Rob's Rants, Week 7: Missed Deadlines, World Travel, and the Monkey in the Middle

Hey guys, what's happening? I'm doing well, thank you. What's that? Hoping for a WNQ last week? Well have I the story for you.

But not really. The reality of the situation is that I've been traveling since last Saturday and been kind of off the grid, despite being actively on the grid in the heart of Seattle. This, combined with the fact that I'm still tied to the antiquated idea of a desktop computer, has negatively affected my productivity. Luckily, I have an iPad and free airport wifi on my way from Seattle to Chicago for Groin Wolf's wedding.

By the way, wouldn't it be awesome/ridiculous if we used FF names to reference decidedly non-FF related events occurring in managers lives? "I can't wait to see Daughter of Diaper Money." "I partied in Vermont with the Trail of Tears." "I walked up the escalator and ran into The Bolshevik Revolution." I will now start trying to do this whenever possible.

I had originally planned to use this week to do a playoff chances breakdown, but that has proven difficult. We have four 2-4 teams and five 3-3 teams, not to mention the two 4-2 teams. We have no undefeated teams, and the cream of the crop so far, Peter, plays 4-2 Dane, which will either a) pull him back to the pack or, more likely, b) mark Dane's descent into the Monkey in the Middle, ie, the apocalyptic logjam of average teams that will continue to eat each other alive until only a few survive.

I'm going to save the brunt of my wordsmithing for next week, when I've, you know, got a computer and can look at my history logs and stat sheets. For now, a few thoughts...

While I'd prefer to forget a Week 5 that marked my defeat at the hands of Jewish Malificent, I would like to highlight the Kim/Scott game. Kim, a consensus worst 3-3 team, beat Scott, barely, 76.9 to 76.1. This one week after Scott converted a loss to a win once score checking had been completed by ESPN.com. Two games with the score deided by less than a point! Without fractional scores, those could have both been ties. Scott would be 1-3-2 and would have more ties than wins.
I've been trying to change my team name to somehow mock/oppose the team I am playing on any giving week, leading to such classic match ups as "Team Pausegate vs The Unpauser," and "Bolshevik Revolution vs Tsar Romanov." I struggled when facing the poorly named 'My Team,' presuming that the opposite of My Team was Your Team. Peter, however, correctly pointed out that the opposite of My Team (Travis) would actually be 'My Team' (Rob). This as genius. This led to a match up of My Team (2-3) with My Team (2-3), which, of course, led to a My Team victory. This week, in an ode to the league, I've decided to go with Ryda top, Drew bottom, which I figured would only be fitting on Drew's wedding weekend. My second choice w Undescended Ballers.
Is Jason's team suddenly competent? After an 0-4 start he has pulled out two impressive victories. I would hold off on this assessment. Jason is being carried, almost single-handedly by he KC defense. Last week they put up 26 points, which is really not atypical of their production this season. I am tempted, however, to believe that this level of productivity is unsustainable, and am not sure Jason can rise above. Without his defense, Jason scored 72 points last week.

The Case of Dane: while he is nowhere near as terrible as I assumed he would be, the cracks are beginning to show. As noted, Dane has a team more shallow than a bathtub. With players on bye, this becomes more apparent, forcing him to start players like B Powell from NYJ (whose first name I'm not sure of), and others. This will only worsen with the demise of Julio Jones. But hey, he got another 13.5 points from the bench for RG3! A great investment!

As mentioned, my goal is to avoid much prognosticating for the playoffs until next week. But I will say a few things. Believe it or not, I have the #2 scoring offense. I also have the #3 most PA, hence my 3-3 record. Peter has the unusual combo of most PF and least PA; here is an example of a good team that is also getting really, really lucky. Drew and Kim are both 3-3 with PF of 528 and 498, respectively. The 2-4 teams: Kyle (561), Scott (551), Travis (541), Jason (540). Either Kim/Drew start scoring more, or they won't be .500 for long.

I'll be back for more (much more) next week. Until then, I'll leave you with this link to what NFL logos would look like if all the teams were British:

http://daveartlocker.blogspot.com/2013/02/what-if-all-nfl-logos-were-british.html

Be prepared for monocles, top hats, and team names like "Stripey Wotsits."