guess typically I don't Ramble much past championship week or into the new year, so this might be the last Tuesday typing I do for a few months (especially considering the next two Tuesday's are kind of big Holidays).   Not that I'll be sad or anyone will really notice I guess.  I suppose I could try to make this column span the next few months until we hit March Madness (which really should be called April Madness, but the alliteration just isn't there I guess), but there just isn't enough material (or on the other hand, literary skill) to do such a thing.  Maybe in a situation like Mr. Simmons's (forgive me Mr. Pothast for any incorrect punctuation) I could sit all day and type away, not worrying about any other work to be done....oh wait, this is middle December in a concrete office - I DO have all day to waste.  (seriously though - at least the time between the phone calls - ooo, there's one...)

And...I'm back.  So we're here.  Championship week - just like the pros do it.  You know, Tuesday is luau day, Wednesday is get drunk and pass out on South Beach day, Thursday is blocking traffic/smoking weed in your car day, Friday is attend premiere of National Treasure II day and Saturday is Media day to explain it all....finally, Sunday we have a pair of 11-4'ers, the two time (2000, 2004) BIG Champions, Little Bastards against the championship game rookie, Drunken Sailors.  Are these the two best teams from the season?  I know Smith could make an argument, but I'd have to say we ended up with a pretty good final 2.  More of a Bo Bice/Carrie Underwood than Katherine McPhee/Taylor Hicks if you need to explain it to a 14 year old.

So....how did we get here.....

"Our whole universe was in a hot dense state,
Then nearly fourteen billion years ago expansion started.
Wait...
The Earth began to cool,
The autotrophs began to drool,
Neanderthals developed tools,
We built a wall (we built the pyramids),
Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang."

Well, that's according to the Big Bang Theory theme song....but I meant how did we get here to championship week.  The LB's got a smidge of luck as the Vikings defense took the week off against Kyle Orton and allowed Jonny to take down Kinger, even after Mr. Westbrook folded like a baby deer at the 1 yard line on Sunday afternoon, costing Jon an easy 6.  On the other side, the Drunken Sailors got enough points from his keeper Steve Jackson and snuck one past the Drunken Cassanova and his keeper Lad-i-still-can't-spell-it Tomlinson.  An appeal was made for Juice to obtain bonus points due to last Friday's festivities, but said appeal was denied based on lack of photographical evidence of hotness and therefore assumption of Steve-ness (while that, and the fact that the rules don't allow bonus points for such activities....otherwise Juice would have numerous championships).

The matchup is a good one.  Since I have the time - I'll analyze the potential starting lineups and matchups.

For the LB's, Kurt Warner should have a nice week at home versus Atlanta in the Arizona sun.  The Eagles travel to the dome in N'Orleans and Mo-Jo stays at home in northern Florida while the Raiders come to town.  All excellent matchups for Jonny.  On the receiving end, Tory Holt faces the Steelers at the Dome in St. Louie while TJ and Graham has Cleveland coming to town in an Ohio battle.  Gonzalez and company head to Detroit and Ford Field - yet another indoor matchup.  Finally - Devin Hester and the Bears have Brettski coming to town - weather could be a consideration in Chicago, but that also hurts the speed of #23.  All in all, the LB's have to be happy with these games except for the Cincinnati home game....weather being the only issue of course.  To pull a number out of the hat....I'd say the LB's will fall into the 115-125 range this week.

The Drunken Sailors have some nice matchups too.  Kitna is at home against the fairly pathetic Chiefs.  Stephen Jackson will have to face the tough Steelers defense - but he's been emerging lately as the stud he should have been all year.  Willis and Baltimore, coming off their loss to Miami, travel across the country to Seattle.  I'm guessing Mike will go with Roddy White at Arizona instead of Coles at Tennessee - either way, I like the matchup with the thinking that their team will be down and forced to throw it.  At the other WR spot, I like Jennings at Chicago with Brett throwing it....any other QB and I'd be tempted to bench him and start Coles/Roddy instead.  Josh Brown is at home against Baltimore - that should equal a few FG's and New England is at home against Miami - gotta LOVE that matchup.  Finally....the only player on the field monday night will be Gates.  His question - will it be 2 TD's or 1 catch?  Which Gates will show up?  Where do I see the Sailors?  The Magic 8 ball says, 110-120.  I'll go on the limb and say that if Gates catches a TD, Mike will win his first championship.

That's how I see it....as a close one.

How about a few interesting facts as we attempt to determine our 10th champion.

• This is the 4th consecutive year that the wildcard entrant lost their semi-final match.

• Wong (01), Juice (03) are the only wildcards to win the Championship.

• The LB's took Bulldog D for the 4th time since going to 3 divisions 8 years ago (00, 03, 04, 07)

• Jason has never won the Bulldog Division regular season title (Juice and Smith have 2 each)

• Suomala has 3 Bison D championships (02, 04, 06....look out for next year)

• The Husky D has had 5 different champs in the last 5 years (King, Wojo, Rich, Wong and Ben)

• 2007 was the 3rd highest scoring year in the league - 101.1 average per team per week.

• Over the 10 seasons, there have been 159,719 points scored by 17 different teams.

• Wojo, Kinger and the Little Bastards had their best scoring years ever in 2007.

• Nobody had their worst points season ever - nope, not even Suomala

• The Bulldogs set a new record with 6,070 points between the 4 teams this year.

• The Bulldog Division has been the highest scoring division in 7 of the 8 three division seasons.

• The Husky Division has been the lowest scoring division in 4 of the 8 three division seasons.

• There were 91, 100+ weeks this year tying the record set back in 2002.

• There were 18, under 70 weeks this year, second lowest only to the 8 in 2002.

I suppose it's time to take care of the mail and such here at the office....so I'll call it quits.  Enjoy the championship week....and as un-PC it may be to say in this goofy litigious day and age we live in....

Merry Christmas.

Need I say more?

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