All Glory to Doug Martin!

The last few times we've been out here, I've threatened to talk about The Walking Dead Game and also politics. But I'm here to renege on those promises and get my fantasy football league caught back up. For you see, I have fallen prey to heresy and have left the pure path of weekly updates. Pursuing the idol of political satire, I have forsaken the bonds of overanalyzing minor trends in sports. And I would be lost, were it not for the light of Doug Martin. For tonight, the Muscle Hamster did tread upon the Vikings defense as the elephant upon the soft earth and rack up over 200 yards of total offense and 2 touchdowns. Such was his magnanimity as to grant me this boon two full days before any other game, allowing the Heretical Pimpmast Doug to stew in the inevitability of the upcoming battle.

He crushes footballs as mere mortals crush grapes: to make alcohol and/or jam.

Before I continue, let me give some context for my adoration of Doug Martin. Astute readers may recall that Doug Martin was one of "the picks I'm proudest of" way back in August. I had believed that this dude could be 2010 Arian Foster (great RB with little history to come out of the midrounds). I made drafting him early a priority. Up until tonight, he's been very solid, but unspectacular. All in all, it had seemed like I drafted him so early as to negate his value. But then tonight happened and he was all "Since reorganizing on the BYE week, I have scored 12, 17, and now 34 points". All aboard the Muscle Hamster express! So since I have about 4 weeks of games to get caught up on, I'm going to forgo the traditional system of nominees in an effort to get contemporary.

Iron Dirigible Week 3 Recap- I shouldn't be alive

Here we are, mere moments away from starting Week 4, and I still haven't posted the update for Week 3. Normally, I'd say something funny about a video game, tv show, or movie I'd experienced recently and use that as justification for the delay. But that's not true. Last week's games have sent me into an existential crisis. You see, I defeated my best friend/archnemesis the Bean in Fantasy Football for the 15th time in 17 total games and I did so in a way that humiliates and degrades him. You'd think I'd be overjoyed. But I'm not because of one simple word: The Fail Mary aka The Touchception.

(Bitter)SWEET VICTORY!

Can I declare victory over the Bean if it is based on a clearly fraudulent call? Strictly speaking, yes, yes I can and I already have and I'm going to gloat about it. Neener neener neener! You couldn't score 15 points with Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay defense combined. Neener neener neener! Also, it helps that Bean declared victory halfway through the third quarter and then literally everything went my way. I'm not even kidding. I'm in two leagues, you see, the Iron Dirigible and the Beanpocalypse Now. In Beanpocalypse Now, I was playing against Bean the Elder and he was starting the Seattle defense. I'll spare you the details, but I beat Bean the Elder by one point and Bean the Younger by two points. If Rodgers gets sacked once and Martin gets called for the interception he threw at the end of the game, I lose both games. But thanks to a terrible labor dispute, I won.

I feel like I've been war profiteering.

So Pimps & Gimps of the Week, right?

Pimps of the Week

The divide between Pimpin teams and Gimpin teams was particularly vast this week. You had two teams score over 120 and two teams score under 70. I'd like to welcome Larry Fitzgerald to our readership because he saw how I called him out last time and decided to make himself indispensable again for Team Gray. Side note: Dorian, you can't change the name of your team in the middle of the season after going my one team name for five years; I will not acknowledge this change, much as I won't acknowledge Matt Ryan's 21 points. Calvin "Megatron" Johnson also gets a shoutout for scoring more points against the Titans than he had in the year to date, yet still somehow losing to the Titans. So he helped to build the Middle Tennessee community AND pay dividends to the Pimpmaster.

But the true pimp this week is Jamaal "Juggernaut" Charles. The greatest tragedy of this season is not the replacement refs, but that I could not draft Jamaal Charles in either league. I came so close to drafting him, but Tune channeled his inner-Doug and took him the pick right before mine. See, normally when I talk about guys who show up Stay Puft Marshmallow man big, they normally have a few touchdowns to their name and a pretty great total of yards (like Reggie Bush's 140 something). But Jamaal Charles thought differently. He looked at the Saints defense and said "Don't you know who I am? You must not know who I am. I'M JAMAAL CHARLES, B***********H". And he scored 36 points.

