TOP STORY: THE MAGIC IS BACK, MONSOON TIPTOE OVER SMOKERS

Other Stories: Missile Explodes for 33, 44's still lose.

Minneapolis Monsoon 85 Key West Jerrytown Smokers 83 Fantasy Football is a game of destiny. The best team does not always win but the team with fortune on their side can pull through any travail. What the Monsoon lack in talent, they seem to make up in that certain intangible quality that no one of us can define. We can just say, they have 'it.' Faced with a team that had a QB-RB combo reach untold heights, it looked like the Monsoon would be knocked off their perch. The Smokers came into this game with something to prove. Owner Don Cherry said, "We want to be recognized as a top echelon team, but to do that we have to beat a top echelon team." In week three, they had suffered a 80-65 loss to the Monsoon. Steve Beuerlein and Marshall Faulk seemed ready to accomplish this goal. Beuerlein continued his attack on the top QB slot and a possible MVP with four more TD's and 27 points. His favorite target on this day was Marshall Faulk who scored another couple of touches and 23 points. 50 points between two players is quite a mountain to climb, especially if the other players reach at least their averages. They didn't. TE Ricky Dudley did score a TD, the role which opposing TE Wesley Walls usually takes (Walls did have 6 points, but on yards). Rocket Ismail was only able to score 3 points (1/11 of what his brother accomplished but more about that later). Terrell Owens who had been playing better, only managed one point and the defense came up with a less than perfect 10. With the Thursday start, Owner Josh Wilk was not able to take injured RB JJ Johnson out of the lineup, so he was down a player. The team had to come up with a special effort and each player did his part. Petulant Randy Moss finally stopped hoping for interference calls and scored two TD's, one on a punt return. Fellow WR Antonio Freeman caught a TD from the glorious, tiny fingers of Doug Flutie in his first Monsoon start. The rise of the Monsoon of late can be mostly attributed to the defense. Its 31 points were a high for the Monsoon and tied the second highest score for a defense this season. Derrick Brooks scored 14 and Jevon Kearse rushed the passer for another 11. The Monsoon defense is now the top rated defense in the league. Each Monsoon player scored at least 5 points, even Joe Montgomery and the team achieved its highest score of the season. Wilk summed things up by saying, "This is my year, baybee."

The Losers 75 Syracuse 44's 71 All teams must have a leader. In recent weeks, it is clear who Owner John Stoer has anointed as the leader of the 44's - former Orange four year starter at QB Donovan McNabb. With his owner's confidence in full tow, McNabb has prospered with very nice performances the past two weeks. He has combined for 34 points in those weeks. Early on in this match up with the Losers, DL Cortez Kennedy came rushing through a huge whole in the interior of the offensive line (Where were you Banaczek?) and hit McNabb with an illegal blow on the knee. McNabb scowled in pain and a weeping Stoer came running on the field to see how his star QB was. McNabb looked Stoer in the eye and said, "Leave me in, coach." What could Stoer do? He left McNabb in and the results were not pretty. The ailing knee kept McNabb from playing at anywhere close to 100%. He fumbled twice and threw an interception. His usual elusiveness declined to Dieter Brock levels. In the end, he scored -5 points and had to be carted off. It was clear that all of the other 44's were affected by their leader's injury. The lone star of the team was WR Qadry Ismail. In the span of one quarter, he brought the 44's a slight lead over the Losers by scoring three touchdowns, each longer than 50 yards. He totaled 33 points, which tied Isaac Bruce's Week 5 record. Kevin Johnson and Champ Bailey also managed to have decent games and Marvin Harrison kept up his ranking although he didn't score a TD for the third week in a row. Harrison had 7 points. Less satisfying were the results of Roland Williams and Rob Moore. Each had a bullet. Meanwhile, the Losers are a story in development. For eight straight weeks, they have scored 70 points or more. No other team can match this consistency. They have only managed to win three of those games, but the effort is showing. The first-last name boys each scored in double figures. George had 11, Scott 11 and Gary put in another 10 on Monday night. The ever improving Loser defense scored 22 points. Even Amani "I am not a" Toomer scored another touchdown while in the line up. Owner Dan Weitz commented, "We may be out of it for this season but we are building a momentum and the people of Loserville are taking notice." 27 people showed up which bettered the former record by 3.

