Brentful Brents 96 Syracuse 44�s 69 It may not have been the work of art that Owner Steve Johnson is useful, but being the utilitarian kind of guy that he is, Johnson will take the results. For a time, it looked like the Brents would finally be defeated as the early returns were decidedly unBrentlike. Johnson compared watching football this past Sunday to playing �an ancient Pong game, until my brother broke one of the controllers.� Boys will be boys. Among those early failures were Steve Smith (11/108), Joseph Addai (9/89), and Ronde Barber (13/118) who combined for just ten points. Could the 44�s take advantage of this slowness out of the gate? In a word, no. TE Kellen Winslow Jr. (5/11) poor play on Thursday caused Owner John Stoer to shout, �I hate all tight ends!� which caused Jessica Alba to query, �even mine?� On Sunday, the 44�s started building up the yards, but refused to break that silly plane. RB Ladell Betts (3/31) led the squad with 11 points and DeMarco Ryans (5/41) continued his fine work from the D-flex with nine. Newcomer Cedric Houston (1/3) had a pedestrian game and Shaun Alexander (6/47) just never got it going, fumbling once, and scoring just two points. Brent QB Carson Palmer (10/155) finally scored the game�s first TD and score 12 points, but the Sunday Brent performance was slightly out of focus, kind of like Johnson�s eyesight, �About 20/40 to 20/50 ... but getting worse.� 44 K Nate Kaeding (12/103) had a fine 12 point game to take over the lead as the league�s top kicker, but many of his late points came on LaDainian Tomlinson (13/296) cheapy TD�s at the end of the Chargers game. Stoer gave his gameball to �LT LT LT LT LT LT LT LT LT LT LT LT LT.� That was LT. As the sun began to fade, Stoer and his new QB Tony Romo (1/8) finished off a reminiscing meal at �Lily's Pizza and heck yeah� in which Stoer related to Romo how he nearly sliced his finger of this one time and served as part of a anchovie and mushroom pizza. Romo, who Johnson called �Stoer�s ringer,� ate two pies all by himself to settle a bet with Nate Newton and appeared to be bloated at gametime. Romo�s not so fresh feeling equated just one TD and eight points, enough to tie the game heading into Monday at an unexpectedly low 66 points apiece. Adding insult to Romo�s self-inflicted Cowpoke injury, both of the 44�s backup QB�s � Young and McNair � scored 15 points apiece. Stoer tried to view the performance with just his �20/30 right eye rather than his 20/200 left or something like that.� He had LB Will Witherspoon (12/102) going against Steven Jackson (13/151) and Lance Briggs (11/100). The odds were against the 44�s and unlike in the Hollywood version of this game which was based on a true story but had little to do with truth at all, the odds were right. Jackson accrued two more meaningless TD�s for 20 points and Briggs added 10 more by continually knocking Jackson on his buttocks. Witherspoon for his part, scored three points. For Stoer, the loss that included just one TD � a season low - meant a few things: �Kudos to Steve and Bretts for putting up a good score but I'm beyond disappointed that my team chose this week to play one of our worst games of the season. A painful and dispiriting loss that realistically ends our '06 season.� For Johnson, it just shows how far he has come. It wasn�t that long ago that he was working at �Rocky Rococo's for a crappy 2 months. Amazingly, I would still have a slice of their sausage mushroom.� (Yes, he�s the one.) Upon his team not scoring triple digits for the first time since the Week Five loss to the 44�s, �I got lucky this week as both the 44s and I were less then stellar.�
Bull City Baers 121 The Golden Horde 90 Owner Charlie Mitchell could offer a lot of excuses for his team�s rather unsuccessful season. First, he is just getting over the depression caused by the closure of �Kennebec Coffee - no longer operational. We served a drink called the Mitchell Dynasty in response to an attack from my political opponent in my first campaign. It was made even better by our being located directly across the street form Republican state hq. None of them ever ordered one, but I won the election.� There is the fact that Mitchell can�t see all that well: �My contact prescription is -10.75 in both eyes. I am legally blind.