But it's the way he did it. He only had one total touchdown and 55 yards receiving. The other 25 points he scored? Pure yardage. "Silly Saints, your tackles cannot harm me. I'M JAMAAL CHARLES, B***********H!!"

Gimps of the Week

To the surprise of none, this update took much longer to write than expected. So I'm going to fast track the Gimp of the Week section. Remember last year, when Vick was supposed to be opening a new chapter on his career and usher in a new era of quarterbacking? Yeah, it turns out 2010 was a fluke.  Vick completed less than half his passes for less than 225 yards and no touchdowns. He "added" -3 points with his feet with 15 yards and two lost fumbles. Demaryius Thomas, your game line is bad and you should feel bad.

But the real victim is Aaron Rodgers. He had such a promising career, then Bean drafted him. Now he's put up back to back stinkers. And it's more than just Bean stealing his talent, it's created bizarre situations that wouldn't happen if Bean didn't own Rodgers. For example, the Packers were close to the goal line and decided to run it in with Benson. Last year, the Packers only had 8 non-Rodgers rushing TDs versus 55 touchdowns Rodgers was someway involved in. But the Packers decided to eschew what worked in the past because they knew that Bean has ruined Rodgers forever.

Matchup of the Week: Tune vs the Velociraptors for two reasons. First reason is "Tune versus the Velociraptors" should be the name of a children's book. Second, this will answer the age old question of whether it is better to be lucky or good. Tune is second in scoring with over 300 points in 3 games whereas I have 263. But I have the better record because I've only had 247 points against me instead of the 293 scored against Tune

Iron Dirigible Week 1 & Week 2 Double Pack

For reasons of wanting to do something special for my 150th Blog Post (btw, mission accomplished! I got so many compliments on the Hunger Games article from people I didn't even know read my blog), I did not get around to discussing Week 1 of Iron Dirigible in a timely fashion. I know, many of you are crestfallen, and by many, I mean "the seven other people in the league plus the handful of my friends who are equally football crazy". So I'm going to do the awards for Week 1, Week 2 and the Week 3 previews all in one swoop. If I don't do it today, it's not going to happen in a timely fashion either. Quick glance at my schedule for the enxt 36 hours: office hours, class, class, errands, Borderlands 2, sleep, tutoring, Borderlands 2, lunch, Borderlands 2, Office Hours, Senate, then friends over for football (editor's note: this schedule has now been thrown completely out of whack, just roll with it). Since time is of the essence, let's dive right in to the Pimps of the Week and the Gimps of the Week for Week 1!

Borderlands 2 forces me to make the hardest choice of my life: big guns, many guns, or guns & also swords.
I am paralyzed by indecision.
P.S. Is it sexist that the lady has the least number number of guns & swords and thus least appealing to me?
P.P.S. Is it a Freudian thing that all the guys in the pictures have swords and guns and the lady has a round glowy ball of death?
P.P.P.S OH GOD! WE'RE AT INCEPTION LEVEL OF OVERTHINKING! ONE LEVEL MORE AND WE'RE TRAPPED FOREVER!
P.P.P.P.S BWAAAAM! BWAAAAAAAM! BWAAAAAAM!!!!

Iron Dirigible Draft 2012

You know what this blog needs? MORE SPORTS TALK! But not just any sports talk, I need something that is both abstract in concept and requires an immensely deep understanding of a particular sport. This leaves only one logical option: FANTASY FOOTBALL!!

P.S. It's more fun if you imagine me saying "Fantasy Football" in the Denzel Crocker "Fairy Godparents" voice.
P.P.S. This blog has started out with me discussing sports trivia and a tacit admission of watching Nickelodeon as late as high school. I am seriously not making good decision re: the Fine Honeys.

This blog post is spiraling out of control and heading to a very dark place. I'd better engage in some course correction stat. Save me, Peeta Mellark!