Bull City Bears 116 County Coroners 72 Every twelfth week, something happens to the Bull City Bears. Maybe it is the phase of the moon or the fact that team's hormone cycle is all in sync. Whatever the reason, every twelfth week the Bears go absolutely nuts. In week three, the Bears exploded for 103 points and crushed the Coroners. The momentum of this twelfth week thing is growing as the bullish Bears scored the second highest total of the season. The Coroners took the beating with relish. Owner Chad Nuss said, "We like pain." And they got it. The Bears played the kind of smash mouth football that would make any Midwesterner proud. None of this sissy West Coast passing offense crap. The charge was led on Thursday when Eddie George scored two TD's and 28 points. His buddy Stephen Davis scored another touchdown on Sunday and had enough yards to attain 20 points. Even little Terry Kirby scored a TD. The three rushers set a new record for trio running combo with 56 points (only an average week for the famed three headed monster of 1998). The Bears now have the top ranked offense in the league and the Bears set a new Offensive Flex record with 45 points. WR Michael Westbrook scored a TD to add fuel to the fire. The only disappointment on the team was QB Brent Farf. Although he managed to score 17 points, he repeatedly made the throat slash gesture which will cost him this year's salary. Owner Randy Chambers said, "Farf is a public embarrassment but I selected him with the first pick so I must play him." In an anonymous poll, the Bears players said that they preferred back up QB Jake Plummer as a leader thirteen to one. Plummer scored -3 this week. Another sign that bodes ill for the Bears was the cutting of DB Walt Harris. Perhaps Chambers thinks Donny Abraham will continue his top ranked play. To no one's surprise, Abraham scored only 4 points. Actually, it was surprising that he scored that many. The Coroners continue there way to another high round draft pick. They played well, but not well enough to win. TE Tony Gonzalez had a huge game with two TD's and 16 points. WR Rod Smith also had a nice Monday night game with 12 points, but it wasn't enough to make up te 60 point deficit. Benched Byron Chamberlain scored 11 points, which proved that the Coroners have the best 1-2 TE punch in the league. Wowee! Rich Gannon finally ended his string of all-pro performances. He did have 7 points, but the people of the County expect better than that.

San Francisco Cubists 100 Allentown Chippies 72 It was a very hectic week for the Allentown Chippies. Once QB Kerry Collins had been signed up, it seemed that there was an endless line of parties to go to. There was the signing party (which was hosted by the creator of the hit gameshow, "Money Shot" Aaron Jacoby), the "Hey, it's Thursday party," the TGIF party, the Frat party for Kappa Kappa Kappa and finally the pre-game party. With all of the partying being done, the Chippies forgot one thing: to prepare for the game. Perhaps they did not take the Cubists seriously, but that would mean that they had forgotten the Week three 70-65 loss that the Cubists had handed them. Had they forgotten? It appeared so since the effort of the Show of Shows was simply not there. Once again the top rated hit was the Manning & Little Man show. Not only did the pair combine for some truly excellent comic hijinks but they managed to score 4 touchdowns and 28 points between them. Even sidekick Marcus Pollard made a cameo and scored 8 points. The rest of the team looked like a show that could be on UPN. Duce & Bruce could have called themselves Shasta McNasty as they only scored 11 points. Trial player Az-disease Hakim scored one point. By the way, Kerry Collins did have 6 points which furthered his claim for the starting position. The defense only managed 13 points. Not good enough. The Cubists had a break out game. They became the seventh team to top the century mark as they set a mark for the high of the year. The running attack came up big time with the week's second highest three running back combo total. They came within two points of equaling the Bears' 56 point assault. Cory "Man on a Mission" Dillon wished his condition well with his second straight huge week. He scored 29 points and in the last two weeks he has scored 52. Amazing. This week he is on the bye. Charlie Garner also player well with 17 big ones. The 54 points were added to because poor DB Victor Green could not stop the run at all. QB Brad Johnson has a decent game with 9 points. The receiving corps was a bit below average as Germane Crowell has 3 points. Meanwhile, that jerk Cris Carter scored a point then got hurt. I am sure he didn't deserve that. Owner Jason Moore summed his season so far like this, "Since we are not mathematically eliminated [they are three games out of the lead with three to play], I am not content to play the spoiler. I DO NOT DEIGN TO PLAY THE SPOILER!"

