Iron Dirigible: Championship Week Edition

You may be wondering why I haven't written about the last two weeks of fantasy football action. Well, when I neglected to write a preview for Tune and mine's matchup, I also neglected to mention that Maurice Jones-Drew is a Fantasy Shark, just lurking beneath the surface and waiting for the moment to devour all your hope. The Hope Devourer scored 37 against me and, even though the Velociraptors scored 122 points (15 more than anyone else), Team Tune scored 137 (did you really need four touchdown, MJD?! FOUR?! THE GAME WAS OVER! You were just running up the score!). So I was more than a little heartbroken.

And then, in a complete absence of upsets, I was denied the opportunity to beat the Bean for the 5th time in one year (which would be nearly three years worth of beatdowns in a single year). But at the same time, I feel like Bean playing in his third career last place game in a five year league is an even greater present.

There were no surprises last week, presumably because the NFL was saving its gifts for Christmas. Oh sure, if you look at the actual games, there were tons of surprises, but we care about the metagame of Fantasy Football. For the first time ever, we have 1 vs 2 for the championship and 7 vs 8 for the last place game. The only upset in the postseason has been the Maus Munchers dethroning the Pimpmasters. This is what Doug gets for being too dignified to slap a cat.

Pimp of the Week

For the first round of the playoffs, it has to be Maurice Hope-Devourer, I mean, Jones-Drew. Not that I'm bitter or anything. The pimp of the  week for the second round of the playoffs had to be the sick combination of Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson. They combined for 66 points and lifted Team McLovin into the playoffs. If they had been merely incredible rather than phenomenal and scored maybe 40 points, then Team McLovin would have lost and the Baron would be talking about renaming his team "The Fourth Reichs". But no, Calvin Johnson got 214 yards receiving, 2 touchdowns, and a motorcycle to drive off into the sunset on. Johnson willed the bike into existence so he could look as badass as possible.

Gimp of the Week

The Gimp of the Week for Round 1 is Jason Witten. Normally, tight ends can't screw up bad enough to be the Gimp of the Week, but Jason Witten took it to the next level. Witten has shown flashes of prolonged greatness this year by scoring 10 or more a half dozen times. He led the Bean to trust in no other tight ends. And then Witten gets a measly 3 receptions for 12 yards to score 1 point for the Godfearers. Everyone else scored 7 or more on the Godfearers and they lost by 5 points. That means if Jason Witten had just been tied as the lowest scoring starter rather than excelling at incompetence, the Bean would be in the winner's bracket. Did I mention he would go on to lose the next game by 1 point? A fantasy touchdown is literally all the difference between dignity and the garbage bin for the Godfearers. In Round 2, it was all of Team Gray, again. For the third time this year. I think he's set some sort of record for "Most Games Scored Below 50". But, seeing as how that dismal performance masked the collapse of the non-Tom Brady, non-Arian Foster, parts of my team and let me go to the 5th place game, I consider it an early Christmas gift and an apology for Maurice Jones-Drew.

I've been negligent in my updates this year. To make it all up to you, I'm going to do a nice year-end retrospective after Christmas. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a non-sucky day of Fantasy Football.

Cinnamon, NO!

This is my favorite online video in a long time. Isn't that right, Meatball? No, Meatball, NO! AAAAAHHH! The house cats have turned on us too!

Playoffs?! Don't talk about playoffs!

Internet Law dictates this video be included

In a daring attempt at relevancy, I'm going to try and write about the playoff matchups this week before the game. Labor economics and Linear Algebra be damned!

More Dr Pepper vs Team Gray- Psyche! More Dr Pepper has a bye week because when you set the single season record for points scored and wins, you deserve a spot in the second round. This is mostly here because I still can't believe More Dr Pepper (at 9-2) lost to Team Gray (at 2-9). If this were any kind of just system, we'd skip the playoffs and have the media vote on who they would like to see play for a championship and then get a computer's insight on the matter. Wait, there was a typo in that last sentence. I meant to write "completely insane and greed-driven" rather than "just".

All joking aside, I do feel compelled to write a small retrospective on each team's season. More Dr Pepper had a very zen (zen means lazy, right?) approach to the draft. Sam touched nothing and let the players fall where they would. He let the fantasy flow through him rather than fight the fantasy. As a result, at one point, Sam had the #1 scoring fantasy quarterback and 3 of the top 4 fantasy running backs. But that doesn't do him justice. On the free agent pool, he picked up the #2 tight end and the #3 wide receiver. There are two trains of thought as to what could trigger this Juggernaut of a team. One is that Sam is part Miyagi and could get maximum results with minimal effort. The other is that the rest of the league highlighted the good players by taking nothing but terrible ones in the draft. However, over the last three weeks, Sam lost two of his three top running backs (Matt Forte and Fred Jackson) for the rest of the season, effectively. Sure, there's a chance that Forte could return, but it'll be at least two weeks and he still will have the spectacularly incompetent Caleb Hanie in the backfield.

Look at the little kitty!

Team Gray's season was a terrifying black hole of failure. I tried to analyze it, but I became filled with an immeasurable sadness whenever I looked at it. It was as if I saw a box filled with the cutest kittens in the world and then had to see them all violently commit suicide.

Iron Dirigible Weeks 3-13 Updates: Screw it, we're doing it live!

Okay, I’ve been really awful about updating the league and the blog in general. Luckily, I’ve derived a simple formula explaining why: Skyrim + Grad School + Occasional Social Life = No Blogging. It’s not my fault, it’s the fault of the Emperor Titus Mede for allowing the Thalmor Elves to persecute the good people of Skyrim, causing Ulfric Stormcloak to rally… FOCUS HUNTER! FOCUS!

"Can we finish this later? I really need to update my blog."

Anyways, normally, I always fall behind on my weekly awards because I believe if something is worth writing about, it is worth writing about in detail. As a result, it becomes too much effort to update and then I fall behind and won’t do the work to get caught up again. So I end up forgetting about doing updates, much like how the Blades forgot the sole weakness of Alduin the World-Eater and, with it, the key to stopping the draconic dominance of… FOCUS! FOCUS! YOU LIKE FOOTBALL! The pimp of the week is listed on top and the gimp of the week is listed second for each week.

I did mean to include a preview for the playoffs, but that’ll come tomorrow morning. Btw, Sam and Dylan do have byes this week, but ESPN has issues with me giving out 200 point bonuses.