 "This bread is like our district: soft and white."~Peeta Mellark
What?! You were supposed to help me, Peeta. Noooooooo!

Okay, so quoting Peeta isn't helping me at this precise moment. I'm just going to back away slowly now. Hunger Games, you'll get your day. Soon. You're the blog update that the English Muffin Power hour deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll postpone it, because you can take it. Because you're not a hero. You're a silent protector. A watchful guardian. A dark knight.

Anyways, earlier this month, I held the 6th annual Iron Dirigible Draft at my apartment, because I was straight power tripping. Additionally, it was the largest attended draft in our brief history. We had 6 of the league's 8 members gathered in one place at one time. And when you consider that Sam never shows up for the draft, it's pretty good to only be missing one guy. Let me say, nothing compares with drafting with your friends in person, all together. My personal highlight of the night was when Pimpmaster Doug took Brandon Lloyd the pick before me, I shouted "Are you a wizard?!" because that was the second pick of mine he stole from under my nose out of a possible three times that night.

Anyways, on topic, the point is I'd thought I'd do a quick recap of the draft. I figure I'd do rounds 1-4 individually, rounds 5-12 by pairs, and rounds 13-16 as one big group because drafts become increasingly desperate and therefore less controversial. Also, it makes a nice bit of symmetry in that I will do exactly 9 recaps and that appeases my neurotic side. Plus there will be nine recaps to counter the nine Black Riders of Mordor, so that's nice.

"Did he just make a Lord of the Rings reference right after inadvertantly dissing The Hunger Games AND quoting The Dark Knight?"
"Yeah, I think he did. Player does not have his head in the game today."

N.B. This draft took place on August 9th, because it was the last day everyone was going to be in town. So a number of picks look really silly in hindsight.

Week 3 Update: Suck it, Sam!

I said "Easy Rider"! Though both have Peter Fonda.

This week has been brutal. There's that... baseball incident involving Atlanta teams and my copy of Gears 3 is getting delayed until Monday, probably. Throw in an afternoon of Tae Kwon Do (it turns out I am great at punching and jumping, but I suck at kicking, although my youth soccer coach will insist this was always the case), a haircut, and a load of chicken wings later, and I want to kick back and watch Easy Rider. After all, Iron Dirigible doesn't kick off until Sunday. But I'm not going to let that happen. Why? Spite.

The English Muffin Power Hour has never had double digit updates in the span of a single month. There are many reasons for this, such as me being easily distracted and the average EMPH update requiring me to spend my down time not playing Gears of War, not macking on the fine honeys, not tricking the Bean and not performing any combination of the three. One day, I will trick the Bean into letting me play Gears of War with a fine honey. I will have met my soul mate then. But I digress. The point is there are seasons where I don't update ten times, much less months. So I made a wager with Sam that I could update the EMPH ten times this month. If I didn't, then Sam would continue to mock my infrequent update schedule. If I did update ten times, then I'd win... um... I'd win... comedy? Let's just say I'd win comedy. I probably should have demanded some sort of stakes to this wager. I think I've been tricked.

In any case, if I don't write this update, then Sam gets an optimal outcome: more than the average dose of Hunterian Humor and bragging rights. But I'm not going to let that happen. You may beat me by 40 points in fantasy football, Sam, but you'll never take my freedom! My freedom to blog at whatever pace I feel like! CHAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGEEEE!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

This is triumphant screaming.

Week 1 Update: And They're Off!

Gimp of the Week

That should be pronounce "Vimmen".

They say save the best for last so we’ll start this week with the Gimps of the Week. First, we have a very unusual dishonorable mention: every single Houston Texan. You may say “But Hunter, didn’t the Texans crush the Colts, seen them driven away, and heard the lamentations of their women?” and I’ll respond “Conan the Barbarian, starring the Terminator and Darth Vader, was a great movie.” I’d also add that despite the complete humiliation of the colts, the highest scoring player in that game was, in fact, a Colt (Reggie “Bruce” Wayne with 16 points). Somehow, the Texans managed to win by a huge margin without having a single player score higher than 15 points. That’s like making the Dean’s List with nothing but B+’s. It shouldn’t be physically possible, but it happened!

