Brentful Brents 87 P-Miss Envy 60 “Just two good old boys, never meanin' no harm... Beats all you never saw, been in trouble with the law since the day they was born.” Those words have been used to describe two rebellious youths in the past, but now they must be applied to the QB tandem in the count of Brentful. Cousins/brothers Kerry “Luke Puke” Collins (8/119) and Brent “Bo Puke” Farf love to drive on the dirt roads in the General Pee, commiserate with Owner Steve “Uncle Jesse” Johnson, and chat up Bea Arthur in her short Daisy Dukes. They also enjoy “makin' their way, the only way they know how... That's just a little bit more than the law will allow.” The law, in this case, was rival Owner Perry “Boss Hogg” Missner, who could not stand the thought of these two idiots selling moonshine of the illegal variety to minors and so forth and so on. Missner sent his deputy QB Tom “Roscoe P. Coltrane” Brady (8/115) to investigate the goings on of the inbred hillbilly moron and his cousin, but just as the Pukey cousins got a whiff of the law coming, they shot down the backroads in the General Pee, calling out, “Yee-haw!” as they left Brady in the dust. It didn’t help the Missner cause that Michael “Enos Strate” Bennett (1/-2) was on their side because he obviously could not keep his eye on the ball. Meanwhile, a mess of the Puke cousins chipped in to the moonshine drive once the General Pee had crossed the county line, rendering Missner, Brady, and the rest of their incompetent band harmless. Marvin “Happy Duke” Harrison (7/58) and Greg “Cooter” Jones (1/13) both scored TD’s and had 13 points apiece. Larry “Bubbie” Johnson (4/39), the former Envy draft pick, scored 12 points but was kept out of the Hazzard County jail by the Envy defense. Cedric “Deputy Cletus” Benson (2/3), the man Bubbie was traded for, made his second start but those nogoodniks tackled him awkwardly, nearly ripping his lower leg out of its socket. Fortunately, Benson is a man of great intestinal fortitude and will only fell for a few weeks by an injury that would kill the career of the average player. As the Puke cousins were settling down, they started to play poker, which – of course – was televised, causing Missner to lament, “It's silly that they show every person's card on every hand. With that knowledge, the announcers can seem very smug, but if they don't know what the others are holding, it would be a lot more interesting. In addition, to think that these guys have a great amount of skill in a game that is approximately as much luck as fantasy football is ridiculous.” These comments made the Puke cousins look at each other and shout, “Yee-haw!” before jumping through the windows of the General Pee and making a 250 foot jump over the Mississippi river, sticking the landing, and fading to black. In the background was heard, “Just two good ol' boys, wouldn't change if they could, Fightin' the system like two modern-day Robin Hoods...”
The Ballbusters 94 San Francisco Cubists 83 [The following recap was written by ESPN’s Michael Irvin – who went to the “U”- and enjoys speaking over people in a demonstrative manner. While Irvin has been belittled on these very pages before, he has magnanimously agreed to provide a slightly different point of view.] Are you kidding me? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!? There is simply no way that the Cubists and Owner Jason Moore are better off without WR Terrell Owens, who happens to be greatest receiver in football since I lay prone on the Veterans Stadium carpet. When T.O. is on the field, the Cubists are a championship threat. A championship threat! Without T.O., they are a joke. An average joke! Now, I know that T.O., like me, is not a boy scout. He has said and done some regrettable things – like punching Moore in the nut sack, parking in Moore’s designated spot, and urinating on the practice field in his own signature. But who hasn’t done that before? I know I have. People are forgetting T.O.’s positive qualities. Let me go down the list, while counting these contributions off on my fingers: 1. No celebrates a TD like T.O. NO ONE! His dances give Joe Buck something to think about when he is not being driven crazy by Tim McCarver. 2. T.O. is a fighter who will always want what’s best for T.O. Let’s face it, his current contract is demeaning and the Cubists’ organization should be embarrassed to pay him such a small sum. 3. The last time my crack cocaine ran out, I called T.O. and he sold me some of his personal stash – HIS PERSONAL STASH! – for only three times his market value. That alone puts him on a list of the greatest human beings ever along with Jesus, Gandhi, and Tony Montana. I know that Moore still has some players left on his team like the Alvin Harper-like Larry Fitzgerald (9/83), who earned a gameball for his efforts, I’m told. However, if Moore is serious about bringing a championship to San Francisco, he needs to stop complaining about poker coverage (“Not enough chicks”? He should play poker at my house – it’s like a Kanye West video) and bring in a QB like Peyton Manning (9/149). Now, Owner Rich Joseph knows how to let players be players. For example, my good friend Keyshawn Johnson (3/4) has not played well, but he’s still out there demanding the damn ball. Even though Santana Moss (7/57), who went to the “U”, got JAKKED UP! He knew that even if told Joseph to shut up, he’d still be out there playing. This whole situation is just plain stupid. It’s partly the media’s fault, but not mine. These punishments don’t fit the crime. Let’s see if I were T.O.’s coach, I’d give a small suspension – maybe $1000 – and I am sure he would learn his lesson. Players have to play and superstars have to play by their own rules. [Irvin’s writing from here on became filled with expletives and increasingly nonsensical, so we decided to do a little trimming and save the home reader the headache of trying to interpret.]
