1997 FFL Week 15 Newsletter
What's inside:
1. Letter from the Commish
2. Transactions
3. Week 15 Recaps & Boxscores
Letter from the Commish:
If you read nothing else, read this: The Commish awoke Sunday morning around 6:00am to a brainstorm that it’s hoped will increase interest the next two weeks for those teams not qualifying for the playoffs. We are having a two-week, winner take all, shotgun tournament for any and all league members (whether or not you made the playoffs). Here’s how it works. Anyone interested in competing two more weeks, submit a starting lineup of nine players (just like every other week: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, TE, U, K, D). They do NOT have to be players on your current roster. They can be anyone in the NFL. This lineup will be yours for two weeks, carrying over from Week 16 to Week 17. At the end of the two weeks, the entry with the highest point total for the two weeks combined captures the winner-take-all prize. Do the following:
Submit your starting lineup plus three tiebreaker players of any position (including QB or K) to the Commish by gametime on Saturday (note that there ARE Saturday games this week). Place your tiebreaker players in order of preference. If no order of preference is given, the Commish will place them in the order he receives them. Pay a $10 entry fee by giving your money directly to the Commish or to Paul Young or by sending it in the mail via check to Paul Young at 2830 Jameson N. #15, Lincoln, NE 68516. Any checks mailed to Paul Young MUST be postmarked no later than Saturday to qualify. Friendships aside, no exceptions. Teams that are shared such as the Iguanas, PMS and April’s Supercuts may split up and submit separate entries if you like. The more people who sign up, the bigger the payoff. Coaches Widtfeldt, Will and Wassem have already expressed interest. Coaches Young and Johnson are straddling the fence waiting to see who else enters. Far be it for them to be interested of their own accord. If you have questions, get in touch with me.
Although certain players may wind up on multiple rosters, this is not to say that those players will necessarily have two good weeks down the stretch in Weeks 16 & 17. So, maybe obvious choices like a Brett Favre or a Terrell Davis may not score much the next two weeks. With kickers and defenses and the many possible utility players that can be chosen, the chances of a tie are remote in any event. But, if a tie should happen, the three tiebreaker players should end that. We would take the tiebreaker players in order one-by-one until the tie is broken.
In other league news, this communique was intercepted by the Commish’s minions. It shows a side of Coach Young little seen by the public; a show of concern on his part over his Week 15 starting lineup for the big game versus the Strange Highways. Let’s listen in:
"You should have heard Alex giving me a jab about Hearst. Supposedly put the karma on him so that Kirby could get more carries. Assholeio. Man, my team is not bone, definitely made of spare parts. Hearst out, Shepherd out, Glenn out probably, Carruth who the fuck knows, Murrell who the fuck knows, A. Miller zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I may have to go with Hooooaaaaaaaaaarrrdduh. Calloway + ???@ WR. Maybe Hollis. Chewey. Barry on Sunday nite!!"
Commish’s note: Terry Kirby was used by the Mystics and scored, albeit in a losing cause.
Congratulations to the Crawling King Snakes for winning in Weeks 14 & 15 to qualify for the playoffs as the wildcard seed. Coach Erickson gets the task of trying to defeat the Natural Mystics, the Snakes’ designated rival (for whatever reason). This marks the third straight playoff appearance for the Snakes, who have lost in the first round each of the past two years. The King Snakes are the only league team to qualify for the playoffs each of the past three seasons. The Mystics are making their third trip to the promised land. They have also lost in the first round in each of their previous attempts. One of these teams will break through to the finals for the first time in ‘97. The Snakes were no doubt pleased that the Mystics lost in Week 15, giving them a 12-3 record. A Mystics win would have given them a league best-ever record of 13-2, bettering the 12-3 mark that the King Snakes put up in 1996. They settled with a tie for the record. The Snakes were also rewarded earlier this season when the Highways tripped the Mystics in Week 8 to stop their run at Coach Erickson’s league best 10 game winning streak.
The Moe Division, in typically muddy Moe fashion, was not determined until late during the MNF game. Grande To The Party defeated April’s Supercuts on Sunday but had to wait out the winner of the Strange Highways-Bone Club game before knowing if they’d advanced or if it would be the Bone Club advancing for a record fourth straight time. After Richie Cunningham’s extra point with about seven minutes left in the 4th quarter of the last game of the last week, the Strange Highways escaped with a narrow and, for the Bone Club, crushing 43-42 win, the Party had won the Moe title at 7-8 and earned (?) the right to play a banged up PMS squad that defeated Grande earlier in the season by a score of 31-18. This marks the first time in league history that a team with a losing record advanced to the playoffs with a chance to win the title. It’s also the first time in recent memory that Grande won a game it could classify as "big" even though it left Isaac Bruce and his 12 points on the bench and only scored 24 for the week. There’s something about Week 15 that does not agree with Coach Will. Last season, he had the highest scoring team but needed a win in Week 15 to qualify for the playoffs. His team scored only 6 points against North Dallas 40 and lost, ending the season on a sour note. With the elimination of both the Strange Highways and the Bone Club, the league is guaranteed a new and first time champion in two weeks.