� How sad. But of all of the things in the universe that Mitchell can�t control, the one that has probably driven him the craziest since taking over ownership of The Golden Horde is that they constant allow a ton of points. Sure, they score well, but if you are going to allow a league high 94.86 ppg (just passing the Envy), you simply can�t count on wins. In Week Fourteen, the Horde also had the problem of facing the red hot Baers, who are doing their damnedest to make sure there is a race for the 2006 championship. Owner Randy Chambers, and early devotee of Pong!, had his squad bouncing back and forth between each endzone. They started the scoring early as WR Braylon Edwards (3/25) scored a TD on Thursday for 11 points. Edwards was followed by fellow O-flex mate Mark Clayton (4/21) into the endzone and Frank Gore (12/114) soon followed suit. Almost unbelievably, had the Baers moral clause not been used (when convenient, of course, that�s how Americans use moral clauses), the team would have gone triflexa with a TD from Donte� Stallworth. Alas, Stallworth was stuck on the bench and replaced by Jerricho Cotchery (3/9) who scored a deuce in his first (and possibly last) Baer game. The Horde kept pace for awhile. Matt Hasselbeck (9/122) split the Baer D-flex, which included the disappointing Ken Hamlin (1/3) �cut bait,� for three TD strikes and 25 points, his third all-pro performance. Shawne Merriman (9/111) showed that he liked Horde cooking by scoring another all-pro performance, his third, in for Mitchell with 22 points. Mitchell yelped, �Merriman took the gameball, and the nyquil. He's a beast.� Nyquil is probably not all that Merriman has been taking� Where the Horde dropped off was in the play of their beloved Patriots. Mitchell quipped, �Halls balls to the Pats, Reche Caldwell (2/8) and Benjamin Watson (10/38) equals crap (aka one point combined).� The narrow Baer lead became a chasm on Sunday night as WR Drew Brees (13/243) put his name on the La-la-la-laFontaine ballot with the season�s best QB performance: five TD�s passes and 42 points meant �helped me sleep sound Sunday night, so the Nyquil man is Drew Brees.� That sentence ended and began with Drew Brees � just like John Madden! In a show of gratitude, Chambers took Brees along with his family to �Elmo's Diner, where he worked from 1997-98. In fact, Chambers eat there �at least weekly!� Exclamation point his own! Lost in the Brees brilliance was that Terrell Owens (11/113) scored another TD. Congrats, TO! On Monday, Mitchell was too busy playing Zork (�go north. Pick up apple. Inventory: apple.�) to watch Torry Holt (13/121) score two essentially meaningless TD�s to take over the WR scoring lead. Mitchell definitely did not notice Leonard Little (5/32) weak, two-point performance. Unlike his sight which is �Going from mediocre to bad, and then worse,� Chambers had to be happy with his team�s high score for the season. He commented, �I have to say that LT2's garbage-time, stat-padding TDs were a sorry sight, but then again, so was the sight of Tony Roma at the helm of the 44s. My good buddy Mr. Stoer always seems to botch his title runs by angering the gods and playing some Cowgirl just when he's close to the top.�
P-Miss Envy 83 San Francisco Cubists 78 The last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation was entitled �All Good Things.� The rest of the phrase was �come to an end.� Fortunately, the same can be said about bad things. For Owner Perry Missner, the 2006 season has been a bad thing. Coming into Week Fourteen, his team had endured not one but two six game losing streaks. Add to the badness that the opponent, the San Francisco Cubists, had never lost in eight previous Week Fourteens. The one thing in the Envy�s favor was that they had always played the Cubists tough, even Owner Jason Moore�s championship days. Those were the days in which Moore spent his time wiling away on his �Coleco Telstar. Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleco_Telstar However, if you want to be strict about playing a game on a personal computer... I tried Adventure on an IBM PC but I always got stuck in the maze of twisty little passages, all alike.� The Envy had also been scoring a few more TD�s of late, so anything could happen. The week started promisingly enough as Envy TE Jeremy Shockey (13/63) scored a TD, his second in as many weeks, and proceeded to curse out the Cubists, his teammates, the refs, and a majority of the fans. Ah, Jeremy! Shockey�s nine was equaled by Ray Lewis (12/96) on the defensive front. Lewis� taunts, generally learned while he was attending the world�s greatest institution of higher learning � the U, seemed to have a deleterious effect on the generally unshakeable Cubist QB Tom Brady (13/169). Lewis actually minored in cursing with an emphasis on F-bombs. Brady threw for zero TD�s and ended up giving the Envy a point based on fumbles. Moore said, �That ponce. What the hell is a ponce, anyway?� According to Diana Rigg (RrrrrrrRRRrrr), host of PBS� mystery, a �ponce is an British word for upper-middle class twit.