Pear McNairs 85 Cambria Otters 22 Early in the December week, Owner Perry Missner was seen pacing. He seemed to be worried about something. It couldn't be the wretched Otters, could it? "They just scored 77 points," he reasoned, "and my team has been up and down each week." As it turned out, he had nothing to worry about as WR Keyshawn Johnson almost beat the Otters single-handedly. The Otters set a new low for a team with only 22 points. Not one Otter scored a TD. On Thursday night, things did not look so bad as RB Nappy Kaufman scored 7 points. In fact, the Otters held a 12-6 lead because Steve "Used to be Pear" McNair only scored 6 points. On Sunday it was a different story. QB Chris Chandler and RB Terry Allen both scored in negatives. That was slightly bettered by the zeros that were thrown in by David Sloan, Justin Armour and Jermaine "Not Tito" Lewis. The defense scored over half of the team's points with 13. Owner Don Oauoa, who is used to looking at atrocities, could only cover his eyes and say, "Oof." Two slightly good points could come from the Otter weekend. Young QB Shaun King had 14 points and Hines Ward, who was taken out for crotchety Jerry Rice, scored 8. The McNair train could be rolling once again. The team is once again the leader in overall scoring and TD's after they racked up another 6 TD's. Johnson and RB Mike Alstott had multi-TD games as they scored 21 and 15 respectively. RB Priest Holmes made his owner look like a genius with a 16 point in his first game in the line up. Jeff Wilkens proved that he belongs in the top ten of kickers with a high game of 13 points. There were some disappointments for the McNairs. McNair being among them. He has been officially benched for #1 QB Kurt Warner for the rest of the season. WR Kevin Dyson has been an even bigger disappointment. He was giving his walking papers after the game as the Patrick Jeffers experiment will be tried in Perryopolis. Everybody's favorite guy, Jay Riemersma has also not been producing, but his replacement (if there is one) has yet to be named. The most curious thing that Missner has done is that he has left one of his offensive flex slots open for his Week 15 match up with the Syracuse 44's. When asked what he was up to, Missner tapped the thickest part of his skull and cackled, "I know what I am doing, dammit! I am guaranteeing myself a victory." Speculations on what exactly he means has run rampant but it will all be answered soon enough.

Cville Wookies 50 St. Paul Panting Parishioners 46 Coming into the game, the Wookies had won three games in a row and were on top of the league. The Parishioners had lost three straight games and some St. Paul residents had actually thought about moving to Cambria. No one would have guessed that this game would have been so tight. Owner Will Mitchell took the Panters so lightly that he didn't even bother to check his line up the entire week. "Who am I playing?" he asked absent mindedly, but when the press tried to respond, he quickly said, "It doesn't matter who I play! I will crush all!" He decided to leave injured RB Eric Rhett in for competitive balance but this move almost back fired. QB Drew Bledsoe broke out of a slump with 12 points and rookie of the year favorite Edgerrin James had another 12. They would be the only two Wookies to score touchdowns. TE Luther Broughton continued the league's worst TE slot with yet another zero. That makes six weeks out of seven with naughts coming from the Wookie tight ends. The lone scoring week resulted in one point. The defense had a subpar week with only 11 points. An increasingly unhappy Steve Johnson watched his team pile up another paltry total. Only QB Jon Kitna scored a TD and had 9 points. His TD was to the benched WR Derrick Mayes. To further Johnson's unhappiness, back up runners Natrone Means and Donnell Bennett both scored TD's, while starter Leroy Hoard had 2 points. K John Kasay had a good game with 9 points, but he was lost for the season with a torn up knee (much like Smoker starters Emmitt Smith and Greg Ellis who won't be playing this week). The Panters have not scored above 50 points in 3 weeks and have not scored above 60 points in five weeks. Not many wins are going to come that way. Still, the Panters 46 points were enough to have a lead heading into Monday night. Johnson had to hope that WR Jimmy Smith, Keenan McCardell and LB Kevin Hardy would all catch the same flu bug. They didn't. McCardell was shut down but Smith and Hardy combined for the requisite points for the win. The Wookies 50 points were the lowest winning total of the season. They lowered the bar from the Bears Week 6 winning total of 56. A manic Johnson said, "Damn I hate this game!" He concluded his tirade with, "God Damn Thurday games screwed me again!" Sure, Steve, it was the Thursday night games.

-------------------------Let's Turn this Mutha Out Press-------------------------------------

This just in: A deadline had been set for the postseason awards. By January 4^th, 2000 (the Tuesday after Week 17), your votes must be in. The categories right now are Owner of the Year, MVP (defined by me as the player whose team would have suffered the most without him), Best Defensive Player, Rookie of the Year, Most Surprising Player and Most Disappointing Player.

A new category has just been added: The Future #1 pick. If you have the first pick next year, who would take? Something to think about...