Here are the payouts for the season thus far: Natural Mystics $60, PMS $45, NFC Norris $30, Grande To The Party $30, Bone Club $15, April’s Supercuts $15, Greenback Iguanas $15, Hog’s Breath $15. Each of the teams just mentioned gets that money on the basis of having high points for one or more weeks; a total of eight teams in all. That’s what we like to see. Spread the wealth and make everyone happy. Additionally, the playoff teams will get the following amounts: 1st Rd. losers--$61.25; Championship loser--$122.50; Champion--$245.00.
Enough of Week 15. On to the playoffs. There will not be a newsletter next week. The last newsletter will be published after the FFL championship game. It will also include, for the first time ever, the first annual FFL record book containing all the league, team and individual records that are fit to print. Both will be mailed out to you so expect it a little later in the week than usual. The Commish hopes you choke on it. Good luck to the playoff teams. For those of you who intend to participate in the Shotgun Tournament, the Commish hopes that it provides a distraction for the next two weeks in the event you did not make the playoffs. And if you did, maybe you’ll get lucky and take home two prizes. In the meantime, go deep, I'll throw it!
-The Commish
Week 15 Recap
It’s Sometimes Better To Be Lucky Than Good; Grande Win Catapults Party To The Big Dance
April’s Supercuts, needing only to defeat Grande To The Party in Week 15 to capture the Moe division crown and the playoff spot that goes with it, was unable to get much offense going and dropped a 24-19 decision to Coach Will’s boys. The Party forgot what starting lineup they’d gone with when asked. They still retained O.J. Santiago as their 3rd string TE despite his broken leg. They couldn’t keep track of the Monday night game long enough to know their playoff status until notified by Coach Widtfeldt early Tuesday morning despite it’s holding the key to Coach Will’s chances. They left 14 points on the bench in the name of Isaac Bruce, someone they’d started for weeks but mysteriously benched in Week 15. Despite all of that, the Party someone made the playoffs with the help of the Strange Highways, who defeated the Bone Club 43-42 in the last remaining game of the year late Monday night. The Cuts got one TD toss from Warren Moon but he left early with sore ribs. Terrell Davis scored a TD but was held under 100 yards for the day. A defensive TD and 3 points from K Chris Boniol concluded the Supercut scoring. Grande got one big early 10 point play from Brett Favre to Robert Brooks then held on as Favre threw one more TD toss and Jeff Wilkins kicked 10 points. Both teams finished at 7-8 for the season. The 7-8 record for the Party is the worst ever record for a playoff team in FFL history.
April’s Supercuts 19 24 Grande To The Party
Moon 04 QB 08 Favre
T Davis 06 RB 00 E Smith
Zellars 00 RB 00 Dunn
Galloway 00 WR 06 R Brooks
Harrison 00 WR 00 Jett
Riemersma 00 TE 00 Sharpe
A Lee 00 U 00 Gonzalez
Boniol 03 K 10 Wilkins
Giants 06 D 00 Cardinals
Cunningham Bounces Boners From Playoff Hunt; Highways Demand Turkey Pot Pie From Young
The Bone Club continued to play the Strange Highways as though they were Coach Widtfeldt’s personal bitch. Despite Kordell Stewart’s heroics for the Bone Club, the Highways withstood the early torrent and walked away with a crushing 43-42 win over the Bone Club as Richie Cunningham kicked an extra point with around seven minutes left in the game. Kordell Stewart kills the Highways. After scoring 24 points against them in Week 6, he scored 26 against them in Week 15 to give the Bone Club a large early lead. Of Kordell’s third best ever point total in the league of 144 points for the year, 50 came against the Highways. However, the Highways chipped away, getting 20 points from Yancy Thigpen and another 8 points from Herman Moore Sunday night to go with Steve McNair’s 8 points from the Thursday game to bring the Highways within 6 points entering the MNF game. Cunningham then accounted for seven and was the difference in the game. Thigpen’s 20 points matched the 2nd highest single game output by a WR ever and matched the highest WR output for a regular season game. Coach Young still had Anthony Miller playing while Coach Widtfeldt had Wesley Walls and Richie Cunningham. Only Cunningham scored. Walls left the game with an ankle injury while Miller, who didn’t catch his first pass until the 4th quarter, immediately left the game moments later woozy after being given his head on a platter by a Panther DB at the 6:55 mark, thereby ending any last hopes for Coach Young in ‘97. As former Miller owners know, one needs to only draft him once to realize he’s a bum. Said Coach Widtfeldt after the game, "That loud screaming you might have heard, I believe, came from Lincolnland, specifically the Young/Johnson household. 43-42........... BEAUTIFUL!!" The Highways finish 6-8-1, third in the division while the Bone Club brings up the rear (he’s our butt buddy, as it were) at 6-9.
