Not sure we’ve ever had a six-way tie for last place before . . .
1. Big Guns (6-2); beat MSG
2. Multiple Scoregasms (6-2)
3. Sons of Liberty (5-3)
4. Deep Snappers (5-3)
5. Damn The Torpedoes (4-4); outscored Chumps
6. Season 27 Champs (4-4)
7. DoubleSwerve (3-5); 1-0 vs. Yankees/Maulers
8. The Dirty Yankees (3-5); 2-1 division record, outscored Maulers
9. Maulers (3-5); beat Weasels, beat Freedom
10. Freedom Factory (3-5); beat Mayhem, outscored Weasels
11. Electric Mayhem (3-5); outscored Weasels
12. Weasels (3-5)
This week’s rankings and untangling of the 3-5 morass were gratefully provided by the Deputy Commish.
Yankees 150, Torpedoes 90.5: Yankees posted the highest score of the year so far, and Torpedoes put up 90.5 despite a double goose egg and a 1 point PK.
MSG 149.5, Maulers 88.5: MSG takes over the scoring lead and the #1 power ranking.
SOL 113, Swerve 84.5: The battle of zero-point DST’s went to SOL.
Chumps 111, Mayhem 90: Marvin Mims, newest member of Commish’s F-You list.
Guns 70, Factory 61: The league’s luckiest team rolls on.
Weasels 59, Snappers 52: Only four teams had no goose eggs in their lineups, and somehow these were two of them.
Ruminations and Cogitations (FFF Strikes Again edition)
Week 8 Awards: I thought I had the Hard Luck won but Torpedoes sniped me by half a point. An all-time Dumb Luck goes to Weasels for winning with the week’s second lowest score.
Big Guns takes the Bench Mob with 75.5 bench points, and Weasels gets the first All In of the season.
Week 8 Overreactions
- It’s amazing that the Bengals lost at home to the Jets, gave up 39 points in the process, made Justin Fields look like Joe Namath, and that somehow wasn’t the worst result of the week. But the Bengals are still ASS.
- Commish’s MVP rankings
- Jonathan Taylor
- Hat Trick Cojones
- Josh Allen
- Drake Maye
- Turns out that losing to the Jets by one at home isn’t as bad as losing to Dolphins at home by 24 and making a one-eyed Tua look like Dan Marino. The Falcons are even more ASS.
- Since my moaning about the Stars last week they’ve earned 7 of a possible 8 points and have a three game win streak. They might be ok after all.
- My fantasy teams are a combined 22-26, but the two in-person leagues that I care about are 5-11. I hate fantasy football.
Team of the Week
| QB | Jordan Love | Factory | 28 |
| RB | Jonathan Taylor | MSG | 35 |
| RB | James Cook | Yankees | 33 |
| WR | Troy Franklin | Yankees | 20 |
| WR | Rashee Rice | Mayhem | 16 |
| TE | Tucker Kraft | Maulers | 29.5 |
| WR/TE | Travis Kelce | Weasels | 18 |
| PK | Chris Boswell | MSG | 20 |
| DST | Buccaneers | Yankees | 29 |
| Total | 228.5 |
I found out in a meeting today that the Jets are a client of ours, to which I said “Can’t we find a better team?”
The only sports team I can remember having as a client was the Dallas Stars the year they won the Stanley Cup, which was awesome. That was the late 90s with CIS which is where this league was founded. A few years ago I had the New York Islanders but I left that company before that project really got underway.
Through the Stars I also had a meeting at the Texas Rangers offices at the Ballpark but they were never a client. Both teams were owned by Tom Hicks at the time but I don’t remember what the meeting with the Rangers was about.
I also worked an implementation at American Airlines Center which was cool. That was in the NextCorp days, and I later found out about some naughty shenanigans in a dark luxury box between another NextCorp employee and a salesperson at the AAC. Since there are a couple of ex-NextCorp alums in this league, I shan’t elaborate but rather will leave them to speculate, if they even care. Or remember.
Top 5 Plays of the Week
5. The Panthers never laid a finger on James Cook on this TD run.
4. We may have seen the last of Spencer Rattler, but before he left he gifted us maybe the funniest highlight of the year
3. AA-Ron can still get it done.
2. R.J. Harvey had six touches vs the Cowboys, and scored three TDs.
1. Jonathan Taylor is an effing stud.
Joe Flacco made the top 5 last week with a fun bootleg run, but it paled in comparison to the greatest bootleg ever and one of the greatest plays of all time. From 1995, behold the gloriosity of Steve Bono.
- Breathtaking, wasn’t it?
- I guarantee you the Chiefs players were doubled over laughing on the sidelines
- They probably had to put Bono in an oxygen tent after that
- Though watching the slowest QB in history run 76 yards untouched is amazing, there are two things about it that make it even better
- First is the offensive lineman who escorts Bono down the field. First he gets out in front, then he waves Bono to pass him, then he turns around and runs backward, while never coming within 40 yards of anyone to hit.