Bull City Bares 116 County Coroners 78 Say what you want about the Modano Mi Hermano award voting process, but we ain’t college football. Even before the season, the Heisman list can be narrowed to three or four candidates. The Modano Mi Hermano also does not present awards halfway through the season, but if they did the candidate of Owner Randy Chambers’ heart’s desire – RB Shaun Alexander (9/173) – would definitely be on the top 10 list. Or make that top 20 because Neil Rackers (5/59) for the Wookies has been pretty good. In any case, we’ll let you hear Chambers’ “La-la-la-Fontaine update: Alexander, 173 points. Tomlinson, 170. The points and the standings speak for themselves.” Sure, but we have half a season to go! Alexander and Chambers started the second half of the season by avenging the team’s Week 1 loss against the Coroners in which the Bares combined for 50 and Alexander had just 4. Fortunately, the Bares were no longer weighed down by Daunte Culpepper who was sent to Notre Dame, which happens to be Chambers’ as well as Owners Josh Kowalske and Jason Moore’s least favorite athletic school, even though they have a top notch knee rehabilitation center. The new QB is Jake Delhomme (3/33) who is apparently more intent on becoming the new Vanilla Ice – or possibly Tone Loc – than he is on becoming a champion QB. Delhomme scored just 3 points on a TD, but did set up Randy Moss (9/60) and Hines Ward (9/69) for TD’s. Delhomme brought the flava when he was handing off. Alexander ran over Coroner defenders for 29 on three TD’s and the O-flex went triflexa with Stephen Davis (7/71) and Warrick Dunn (6/56) adding TD’s to Ward’s. Not to be outdone, the league’s leading D-flex also scored 29 points, which included 10 from Terrence McGee (9/87), who is tied for the defensive lead with Jonathan Vilma (9/87). TE Chris Cooley (4/17) made a 5 point return to the Bare lineup, but Chambers cried, “Quite frankly, I am sick over the Redskins defense. No pass rush. Weak secondary.” The Bares had to overcome some super performances by a couple of quiet Coroners. Former Bare Tiki Barber (8/107) scampered into the endzone twice and scored 23 points and LB DeMorrio Williams (5/58) scored his second all-pro game with a tidy sum of 20. RB Ruben Droughns (9/65) also brought the funk with 14 points. Unfortunately, windy conditions marred the debut of Kyle Orton (1/-1) and rendered Mushin Muhammed (8/32) completely ineffective. For the second consecutive week, Carnell Williams (8/36) subtracted from his impressive early season total. That Cadillac needs an oil change. Chambers noted on his team’s fifth blowout win, “It was payback time. Great team effort led by Mr. MVP himself.” He then set a mandate to get rid of poker on TV because “it's covered at all. What a total, absolute waste of time.”
