Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Hail to Los Diablos!!!

Yes, hail the almighty Diablos, hail.  Congratulations not only on ending your epic 8-game losing streak (besting your 2011 start-of-season losing streak by one game), but on doing it against Jason.  Well done, Paul, well done indeed.

In fact, since I don't have to play you again this season (and since there's no way you're making the playoffs), I'm going to be rooting for you in all the rest of your games.  Sure I'm currently sitting on the 3-seed, but I'll take all the help I can get.

Sorry I haven't provided my usual amount of Commissioner blather this year, but what can I say; I been busy.  So this post will have to be a poor substitute for a belated mid-season status report.  And I'd like to emphasize, if I may, the word 'poor'.

Starting at the bottom of the standings, we have the aforementioned proud Diablos, sitting on a one-game winning streak.  While the autopicker may have screwed Paul but good, it did at least give him some players who might be valuable from this point of the season forward (Shane Vereen, Percy Harvin).  So maybe Los Diablos can still make some noise for the rest of the season, maybe win a week or two, and make life a little easier for league-leaders such as myself.

Moving up one notch --- what is wrong with Jody?  Seriously.  The guy finishes last in the league in 2012, picks up a new team name, and then proceeds to continue the suckiness into 2013.  His roster does read like a who's who of fantasy disappointment: Chris Johnson (or is he back, finally?), Steven Jackson, Steve Smith, Marques Colston, RGIII --- not a good year for Choo Choo.

No need, however, to ask what's wrong with Merrill: he sucks.  We all know this.  And while the autopicker screwed Kubicek at the beginning of the year, Kubicek managed to spread some of the misery to Merill with a clever 2-for-1 trade which sent Arian Foster and his hamstring to the Marauders in exchange for both Buffalo RBs, thus allowing Kubicek to pick the wrong one almost every week while Merrill gets the 'nope, I'm not ready yet' zero from Foster each week.

Defending champion Strike Team is sitting comfortably in ninth place at the moment, but still in the playoff hunt at 4-5.  Aaron has also seen his share of disappointment with, for example, Tom Brady.  But at least he kept the faith in starting him in week 9, and thus was able to ride the wave past Kevin for the win.

Next up are the River Horses, who I had planned to mock for starting Jason Campbell last week until they damn near beat me with him.  I have no idea whether Pete drafted well, and neither does he, as more than half of his current roster consists of free agent pickups.  That's no way to build a team, Pete.  You need to draft talent and develop it on your own, like the Packers and Ravens (who maybe aren't such a good example right now, but --- moving on).

Once again this year, Nick and his confusingly-named Rock-n-it Datarocknators are showing that autodraft actually can get you a mildly competitive team.  Of course, it didn't work out for Kubicek, but I'm choosing to blame that on the fact that he actually showed up for the last half of the draft and drafted about half of his team himself.  If he had let autopilot take it all the way like Nick, I feel confident that Kubicek would be 4-4-1 as well.

It seems like every year, there's at least one team (Taylor) who scores a bunch of points yet somehow manages to have a crappy record.  That is surprisingly not the case this year, but the guy with the most to complain about in this department is Kevin, who sits in sixth place at 4-4-1 despite scoring the fourth-most points in the league.  So we all shrug our shoulders and say eh, so what, it's Kevin.  He does have the Stafford/Megatron combo, though and --- let's check quick --- yeah, I'm not playing him again, either, so go for it, Kevin.  Score a bunch more points, really knock it out of the park.  Just stay out of the playoffs.

This brings us to the Leviathans, just barely on the outside looking in if the playoffs started today --- the same place where they finished last season, as a matter of fact.  He should be able to do some damage in the final 5 games of the season, with AP and the combination of Kaepernick and Vernon Davis --- which would be a lot more potent if the 49ers hadn't suddenly remembered that they're a run-first team.  I also notice that ALMOST half of Levi's team are free agent acquisitions --- like father, like son, I guess.

Now we finally get to discuss the top four teams at the moment, starting with Taylor and his overachieving Air Apparent, who put up 109 points this past week.  That's probably a high for the season; I don't know, I'm too lazy to check.  Whatever the case may be, I'm getting really tired of finishing SECOND in points each week.  This is the FIFTH week this year that I've been second in overall points, thus missing out on the $15 weekly prize.  You guys are killing me!  Anyway, despite his strong showing this past week, Taylor is actually uncharacteristically LOW in scoring this year at only fifth overall.  Which, I guess, means that we should all be very afraid of him.

As for the third-place Ninjas, what can I say that hasn't already been said?  That's right; third in terms of record, third in overall points scored, no holes in the roster.  You've been warned.

The Screaming Eagles are currently second both by record and by total points scored, and would probably be rubbing elbows with Merrill and Kubicek right about now if it weren't for the mighty Peyton Manning.  Actually, the guy's got Alf Morris too, who might eventually get one or two goal line carries when Shanahan gets tired of giving them to guys he pulls off the street, plus a murderer's row of receivers in Marshall, VJax and Eric Decker.  So, um, please don't hurt me, Jason (yeah, but I've got Gronk AND Jordan Cameron for my tight ends, so nanny-nanny boo-boo!).

And last --- and probably least --- is Adam, sitting proudly atop the league with the only 7-2 record AND the most points scored on the season, despite his recent loss to the Leviathans.  It's actually kind of hard to figure out how Adam has done this well with players like Tony Romo (sure, he had one HUGE game, but has been very average otherwise), Ray Rice and Antonio Brown, but somehow he's made it work.

I would be very nervous if I were you, Adam.  You've been in this league long enough to know that success almost never lasts.  You may be lucky to finish the season 8-6.

And with that, let's begin the charge to the playoffs!  Los Diablos' season is over, of course, but everyone else still has a chance.  And lest we all forget, it most certainly IS possible to stage a run into the playoffs almost no matter how bad off you are.  Let's not forget the lesson of last year's little engine that could (sorry, Jody), when the Ninjas staged a mad, 9-win run to go from worst to first in the final game of the regular season!

(Before losing both playoff games and ending up with a crappy draft pick AND no money.  Like I said, success almost never lasts in this league.)

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