Another dishonorable mention goes to Frank Gore. Despite not being eaten by a shark yet, he still managed to underwhelm in Week 1 by scoring just six points against the Seattle Seahawks (whose defensive line consists of coffee baristas and computer technicians). Also, I don’t think I’ve made fun of Bean enough recently.

Like the Greek Pantheon, but twice as petty!

But the Gimp of the Week honors actually belong to a higher philosophy of Fantasy Football. Analysts say that you should never draft a kicker before the 16^th round and a defense before the 14^th round (and there are only 16 rounds). The train of thought is there’s fundamentally no real difference between kickers. The top scoring kicker was only 39 points higher than the 20^th best scoring kicker (which is slightly more than 2 points a game). Inevitably, people in every league do that. But the Gods of Fantasy Football said “No More!” this year and decided to punish the people who took the top defense and kicker.

The top defense taken this year was the Pittsburgh Steelers (who averaged over 10 points a game last season). The Baron spent an 8^th round pick on them, twirling his mustache all the while and wearing a picklehaube, saying that the Steelers would be essential for the invasion of East Katzen. But the Pittsburgh defense managed to be worse than nothing in their opener against the Baltimore Ravens (and it hurts me to write this next part). The Steelers were more like the Tin-Foilers given how Ray Rice tore them apart. They “contributed” -3 points to the Baron’s team. But that’s still not enough to win top dishonors.

How can you be worse than a negative? By being an absolute zero. Nate Kaeding, the kicker of the San Diego Chargers, was taken in the 12^th round of the Iron Dirigible draft by Team Gray. Normally, Kaeding punishes owners by being average and somehow being projected to be the number 1 kicker the next year. Last year, he was taken in the 11^th round (also by Team Gray) and finished as the 13^th best kicker. So how does Kaeding upstage the Steelers Defense? He tears his ACL and gets injured for the entire season before he kicks a single field goal. Kaeding amounted to absolutely nothing this week and will be nothing for the entire season. It is the only time in Iron Dirigible history I can say a draft pick was a complete and utter waste from which nothing good could possibly come. And if making the single worst draft decision in the history of Iron Dirigible football isn’t Gimp of the Week honors, I don’t know what is.

Iron Dirigible Week 1 Review: The Preliminary Stuff

Well, Week 1 of Iron Dirigible Football is in the books and it was kind of a massacre. The closest game was decided by 20 points. While there were a hundred tales from this weekend alone, I think it’s important that we never forget the most important lesson this week. Bean lost, despite scoring the third most points. And isn’t that what fantasy football is all about: finding new and exciting ways for Bean to lose? By the way, for those of you who are interested, here is the Week 1 scoreboard.

Since this is the first update I’ve posted on the English Muffin Power Hour, I thought I would explain a few quick pointers of what these updates contain. Normally, I declare a fantasy “Pimp of the Week” and list several honorable mentions (usually two or three). These are players who go above and beyond what is expected of them and help propel their fantasy team to victory. There’s usually a pretty even split between superstar players like Adrian Peterson and Chris Johnson and pretty good players who have crazy good weeks like DeSean Jackson and Miles Austin (quick poll: did anyone who doesn’t play fantasy football know who those guys are? Did this comparison do anything but further your confusion? It’s too late to bail out now though!). Then I list the fantasy “Gimp of the Week”, for the player whose ineptitude and incompetence crippled his team the most. This is almost exclusively well known players, unless a minor player is terrible in a particularly newsworthy way (like punting a puppy instead of the football). As a rule of thumb, the Pimp of the Week must be on a winning team and the Gimp of the Week must be on a losing team, for obvious reasons. Then I normally end by highlighting the Game of the Week for the upcoming weekend. I meant to write one of those for Week 1, but I caught a bad case of Football Fever and wound up watching the NFL instead.

