Week Three Recap

37.70.  That's how many points per week Peyton Manning is averaging this season.  To put that into perspective, Aaron Rodgers led BORT with 25.47/week last season.  He has improved by as many points (15.22/week) as Darren McFadden has averaged this season, and McFadden has the 10th most points of all running backs.  I don't have an intro this week.  I don't want to acknowledge a legendary performance as it's happening.  I want to warn the masses: PEYTON MANNING IS SCORING ALL OF YOUR POINTS.  We must protect the children.

MONDAY MORNING QUARTER-SLACK

Okay folks, you know the drill: A brief introduction, by either yours truly or a celebrity guest, the weekly awards, with a decidedly mountainous theme as befits our league name, quotable quotes from around the league that week (I'll pull them from message board posts and emails, and otherwise will totally make them up to suit my needs), and finally a preview of the coming week's match-ups and FA transactions. Any comments/suggestions can be sent to nilsferm@gmail.com and I will promptly use them however I wish.

Weekly Awards:The Everest - Awarded to the Highest-Scoring team of the week.

This week:  Dawg Pounders (288.8)

Did I mention that Tracy had slumped slightly in points this season?  I meant HAD slumped.  Past-tense.  THIS week she made use of her whuppin' stick, destroying Chicks with Ditkas by 50 points and putting the league on notice.  It wasn't just one player going off either.  Four players scored more than 20.0 points for the Pound this week, including the 3 highest single-player outputs of the league in Antonio Brown (39.0), Drew Brees (36.8) and Jimmy Graham (34.4).   Those 3 alone totaled 110.2pts, only 49 fewer than Chinese Mafia put up as a TEAM total.  Rob should be watching next week's match up verrrrry closely.

The (Mushin) Mohammed - Awarded to a win aided most by Negative Point-Scoring by the Opponent (This Mountain came TO Mohamed)

This week: None
David Wilson cumulative scoring: +1.8
We did it!  Positive points!!!

Iceberg- Awarded to the team that had the Highest Scoring Performance left Benched

This week: Midnight in the Gordon of Weeden  (33.8)

What's that you say Cleveland?  You have a WR on the trading block?  And he caught 10 passes for 146 yards and a TD coming fresh off of the bench?  How thrilling!  Oh...and he was on the bench for "Strike Two", and "Strike Three" is a year-long suspension?  And he was targeted 19 times?  Pass.  Hard pass.

Mount Katahdin - Awarded to the team with the Longest Winning Streak

Because the Appalachian Trail is like a streak, and Katahdin is the end of it, and it's a mountain, and...

This week: The Over/Undertakers (3 wins)

Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool the Kommissar...I hope your name has some connection to real life, because after trouncing the Soul-Reaper, you're going to need an Undertaker soon...

With all respect, Rob dodged a bullet this week, with Cordarrelicte getting a total of 6.2pts from Arian Foster, CJ Spiller and Hakeem Nicks.  That just doesn't happen, and if they had scored half of their projections the match up would have ended differently.  Rob now leads the league with a 3-0 record despite having scored the 8th most points.  3-0 is 3-0, and it certainly helps that 2 of those wins are within the division, but the underlying numbers do not support this trend as an accurate representation of his team's true talent level.

Coors Light - Awarded to the team with the Lowest Point Total in a Win

This week:   Mushin no Shin  (191.0)
Well, this might just be the end of the Cinderella story that was Chinese Mafia.  After starting the season with back to back strong performances against Cordarrelicte and Gordon of Weeden the Mafia faded badly in Week 3, allowing Anthony's Fantasy Iron Curtain to coast to an easy 40pt win.  With Rob Gronkowski and Reggie Bush coming back in Week 4 and RGIII just not getting those cheap read option yards on the ground anymore, it might get uglier before it gets prettier. Phil Sanders brings his Magnetic Turf to the far East next week, and he has to be thinking about a blow-out.

Gregor Clegane - Awarded to the team that pulled off the Biggest Upset According to Projections

Because he's "The Mountain who Rides". Football and fantasy, amiright? More like "Game of THROWS" in DEN the other night...

This week: The Magnetic Turf (50.7pt projected loss, 62.6pt win)

WOW.  I can't recall any swing this large in the history of BORT.  PS did a good job of over-performing his projection 217.7 to 233.6 but PT was just crushed by his players, scoring almost 100 points fewer than projected.  To be fair, some of the projections were clearly over-shooting, notably 36.0pts for Matt Forte and 44.0 for Aaron Rodgers, but 6.9pts was certainly not what The Refs were expecting from Marshawn Lynch, not against that JAC defense.  Hopefully for Phil Thompson this was an aberration and not the warning signs of a lack of roster dependability.

