News:

For some reason I feel late this week, even though it is Wednesday. It must be the season – that combined with the NFL deciding to give Christmas the Thanksgiving treatment this year. We have three games Christmas Day, followed by two more on Saturday and then the Christmas leftovers on Sunday and Monday.

In Clan McDonald, we had the battles of four former champs. The semi-final between Dan and I would have made a very worthy final had it been Week 17 instead of 16. It started close, stayed close and ended the same way, although with a late lead reversal courtesy of the Lions and a Goff to Gibbs TD “stack” with 4 mins left.

In the other semi, Andy posted the third highest score of the week to finish strong against Ceilidh, who fell victim to a nasty case of “QB flu” – that and the common affliction we’ve all fallen victim to – our top guns just simply not living up to their draft capital at absolutely the worst possible time.

Random thought of the week:

Fantasy leagues usually try to wrap up in Week 17 to mitigate some of the risk of eliminated teams or teams that have clinched a play-off spot they cannot improve. It certainly helps but it doesn’t fully offset the risk.

In the last week or so I’ve realized I need to give my squad a failing grade in this important area – I find myself with too many players on bad teams. Somewhat bad teams are usually okay. Coaches are playing for their jobs and players are playing for new contracts or auditioning for roster spots. With really bad teams though it gets dicey. The bottom dwellers have high draft picks at stake and the truly hopeless only make their teams worse by winning down the stretch.

In other words, it’s kind of the opposite of worrying if your star player is going to get rested or pulled early in a blowout win and it’s a precarious position to be in during the fantasy play-offs.

Shark move of the week:

I think I’ll stick to shout outs this week. In no particular order, kudos to those with the guts to play a DEF who’s projections were heavily inflated by their opponent’s ineptitude. The Saints, Giants, Vikings and Titans were all solid plays that fit the description.

I’ll give myself a pat on the back for Charlie Smyth who has quietly been the 5th best fantasy kicker over the past four weeks.

Kudos to Scott for finishing strong with great secondary scoring from players like Gainwell, Moore and Pickens.

Last but not least, congrats to the Piper who managed to edge out BigPlay by less than two points to advance to the toilet bowl finals!

Smack talk award of the week:

Our chat represented well the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. We had some Doobie Brothers and Kansas. Puka started the week with a Jerry Rice-like effort. Ken Walker continued to do Ken Walker things. BigPlay has now known Love and lost Love. We quoted the book of Skittleviticus, chapter 3, verse 2 and consulted the Heiland abacus.

We also had some post game entertainment from the Viagra Boys but I wonder if that was directed at everyone or just some of our managers who were suffering from Pointile Disfunction.

It was a most excellent week all around!

Welcome to fantasy hell award of the week:

It’s fairly easy to declare this a tie between BigPlay and Grid. Granted they were playing for different stakes – one the upstart nephew boldly challenging the uncle and former champ and the other vying for his third Helmet of Excellence. Both contests had plenty of theatre, back and forth and ups and downs and sadly, both came out on the wrong end of the fantasy gods’ cruel whims.