Bone Club 42 43 Strange Highways
Stewart 26 QB 08 McNair
Sanders 08 RB 00 Alstott
Murrell 00 RB 00 K Carter
Calloway 06 WR 20 Thigpen
A Miller 00 WR 08 H Moore
Chmura 00 TE 00 Walls
Broussard 00 U 00 F Jones
Hollis 02 K 07 Cunningham
Buccaneers 00 D 00 Patriots
Crawling King Snakes Are Gonna Crawl Some More While Iguanas Green With Envy In Loss
The Crawling King Snakes completed an improbable playoff run by defeating the front runner and favored Greenback Iguanas 39-18 in Week 15 action. After dropping games in Weeks 8-10, the Snakes recovered to close out the season with a 5-2 stretch, never scoring over 40 points in any one game until Week 15 when they most needed it. The Iguanas never got going. Neil O’Donnell, substituting for the injured Vinny Testaverde, threw 2 TD passes for the Iguanas and Karim Abdul-Jabbar scored on a short TD run. Jason Hanson finished the Iguana scoring with 4 points. All other Iguanas were quiet on the day. The Snakes opened their scoring with a Bam Morris TD run shortly before the 3:00 o’clock games. Marshall Faulk’s 8 points and Gary Anderson’s 4 kicking points were a prelude to Troy Drayton’s 2 TD catches in the Sunday night game and Scott Mitchell’s 2 TD tosses in the same game, giving the Snakes 39. For the first time in seven games, the Snakes’ defense did not score. At 8-7, the Snakes defeated the Iguanas and got some help from the NFC Norris who defeated the Palace of Swords, thus giving the Snakes their third straight appearance in the playoffs. For the Iguanas, it was a bitter defeat. They held the wildcard lead down the stretch in Weeks 13 & 14, defeating PMS in a Week 14 upset to draw within a single win of their first ever playoff appearance. But the offense sputtered all day. The Iguanas finish at 8-7 after finishing 7-7-1 in 1996.
Crawling King Snakes 45 18 Greenback Iguanas
Mitchell 09 QB 08 O’Donnell
Faulk 08 RB 00 R Harris
Morris 06 RB 06 Jabbar
Irvin 06 WR 00 T Martin
Stokes 00 WR 00 K Johnson
Drayton 12 TE 00 Asher
D Scott 00 U 00 T Thomas
G Anderson 04 K 04 Hanson
Chargers 00 D 00 Broncos
PMS Feeling Bloated After Spiller 53 Point Burst
The Beer Spillers, salvaging respectability against the league’s upper crust, pasted PMS by a 53-32 count in Week 15 play. Drew Bledsoe got the Spillers off early with a pair of TD throws while Rickey Watters added a short TD plunge. Matt Stover added 7 points to close out the noon scoring. The wide receivers came up big in the late afternoon games as Rob Moore scored 20 points and Cris Carter caught a pair of TD balls. The 53 points was a season and organization high for the Spillers, marking their first entry into the coveted 50+ club. PMS got a surprising 12 points from Danny Kanell to go with Keenan McCardell’s 14 points. Jason Elam closed out the PMS scoring with 6 kicking points. PMS also lost another starter due to injury. This time, it was Tyrone Wheatley who left the game, with a sprained ankle. His status for PMS’s first round playoff game is uncertain. PMS dropped its second straight game and squandered an opportunity to reclaim the #1 seed from the Natural Mystics who also lost to close out the regular season. The Beer Spillers finish the season at 6-9 while PMS finishes 11-4.
Beer Spillers 53 32 PMS
Bledsoe 08 QB 12 Kanell
Watters 06 RB 00 Kaufman
McPhail 00 RB 00 Wheatley
C Carter 12 WR 00 J Reed
Rison 00 WR 00 Freeman
Bruener 00 TE 00 Dudley
R Moore 20 U 14 McCardell
Stover 07 K 06 Elam
49ers 00 D 00 Steelers
Swords Squander Playoff Shot In Loss To Norris
The Palace of Swords, presented with an early Christmas present in the form of a loss by the Greenback Iguanas that opened up the playoff door wide, tripped while passing through and impaled themselves for a 30-24 loss to division rival NFC Norris. The Norris quickly got 8 points from John Elway, 6 from Ben Coates and 14 from K Adam Vinatieri. Curtis Conway’s 2 points closed out the Norris scoring. They spent the rest of the game fending off a Swords comeback attempt that stopped a TD short. For the Swords, Chris Chandler had 4 points, Johnny Morton scored 8, Tony McGee caught another TD, Al Del Greco was held to 2 kicking points and the Chiefs D turned in a shutout performance. However, Curtis Martin missed the game with a shoulder injury and the other starting running backs, Robert Smith and Jamal Anderson, came up empty when it counted. And, for what seemed like the 15th time this season, the Swords left WR points on the bench, this time Troy Brown’s TD for the Pats. The Swords finish the season at .500 with a 7-7-1 record while the NFC Norris closes out 1997 at 7-8.
