Week 12 -- Konichiwa Bitches

Alright, well someone is watching too much "Chapelle's Show."

This week we celebrate Hymin Rubin's 12 win week -- a new high score for our league this season. The outstanding week vaults the Columbia, SC native into 2nd place in the overall.

Chris and PJ each had 11 wins, and any other week that would have been enough to end up on top, but not this week, where the selection of Dallas on Turkey Day kept them from matching Hyman's total.

PJs strong week kept him in the overall lead, two wins clear of the aforementioned H-Man.

Chris once again has inside info on the AFC East, the only one to make what in retrospect was an obvious pick taking the pass Happy Chiefs against the D-back-less Pats.

All of us believed in Miami and Atlanta on the road and -- except for Jeff -- were surprised by the Niners failure to cover at home against the Titans.

Meanwhile the Jets inability (just barely) to cover let alone win aided them in an elimination game for the Reggie Bush sweepstakes, but the Texans late collapse kept them in front for the number one overall pick.

And LotW returned with a victory, as Ladian Tomlinson scored an OT touchdown -- when a field goal would have the Skins beat the spread, to make us look good.

In other Fantasy news, I need a win this week to advance to the playoffs. Will my anemic rushing attack of Kevin Jones and Cadillac Williams be enough to top my old friend Todd (who I wisely traded Ronnie Brown too before the start of the season for Mike Vick) Stay tuned.


Discussion question: Will the Colts finish the regular season 16-0? Will they go 19-0? If they lose in the Super Bowl going 18-1 is the season a disappointment?

Now that Nick and Jessica have broken up, there is another candidate for the best person for Jen to hook up with to top Brad's shacking up with Angelina. And I don't mean Nick.

Martha has said she'd leave me for Nick, but I don't think my dad would mind if I brought Daisy Duke home for the holidays in an even exchange.

Some big games this week with critical division implications. Steelers at Bengals for the inside track on winning the AFC North and getting a home playoff game. Broncos at Chiefs, Dallas at Giants, and Atlanta at Panthers. And some bad games as well -- Houston at Baltimore and Arizona at SF.

LotW will go with Tampa giving 3.5 at Baton Rouge (er New Orleans) Saints. Once again lots of home dogs that look bad on paper, but they don't play the games on papers, but on grass (or turf).

Make it a good week.

Week 11 -- Return of the Home Dogs

We reported last week that Home Dogs were no longer such a sure thing. We stand corrected having learned a little something about sample size. Home dogs went 4-2, with Houston and Cinci failing to hold the early trend.

PJ vaults into the overall lead (he called me Sunday night to inform me of this breaking news) with a 10 week. More interesting is the way he did it, being the only person to take the Chargers, Titans and Ravens (our Lock of the Week loser). If he had received the memo about the Texans being so awful and joined the rest of us in taking the Chiefs or been notified about the 'new' Minnesota Vikings he'd have done even better.

Once again lots of consensus this week, and much of it bad. Chris did have inside info on division rival Miami not being able to pay in the North late in the year, unfortunately he didn't do much else -- joining me and Jeff in the weekly cellar.

And can it be that Derek has not submitted picks two weeks in a row, surrendering his overall lead. Say it ain't so D!


Already the playoff race is down to just a few teams:

In the NFC six of these seven will get in:
Dallas, New York (Football) Giants, Bears, City of Tampa, Atlanta, Carolina, Seattle

NFC Prentenders:

Redskins -- once again failed to score offensive touchdown
Bears -- pretenders, though perhaps better then I thought.
The Rams dynasty has ended, rather quietly.
Seahawks (sorry Derek) don't believe the hype.
Vikings -- the Brad Johnson era will not be enough

In the AFC there are 8 teams for six spots:

New England (but no first round bye), Pittsburgh, Cinci, Indy, Jacksonville, Denver, San Diego, KC

Pretenders
Bills -- though the Buffalo News is talking about a 6 week playoff chase Chris can go ahead and make plans to go away on January 5.

Oakland -- too little , too late


In other sports news: College Hoops is underway
What can you say about the Canes - destroying VATech in Bleaksburg then blowing a home game to GA Tech. Coach Coker is a nice guy but his teams have developed a habit of losing games they shouldn't -- especially at home and this one cost them a BCS bid and outside national title shot.

This week the Panthers play in Buffalo so you can be sure that Chris will be prowling on Chippewa St (by the way "Whore Cheerleaders" got another segment on Lettermen last night).

Lock of the week, still reeling from the Steelers OT loss, will take the Chargers giving 3.5 at Washington.

Don't forget to get your picks for Thursday's games in before you sit down to eat Turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving
Jono

Week 10

Gotta give props when props are due -- and props are due to Jeff who wins the week with 10 correct picks. More impressive is that he was two games better then PJ and three better then the rest of us. Jeff can also celebrate the return (however brief) of his Fantasy Team which has won two straight and had the most points in our league last week.

Chris's inside info didn't serve him too well last week. Of course, this week he is off to San Diego while I'm stuck here in the cold (had our first snow last night). For a time he looked like a genius, as the only one of us to think that Philly would circle the wagons and rally on Monday night, which they did for 56 minutes; until Dallas won the game.

Derek continues to hold the overall lead, though things have tightened significantly, with only three pts separating second to last (ie everyone but me) from the lead. Thus, like the NFL playoff picture itself, everyone is still in it.

Otherwise, none of us though the Bears were 12.5 pts better then the 49ers (so they are not 12.5 better then anyone). While the Steelers destroying the Browns (without Big Ben) caught all of us by surprise. Most of us didn't realize how bad the Jets are (they're bad).

