CB Gangnam Style

 

So, everytime
I see PSY's "Gangnam Style" video,
I always see CB dancing in the elevator. Seriously...

Predictions: 2012 Edition

Fantasy, like all sports gambling, is the art of predicting the future.

I remember two years ago when I predicted Arian Foster’s breakout year (link). I was lucky enough to snag him in one draft and won the league. Had I snaked him from Sahil in the CBPFFL draft, it might have been me on top that year.

Last season, I made specific predictions (below) about Sahil’s team. Here are my judgments of his top picks:

1)      “Rodgers will compete for top QB this year.”  – He was the top QB.

2)      “S. Jax will not be a top ten RB this season. I’m guessing at least half the RBs taken after this pick in the second round out score him.” – S. Jax finished as #10 RB and was only outscored by one of the five RBs taken after him in the round.

3)      “Nicks is a beast that should pick up the slack.” – Nicks was 11^th scoring WR.

4)      “Finley as the number one TE? Over Gates?” – Finley was far from deserving the number one TE pick, outscored by seven TEs, including Gates.

5)      “When I saw Sahil that stuck himself with Jacobs as a RB2, I laughed out loud and knew he was done.” – Jacobs was outscored by 31 RBs last season, including the next five taken after this pick.

6)      “Bryant is a safe WR2 and has great upside” – Bryant finished 19^th in WR scoring.

Five out of six is pretty good, and I continued that kind of accuracy throughout all my guesses. How do I do it? Just lucky. Mind your own business.

Here are my Love/Hate predictions for the upcoming 2012 season:

“Loves” - Players that will outperform last season’s total (ignoring unusual injury seasons): Brady, Vick, Cutler, Foster, Chris Johnson, McFadden, Hillis, Kevin Smith, Julio Jones, Gates, Fred Davis, Cook, Olsen, Martellus Bennett

“Hates” - Players that will underperform last season’s total: Newton, Eli Manning, Sanchez, Jones-Drew, Sproles, Turner, Reggie Bush, Tolbert, Cruz, Roddy White, Welker, Steve Smith (CAR), Jordy Nelson, Gronkowski, and Tony Gonzalez

Of course, these predictions led me to draft four “Loves” and avoid all the “Hates” in this year’s CBPFFL draft. If I get these 80% correct, I like my chances this season.

Where It Belongs

Although my name was on the CBPFFL trophy three times, I had never actually possessed it. I was in Vegas for my bachelor party and Hank brought it in by plane like a new kidney to a dying child. He had to fight his way through the casino labyrinth of slot machines, gaming tables, and drunken tourists that grabbed for the golden prize with the desperation of Gollum, who would kill his brother to possess it. Fighting them off, Hank escaped into an elevator to climb to our room on the highest floor of Bally’s where we were watching the action down on The Strip. At long last, the trophy is mine!

As the new incarnation of the CBPFFL is far more challenging to win, my fourth victory was by far the hardest. Hank will tell you that all the championships before 2009 are invalid (thus giving Murat zero “real” victories), but I won’t go that far. All those years ago, we seemed to spend obsessively more time discussing trades back in the halls of Landon than we do nowadays, occupied with jobs and even children of our own. It was a glorious time, when the legend of Joey Galloway and KC defense were born…when the box scores were all the info you had and we tricked Carl into picking up a kick returner for his team.

Anyhow…I so excited to see the thing that I started drinking shots out of it, despite Hank’s warning about the dust build up from his apartment. Alcohol can kill anything, except stupidity…and the desire to win another title.

Make It Lucky: Daddy Needs a New Pair of Shoes!

Now that Super Bowl XLVI has come and gone, ending the 2011-12 NFL season in such a disappointing fashion for Tom Brady and Pats fans, but in such relief for the rest of us, we must prepare for the long and dreary off-season as baseball highlights ruin SportsCenter.

I think back on all the luck required to win a competitive league like the CBPFFL. Bad luck rears its ugly head in the form of injury, but my luck was mostly good this season: Kenny Britt went down right after I picked up Nate Washington, Demarco Murray went down right when I needed some production from Felix Jones, and, perhaps most importantly, #1 overall pick, Arian Foster’s hammy held together for most of the season.

