There can be no doubt that things have broken well for Perry Missner’s Envy in the first half of the season. They’ve allowed the fewest points in the league and own the league’s only tie-break win of the season. They even were going into week 10 facing a rematch against the arch-rival Cookies knowing that the Cookies would be without planetary MVP Tom Brady. Brady was more than due a scheduled week off from football, his middle-east peace negotiations, and his charity work, sending a note to the media to leave him alone for the week, “I’m going to hang with Giselle and her four sisters. Do Not interrupt me!” Missner couldn’t argue, saying even he’d prefer sex to having Brady’s abilities. But in one of those convenient sci-fi tricks, Brady swapped all his superpowers and gave them to back-up Big Ben Roethlisberger for the week. Big Ben was every bit Brady’s equal putting up 29 points in leading the 6-4 Cookies to the upset victory and avenging the week 1 loss to the Envy. He was aided, as all superheroes are, by all-pro performances from quirky sidekicks Maurice Jones-Drew and Mike Peterson. Big Ben even rubbed a little salt in the Envy wounds when he hit Bernard Berrian for 11 points and a score. A disappointed but not surprised Missner commented, “I had a bad feeling about this week. It just broke all a bit too nicely with Brady being on the bye, off solving the world's troubles. A nice win for the Cookies and more worries for me.” Yes, troubles for the Envy. They got an all-pro performance from gameball earner Reggie Wayne, but the rest of the team was a bit of a let-down, especially new kicker Matt Stover whose 1 point performance earned him a visit to Missner’s space-age termination super computer. Benson was left to languish on the Envy bench with a 12 point performance and back-up QB Jason Campbell (23 points) would have been far superior to starter Carson Palmer (9). Still, after public funding of the new Envy stadium in Wisconsin failed, and Missner decided his only option was to move his team to the balmy open-air confines of a new stadium in Louisiana, perhaps there are bigger problems facing the Envy than roster issues. As the convoy of Envy team busses moved out in the middle of the night, Missner sensed danger looming ahead for his club, “I am near the place where evil was born - Kiln, MS. I've spent years in the shadow of America's armpit, so now I can smell the stench of Farf from afar. It reeks of evil.”
Nothing sticks in Bull City owner Randy Chambers’ craw like an ass-whippin’ from draft day buddy Rich Joseph and his Ballbusters. And that is precisely how the Bull City started their season, falling 96-66 to the Busters. That loss knocked the wind out of the BC sails and it set up their much talked about early season troubles. Chambers has spent the intervening two months alternately riding his team through full contact two-a-days and having them over for beer, pizza and movie nights. This combination of hard-line and soft touch has paid dividends as the Bull City dominated the Busters from the opening whistle and ran their win streak to three with a 94-75 victory. While Captain Hiney’s leadership was again on display with 13 points, Chambers held a ball aloft and said, “the defense gets a pigskin, for not being cowed by Peyton's incessant flapping. Eat more chikin! Warrior Dunn pulled a Vinny and re-learned our offense in a couple of days.” Yep, Warrick Dunn was pulled off the Modano scrap heap for a solid 14 points and Drew Brees continued his solid play of late with another all-pro game, his third straight, and 15 points. Not that his team needed any extra motivation, but Chambers fired his team up this week by getting the documentary “No End in Sight” for movie night this week and ranted, “Oh money is the root of all evil, make no mistake. Money and power in the hands of Darth Cheney is the definition of All Evil.” When Chambers rails against the administration, the Bull City respond with fire and tenacity. The same can not be said for the Busters and the face of their franchise, sell-out QB Peyton Manning. Manning, who has taken over the Buster locker room, in addition to his various television appearances, may be finding himself spread to thin as he threw a career high 6 interceptions in the loss. Really, the only help he had was from uber-narcissist Terrell Owens and his all-pro 20 points. When asked to comment on the Busters fourth straight loss, Manning snapped back, “I take full responsibility for this loss. As a long-time Vicodin abuser, I know that taking responsibility is one of the steps you need to take before you can get back on track. I think it’s like step 6 or something, but I don’t know. Where’s Mason Crosby with my Red Bull and vodka? I’ve got a Bed, Bath and Beyond shoot in 20 minutes.” Things are definitely falling apart for the Busters, not that owner Rich Joseph seems to care from his courtside seat at all Celtic home games. When contacted, he said, “The who did what? Call my secretary, I’m watching KG right now.”