Overall, home dogs continued to struggle, going 1 (City of Tampa) and 2
(Miami and Oakland).

LotW was embarassed by the Giants poor showing. Their defense allowed 3 pts, but 4 picks and two special-teams touchdowns led to a home loss and a defeat for LotW.

We're still feeling good about our Super Bowl picks, as the Colts and Panthers continue to roll.
Questions for the week:

Will the Colts stay undefeated?

When will the NFL agree to select late season MNF games as the season progresses?; so we can avoid debacles like this week's Minnesota at Green Bay and the upcoming Atlanta-New Orleans barn burner. Sure, watching Favre and Vick is always fun, but come on.

Should we care about College Hoops yet?

Other news headlines:

Too bad the Canes aren't as good at U.S. History as they are at rapping.




LotW will take the Steelers giving 4.5 at Baltimore. Even with Tommy Maddox, the Steelers will take care of the struggling Ravens.

Week 9

So those that don't pick, and there are a lot of them, technically won the week, but Hyman, Jeff and I will get credit with Nine wins since we did the hard work ourselves. To add insult to injury, Jeff would have won the week outright if only his Pats could have won, or at least covered against the juggernaut that is the Colts.

Derek stays in the overall lead, since Adam and Chris aren't making their own picks. I'm still trying to catch Jeff before I think about moving further up.

The story of the week was the failure of the normally reliable Home Dogs to beat the spread. As New England, Green Bay, Baton Rouge, Tampa and Miami all failed this week.

With TO gone for the season, we will add the Eagles to our list of teams who should no longer be considered intimidating. The Pats were already on it.

And at least the Bills didn't lose again -- though with the Pats loss we will keep hearing about how they are a playoff team, only a game behind the Pats who still have to come to the Ralph.

Of course the story of the week was the two Panthers cheerleaders arrested for having sex in a Tampa bar bathroom. Their police mug shots don't do them justice. Unfortunately their Cheerleading pictures-- because they have been kicked off the team -- have already been removed from the Panthers website, which crashed because of all the traffic yesterday. Clearly the next NFL Cheerleading reality show needs to be in Carolina. I guess we can no longer consider Charlotte the "Beating Heart of the Bible Belt."

In other sports news, Manchester United ended Chelsea's 40 game unbeaten streak in the English Premier League with a 1-0 win. Yours truly has been watching more European football lately since it is often the only thing on TV in the afternoon when I am home with Andrew.

I would also like to say that it is ridiculous that Bartolo Colon, eighth in ERA and strikeouts and seventh in innings, won the AL Cy Young. Johan Santana had better numbers in all of those categories and one more complete game. But baseball writers are idiots and looked no further then wins, not even winning percentage in which Colon was also seventh.

Lock of the week got a win as well with the Panthers, winners of 5 straight and my NFC Super Bowl Pick, crushing Tampa. I took even more satisfaction because I saw one sports columnist who made Tampa hid own lock of the week.

My fantasy team took a beating because, well, both Kevin Jones and Cadillac Williams sucked. Meanwhile James and Jeff both emerged with victories.


LotW will be added later, as the week's games aren't posted on the Pigskin Pick'em site yet. See how early we are getting our update completed.

Make it a Good week.

Week 8 -- By Popular Demand

Sure it seems convenient, for me to return after I win the week. But I have been urged to bring back the weekly update and I'd hate to disappoint those of you faithfully making your picks each week. My choice (with James) of the Texans to get of the schnide and my bold pick of the 49ers (come on getting 10.5 at home) made the difference.

Somehow, Jeff managed to correctly pick Dallas, while Hymen stood alone with the Rams, and they still managed to get only 5 total picks. Yes, I know I shouldn't talk, having three 4 win weeks on the season. Of course adding insult to injury was my thrashing of Jeff's injury-depleted Fantasy Football team.

Overall, it was a week of consensus -- the only game with more then 3 dissenters was the Monday night game, in which the Steelers, at home and playing a Ravens team without their two best defensive players (not to say two of the best in the league), needed a last minute field goal to win the game. We were moistly right about Oakland, Green Bay, Chicago, Miami, and Buffalo and mostly wrong about Arizona, Jacksonville, and Minnesota.

Those picks are indicative of larger trends. The Cardinals and Vikings really are that bad. The Pats are not what they once were (though the Bills are still worse) and the poor, poor Saints.

In the overall standings, Derek is clinging to his one win lead over James, with PJ only two off the pace. Scott Ward and I find ourselves in the cellar -- obviously a direct correlation between new babies and poor performance. Apparently sleep deprivation does impact your ability to make accurate Sports Gambling picks.

Moreover the sad many that don'tmake their picks have slowly been sliding backwards, as Karma takes the game by the hand.

People we would like to have been for Halloween:
Peyton Manning, Brad Pitt (I prefer Angelina too), Paul Konerko (show me the money),


People we would not wanted to have been for Halloween:
Brett Favre -- first his house gets wiped-out, now his worst season as a starter
Mike Tice -- how does this man still have a job
Theo Epstein -- for those of us without athletic talent (at least at anything less then 13.1 miles) being the GM is the corresponding dream to playing Centerfield. And they're going to pay you $1.5 million. For the team you grew up rooting for. And you don't want the job???
Scooter Libby


Lots of key injuries (TO, Big Ben) make this an interesting week for Lock of the Week and lots of home dogs to boot. We'll take our pre-season Super Bowl pick, the 5-2 Carolina Panthers over the City of Tampa, giving 1.5.