Week Five Newsletter

The Palace posted a league high 67 points in taking down PMS and ending their three game winning streak in Dewey division action. The win put the Swords in a virtual 1st place tie with PMS but they now own a victory over PMS plus have a better division record. Both PMS losses on the 2000 season have been inside the division. Randy Moss led the way with 20 points against his former team. Jerome Bettis had 12 and so did Frank "I'm the only Titan receiver on the field" Wycheck. For PMS, Peyton scored 8 while four others had 6 points each. The 3-2 Swords play the 2-3 Bearded Clams next week while 3-2 PMS plays the 3-2 Retreads.

All World failed to score even 20 points for the 3rd consecutive week but at least this time they managed to score enough to post an ugly victory over the equally feebly tight end-less NFC Norris. In typical Coach Ditka always thinking defense fashion, NFC Norris followed up its Week 4 explosion with a Week 5 implosion, being limited to 12 points. Miss Glenn was high scorer for the Norris with 6 points. Eddie George led Crawl Weird with 8 points. At 2-3, All World barely stays alive, ending a three game tailspin and now prepping to face the 3-2 Greenback Iguanas in Week 6. The Jekyl Hyde Norris, now 1-4 after tough 43-37 and 46-41 losses in Weeks 3 & 4 (counting Week 5, they've lost their past three by a combined 12 points), hope Even Steven comes calling in Week 6 when they take on Coach Rady's Yippee Yeah Dogs, 3-1-1. The over/under on lineups submitted in that game has been set at 8 players by both teams.

They've sputtered often, getting points from only from select positions in the starting lineup but they got enough in Week 5 for the Clams to secure a 35-27 victory over the division leading Monty's Zema Revenge and tighten the Cheatem race up at the 1/3 way point of the season. QB Cade McNown played as though he wants to hold on to his starting spot in Chitown by scoring 14 points and even contributing a TD on an option run left. Isaace Bruce also had 14 for the Clams. The only other scorer was the kicker. But for the 2nd week in a row, the Revenge stumbled offensively. Stephen led the way with 8 while new K Richie Cunningham had 7. At 2-3, the Clams are breathing new life entering their Week 6 contest with the suddenly high flying 3-2 Palace of Swords. The Revenge are about due to explode and hope to do so against the .500 2-2-1 Natural Mystics.

The poor Strange Highways. On the plus side, they scored over 20 points this week. On the negative side, it still wasn't enough to prevent the once proud Highways from dropping to 1-4 with their 42-22 defeat at the claws of the still low flying Iguanas. The Iguanas have been hot and cold through five weeks but came up hot this week. Matt Stover kicked 4 FGs, Emmitt Smith had 8 points and WRs Jerry Rice and Marvin Harrison each caught TD passes for the Iguanas. TE Tony Gonzalez had a nice MNF TD catch. Eric Moulds had another good performance, scoring 8 points for the Highways and Thomas Jones finally correctly identified the endzone in his 5th NFL game. At 1-4, the Highways hope Week 6 will be kinder as they face Grandmaster G, a team they've had past success against and who will be without 75% of the offense next week since the Rams have a bye. The 3-2 Iguanas, tied for the Cheatem lead now, will be looking forward to a Week 6 game against All World, knowing they probably won't have to score much more than 10 points to win.

It only took three years but the Natural Mystics finally learned how to beat the Retreads; score 50 points. The Retreads' offense was sluggish for the 4th week in a row, although they cracked 30 on MNF with Derrick Alexander's TD catch. After winning in Weeks 2 & 3 anyway, they've dropped their 2nd straight. The Mystics got 14 each from QB Brett Favre and RB Marshall Faulk. Robert had 8. Both defenses scored and Daunte Culpepper had 12 for the Retreads. Derrick Alexander had a good Monday night for the Retreads with 8 points. The Retreads, 3-2, play 3-2 PMS next week while the Mystics, 2-2-1, play with 3-2 Montezuma's Revenge.

For the 2nd straight week, the Gigis took advantage of an explosive Rams offense in posting a decisive 60-32 divisional win over the King of Dogs. Kurt Warner scored 18 points for the 2nd straight week in playing little over two quarters. Marcus Robinson had 14 points but had to play the full game and K Jeff Wilkins broke his own 1996 OFFL record by scoring 22 points. His old record of 21 was set against April's Supercuts in Week 4 of the '96 season while he was with Two Turntables & A Microphone (now known as Grandmaster G). For the Dogs, Charlie Garner had 12 points while Germaine Crowell and Tim Seder had 6 points each. Edgerrin James was held to 2 points. At 3-1-1, the Dogs still lead the Howe division thanks to the Retreads loss and will play the NFC Norris next week while the 3-2 Gigis play the 1-4 Highways in Week 6.

League Records & Notibles:

• Jeff Wilkins set a record for single game kicking points with 22 for Grandmaster G.
• The Old Guard had 50+ games this week: the Mystics and Grandmaster G extended their all time record to 20 games of 50+ points as franchises while the Swords did it for their 9th time ever.
• The Swords and the Gigis had 50+ for the 2nd straight week
• In two seasons of league action, the Retreads had allowed a team to score 50+ of them only two times. In the last two weeks, that total has doubled to four.