Rest in Peace Mr. Chief of Staff...

From the healthy, Norton virus protected notebook of your commish.  Tuesday December 20th, 2005 8:41 PM

Rambling before the 7th annual BIG Bowl...

First off - for those of you who are not viewers of The West Wing -- John Spencer is the actor that played chief of staff/vice presidential candidate Leo McGarry on the show.  He passed away in the last week at the age of 58.  Hollywood and his fans will miss what would have surely been many additional years of great work.  I took a moment of silence - you may if you wish.

So the BIG fantasy season has come down to this.....Smith vs. Jugasek.  Fat British Pigeons vs. Fantasy Superior.  11-3 vs. 10-4.  QB/RB strength vs. WR/TE strength.  Bulldog Division Champion vs. Bison Division Champion.  #1 seed vs. #2 seed.  Should be a good one -- and I think Jugs can spare us the continued bitching/excuse that his RBs are weak since Priest went down since we are all smart enough to see that it has been about two months since that happened and the Superior's squad hasn't slowed down any more than about an eighth of a step (also, not to mention that most of us saw Priest's injury as inevitable - especially Smitty who wisely traded for Larry Johnson mid-season.) 

So, as almost always in this league, trades seem to make a huge impact on the championship game.  This trade (Larry Johnson acquisition by Smitty) seems to have huge potential just since Jugs wasn't able to put together, one of what I consider to be the most overused phrases in fantasy football, the handcuff of Priest/LJ on draft night.  It looks like that will come back to haunt him in his first championship week appearance.

On the other side of the ball is Smitty.....his big question this week: Is LT ready to roll this week?  I guess its not a huge issue since the Pigeons have Carnell and Fast Willie on the shelf if Tomlinson is not able to go this week.

Really this matchup is interesting because it faces off Smith's top notch QB/RB combo of Palmer, LT and LJ against Jugs' top notch WR/TE corps of Holt, Wayne and Gonzo.

So, let's make the assumption that their big boys score their points and essentially cancel out.  How strong are their respective supporting casts?

First, for Jugs.....he is likely to start Jake Plummer as the Broncos host the Raiders on Christmas Eve.  It is a very favorable matchup for the Snake assuming the Denver weather holds out for the game.  As for the RB's, Jugs will likely start Thomas Jones, who travels to Green Bay for a Christmas afternoon game against the struggling Packers, along with T.J. Duckett who is turning into a fairly useless fantasy option, but the best one Jugs has as long as Stephen Davis is out of the picture.  Usually kickers and defenses cancel each other out as we all know, but when your kicker's team (Wilkins) hosts the 2-12 49ers in a dome and your defense plays 3-11 Brett 'Random Interception' Favre in possible iffy weather, you should gain a slight advantage at those spots.

What about Smitty.....I see the Fat Pigeons going with Rod Smith at one WR spot -- which would make for an interesting start since Jugs will likely go with Rod's QB.  This makes a Plummer TD pass to Rod Smith almost as bad as an interception to Jugs, but a Plummer to anyone else TD a pain for Smitty.  On the other side of the formation, Jimmy Smith will line up for Smitty.  The Jags travel to 2-12 Houston this week to help push the Texans closer to winning the Reggie Bush lottery.  Both these matchups for Smitty are GREAT - GRAND - WONDERFUL (and no, not in the sarcastic Farley way).  Smith will also go with Shockey at TE against the Redskins - although he could go with Cooley from Washington if he'd like who has become a favorite target of Brunell (though I'd find it hard to bench Mr. Shockey with the number of targets he sees from young Eli).  Smitty doesn't have great matchups with his K or Defenses, but I guess his kicker could be ok since they host the Vikings this week - but anyone who thinks they can accurately predict what our kings of the seas will do each week is smoking something.

So, I'd have to say that I like Smitty in this matchup.  By how much?  Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and put the line at Fat British Pigeons by 15 with an over/under of 255.  But as Letterman says in the introduction to Stupid Pet/Human tricks,

"Remember this is merely an exhibition and not a competition and for the love of God, please, no wagering."

Oh wait....it is a competition -- I guess wagering is ok.  You'll of course have to find a bookie who will cover you -- or a casino sports book.....I'll check the strip in a few weeks when I'm down in sunny Las Vegas for the World of Concrete (yea, that's right - a concrete conference - the 2nd biggest conference of the year in Vegas I've been told).

So we were looking at some preseason predictions this past weekend (Jon and Juice and I) and I wanted to take a peek back at them to see how well our pigskin prognosticators did.....

Mike's predictions had Team Nookie as the preseason #1 and going 12-2.  Not too far off considering he started out by saying, "As long as Julius Jones stays healthy...."  I'll grade Mike with a B on this one since Ben might have made the playoffs with a healthy squad the whole way out, but I don't know about 12-2.