MDI (Mount Desert Island) - Awarded to the team with the Worst Efficiency Rating

Because our mountains don't even have trees on top. That's weak. Hear me, Mountains? Rogaine. It's a thing.

This week:  Muscle and Flow (82.3%)

If comedy is tragedy plus time, then Candace's luck picking the correct TE to play each week has officially been upgraded from tragedy to comedy.  I'm just going to put this here:

Just five receptions
twenty-eight receiving yards
still, better than ten... 

Cliffhanger - Awarded to the team with the Smallest Margin of Victory

This week:  Midnight in the Gordon of Weeden (23.2 pts)

Not many close scores this week, as it seemed that players were much more volatile in their scoring.  Gordon of Weeden finally got into the win column after starting 0-2 and near-certain elimination from the playoff race.  After working a few desperation deals late into the night this past weekend the decision was made to stay the course with his core group of players and trust in the GM.  That paid dividends Monday as 11 players scored in double-figures and four more reached that threshold on the bench.  With a tough match-up against bitter rival Chicks with Ditkas (3-0 against Weeden in 2012) looming in Week 4, Manager Nils Ferm will need more than faith; he'll need points.

Quotable Quotes from around the League this Week:

"You know you have denial badly when you click on the story and read that Aldon Smith was arrested at 7 am for drinking and think, maybe he just brushed his teeth and gurgled with mouthwash,  and I bet that's not even my Aldon Smith, surely there are other Aldon Smith's in the league. Smith is a very common name.  Then you click on your roster and the story shows there also.  Maybe they attributed the story to the wrong Aldon Smith."

- Mushin no Shin.

"I'm not interested in Snelling."

- The Magnetic Turf, foolishly passing on yet ANOTHER terrible player who somehow scores gobs of points this season.

"Did Hakeem Nicks have a bye this week?"

- Cordarrelicte Campaign.  No, he didn't, but he DID confuse "receive" with "re-sieve" in helping Eli to be sacked 438 times.

"Tight End quandary
Sir Mix a Lot said it best:
hooked, can't stop starin"

- Muscle 'N Flow

"This week, the Joique's on ME,"

- Chinese Mafia, losing in fantasy AND in joke-telling this week.

"Okay, but was CJ SPILLER on a bye?."

-Cordarrellicte Campaign

Next Week's "Featured Match-up":

Midnight in the Gordon of Weeden (1-2) vs. Chicks with Ditkas (1-2)

Ohhhhhhhh sweet redemption.  Russell, I will beat you so badly you'll have to change your team's name to "Eunuchs in Tunics".

Guest Post!

John Hughes, Jr. could have been my Dad. He wrote, directed, or produced some of the greatest movies

for teens in the 80’s and 90’s.  Here are a few matched with teams from the BORT:


The entire National Lampoon's Vacation trilogy;  With great expectation, the turf headed out with the

family truckster this year only to suffer scrapes, dings, broken down cars and dead grandmas.  However,

this week, the immortal question “Excuse me , Santonio Holmes, How do I get back to the highway?” was

answered with a win.  Lured by Darren MCFadden in a red Ferrari, their entire running back core now are

either rookies or playing like them.  It’s pretty bad when your best RB tosses more TDs in real life than

his QB.  And their best WR plays for their hapless brother in law Eddie (Giants).  His D is stout, perhaps

he needs to take his offense around at gunpoint and show them how to have a good time.  Anyway, the

sequel of the rest of the season, should be better than the first couple weeks.  


Ferris Bueller's Day Off; Bucking the system, breaking through the parental-adult complex to form an

identity and live your own life.  Or in this case, living in the shadow of your brother.  Muscle and flow have

been taking the year off in terms of fantasy engagement, but have outhustled some folks recently.  Pretty

solid scoring all the way down the line, there are few weaknesses in the lineup, they just need to run the

mileage back a few weeks to retake some wins, but be careful they don’t run the car off the cliff.  


