And Now The State Of The League From The Joker Beast...
Before I address the State of the League, I would just like to say...
F*ck you, Hitmen. Fu*u*u*uuuuu***uck youuu!!!
And congratulations on your win.
No puzzles or riddles today. We're halfway through the season and I'm gonna break down your team's status so you don't have to.
Weeks 8, 11, and 13 are full slates of Division and Conference matchups, and week 9 has four Conference games. So if you're on the low end, say a 2-5 record, you've got plenty of opportunity to claw your way to the top of your conference and get that money. As long as you win.*
*The following teams should disregard this message and I apologize for getting your hopes up: Gridy (loses wk 8), Black (loses wk 11), and Light It Up (loses wk 13).Let's start with what I call the Vertical Conference: the North and South Divisions. A combined 23-19 and 4,412.5 points. The league with the best. And the worst. The top. And the flop. If the playoffs started today, five of these six teams would be in. Luckily for the East and West, the season doesn't end here.
North Division
[Gl] Gladiators 7-0, 840 pts
League: 1st
Conf.: 1st
Div.: 1st
The Goliath in record with the points to back it up.
There's no other way to say this. If you're facing this team, you lose. Don't bother watching the games. You could set your lineup, but why bother? You might as well spend that time scratching your nuts. At least nut scratching is a contest you might win and that would be valuable practice. With 7 victories, a playoff berth is guaranteed for the Gladiators. The only question is whether the team will hold on to its 1st place seed. With only three conference matchups left, that seems very likely; but one of those matchups is against #2 Ol School.
Div. matchup wks: 8[DSC], 13[MC]
Conf. matchup wk: 11[OS]
[MC] Madden Curse 4-3, 808 pts
League: 4th
Conf: 3rd
Div: 2nd
Money isn't everything, and apparently neither are points.
Number 2 in points, but number 4 in your hearts, the team's three week winning streak was just derailed by a non-conf opponent. Eh, those don't matter. Not when you've got 5 conference matchups on your plate. The next few weeks are warm-ups to the end of season showdowns against Ol School (wk 12) and Gladiators (wk 13). But if this team reeeally wants to scare people, it should change its name to Al Davis Curse. Mwah hawh haw haw haw! Happy Halloween!
Div. matchup wks: 11[DSC], 13[Gl]
Conf. matchup wks: 8[TP], 9[SL], 12[OS]
[DSC] Da Smooth Criminals 1-6, 714 pts
League: 12th (last)
Conf: 6th (last)
Div: 3rd (last)
Michael Jackson is rolling over in his grave. ... Too soon?
Only 4 teams have scored more points, but Da Smooth Criminals have a whopping -208 point differential against opponents. How? How is that possible?! I don't understand, but the stats don't lie. -208. That means if you face them, odds are you win by 29.5 points. With only one matchup left at the bottom of the conference, this would-be David has to slay Madden Curse, Ol School, and the aforementioned Goliath Gladiators or rely on them to slay those #8-11 teams sitting right on his neck.
Div. matchup wks: 8[Gl], 11[MC]
Conf. matchup wks: 9[OS], 13[SL]
South Division
[OS] Ol School 5-2, 705 pts
League: 2nd
Conf: 2nd
Div: 1st
The New York Giants of Gateway Fantasy Football.
Back-to-back losses against the West Division have marred Ol School's perfect record. But those non-conference matchups are over, except for week 10. One of only three teams with a full 5 conference matchups left (Madden Curse, Gridy), Ol School takes on the entire North Division in a four week stretch, sandwiched by division fights with Savage Life and Team Perfection. Sitting at #2 in the best conference in the league, Ol School can only hope his losing streak stops while his week 11 meeting with #1 Gladiators still has some meaning.
Div. matchup wks: 8[SL], 13[TP]
Conf. matchup wks: 9[DSC], 11[Gl], 12[MC]
[TP] Team Perfection 3-4, 693.5 pts
League: 7th
Conf: 4th
Div: 2nd
Hey, just getting by like Good Times. Goood Tiiiiiimes!!
Has not beaten a team with a winning record. Of course, this is fantasy. It's not like his players are actually battling his opponents' players. But 4 of the 6 future opponents have winning records and 3 come up right now. With so many basement dwellers in the other conference, Team Perfection could coast into the playoffs just by winning his 3 non-confs. And at 3-4, even this team still has a shot at the #1 spot... If Perfection can turn off the cruise control.
Div. matchup wks: 11[SL], 13[OS]
Conf. matchup wk: 8[MC]
[SL] Savage Life 3-4, 652 pts
League: 8th
Conf: 5th
Div: 3rd (last)
On the bubble like soap.
You win some, you lose some. The team will be fine if its players just wake the hell up! Which they have been doing of late. With a dead even number of division, conf, and non-conf matchups and a nearly .500 record, the next 6 weeks are like a brand new season for Savage Life. The team meets everybody else in the conference except top dog Gladiators. But you don't have to meet 'em to beat 'em.
Div. matchup wks: 8[OS], 11[TP]
Conf. matchup wks: 9[MC], 13[DSC]
Now, the Horizontal Conference. (Which is also what I call sex. Which may be why I don't get much sex.) The East and West Divisions combine for a 19-23 record, which means we suck. And by "we", I mean the other five teams, 'cause I'm cool. Sure we have a total of 4,264, which means the Horizontal Conference only scores 3.5 points less per game. But, like I said last week, losers don't matter, and right now we're the losers. Time to turn it around.