He had himself at #2 - going 9-5 and winning the Bison Division.  Sorry to say Mike, but you were way off with the, "Kevin Jones and Willis McGahee should be this year's top RB duo, or at least a close second...."  Um.....yea.  A statistics book might be needed to calculate where that duo ranks this year within the possible NFL RB combinations this year - but I don't need to tell you that they were not this years top or second or third or .... well, you get the picture.  Grade D-

The Hellfish came in at #3 with a predicted 9-5.  Mike was pretty close by saying that M.Bennett and/or Staley had to stay healthy in order for the 'Fish to achieve this high status.  Suomala's record of 8-6 and 1412 points was close enough to get Mike his best grade thus far, a B+

Fourth on the list was our season ending #1 seed Fat British Pigeons.  Mike's saw Smitty going 11-3, winning the Bulldog Division and scoring 1414 points.  Smith did go 11-3, scored 1454 points and won the Bulldog Division.  "...He should blow away his division and make the playoffs almost effortlessly."  Amen.  A+

Next up was Air JC.  Mike thought I'd go 8-6 and finish 3rd in the Bison Division.  Well, 7-7 and 3rd was where I ended up, so not too shabby.  Mike questioned Stephen Jackson and that was a valid one....cause he really sucked down the stretch for me.  Another solid job and grade point boosting A

Mike had Jugs' at 6, probably a little low for our other championship participant but let's see what Mike said.  "Our FF Superior has the best TE in the league.  Gonzo will help this team greatly to make up for the lack of RB depth.  Jugs will start strong, but injuries and lost carries will cause him to fall off in the second half of the season.  He's still be right in the hunt for the Bison division though, with his league best WR duo leading the way."  That right there was the definition of hitting the target.  Were it not for his under-prediction of 7-7, I could give out another perfect grade, but I'll stick with a solid A-

Starting out the bottom half, Mike had Jonny at 8-6.  He had his record dead on but his grade will suffer due to this sentence...."Culpepper needs to stay healthy too, or else Jonny could be well out of the playoffs by the end of division play."  Wrong -- and proven that way by Jonny's playoff appearance with essentially no QB fantasy points in the second half of the season.  Nice job Jonny - not so much for Mike here.  C

Juice found himself at #8 going into the year, and I'm sure at the end of the year he would have gladly accepted that.  Mike starts out, "Juice is going to have to rely on his big three (Bulger, LT and Javon)...."  ha ha ha ha, sorry, couldn't help myself, "....to keep his afloat this year.  He does have the 1st drafted kicker AND defense though, so we'll see just how smart our FF Superior is with his advice on that."  Ok Jugs, Juice's stupid drafting just gives more validity to your argument, I'll agree on that.  Grade....B

Jason's Little Red Horse was predicted to sit at 4-10, 3rd in the Bulldog with 1173 points.  He went 4-10, finished 3rd in the Bulldog with 1134 points.  Well done there Mike.  He commented that Jason's RB's are solid, but his inconsistent WR's will be his downfall - pretty much right on.  Mike cruises to an easy A+ on this one.

Rich probably wondered why his team started off way down at #10.  At the end of the season, so am I.  Mike saw GOOOO (or 'The Cardinals') going 3-11 and finishing at the bottom of the Husky Division.  He didn't see Chris Brown or Tatum Bell or any of Rich's other RB's doing any good - and said that Peyton and TO would have to carry the team.  I gotta give Mike a real bad grade here since even though he did say that GOO's RBs could show up and keep the team in every game, 3-11 is a prediction for a team that isn't in ANY games.  So, my red pen is out to give this D

Our outgoing? hall of fame? owner Wong opened the year down near the bottom with a 4-10 prediction by Mike.  "....Wong's team seam (sic) to always be under-rated in the fantasy world.  This year may be no different.  With no true #1 fantasy QB, Wong will have to hope for a lot of things to fall into place."  Those "things" were called Steve Smith.  What a comeback year from the guy who was on my roster last year when he broke his leg early -- dammit.  Wong did significantly better that Mike thought, and I'm trying to keep a hold on the grade inflation, so a C+ is given for this spot.

Finally, Mike had the LB's on the bottom.  They started out even worse than Mike would have guessed, going 1-5 in the opening weeks.  They turned it around to finish up 4-4 down the stretch and a game better than Mike's 5-9 prediction.  All in all, a good job by Mike (other than points) since he did type, "To be honest, I feel the LB's will not be the worst team in the league, but I also feel that the playoffs are not in his future for the season."  Not a shabby finish, but I'm gonna dock him for predicting only 1098 points for the LB's - that is really really low, Juice just about scored that many this year and his team was pure horse pucky.  Grade....C

So Mike's final GPA?  (and in case you really care -- I'm gonna weight those A+'s a little....) 3.055 - a solid B.  Not bad work Mike.

Anyhow....my battery is almost dead so I'm gonna sign it off for the night.  Merry Christmas to everyone and your families.  If you're in town, give me a call.  If you're traveling to town, travel safely.  If you're not able to make it home to the north country, enjoy the holidays from wherever you might find yourself.

Need I say more?

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