TOP STORY: DEAN & SIMMONS "BANISHED FROM THE REALM," LOSERS PICK UP WETNIGHT AND WIN.

Other Story: Bus, Bailey Help 44's Knock Roomie Monsoon Out of First

The Losers 59 St. Paul Panting Parishioners 52 There were times earlier this season that Owner Dan Weitz regretted giving his team such a horrible name. They started out with five straight losses and Weitz knew he had to make some major moves to shake up the organization. Consultants Dean and Simmons were brought in for their joke value before the season, but things were not going to work out with them on board. On Saturday Weitz donned his wizard's robe, left his castle and proclaimed "Dean & Simmons banished from the realm! From whenceforth, my unholy band shall be re-christened The Losers." When asked if he thought that such a name would reflect negatively on his team, Weitz said, "No, no, no, my man, it's like street lingo like I learned during Saturday morning cartoons. You know, something that is 'bad' is really good. And things that are 'stoopid' are actually cool. The kids will really dig our new name." No one is sure about that, but no one can argue with The Losers one win and no loss record. Apparently, Jeff Garcia, Ed McCafferty and Mike Hollis didn't mind being called losers as they all scored in double figures. McCafferty received the game ball from the Owner not only for his 19 excellent points but also for his great play against a disgusting yellow and green opponent. And there is hope for the near future for The Losers as well as they have both upstarts Olandis Gary and Jeff George on board. Not to be overlooked in this time of great transition is the great pick up of TE Ryan Wetnight who scored one inspirational point in his debut. Parishioners' Owner Steve Johnson could only shake his head at the familiar predicament that his oft rival Weitz had put him in. "He promised that he wouldn't play McCafferty in exchange for my support into the Helgoland Bight," Johnson mumbled, "It's all part of the game, I know, and maybe some day I will learn." The Parishioners did have more touchdowns as their opponent but were hurt by turnovers. Neil O'Donnell did score twice but only totaled 8 points. New Panters Natrone Means and Andrew Glover combined for 10 points (or 10 more points than the broken-boned players they were traded for). Girl Glenn returned to his effeminate form by giving a goose egg. Finally, in his post game comments, Weitz pointed to the top of the mountain and intoned, "You're Next!"

Syracuse 44's 81 Minneapolis monsoon 56 This rekindled battle of Apartment 2B was expected to be a close match up between two of the league's top three teams, but the 44's used an innovative defensive scheme and a seemingly restored motorized vehicle to coast to a relatively easy win. Things did not look good for the 44's early as their usual stalwarts, Doug Flutie and Marvin Harrison each had subpar games. Harrison was kept out of the endzone for the first time this season. Nevertheless, the threat of Harrison opened up single coverage on Tony Martin (13 points) and running lanes for Jerome Bettis who blistered the weak monsoon defense for 19 points. To Bettis' surprise, he did not lead the team on his best week in several years. That honor went to young Champ Bailey who scored a defensive back season high of 20 points. Bailey, who led the league's number one defense, had the unenviable task of covering some of the league's most powerful receiving corps as he had to cover Antonio Freeman, Deadric Ward and Jake Reed and kept them to a combined 5 points. The defensive scheme helped take an additional 4 points away from the monsoon. Opposite corner Phillipi Sparks drew Randy Moss and allowed him to get a touchdown and 14 points. Moss, who complained that Sparks was interfering with on every play, was also surprised not to lead his team in scoring. That honor went to kicker Olindo Mare who outscored all of the other Syracuse Orangemen alumnae combined by booting an amazing 21 points. This is a fantasy kicker record and helped Mare crack the overall fantasy point leader top ten. "It's pretty sad when your kicker scores 40% of your points," said Owner Josh Wilk, "but he gets my Orange game ball anyway." Wesley Walls continued his fantastic production from the tight end position with another 10 points. Donovin Darius seems to be suffering through a sophomore slump as he only scored 5 points and has yet to break into double digits this season. The monsoon did have a chance to win on Monday night as they were only trailing by 17 points with Aikman and Gary Brown left to play. Sadly, Aikman and Brown could only give their team bullets and the monsoon fell into a second place tie with the 44's and two other teams.

Bull City Bears 54 San Francisco Cubists 48 You knew it was coming. All of the previews for this game had the two teams compared and inevitable the words "heading in opposite directions" were said. Yes, coming in the Bears had lost their last two matches and the Cubists had won their last three. The situation seemed close to desperate for the Bears as the gap between Owner Randy Chambers and perpetually disappointing #1 draft pick QB Brent Farf widened. Farf refused to call any of the plays called by Chambers and the Cubist defensive players kept confusing him by yelling, "Hey Farf, one, two, what's next?" Farf managed to give six points to the Cubists and Cubist defensive back ran one of the interceptions back for a touchdown. Law had himself a fine 19 points to lead the Cubists. Only Brad Johnson added a touchdown to Law's brilliant game as the Cubists reverted to their week two form. The injury situation seemed to confound Owner Jason Moore. "Carter's out, Carter's in, Scott's in, Scott's out," he rapped. Moore, clearly showing his exasperation, put horrible wide receiver Bill Scroter in the starting role. Scrote gave his owner 2 points. In the second half on Sunday, the Bears started snapping the ball directly to Eddie George. He scored 10 points. Stephen Alexander also scored a touchdown and Jerry Rice finally found a pair of Depends undergarments that he thought were comfortable and scored 9 points. Like in many of this week's other games, the Cubists had a chance to come back and win on Monday night. They were down 11 points with non-Riemersma TE David Lefleur and K Richie Cunningham left. To no one's astonishment, the flower scored a single point and the league's worst kicking game only contributed 4 points. The Cubist kickers have yet to score more than 5 points in a game. To remedy this situation, Moore was said to bring in a cadre of kickers that included Jan Stenerud, Mark Mosely and Bruce LeRoy. Now he can kick!