Weird Science; using science to get laid, which still ranks as one of the worst ideas today has to go to

Mushin no shin.  DVOA, DYAR MAKER, DEWARS, pick a metric that helps winning.  Much maligned for drafting LBs and other defensemen, the MNS can attribute this style to at least one win already.  Instead

of kissing his own biceps, he should attend to his RB situation and QB, which look like the extras for

Dennis the Menace.   Like Mr. Mom, he has to attend to other duties around the house, and She’s Having

a Baby might describe his last and final year in the league.


The Breakfast Club; Life’s cross section. Punker, artist, jock, dweeb, pretty girl.  Sounds like the rag tag

crew the Chinese Mafia has been putting together each week.  At one point, the height challenged guidos

of southeast asia had the top two scoring WRs (Edelman is anthony hall, Jackson is Judd Nelson) and

RBs (Joique Bell has to be the jock, and Knowshon is molly ringwald) that no one ever thought would

hold those ranks.  They managed a win and have moved into Spoiler Alert as the “I don’t want to play

them during a bye week team.”


Some Kind of Wonderful; The offbeat loner finally reaches his goal of dating the hot girl, and his

earnestness is endearing.  She is conventionally pretty, yet totally vapid. His loner drumming sidekick is

the better play only you can’t read the main character because it’s eric stolz, one of the greatest character

actors of the time (Blue Velvet, Mask, Twin Peaks).  Replacement refs came out of nowhere to take an

early lead.  They faltered, basically relying on the popular girl (offense) while they should have been

paying attention to the fedora and suspender wearing best buddy (defense - $60 for Mario Williams, that’s

like four 2013 Brandon Jacobs’s), but they finally head to the Hollywood bowl realizing they don’t like the

popular girl but do like the not so popular girl.  Once righted, this team is probably the most likely to finally

wrest the diamond earrings from the obnoxiouson jockarelles.


Sixteen Candles; Again awkward teen tries to make it with miss popular. Unrequitted love in the halls

of my high school.  Betting with friends that you can obtain a girl’s underwear, I’m pretty sure this was

written about the owner of Midnite with the Gorton’s fishermen, probably last week.  Sweating with

desperation like Harry Dean Stanton in any movie, they mortgaged their entire future rookie drafts to

obtain Vick, because he still has one good game in him before he gets crumpled under the weight of a

300 pound linemen.  Perhaps the wins will come running out of the gym at the end and find him in the

parking lot to confess their true feelings, or he might wind up driving home the cast-off girlfriend of one of

the other owners.


Pretty in Pink; the soundtrack that launched a million itunes accounts had they had iphones in the 80’s.

Smiths, psyche furs, OMD, Suzanne vega, new order, echo and the bunnymen.  All top of their game.

This probably has to go to the corduroy artichokes for having a passion for obtaining the best players at

every position, you know, to win every year.  This would put the stokes in the rich kid category, but alas

their owner is not like the other rich kids at school and probably wins again in the end, thus still doing

what rich kids do, profiting from their cumulative advantage.  However, they just lost so I’m expecting a

monster trade coming on.  In the immortal words of another 80’s star, “Do some of that pilot shit, Mav.”


Planes, Trains and Automobiles; chicks with ditkas wearing lulu lemon yoga pants.  Hey-oh.  Whatever

the method of transportation, the long duk dongs have been bringing the wood strong through the air.

Manning has never looked back after last season, partly because his neck is fused together.  An early

contender they are going to need a strong second coming to keep it up after going 1-2 at the hands of the

Dawg pounders.      


Uncle Buck; Great Outdoors, The Dawg pounders.  What can you say about your arch rival that won’t get you beat up in public the next time you see her.  She might be able to stomach some kindness since she

took was handed the first win this year.  No bitterness here, none, just a little pain from getting a hook in

the finger.  Even though her team looks like a time capsule for 2007 (Jacobs, Bradshaw, Jones-Drew,

Brees, Reggie Wayne, Timmons, Woodley, Peppers, Allen), it still finds a way to win, especially when

my team chokes and gift wraps a win that it could have had if some Viagra tossing, eating dinner at 4:30,

tracksuit wearing old coach could actually coach. Coughlin! Good luck the rest of the way.


 The Home Alone trilogy. The over/undertakes have sole possession of first place after leaving

Napoleons campaign out in the cold this week. The team has a lot of upside, but is due for a swinging

lamp to hit them while tacks are under foot since they just started Pierre Thomas and got significant

numbers.  It’s his week to take off now or get 3.2 pts while NOLA still wins the game. I owned him

numerous times.  His average is great for the year, but the variability from week to week kills you.