The other owner of a current three game win streak is the defending champ Bretts. Now in week 10, they have fully rounded into shape and look every bit the big bully who stole all of the Modano league’s lunch money in ’06. This week, all they had to do was show up in the stadium and John Stoer’s 44’s meekly rolled over and played dead. Brett Favre, who started and proudly scored 0 points for the 44’s in their week 1 matchup, was home with his Bretts and pounded the 44’s for an all-pro 29 points. When he wasn’t torching the opposition through the air, he would hand off and laugh as Brett runners Steve Jackson and ’06 MVP LT yawned their way to an easy 30 points. Even Methuselah himself, Priest Holmes, played a meaningful Modano game and chipped in 4 points. In his post game comments, a relaxed Steve Johnson said, “My D and TE’s decided to take the week off, but Farf puts up another stud game and SJ, nice to have you back.” So while the Brett machine seems to be rolling on all cylinders, the 44’s apparently have no cylinders left. Rookie phenom Adrian Peterson became just the latest running back to go down with a major injury as he scored 3 points before going out with a knee tear. He joined Ronnie Brown and Larry Johnson on the 44 bench along with the massively ineffective Shaun Alexander. The replacements that were brought in were largely ineffective as Jeremy Shockey paced the 44’s with 14 points. A despondent Stoer said, “Gameball to Shockey I guess. The entirety of my existence sucks. Comments on the week? Sure. A mediocre high school team could beat us now, and the Bretts are much better than that. They took it easy on us and won by 31.” Johnson countered sympathetically, “You have to feel for the 44s. They picked up great players. And had to watch as they all fell by the wayside. Great foundation, though.” At 7-3 and now one game behind the league leading Envy, the Bretts have had there own share of injuries and have responded well. So while both Johnson and Stoer would love to be invincible, it seems like only the Bretts have the wherewithal to harness such a power. And their focus is squarely on the task at hand as Johnson’s best quote of the day had nothing to do with his own matchup. “Way to go Cookies!” The Envy better watch out, the bully is back!
In the opening week battle of the brothers Mitchell, it was Will’s Wookies who walked away with a 101-70 whomping of Charlie’s Herrings. That win propelled the Wookies to three straight and at 3-0, it looked like they’d be in a battle for the title all season long. But something happened along the way and the Wookies lost six in a row. So Will was hoping that his brother would take it easy on him in week 10 and let him up for air. Instead Charlie put an 18 point pounding on Will and the Wookies tailspin has reached seven straight. The Herrings were led as usual by Brian Westbrook and his amazing 29 point performance. He said, “I’m so glad to be here and out of Syracuse. I want to spend the rest of my career here. It’s so much better.” Westbrook teamed with new QB Matt Hasselbeck and his 19 points to close out the down and out Wookies. While Hasselbeck was solid, it did put new gun-slinging QB Derek Anderson on the bench and that confused a few of the Herring faithful. Chants of “We Want Derek” were heard resonating around the stadium, but they died down quickly when Anderson actually went to the 17 people and bought them all a beer with money he’d taken from Hasselbeck’s wallet. After a couple beers himself, even Anderson was booing teammate Shawne Merriman’s play on the field. The ‘Roid-O-Matic Merriman had 3 points and didn’t even kick any balls out of the end-zone. Finally fed up with his keeper, Charlie Mitchell dumped Merriman after the game. Merriman was seen in the parking lot after the game hurling trash cans onto to Mitchell’s car screaming, “Nooooooooooo!” Which is also a scream heard often in the Wookie locker room these days. Mitchell, Will that is, spoke about his teams losing streak, “The skid is unbelievable – 7 in a row now – complete implosion and humiliation. I vow to come back stronger next year, and to start with a couple of spoiler wins yet this year.” More unbelievable was the performance of Jamal Lewis. In week 10, he ran for two fewer yards than in week 9, and scored 31 fewer points with an ugly -1 effort. How can the Wookies get any kind of consistency from that type of performer? Roy Williams provided a bright spot with an all-pro 15 points and Ray Lewis earned a gameball for his 13. But Steve Smith and Antonio Gates, two guys heavily relied on, scored a combined 2 points equaling rookie Calvin Johnson’s total. While all would seem to be lost for Will Mitchell, whose Wookies are playing more like Jimmy Olsen than Clark Kent, he summed things up nicely by saying, “I’ll take the woman. Not lois lane, but you should see my new wife.” Amen, brother