- That was the year the Buddy Ryan coached the Cardinals and brought in a bunch of his old Eagles players, all of I whom I hated almost as much as Ryan. Watching them fail so spectacularly was soooooooo delicious thirty years ago. And still is today.
The Non-NFL Play of the Week is Freddie Freaking Freeman – again.
Last week I was challenged to list college football programs by number of Superb Owls won. Ok, I issued the challenge, but regardless – challenge accepted!
I found a list online but it must have included all rings even if they didn’t play because it gave Phil Simms credit for two. My list is only for the 59 Superb Owl winners, and like I said last week only the last school the QB played for gets credit. Enjoy.
| Michigan | 7 | Brady |
| Notre Dame | 5 | Montana (4), Theisman (1) |
| Alabama | 4 | Starr (2), Namath, Stabler |
| Purdue | 4 | Griese (2), Dawson, Brees |
| Louisiana Tech | 4 | Bradshaw |
| Stanford | 4 | Plunkett (2), Elway (2) |
| UCLA | 3 | Aikman |
| Texas Tech | 3 | Mahomes |
| Navy | 2 | Staubach |
| BYU | 2 | McMahon, Young |
| Miami of Ohio | 2 | Roethlisberger |
| Tennessee | 2 | P. Manning |
| Ole Miss | 2 | E. Manning |
| Louisville | 1 | Unitas |
| Morehead St. | 1 | Simms |
| Grambling | 1 | Williams |
| West Virginia | 1 | Hostetler |
| Washington St. | 1 | Rypien |
| Southern Miss | 1 | Favre |
| Northern Iowa | 1 | Warner |
| Fresno St. | 1 | Dilfer |
| Florida St. | 1 | Johnson |
| California | 1 | Rodgers |
| Delaware | 1 | Flacco |
| Wisconsin | 1 | Wilson |
| Arizona | 1 | Foles |
| Georgia | 1 | Stafford |
| Oklahoma | 1 | Hurts |
- Two directional schools and one service academy made the list before the likes of Texas, USC, Florida, Miami, Penn St., LSU, Ohio St, and Oregon.
- Bama got the first three Superb Owls with Starr and Namath, and four of the first eleven but none since, though I bet Bama fans try to claim Hurts.
- I’m old enough to remember when people joked about how poorly Michigan QBs fared in the NFL.
- I knew most of these from the start but I had to look up Rypien and Foles, and whether Russellwilson went from NC State to Wisconsin or vice versa.
- Possible new entrants this year include Wyoming (Allen), Utah St. (Love), and Duke (Daniel Jones). Yeah, I said it.
Truth be told this wasn’t much of a challenge. The bigger test would be to list the Superb Owl losers. That would take a lot more work but it intrigues me. Jim Kelly alone gives Miami four, I wonder if any school would beat that.
This week’s trivia question is a doozy: Last week’s NFL GOAT – Jerry Rice – leads all NFL players all-time with 2,169 receiving yards after the age of 40. Who is second on that list, and how many yards did they have?1
Hint: You all know who this player is, but if you don’t already know the answer you’ll never guess it.
The Commish Track of the week is Memphis In The Meantime by John Hiatt.
Uni Watch! I didn’t intend for this to become a weekly installment but teams keep trotting out these atrocities, with some occasional glorious flashbacks. This week we have two of each.
First up, the Texans.
I mean, the next good uni Houston wears will be their first, but this is just blech. They took their current navy blue, added Oilers blue, threw in some red, took out the white and achieved nothing. And why lean into the whole “H-Town” thing when everyone knows that even people who live in Houston hate it there?
Then we have the Steelers, lest you think I think all throwbacks are awesome.
I don’t actually know that those are throwbacks but you’ll never convince me that a modern designer would choose that color pants. (UPDATE: they’re 1933 throwbacks). And what’s with the bar graph on the jersey front? And why does the City of Pittsburgh crest look like the Real Madrid badge? A good uni would never spur so many questions.
On the flipside there was some good alternates in week 8. First up the Eagles rolled out the kelly green.
I admit to having a little PTSD over these as they conjure memories of Reggie White, Jerome Brown and Clyde Simmons terrorizing the Cowboys in the late 80s and early 90s. But the kelly green is a classic look and is much better than their current “midnight green”.
And finally, you should have seen this one coming
The Orange Crush jersey is awesome but this one’s as much about the helmet and logo as it is the jersey. The helmet is the proper shade of blue for those unis, and the “D” logo with the white horse bursting through it is an all-timer. This should be their permanent home uni.
The Nepo Babe of the Week is actress and model Ava Sambora, daughter of Heather Locklear and former Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora. This one is tricky because her parents didn’t exactly shield her from cameras growing up and so I think a lot of her pics are from her teenage years. I’m hoping this one isn’t.
For our ender we’ll go with this nugget from Bob Newhart: “I don’t like country music, but I don’t mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means ‘put down’”.
Good luck to everyone (almost) in week 9,
The Commish
- Tom Brady(!), with 6(!!) yards ↩︎
Ruminations & Cogitations 
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