Unfortunately, this introduction took longer to write than I thought, so I’m going to end this early and get into the actual awards tomorrow morning. But before I go, I’d like to mention a bit about another league I’m in. This league is run by Bean and is filled with a lot of his friends from church and Belmont. You might think that while Bean would struggle in a league a football enthusiasts such as myself and Pimpmaster/Witch Doctor Doug, he would most assuredly thrive against amateurs and casual fans. You would be wrong. Bean finished with the lowest score in the league this past week (and I beat him! Hurray!). Like I said earlier, the point of fantasy football is to find all the ways Bean can come up short (pun intended). More troubling, his old roommate had the second lowest. So it seems the Bean-adjacent are cursed as well.

P.S. I remembered a joke I wanted to use when talking about the Bean Curse. I predict that this year the Bean Curse will outdo itself. Frank Gore will be eaten by a shark in a Shark vs Man Gambling Ring, which itself is organized and funded by Michael Vick, who has grown bored of simple mammalian conflict and is trying to escalate to inter-phylum fights.

The Bean Curse

Last time we were here, I mentioned that my good friend Bean had a penchant for ruining the livelihood of football players. Every year he has ruined (or at least significantly inconvenienced) the players he has taken in the first and third round of the Iron Dirigible draft. Inexplicably, the second round picks escape unscathed (usually, but I'll talk about that later). Despite having the 1st, 2nd (twice) and 3rd pick in the prior four seasons, Bean has never managed to have a winning record. So how does this happen? Let's examine the history of... THE BEAN CURSE!

2007- LaDainian Tomlinson & Marvin Harrison

Found on Page 7 of Google Image Search "Fantasy King"!

 In the beginning, no one could suspect that Bean would be the Reverse King Midas of fantasy football. LaDainian Tomlinson, also known as LT (because football fans are ridiculously creative), was the king of football back in 2007, both fantasy and real world. In the actual football terms, he had just shattered the NFL record for most rushing touchdowns and gained over 1800 yards during the 2006 football season. In fantasy football, he was king because he had slain the foul beast Grendel and strangled an enormous sea serpent while swimming against some punk in the Baltic Sea. Or maybe that was Beowulf. Bean had the #1 draft pick in 2007 and LT was a no brainer. Bean would also draft LT again with the second pick in 2008. Year after year, LT’s yards went down, his touchdowns went down, his crops turned to ash, and the sun no longer shined on San Diego. The year after he escaped from the clutches of Bean’s fantasy team, the withered husk of LaDainian Tomlinson had career lows in total yards, games played, and yards per carry.

Similarly, Marvin Harrison was in a good spot. He was the number one receiver for Peyton Manning, which meant he didn’t even have to try hard to look good. Sadly, Harrison would wish to be as blighted as LT was for being on Bean’s team. 8 months after being drafted (and underachieving all year long), Harrison was investigated by authorities for his involvement in the shooting of a drug dealer. Unfortunately for Harrison, this was not because he had not become a gun toting vigilante ala Kick Ass (a movie which I have never seen, but understand it involves Nic Cage acting crazier than usual). Now his crime is being investigated by the FBI after they successfully proved that Harrison (now out of football) provided the gun, bullets, and likely the trigger finger for the crime, while Reggie Wayne enjoys all the perks of being Manning’s new BFF.

2008- LaDainian Tomlinson & Terrell Owens

Well, I covered LT in depth last section, but let me add this. Once he had a year to detoxify the Bean Blight coursing through his veins, LT saw a significant increase in rushing & receiving yards despite being over the hill in running back terms. Bean drafted 2^nd overall this draft, a big step down from 1^st (insert sarcastic quip here).