� Former Envy-WR Chad Johnson (13/120) refused to score a TD on his old team because of all of the good times he had with Coach Missner and TE Alge Crumpler (13/80) and K Shayne Graham (10/66) were both stymied for just two points apiece. They were less than matched by the play of Wali Lundy (6/28) and Chris Chambers (8/37), who combined for a naught. Perhaps they were stuck on �the Oregon Trail game [Missner played] in third or fourth grade. You had to stock up on goods to make it to Oregon and there were all sorts of problems that could occur. That game stunk.� Their play also made Missner long for the �two weeks I spent at Hamburger Hamlet. I am proud to say that I was the first person to quit at their new restaurant because they wanted me to buy a shirt with buttons on the collars. I would and have eaten there, but I never get appetizers, alcoholic drinks, or leave a tip!� Cheapskate. Both teams started scoring better in the late afternoon games. The Cubists went proflexa for the second consecutive week. Donald Driver (11/105) had his second all-pro game and Larry Fitzgerald (9/66) scored another 12. Sunday night, Reggie Bush (10/93) earned a gameball for his �74-yard touchdowns against the Cowboys and Parcells which made [Moore] smile.� The Envy kept pace with TD�s by their U-backs, Edgerrin James (13/79) and Willis McGahee (11/85) for a combined 27 points and an all-pro performance by QB Matt Leinart (2/16). Missner noted, �Ahhh � I can once again give a gameball. It goes to Matt Leinart for his steely leadership and can do attitude.� Come Monday, the Cubists held a 13 point advantage, but the Envy had the three little Bears left to play � Benson (6/38), Gould (11/95), and Urlacher (12/102). As the Monday contest unfolded every Bear on the Envy bench scored a TD � one for Thomas Jones, Bernard Berrian, and Muhsin Muhammed and two for Devin Hester (and 24 points) � amazing. Gould earned Missner�s scorn for one week, �although he has been fantastic this season, he could have made it a much shorter night for me by hitting his figgies. C�mon Robbie, you�re in a dome, you�ve been great this season, and you push two kicks wide left? Ah well, all is forgiven.� Perhaps Gould�s eyesight is as bad as Missner�s �While I am not to the legally blind status, I can see about two feet ahead of me without glasses. I think it�s about 20:100 in one eye and 20:200 in the other.� Gould scored six extra points and Benson scored four points on yards. It was all up to Brian Urlacher and the mighty linebacker came through with eight points, causing the score to be the exact opposite of the Week Five meeting. Moore, whose eyesight �used to be 20/20... not sure now,� said, �Losing to the Envy is not nearly as annoying as losing to the Oauauauauaooos several years ago [�although it is close,� he said under his breath]. We have no illusions about contending for the championship this year, and our record is still probably better than we deserve based on points.� A gleeful Missner, whose team can now start another six game losing streak, bellowed, �That�s payback for all of the insults Jamo threw at us prior to our game this week. Oh, it wasn�t so much what he said, but how he said it � how dare he dismiss the Envy! The Bear game was pretty unbelievable to watch from my perspective. Every benched Bear scored and they even gave it to Adrian Peterson rather than letting Benson score the easy one. I had to rely on Urlacher getting credit for all of his tackles. I knew Tom Brady was a ponce.�
County Coroners 99 The Ballbusters 97 Is there anything quite as stirring as an amazing comeback? Who among us can forget where we were in 1993 when QB Frank Reich brought the Buffalo Bills back against the Houston Oilers in the playoffs? How about when the 2004 Red Sox overcame a 3-0 New York Yankee lead, ending up in a Jimmy Fallon-Drew Barrymore kiss? Oh yes, that was great. When it comes to the Modano Mi Hermano league, there have been plenty of memorable comebacks, but they all might pale in comparison to the way the Coroners ditched tradition on Monday night and came out swinging to overcome a 24 point lead. First of all, how did the Busters amass their lead? They had a steady downpour of scoring from throughout their lineup. The Busters were led by gameball earning Travis Henry (6/43) who buffeted the O-flex with 17 points. Ahole �Put it on the� Green (13/97) scored another TD and was followed into the endzone by T.J. Houshmandzadeh (8/62) and Lavernues Coles (8/54). QB Peyton Manning (13/237) finished the Buster scoring with one TD and 13 points. That makes five consecutive weeks in which