The Bay Are rivalry between the Cubists and Coroners was renewed in week 10. Jason Moore’s Cubists took the week 1 matchup handily 98-47 behind an amazing 38 point performance from star QB Tony Romo. In week 10, Romo was once again singularly too much for the sneaky Coroners to handle. He earned yet another gameball with 29 more points and was seen after the game on the phone with Tom Brady asking for one of Giselle’s sister’s phone numbers. While holding the phone away from his ear due to Brady’s shouts, Romo inadvertently allowed the entire locker room to overhear Brady say, “Jesus Tony, stop calling me!! How many rings do you have? Well, look on your fingers and count, you moron, and no that grape lollipop ring doesn’t count. I gotta go, Giselle’s wearing…” at which point Romo hung up and everyone stared at him with a mix of disbelief and fury. Owner Jason Moore deflected the mob by taking the mike and talking about the second straight drubbing of the Coroners. “We were lucky to face McCown and Vincent Jackson instead of Garcia and Branch. But Romo and Fitzgerald got things rolling and Will Witherspoon looked good out there.” Fitzgerald paced the offense with 16 points and ‘Spoon led the very tough Cubist D with 12. At 6-4 and winners of two straight, the Cubists are very much in the hunt for another Modano league title this year, and much like the Bretts, they have their eyes on the prize too as Moore stated that, “Envy, P-Miss or otherwise, is the root of all evil.” Those are fighting words leading up to their week 11 duel. A team whose dueling days seem to be at an end though in ’07 are Chad Nuss’ Coroners. At 3-7 and losers of 3 straight, Nuss seems to be focusing on ’08 already. As was widely speculated in the media, Nuss and JaMarcus Russell have come to terms on a contract and all signals seem to point towards the young rookie taking over the Coroners for the next decade at least. He would be an improvement over previous Coroner QB Josh McCown who scored an embarrassing -2 against the Cubists. Much of the blame for that though went to the fact that he wore his Raider eye-patch during the game and therefore couldn’t see the entire right side of the field. Still, it’s hard to blame the kid for exhibiting a little team pride! Sebastian Janikowski, reuniting with his home club, added 7 points, but his insertion into the Coroner line-up was hardly enough to scare the mighty Cubists. In fact, the Cubists are feeling so good, they feel like they can have their cake and eat it too. Though when push comes to shove and a choice needs to be made, while the owner might opt for a little slap and tickle, one has to guess that the Cubist players would prefer to be invincible with just seven weeks left in the season.
First off, a reminder that games will be played on Thursday this week so get those lineups in early, at least for those guys who are playing on Turkey Day. As for the Modano match-ups, there are a couple of great games on the schedule this week. First, the 8-2 Envy face off against the 6-4 Cubists in an extremely important game. The Envy won their first game back in week 2, 125-98 behind 43 points from Carson Palmer and 27 from the Wondertwins. Missner, trying to downplay his own team, said, “The league is seeking revenge from our torrid first half. We will beat back that revenge with a broom, a stick, and a flame thrower, if necessary. Playing Romo against the Skins? Not sure how Randy would feel about that one.” Hmmm, good question. Moore, succinctly but optimistically, had this to say, “They thumped us in week 2. Hard to believe that a victory would put us just one game out of first.” The Envy will bring back one-named wonder Benson in place of super rookie Marshawn Lynch while the Cubists bring back defensive captain DeMeco Ryans and insert Chester Taylor to help Reggie Bush carry the load. The x-factor is the trade (yes, trades are allowed in Modano football rules) that occurred this week sending longtime 44, Marvin Harrison, from the Cubists back to the 44’s for disgruntled RB and ’05 MVP Shaun Alexander. If Alexander can find some new life under owner Moore, perhaps he will be in the lineup. The other monster game pits the two 3-game win streaks against each other. The 7-3 Bretts face off against the 4-6 Bull City. BC won by 4, 102-98 in week 2 and Johnson is looking for revenge. He said, “Bull City have righted their ship and been unstoppable. Who blinks first?” Chambers avoided the gamesmanship by replying, “The squad is rounding into form at the right time. Three-and-Oh with Captain Hiney back in the lineup. Of course, the Bretts are just as hot, so it's now-or-never if we want to get back into our accustomed slot in the hunt. If we can avoid the chikin, presumably we can figure out how to contain the inbred hillbilly moron, but we'll have to figure something else out to stop LT,” but then put it back on Johnson by not changing his lineup. Oh the mind games going into this one. The only other team over .500 is the 6-4 Cookies who welcome back with open arms planetary MVP Tom Brady in their matchup against the 5-5 Herrings. But the Herrings will return a gun-slinger of their own in Derek Anderson and the points should be flying in this one. The Herrings won the first time, 110-77 behind 25 from ex-QB Jake Delhomme and 20 from returning WR Andre Johnson. The final two games feature 4-6 teams versus 3-7 teams. The 4-6 44’s, who have rid themselves of all three of their keepers from the beginning of the season by week 11 (never a sign of a winning team) welcome bible-thumping Kurt Warner to there QB spot and Ron Dayne is sure to get injured at RB if he plays. The 3-7 Wookies return Rudi Johnson and Randy Moss. The Wookies won in week 2 130-98, making it three teams with 98 point losing scores in week 2. Wow. Finally, the 4-6 Busters face the 3-7 Coroners. Jeff Garcia takes the helm for the Coroners while JaMarcus Russell learns the ins and outs of the Coroner playbook, and Chad Nuss returns disappointing Thomas Jones as well. Rich Joseph has done nothing to his Ballbusters as of press time as he continues to dream of Bruschi sacks, Papelbon fastballs, and Allen three-pointers.
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