Palace of Swords 24 30 NFC Norris
Chandler 04 QB 08 Elway
C Martin 00 RB 00 E George
R Smith 00 RB 00 J Stewart
Emanuel 00 WR 00 M Jackson
Morton 08 WR 00 F Sanders
McGee 06 TE 06 Coates
J Anderson 00 U 02 Conway
Del Greco 02 K 14 Vinatieri
Chiefs 04 D 00 Raiders
Hog’s Breath Breathes Life Into Offense 81-39
The Natural Mystics finished out the 1997 regular season by getting their hats handed to them in a 81-39 ambush by the league cellar dwellar Hog’s Breath. The 39 points were still the 4th highest in the league for the week but was not enough to keep up with a Hog’s Breath team that jumped out 28-0 early as the result of Cory Dillon’s monster 4 TD game and rookie rushing record of over 200 yards on Thursday night. Hog’s Breath followed that up with a defensive return for a TD by the Eagles, 2 punt returns for TDs by Jermaine Lewis (only the 10th time in NFL history that a player has returned 2 punts for a TD in the same game; the third time this season alone) and a Lewis TD catch. Steve Young threw 2 TD passes and ran one in. Olindo Mare closed out the Breath scoring with 15 Sunday night points. The 81 points was the second most in league history and came from a team that had scored only 298 points for the season entering Week 15. The two teams combined total of 120 points was also the second most in league history. Hog’s Breath’s per game scoring average jumped a full four points. The Mystics, despite the loss, retained the #1 playoff seed as a result of PMS’s loss to the Beer Spillers. The Mystics were shut out at the QB spot. Rod Smith led the way with 14 points while Dorsey Levens, Terrell Owens and Terry Kirby each had 6. Ryan Longwell kicked 5 points and Jerome Bettis closed out the scoring with 100 yards rushing for 2 more points.
Natural Mystics 39 81 Hog’s Breath
J George 00 QB 14 Young
Bettis 02 RB 28 Dillon
Levens 06 RB 00 Warren
R Smith 14 WR 00 J Smith
Owens 06 WR 00 McCaffrey
E Green 00 TE 00 Glover
Kirby 06 U 18 J Lewis
Longwell 05 K 15 Mare
Cowboys 00 D 06 Eagles
Swami Sez:
Natural Mystics (12-3) vs. Crawling King Snakes (8-7)
In this first ever playoff matchup between the Mystics and the King Snakes, the Mystics go in as an overwhelming favorite. However, the King Snakes have scratched and clawed their way into the playoffs despite appearing overmatched at times in some of its games. Thus, as the old saying goes, "Any team can beat any other on a given day." For this given day, the Mystics will start Jeff George and Tim Brown (Sea), Jerome Bettis (NE), Dorsey Levens and Ryan Longwell (Car), Rod Smith (SF), Terrell Owens (Den), Frank Wycheck (Balt) or Eric Green (Tenn), and the Cowboys (Cin). The King Snakes will most likely counter with Scott Mitchell (Minn), Bam Morris (Tenn), Marshall Faulk (Miami), Michael Irvin (Cin), J.J. Stokes and Gary Anderson(Den), Darney Scott (Dal) or Charles Johnson (NE), Troy Drayton (Indy), and the Chargers (KC). The series is 2-2-1 with the Mystics winning the only game played this season between the two teams by a score of 31-28.
PMS (11-4) vs. Grande To The Party (7-8)
PMS goes into its first ever playoff game beat up. They will be playing without Brad Johnson and Terry Allen. They may also be without Tyrone Wheatley. Nevertheless, they will still take the field to attempt to advance to the FFL championship game. The probable PMS starting lineup is Kanell (Wash), Kaufman (Sea) and either Wheatley or Tiki Barber (Wash), Jake Reed (Det), Antonio Freeman (Car), Keenan McCardell (Buf), Ricky Dudley (Sea), Jason Elam (SF) and the Steelers (NE). The Party will go with Brett Favre and Robert Brooks (Car), Warrick Dunn (NYJ) and either Emmitt Smith or Sherman Williams (Cin), Isaac Bruce and Jeff Wilkins (Chi), James Jett (Sea), Shannon Sharpe (SF), and the Cardinals (NO).
Swami went 0-6 for the week, missing on everything, to finish the regular season with an overall record of 39-43.