Has football started yet? I’m still watching baseball.
Okay, that may have as much to do with the Broncos lame start as the Cardinals making the playoffs, but…seriously, last night was a season’s worth of baseball in about three hours. Fun stuff.
Broncos and Chefs have started out a combined 1-5. What are we going to talk about as the season continues? Should I start a Dancing with the Stars pool instead? I know not EVERYONE in this contest is a KC or Denver fan, but the ones who COUNT are.
Congrats to Brent on his Week 3 victory. 13-3 was the best tally on a weird week. Dan, Tom and Sheila now share the overall lead.
Sheila?!!! Wow! I mean, I don’t want to perpetuate any stereotypes, but isn’t she a GIRL?!!! Sure, it’s early. And sure, there’s a chance that the teams with the prettiest uniforms just might be doing pretty well this season, and that could explain her success. (Actually, that must be it.) But here it is, three weeks in and a GIRL is leading the AFP! Yeah, I know that there have been previous milestones in gender equity (pay equality, suffrage…little things like that), but an actual GIRL co-leading our contest after THREE WHOLE WEEKS?!!! Let the parade planning begin!
Sigh. That’s the best I can do this week – some old fashioned chauvinism. So lazy. My apologies.
Deadline for Week 4 is noon on Sunday. Have a fantastic week!
Hi There! First off, before we get started, I thought it’d be a good time to review my feelings about recent conference realignment news…
Okay. So congrats to our Week 2 winner: Dan! Neuty, Lathrom and Dan all went 15-1 (yikes!), so nicely done. Dan won the tiebreaker by selecting Rivers as his QB with the most yards. Though I would have awarded Horst’s answer of Favre, if he’d been in the running.
Dan got to 15 wins be picking against his Chefs, by the way. I have no problem with that. It’s fine to compartmentalize your fandom away from a high stakes contest like this. But I do have a little message for the KC “fans” that are filling the internet/radio waves: ”Suck for Luck” sucks. You stink. I don’t care what it says about you as a Chefs fan – it says something about you as a sports fan. You’re two games into a 16-game season and not only are you throwing in your interest-towel, but you’re actively hoping/wishing/asking for your team to lose. Intentionally lose. Sure, KC isn’t going to the playoffs again – we all kind of see that’s the way it’s headed. But what “smart sports dude” award to you want for not only predicting that, but begging for it to come true? Because there is a QB out there that may turn out to be a good pro? Maybe as good as…Sam Bradford? Matthew Stafford? Cam Newton? Or, maybe he can even reach the heights of David Carr? Heath Shuler? Or, yes, I’ll say it – Ryan Leaf?
So “smart sports dude who’s really just this week’s straw man for Chesty cause surely there can’t be more than 10 people not hosting radio shows trying to get people riled up who really believes this junk” – this thing can’t be manipulated in the NFL. You can’t pull those strings. Cause even if you could figure out how to lose those 14-15 games (which is probably harder than it sounds – KC plays Denver twice!), what have you really won? A chance to take Andrew Luck #1 overall, who experts claim in the best QB available next year. These would be experts from the same pool of knowledge, by the way, who took Tim Couch over Donovan McNabb. Dan McGwire over Brett Favre. And yes, KC… Todd Blackledge over Jim Kelly and Dan Marino?
The point? You can’t control it. Andrew Luck may end up being Andrew Suck. And even if you COULD bank on him being as advertised – you think THAT’S all that’s wrong?
So why are these people even watching the games? For draft picks? Maybe there’s something inside sports that’s more fun than that. Like when a bad team becomes better. When a QB who’s struggling finds what made him a Pro Bowl pick last year. When a 3rd-string RB has a great game. When 8-8 is actually a really good season considering the injuries. I think that sounds like something I’d want to watch. (And if I didn’t, I’d just turn it off. I wouldn’t act like a toddler and demand everyone sink to my “I’m mad we’re not good so I want POOP!” craziness.)
But hey…I’m a KU fan. If I went into every season with “Orange Bowl or NOTHING! Fire the coach!”…(You know, like Scotty Ray)…but if I did that, where would I ever find any enjoyment? If you don’t find the little bits of fun in the struggle, then you should just turn off the game anyway. Especially when the season JUST STARTED! Yeesh. I’m convinced the people pushing this just simply don’t like sports.
Week 1 is in the books. (Or is it “book,” singular? It’s actually not even in one book – it’s on the internet. Definitely not multiple books. This is important, no?) Check the link to left (“Overall Standings”) to see how you’re doing. Or, just assume you’re near the bottom. That’s what I do.
Congrats to our Week 1 Winner: Jeff Hodson. Not only got 11 right the first week, but his “Number of FGs in Week 1?” guess was just two off. He guessed 40 and the answer was 42. While I have no doubt that Jeff’s happy with his AFP victory, I’m guessing that it can’t compare to his enjoyment of ISU’s win over Iowa. (And probably can’t even compare to any Eurorails win he’s ever had…if someone would stinkin’ play with him!)
It was an 8-way tie for first this week with 11 wins. Nice job, all of you.
I’m ignoring the Broncos’ loss that didn’t happen on Monday night. Fluke. I mean, they faced one of the toughest teams in football, on the road and barely lost while executing a brilliant gameplan, flawlessly. (Okay, the opposite of all those.) But I can’t lose hope in week one. I can’t. *Sobbing* Eternal optimist in me. *Fetal position* Glass half full…
But at least they scored. And at least they didn’t lose their best defensive player for the season. And didn’t face the final few snaps at home in front of 578 people. (I counted!) Some of you poor saps had to watch a really ugly football team on TV Sunday. If I wasn’t such a jerk, I would have felt bad.
But still, there’s something worse out there…much worse:
They forgot #6: “When things get a little slow in the 2nd half, start a ‘Tee-Bow! Tee-Bow!’ chant. Don’t worry, it makes just as much sense to do it here as it does Denver.”
Alrightie – make your picks. Deadline is noon, Sunday.
But before I give myself too much credit – it’s not like that call to stay up and watch the entire Denver game last night was a very good one either.
I don’t mind my team being bad. But it’s hard to watch a dumb team – even one that tries. Very frustrating. Throw in a merry mix of having to your typical collection of NFL ticket-paying morons fan (“Teee-bow! Teee-bow!”), and suddenly you receive a jolt of 1am enlightenment: I’m a grown man. This is a very stupid, unsatisfying game I’m watching. Why am I sacrificing sleep for THIS?!!!
And then I turn the channel over to a Three’s Company rerun, and stay up for another hour.
Have a great Tuesday. AFP standings update and Week 2 picks will be available at 8am on Wednesday.