Manning failed to score all-pro numbers. ESPN�s Tuesday Morning Quarterback believes that Manning spent too much time in the off season making lame ads and should concentrate on football. The Modano media believes that Manning needs to make more ads, including the resuscitation of Where�s the Beef?, Avoid the Noid, and his own off season Sports Machine (taking over for the retiring George Michael). We simply do not see enough of Peyton. If ever there were a guy who needed to have his own reality show, it�s Peyton. Imagine the hijinks he must get into. Back to the game, Jason Taylor (10/102) had his on week with 13 points. Next week, he�ll score three. It looked like a runaway, but the Coroners stayed just close enough. First, some Busters did not score up to their potential, like Anquan Boldin (13/87) and Tony Gonzalez (9/72) who combined for five points. Next, Willie Parker had his sixth all-pro game with 17 points on Thursday. Darrell Jackson (10/95) found pay dirt once again for ten points and the Coroner D-flex had an excellent day. The league�s leading defensive scorer, London Fletcher (13/130) had 13 points and Kirk Morrison (7/58) followed his defensive TD of last week with another 12 this week. Still, the Coroners would be better suited by playing a real tightend (like Vernon Davis who scored 10 points) rather than Courtney Anderson (13/22) who lowered his average yet again with another zero. Cadillac Williams (13/53) has also been busty and he scored just one point. Monday night, Marc Bulger (8/113) was facing the invincible Bear D, so things did not look so good for Owner Chad Nuss. Bulger hit a few early TD strikes and added another one when the game was over. In all, the Coroner QB scored 26 points, just enough to send the Coroner faithful home happy. Despite his 20:20 vision, Owner Rich Joseph�s team was eliminated from championship contendership, but he had one dying wish, �keep losing Bretts!� Joseph decided to spend the rest of the night playing �Atari.�
Peaks Island Wookies 82 Weaselicious Cookies 69 Owner Will Mitchell had seen enough. His team had dropped three straight games to take them out of championship availability and he just didn�t want to watch anymore, so before his Week Fourteen game against the Cookies, he assembled the media and answered their questions before any action had taken place. How were his powers of prognostication? Well, he singled out the Wookie D-flex for their poor play before they played and he was right, they sucked. Mitchell said, �The Wookie D flex. After crushing opponents earlier this year this gang has tailed off significantly.� The three D-flex members combined for eight points. Mitchell also gave the gameball to �Corey Dillon (11/77) - who made a statement last week and is in the RB slot now. I like the way he is going to score two TDs vs Miami and win the game for us.� In this case, Mitchell�s vision, which is �kinda poor at a distance - dunno the specs,� was kinda poor on the future. Either the future Dillon looks like burly RB Rudi Johnson (13/124) � possible � or mountain man TE Antonio Gates (13/96) � maybe � or fey QB Jeff Garcia (2/30) � not likely � because all three players scored a pair of TD�s and hit all-pro status (Gates and Garcia for the first time, Johnson for the second). When Mitchell made his predictions, he thought he would be going against David Gerrard, but Owner Dan Weitz had a late change of heart and inserted Michael Vick (6/51) to the lineup. Gerrard ended up with -1 from the bench and Vick scored two points for the Cookies. Had Weitz issued a gameball, it would have most likely have gone to RB Maurice Jones-Drew (2/46) who was part of an all-Jones O-flex. MJD scored his first all-pro game on three TD�s and 34 points, the highest RB score for the week. RB Kevin Jones (11/99) returned to the lineup with 11 points and Matt Jones (2/4) made his Cookie debut with a big, fat nothing. As it turned out, MJD scored nearly half of the Cookie points and it looked as if the rest of the Cookies could have cared less. How sad � the Cookies always used to care. Mitchell, who remembers playing �something on a Commodore 64 with a cassette tape� in his youth, got a seventh and final TD from Jamal Lewis (11/90) who ended up with 11. Mitchell also remembered working at �some seafood joint in Rossyln...did a big bar crowd business, mostly loser drunks in suits after work. I wouldn�t eat there, no...� but that did not diminish the fact that the Wookies had swept the Cookies and the team had the lowest winning score for the fourth time this year. In fact, the 8-6 Wookies have scored just three more points than the 2-12 Envy. How about that?