Injury on other teams helped my victory a lot as well (particularly Schaub and Fred Jackson busting out for the Georges down the stretch), but it is often the avoidance of injury that is the best luck of all. So it is no surprise that the starting roster I drafted was the healthiest of all:

List of man games lost for drafted starting rosters of 2011-12 season

Pickard                        9

Kellie                           10

Landon                        10

Sahil                            14

Hank                           16

Murat                          18

CB                              19

Gene                           32

Jason                          34

Steve                          36

My hats off to Gene, Jason, and Steve’s drafting for being competitive, even after losing so many players to injury. Considering how low he finished, I expected to see Murat at the bottom of this list, and so did he. When I shared this info with him, he pointed out:

“one thing re injuries- yes they may have been injured only 18 games, but miles austin i think twice got hurt in 1st quarter, santana moss broke his hand in the first quarter of a game i think, shonn green hurt his knee first quarter, mcgahee also left a game really early, vick too i think etc etc etc.  so yes, it may have been 'only' 18 games, but trust me, it was a lot worse.”

I don’t think anyone can play with numbers quite like a banker…nor do I think anyone will be more dangerous than Murat next year. He confessed to have taken up Fantasy golf. That kind of sick desperation only comes from getting kicked in the crotch for about 17 weeks in a row. I still remember the futile feeling of steel-toed boot bouncing off my testicles week after week and being left for dead in the inescapable cellar, below even CB. It certainly motivated me to recapture the trophy. I know that some dark fire burns inside Murat and it will make him tough to beat.

215: The Great(est Team Ever) Eight

"When I get sad, I stop being sad and be awesome instead. True story."

-Barney Stinson

With my fourth championship (suck it Murat!) finished in such spectacular fashion, I’m just going to go ahead and crown my team the greatest ever assembled in the history of the CBPFFL.

• Twice in the final three weeks of the season, my team put up exactly 215 points; no other team has ever broken 200 before.
• I’m betting it will be a long time before my season total of 2544 points will be reached again.
• My total of 593 points for Weeks 15-17 is a record that will live on like the 1972 Dolphins (an average of 197.667, six points higher than the previous weekly high score).

It was five months in the making, so let’s bask in some of my awesomeness:

    

WEEK 15		WEEK 17
QB- Stafford	37	Stafford	48
RB- Foster	24	Tate	21
RB- F. Jones	15	F. Jones	14
WR- C. Johnson	42	C. Johnson	41
WR- White	35	White	10
WR- Welker	8	Welker	11
TE- Hernandez	28	Hernandez	28
Flex- Wells	13	Washington	19
K- Gostkowski	11	Gostkowski	11
D- HOU	2	JAC	12
Total	215		215

My roster represents the greatest collection of talent ever assembled on a single team…

During Week 15, Roddy White started by putting up 35 points on a Thursday, and Felix Jones followed with a capable 15 on Saturday night. With 50 points from just two players, I knew the possibility was there for greatness. Megatron and Hernandez gifted me with their career best yardage totals.

With a dream team of pure awesomeness, Week 17 was dicey trying to decide if any of my players would get rested for the NFL playoffs. But when Arian Foster got yanked just hours before kickoff, I simply whipped out Ben Tate. Megatron and Hernandez both broke their career best yardage totals. I started the perfect roster and didn’t leave a single point on the bench.

Awesomeness defined…

• Matt Stafford finished the season with 415 points, the fourth best total for a QB, but he was drafted as my backup. Matt Ryan’s 318 points made him a top ten QB also.
• Arian Foster was a difficult number one choice. He nursed a shaky hammy through the first few weeks, and only put up 5 points through Week 3, but then he exploded. Ignoring the weeks he was injured, Arian Foster averaged more points per week than any other RB.
• My WRs will quite possibly stand as the greatest ever assembled. Megatron, White and Welker all finished the year as top five WRs, with Johnson and Welker going 1-2. Not bad, considering I plucked Welker in the 7th round. Nate Washington deserves an honorable mention for finishing the season as the 14^th best wideout and a flex option that would be a number two WR on nearly every other team.
• Aaron Hernandez, who I grabbed at the end of the 12th round as my back-up, had a monster season. He finished as the 3^rd best TE.
• Gostkowski, who I picked up midway through the season (Thanks Carl!), finished as the 3^rd best kicker

This is a team that will live through the ages as a testament to greatness, a legend for future generations to emulate, and a measure of what is possible in this universe!