East Division
[BAC] Black da Ass Clown 5-2, 696 pts
League: 3rd
Conf: 1st
Div: 1st
Clinging to the top like a cheap toupee.
Da Ass Clown holds onto the conference lead despite a lower point total than the next three teams below him. This is thanks to a four-game winning streak that began in week two. The team's only two losses are to the two teams ahead of him in the league standings (Gladiators, Ol School). With an even slate of division, conf, and non-conf games coming up, Black looks to continue to demonstrate his dominance over all the teams beneath him.
Div. matchup wks: 8[DP], 13[Hm]
Conf. matchup wks: 9[Gr], 11[TJB]
[Hm] Hitmen 2-5, 796 pts
League: 9th
Conf: 4th
Div: 2nd
The biggest little team around.
Third in points and averaging only 6 points less than leader Gladiators, the Hitmen have struggled with unlucky matchups. Losing to Da Not-So-Smooth Criminals by only 5.5 points in week 6, the Hitmen largely rebounded in week 7 when their week 5 trade for DeSean Jackson finally paid off. Only 1 conference matchup in the next three weeks, but the team can really make a run for that conference title with 3 matchups in the final weeks of the season.
Div. matchup wks: 11[DP], 13[BAC]
Conf. matchup wks: 8[LIU], 12[Gr]
[DP] Dub, Pope 2-5, 658.5 pts
League: 11th
Conf: 6th (last)
Div: 3rd (last)
When life gives you lemons... I guess you eat lemons.
The team has been bitten by player underperformance and benching mistakes. With a whole bunch of losses sandwiched between two wins, it had been a while since Dub, Pope remembered what victory was like. And once you get a taste, you want to keep it going. A win over division leader Black da Ass Clown, who's up next, would give this team the momentum shift it's looking for in its run toward a playoff seed. And maybe even conference champ.
Div. matchup wks: 8[BAC], 11[Hm]
Conf. matchup wks: 9[LIU], 13[Gr]
West Division
[LIU] Light It Up 4-3, 726.5 pts
League: 5th
Conf: 2nd
Div: 1st
Like Dennis the Menace, the little nuisance that won't go away. Or like the New York Jets.
Just when you thought L.I.U. would sink into oblivion, the team rises like the National Debt under a Republican administration. An undefeated star against the Vertical Conference (+29 pts/game), Light It Up hasn't won a single game against Horizontal Conference foes (-20.5 pts/game). The team has back-to-back matchups against the East beginning this week. It's a chance to prove his mettle in this conference before the late-season rematches against division rivals Gridy and The Joker Beast.
Div. matchup wks: 11[Gr], 13[TJB]
Conf. matchup wks: 8[Hm], 9[DP]
[TJB] The Joker Beast 4-3, 704 pts
League: 6th
Conf: 3rd
Div: 2nd
Are you laughing with him or at him?
How quickly one week changes everything. With a loss and victories by Black da Ass Clown and Light It Up, The Joker Beast's conference lead slipped away like a bar of prison soap, and with similarly painful results. Only 3 conference games left to keep the Horizontal Division in check, but 2 are against the aforementioned thorns Black and L.I.U. The team may want to take L.I.U.'s route and pad its record with some non-conf wins in order to keep those late-season showdowns relevant.
Div. matchup wks: 8[Gr], 13[LIU]
Conf. matchup wk: 11[BAC]
[Gr] Gridy 2-5, 683 pts
League: 10th
Conf: 5th
Div: 3rd (last)
Getting back to the future like Michael J. Fox.
The team is 1-4 in nonconference contests, but an even .500 in-conference. The past is the past and non-confs just don't matter right now. It's time to look to the future and Gridy's 5 chances to stick it to conference opponents. The team takes on the 3 conference leaders plus the league leader over the next 4 weeks before taking on fellow 2-5ers Hitmen and Dub Pope at the end. While Gridy has yet to score more than 110 points in a game, every upcoming opponent has had 5 games where they've scored less, except Gladiators and Hitmen which have each had 3. This team is far from out of it, but they'll need to go much higher than 88 to get Back to the Future.
Div. matchup wks: 8[TJB], 11[LIU]
Conf. matchup wks: 9[BAC], 12[Hm], 13[DP]
That's the state of each team. I'll end the State of the League with a few observations:
Without a single 6-1 team of record, it seems like Gladiators is poised to run away with it at a comfortable 2 game lead.
There is no 2-5 team in the Vertical Conference, but there are 3 in the Horizontal Conference.
The bottom 4 teams combined have as many victories as the #1 team: 7.
There are still 24 conference games to be played in the final 6 weeks, as opposed to 18 through the first 7 weeks.
QB Mark Sanchez was caught eating a hotdog on the sidelines this past weekend. Has nothing to do with the State of the League, I just couldn't find a way to fit that in as a joke earlier.
Not a single conference matchup week 10, a.k.a. Breather Week.
Hitmen has a 100 point lead on Black da Ass Clown, but Black da Ass Clown has a 3 game lead on the division.
The teams currently at the bottom of each division finish their division schedules in week 11, two weeks before everyone else.
North meets West and South meets East in all week 10 and 12 nonconference matchups.
The current #1 and #2 of each division meet up in the last week of the season.
This column is incredibly long.
Joker Beast rules!
That's all for this week. Oh yeah, one more thing. Gridy, Jason Campbell is on bye this week. Then again, the Redskins are on bye every week. It's gonna feel like you're on bye this week. You know... 'Cause you won't win.
'Til next time, I'll be beating you.
~Joker Beast~