Key West Jerrytown Smokers 100 Allentown Chippies 64 Last year's expansion teams have grown and blossomed into two teams that have had their share of ups and downs this season. The teams' performances are a reflection of the once close relationship between owners Don Cherry and Aaron Jacoby. Late last season, the rift between them began to grow as Cherry introduced Stacks and Jacoby stated that all face cards kill the deck. 1999 brought more bad blood including an incident with a young German woman that neither of them will now comment upon. The Chippies had been installed as early favorites to win the contest since they had scored 121 points just one week ago. The Chippies did receive a number of solid performances but nothing eye popping like last week. The Manning and Little Man, Duce and Bruce shows all captured moderate audiences as all four players scored either seven, eight or nine points. The team was led Mushin Muhammed with 12 points. Fancy Yancey Thigpen didn't play and new recruit Marcus Pollard only scored one point. Chris Jacke let his team down for the final time as he only scored 4 points and was cut as soon as the game was over. Jacoby made a number of moves after the game. Jacke's cut was hailed as a smart move but the cutting of Shane Matthews drew boos from the fans. When it was revealed that Jacoby once again overlooked fan favorite QB Kerry Collins and signed up Brian Griese, the fans went berserk. One talk show caller said, "get that m***e* f***in* Collins in there or else we fans are going to boycott." In an online poll, 97% of Chippy fans said that they would not buy tickets to the next home game unless Jacoby signed Collins. Things were much more peaceful for the Smokers who topped the century mark for the first time in franchise history. Powered by an excellent running attack, the Smokers opened up an early lead. Marshall Faulk had a distinguished all purpose game and scored 20 points. Emmitt Smith also had 9 points. The Chippies found themselves ambushed by a surprise QB insertion of Steve Beuerlein instead of an ailing Dan Marino. Beuerlein led his team with 24 points while Dan Marino tripped over his oversized Depends and scored -2. A very proud Cherry said, "That is the type of move that I would never have even considered last season. Beuerlein better than Marino, shah right. But this season, you see a new and improved Smoker product. We are going all the way!"

Pear McNairs 62 County Coroners 50 It is the mark of a champion when a team has a decidedly off game and can still win. While it is a bit early to hand the championship to the Pear McNairs, they somehow managed to pull out a win despite only scoring one touchdown against the leaderless Coroners. With Ray Lewis on the bye, the Coroners seemed to be without direction. The normally powerful County defensive attack was limited to a season low 13 points. LB Sean Harris clearly did not want to play against the McNairs and his only tackle came when he laid down in front of Ricky Watters and accidentally tripped him. Another indication of the Coroners state of sadness was K Steve Christie's 2 points. The lone bright spot for the team was RB Tyrone Wheatley's 19 huge points which struck fear into the opponents. Fortunately, the McNairs could rely on Randall Cunningham who scored -3 and benched himself for "making a mess of his Depends." Owner Chad Nuss put the blame on runner Dorsey Levens who did score a touchdown but was limited to 12 yards on 10 carries. That is poor. With only backup QB Kurt Warner scoring a touchdown (and 8 points), the McNairs had to rely on other routes to win. Taking a page from the Coroners playbook, they used kicking and defense to pull the win out. The defense was led by Barry Minter's 11 points and scored 22 points in all. Jeff Wilkens tied for the team lead with 11 points and doubled the McNairs field goal output in one game. He also made his now standard 5 PAT's. "We out-coronered the Coroners," said an excited Perry Missner who saw his team ascend to first place all by his lonesome. In a related note, franchise QB Steve "Pear" McNair is now about two weeks from returning. He has gained incredible strength from his new implants but the bionic sounds from his amazingly quick movements. The sounds are hard to produce in a written form, but they sound something like NA-NA-Na-Na-na-na and WHA-WHA-Wha-Wha-wha-wha. Everyone is looking forward to his amazing comeback.

Cville Wookies 78 Cambria Otters 32 Two weeks ago, everyone looked at the Cambria Otters' roster and found one player that seemed to fit a bit better than all of the rest: Rick Mirer. But the thought around the league was that Owner Robert Oauoa wouldn't play Mirer. With Stony Case and Trent Dilfer out on the bye and Chris Chandler seemingly injured, Oauoa had no choice but to start the feeble-minded, weak-armed, scaredy-cat QB. Unfortunately Bill Parcells did not want to watch that sorry excuse for an NFL player play, so he benched him for a guy who wasn't even good at Rutgers. Oauoa, looking at the bright side, said, "At least Mirer didn't take any points away from us." There weren't that many points to take away. The offense was led (yes, I said led) by J.J. Stokes' 3 points. Stinky Al Del Greco and two defensive players led the team with 6 points and the 32 points were the lowest total of the season, surpassing the Otters' 37 points from week 4. The bye week came at just the right time for the ailing Wookies who had lost their last two games. The team was led by their defense which scored a season high 30 points. They only received two touchdowns, but in a week when scoring in general was down, that was enough. Drew Bledsoe, Curtis Martin, Eric Moulds (who was injured in the game) and Edgerrin James all had nice games. The only player left out of the Wookies' scoring column was owner favorite TE Ben Coates. Owner Will Mitchell said, "The days are getting shorter and the cool weather is coming. We need Coates." Groan. The tight end has only scored 3 points in the last four games and that is cause for concern.

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