Syracuse 44’s 107 Peaks Island Wookies 47 Recently, Owner John Stoer attended a Lenny Kravitz concert and got to talking to the horn player at the break. Between the two, an offer was made, but Modano team owner’s had not heard yet what the offer entailed. The rumor mill started buzzing and conjectures started to get out of hand. There were nasty suggestions like Owner Perry Missner’s “Egregiously bad fantasy draft advice! Ed Reed in the fifth round? I knew he wouldn't be that great this year.” (That’s about all Missner knew – Michael Clayton in the first? Ugh.) And Owner Randy Chambers’ suggestion of “$20 to get a job.” Then, there were the digusting, including the suggestions of Owner Rich Joseph “a pink cigar” and Owner Jason Moore “Half a roast beef sandwich he had dropped on the floor.” Owner Josh Kowalske and Owner Steve Johnson were the closest to the truth, “a bag of oregano” and “first, his phone number... then probably some dubage.” However, truth be told, “I imagine many people will guess marijuana, but no, backstage he offered me an ice cold Heineken as he opened one for himself. I accepted, just FYI.” Heineken – cool, crisp, and legal! After sharing such an intimate encounter with a friend of a star, Stoer knew he was ready for his team to have a second half breakout. Once again, the 44’s were stacked with Redskins at the top of the lineup. RB Clinton Portis (9/89) broke through for his second all-pro performance with 17 and Mark Brunell (3/38) had another 13. The only bad thing about Portis is that he went to Miami University, which Stoer hates because “Everytime [Modano recap artist] Michael Irvin speaks with pride about his alma mater, which is pretty much all he speaks about, I just shudder with revulsion.” Those two Skins combined with a third Skin, Lavar Arrington (5/13) and the inspired performance of the cat-like Mr. Mike Peterson (6/66) who had a season defensive record of 25 points would have been enough to beat the bye-ridden Wookies by themselves. Owner Will Mitchell had to go without MVP candidate QB Carson Palmer and TE Antonio Gates. In their stead, clearly not ready for primetime player Eli Manning (1/4) and Marcus Pollard (4/11) made their Wookie debuts. Manning has scored a lot of points from the bench, but when it mattered, he came out flat. Manning did toss a TD to Terri Glenn (6/41) and the aforementioned Neil Rackers had a nice game of 10, but the 47 Wookie points were the lowest total since they scored 30 in Week 3 of 2004 against the Coroners. Meanwhile, the points kept rolling in like the ubiquitous poker coverage on TV, which has the slight problem of “Not enough T.O. coverage.” WR Torry Holt (6/68) in what turned out to be his last game as a 44 scored 9 and he was bettered by Michael Anderson (6/45) and Brian Westbrook (9/96), who scored a first quarter MNF dagger. Stoer noted, “We were very fortunate to catch the Wookies with a bunch of starters on the bye and to get a couple of our starters back from it. Shows what can happen when you study film, pay off schedule makers, and down some scrumptious hash brownies.”
Belarussian Blatz 102 Weaselicious Cookies 48 Perhaps you’ve noticed a trend in the four games already recapped. In each case, the team that lost in Week 1 was able to get sweet revenge and win in Week 10. Such being the case, Owner Dan Weitz refused to get down on his team even as they failed to score many points and allowed Owner Josh Kowalske’s Blatz to score repeatedly. Weitz knew that if 80% of the league’s members had received a split, the Cookies would do so as well. Things looked bleak when unheard of Sam Gado Gado (which just happens to also be the name of Indonesian salad) (1/24) scored against the suddenly inept Falcon defense for three TD’s and 24 points. Indonesian salad earned the gameball from Kowalske. His first and only all pro performance – ever! Former Cookie Chris Chambers (5/40) burned his former team for his first all pro performance of the season with 16 points. Those two combined with Antonio Chatman’s (1/1) bullet to set a Blatz O-flex season high of 41 – more than doubling the previous high of 19. Jake Plummer (1/14) made his Modano season debut and handed off to Edgerrin James (9/130), who was playing his last game for the Blatz, rewarding Kowalske with his third all-pro performance of 15 points. Not all was rosy in Belarus, as Ernest Wilford (1/0) debuted with a naught and TE Booger Frankfurter (3/5) added just three. Things were even bleaker for Weitz on Sunday as his entire team went TD-less. Jeff Wilkins (9/66) and Antonio Pierce (5/59) each had 10 points, but no one else scored more than 5. Still, Weitz kept the faith because he had four players going on Monday night against just one – DB Roy Williams (2/23) – for the Blatz. The Cookie quartet included QB Donovan McNabb (10/149) who had propelled the team to several victories almost entirely on his own. However, McNabb is a hurtin’ unit and only scored 9 points. He also made a late game error the clinched the victory for Kowalske when he floated a bunny into the awaiting hands of Williams, who ran it to the promised land. The defensive TD was the Blatz’s second of the season and just the fourth overall for the league. The other three Monday nighters for the Cookies each scored a point apiece, causing the four Cookies on the extra day to score less than one Blatz. The 102 points were a franchise high for the Blatz and it was their first blowout win, even though Kowalske went with 7 new players. The Cookies fell to 1-7 in Week 10 and it was their worst blowout in over year (since the 114-59 mashing by the Coroners in Week 6 of 2004). The 48 points was the lowest Cookie total since Week 3 of 2003 when they scored 43 points against the same franchise.