Week 15 previews In Week Fifteen, the Brentful Brents will not be able to take care of their own business, but they could clinch the Modano Mi Hermano championship nevertheless. First off, they have to beat their crosstown rivals, the Weaselicious Cookies. High school dominance will be an issue, but so will the suddenly declining returns for the Brents. Declining returns were not a problem in Week Six, in which the Brents stated their winning streak with a 137-76 statement over the Cookies. It is not hard to remember that after the game, a drunken Owner Steve Johnson slobbered, �WEST RULEZ!� A somewhat more sober Johnson, prior to Week Fifteen, said, �I still have to keep fighting as the Baers just won�t lie down. As long as I keep winning, the week 17 game will be anti-climatic, as always.� Johnson has pegged the returns of Marques Colston and Laurence Maroney in his lineup to push the series edge from 10-3. Owner Dan Weitz has not made any changes to his lineup, but Cookies still hope to get over the .500 hump. If Owner Randy Chambers gets some help from the Cookies and gets a win in Week Fifteen, he could inch ever closer to a fourth championship, thereby making Week Seventeen super-relevant. To do so, he�ll have to defeat the woeful P-Miss Envy, who are coming off a win. Chambers noted, �We'll treat the red-hot Envy like they are the Cubists of seasons past and the Bretts of season present combined. If we don't respect the P-miss, next week is just another exhibition.� Unfortunately, the Baers are actually invoking their moral clause and benching the league�s highest scoring QB Drew Brees against the Redskins. Envy draft pick Philip Rivers is the replacement. Terrence McGee returns after a down week from injury and Donte� Stallworth has finished with his moral clause and may return to the lineup. Owner Perry Missner, whose team got squashed by a 120-78 margin to the Baers in Week Six and is down in the series 7-9, has some hopes for his team. Matt Leinart is still the QB, Muhsin Muhammed is back in the lineup, and Ron Dayne makes his debut. Missner said, ��Neither a lender nor a spoiler be.� Well, screw that because we are aiming to spoil both Randy�s season and his second day of Chakallakah. Leinart has brought a new attitude to P-Miss and we are brining noted spelling champ Muhsin Muhammed to correct the Baers� ways. By the way, Ron Dayne stinks.� Dayne has had a mediocre track record in Modano games (including a zilch for the Cubists in Week Six), but he is coming off two decent performances, so who knows. The other six teams are playing for pride and draft placement. Owners Rich Joseph and John Stoer take their three sport rivalry into another gear with the 44�s and Busters facing off. In Week Six, the Busters took a 98-90 victory behind replacement QB Michael Vick. Peyton Manning and the rest of the Week Fourteen starters are still in place for the Busters, who hold a 4-2 series lead. Stoer commented obliquely, �Vince Young will be the 44's QB for the remainder of the season and I will accept the first offer I get for either McNair or Romo if anyone wants them.� Somebody wants McNair� Young and fellow rookie DeAngelo Williams are in the 44 lineup. The Wookies and Cubists generally put on an entertaining game, although their Week Six performances were not what one would call entertaining. The Wookies won 75-59, despite a -14 game from QB Rex Grossman. The Wookie D-flex provided a season high 45 points and kept the Cubists to just one Tatum Bell TD to narrow the series to 6-8. Owner Will Mitchell asked, �Am I dead yet?� Not dead, Will, just eliminated. Neither team has made any lineup changes. While the Coroner-Horde meeting might not have the cache of some of the other games, in Week Six they had the most exciting game, a 108-106 Coroner win. Owner Chad Nuss received excellent games from Marc Bulger and Willie Parker to offset Matt Hasselbeck and Jeremy Shockey. Owner Charlie Mitchell is using the end of the season as an evaluation period. He said, �Merriman and LJ look like locks to return next season, but these last few games are a real opportunity for someone to secure that third spot. Wayne? Walker? Welker?� Maybe TE Owen Daniels who makes his Horde debut or cute little WR Mike Furrey, who is in the O-flex. Nuss has finally replaced Courtney Anderson with Vernon Davis and Terri Glenn makes his return to the Coroner lineup for injured Darrell Jackson.
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