Pictured: Buffalo's Stadium

Terrell Owens, dubbed TO by the original and creative sports media, was actually enjoying something of a career renaissance. Despite being driven out of San Francisco and Philadelphia (for the crimes of being obnoxious, egotistical, and witchcraft), TO formed a bromance with Dallas Quarterback Tony Romo and was reaching numbers close to his career high in yards and touchdowns. Small tangent: Romo was going through a phase where he was really into obnoxious, self centered idiots. TO was his favorite receiver and he was dating Jessica Simpson. Back on topic, after being drafted by Bean, Owens had 300 yards and 5 touchdowns less than the previous season. Dallas, sensing that the football gods had forsaken them, cut ways with Owens. As for Owens, he was forced to wander through football hell (Buffalo, where much better teams stomp you into oblivion again and again) and then into purgatory (Cincinnati, where he saw improved production but never achieved anything of substance) and then into blissful irrelevance.

2009- Michael Turner & Brian Westbrook

From Michael Turner, 2008. "Thanks for picking LT!"

By this point, the Bean Curse had established its almost Biblical powers. In fact, Michael Turner had made a career for himself by stepping up when LT began to feel the effects of the Bean Curse and not only received a big deal with the Atlanta Falcons, but also put up an LT-like 1700 yards with 17 touchdowns to match. So naturally, Bean had to fill the LT-shaped void in his team with yet another 2^nd overall pick. Turner was, shockingly, doing well until he hurt his ankle. An ankle injury may seem minor, especially to a football star, but when Bean is involved, anything is possible (so long as it results in comedic tragedy for football players). Somehow, Turner winds up missing nearly half the season with this ankle problem and barely gains half the yards he did the season before.

However, that was nothing compared to what happened to Brian Westbrook. While Westbrook did not become the subject of a federal investigation or be forced to navigate his way through the football afterlife, he did suffer the most severe and sudden case of Bean Curse ever seen. Westbrook had a truly amazing season two years earlier, but minor nagging injuries kept him from repeating the same feat again in 2008. Bean, sensing weakness like a shark senses blood in the water (with his nose), added Westbrook to his team with his third round pick. Not only did Westbrook’s injury get much, much worse, but he also put up career lows in every meaningful statistic. His numbers were awful by anyone’s standards as he finished the year with 274 rushing yards. For frame of reference, Vince Young had 281 rushing yards for the Titans and he only played 12 games that year. Westbrook went on to be cut and forgotten by Philadelphia, buried in the depth chart in San Francisco, and exiled to an island this year along with TO and Marvin Harrison.

2010- Ray Rice & Miles Austin

In a stunning twist, Bean abandons his long-standing philosophy of drafting at least one aging injury-prone superstar and goes with two young, high potential players in offenses that revolve around them. So the Bean Curse had to get creative with how to ruin their value. Ray Rice experienced a touchdown famine throughout most of the season and had to split his meager scoring opportunities with Willis McGahee. While not as huge a disappointment as LT or Westbrook, Ray Rice finished outside of the top ten last year.

Meanwhile, Miles Austin had replaced TO in Romo’s heart. By this point, the Bean Curse had realized that Bean would take “Romo’s Favorite Target” rather than any specific player. Thus, Romo was struck down with a collar bone injury and Austin’s value suffered under the leadership of Jon Kitna, whose claim to fame was leading the Detroit Lions to the worst record in football history (0-16, a mark which can never be beaten).

Maybe I’ve been too hard on Bean. Maybe he’s finally realized to stop buying the hype and going after injury risks and stars who have lingered past their prime.

2011- Michael Vick & Frank Gore

Or maybe not! Fun fact: In their combined 13 years of NFL service, Vick and Gore have played a full 16 game season only once each. Last year, Old Man Gore broke his hip in Week 11 and missed the rest of the season (and I say this as a two-time former owner of Old Man Gore). At least with Vick, Bean’s getting a player who was formerly under investigation by the FBI rather than currently. This year broke tradition with Bean actually drafting sixth instead of his usual second.

A Desperate Plea from Vick & Gore

Well, that concludes my piece on the Bean Curse. Fun story, I actually had this written out earlier and it came to about 600 words long. I accidentally deleted it during Managerial Economics today and had to rewrite the entire thing. Somehow, it wound up being twice as long.