Week 11 previews - Trade fever has hit Modano land. After the action in Week 10, two blockbuster deals were agreed to and a lesser deal sent a Boobie to Belarus. Both frontrunners made a deal to shore themselves up for the stretch run. In the first big deal, the Bares sent WR Randy Moss and WR Derrick Mason to the 44’s for WR Torry Holt and RB Jerome Bettis. Moss had been with the Bares since being drafted in the second round of the 2000 draft. Oddly, the only other two 5 years keepers are likely out for the season – Daunte Culpepper and Terrell Owens. In a press release, Chambers wrote, “Bares break up the holy trinity... Moss was the man for so long, but we could not resist the temptation to bring back two Bull City stalwarts, esp. knowing that this may be the last run for the Bus. Welcome back, fellas. Ever since Daunte's knee was shredded like the Redskins defense playing against anyone named Simms, we've been looking to shake it all up. We wish the 44s best of luck with Moss. We trust they'll keep his supply of fresh ganja going. The drive to another title starts in Eureka!” The Bares have had a lot of success against the Cookies (a 13-2 series edge, including the Week 2 94-85 win) and Holt has not been known to cause as many problems as the mercurial Moss. The only other change to the Bare lineup is the exchange of Donnie Edwards for Ronde Barber. Owner Dan Weitz hopes his team can escape the league basement and he has replaced broken QB Donovan McNabb with ageless Drew Bledsoe. Roy Williams and Donte Stallworth both return to the Wookie O-flex and Brian Dawkins makes his Cookie D-flex debut. The other side of the deal, the 44’s, face their old nemesis in the Pizza Bowl, the P-Miss Envy. Owner John Stoer commented, “Randy Moss is bringing his "magic mushroom" pizza recipe to Syracuse, and we will welcome him with open arms for the final Pizza Bowl matchup this season. Our other newcomer, Nick Barnett, will continue to make Monday Night fantasy relevant for me.” The 44’s won in Week 2 – 93-81 to even the series history at 7 apiece – behind a triflexa performance. Missner commented, “Now perhaps we'll be able to reap some sweet revenge of our own against the 44's. Last time Polamalu had an all-pro day against us, but now he is on our side and has told us all of the 44's secrets. Other than Polamalu, we may have a trick player or two up our sleeve...” The Envy have a couple of new players in their O-flex in RB Frank Gore and WR T.J. Houshmandzadeh. Pretty tricky! The deal that sent Fred “Boobie” Taylor and his broken knee out of town brought back former Envy keeper Michael Vick. Vick’s acquisition makes little sense with Tom Brady helming the team, but anything that got rid of Taylor was good enough for Missner. Vick once again endeared himself to Missner by correctly calling the Packer QB Brent. Oh, that other deal? Well, it was a ground shaking, massive one in which the Brents sent RB Larry “Bubbie” Johnson, WR Marvin Harrison, and TE Heath Miller to the Blatz for RB Edgerrin James. Owner Steve Johnson thought the price was steep, but a trio of James, RB LaDainian Tomlinson, and RB Steven Jackson was too good to pass up. Whether James is better than Bubbie down the stretch is questionable. The new look Brents will have their hands full with the Owner Rich Joseph and his Ballbusters, who have been playing better ball of late. The Brents won convincingly 97-66 in Week 2 to take a 3-2 edge. Joseph commented, “The Brents need a losing streak.” Thomas Jones is back in the Buster O-flex and DL Jared Allen is licking his chops at the thought of sacking David Carr repeatedly. RB Chris Brown and WR Plaxico Burress make their returns to the Brent lineup, but maybe Johnson is not as serious as we all thought about winning the championship as QB Brent Farf makes also his return. It’s funny how 5-5 is a matter of perception. For the Cubists, it is an off season. For the Blatz, Owner Josh Kowalske has to be pleasantly pleased, since his team is the lowest scoring in the league. The Cubists handled the Blatz easily in Week 2, 88-55, behind 21 points from the now dismissed Terrell Owens. Owner Jason Moore has not made any changes to his lineup and commented, “More of the same.” Kowalske has not made any changes either and Moore can not be happy to see Jake Plummer over there, since Plummer once scored 35 points from the waiver wire after being cut on Sunday morning.
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