NFL Week 6 Wrap-Up: REFEREE FAIL

The NFL Survivor Pool nearly reached its end on Sunday – only an astonishingly terrible Pass Interference penalty saved Mike Rennard and Andrew Gay. Joe Nelson, Jordan Spektor, and Billy Schreyer all bit the dust when the Redskins lost to the Rams; it can be easily argued that Rennard and Gay should have met a similar fate. With the Vikings down 10-9 in the final three minutes and facing 2nd and 20, Gus Frerotte heaved a bomb down the sideline to Aundrae Allison. Lions DB Leigh Bodden made a small amount of incidental contact with Allison – about the amount of contact you’d have with someone if you tried to squeeze through the door of a restaurant together – and a PI flag was thrown after the ball fell to the ground. Just like that, the Vikings were in FG position, and Rian Lindell kicked a 26-yard FG to win the game 12-10.

That leaves two Survivor participants – Mike Rennard and Andrew Gay – to battle for the Survivor Pool’s $1000 Grand Prize.

In the LO Division of ALACS Fantasy Football, Kyle Davis’s Rudi’s Luggage earned Team of the Week honors for the 2nd time this season, becoming the first ALACS team to accomplish that feat. Kyle’s 159-point effort also set the season high for a single week point-total. Rudi’s Luggage was led by his QB combo of Drew Brees (28) and Philip Rivers (29). Davis’s showing overshadowed Mike Lazar’s Lazer Boots’ strongest showing of the year, a 131-point effort that led Lazar to victory over an outmatched Team Schreyer. Andrew Gay’s Nutty Poologs continued a depressing fall from grace in Week 6; after starting off the season with four straight brilliant performances, the Poologs started two players with byes in Week 6 on the way to a 71-67 loss to Joe Simich’s Nuck Inc. After going 36-8 in Breakdown through the season’s first four weeks, the Poologs combined Breakdown record from Weeks 5+6 is 2-20.

In the other two ALACS divisions, the abysmal performance of the Giants' defensive unit on Monday Night wrecked havoc. Brendan Meyer’s Roxy Returns squad had led the USC division for the first five weeks of the season, and he found himself in a fateful inter-roommate matchup with Alex Rosenbloom’s 0-5 Blazin’ Hits in Week 6. After Top Three finishes in each of the last three seasons, the Blazin’ Hits’ 2008 campaign had been a prolonged struggle, and it only got worse on Monday morning when it was announced that Blazin’ Hits QB Tony Romo would miss the next four weeks of the season with a broken pinkie. Meyer went into the Monday Night matchup with Jamal Lewis and the Giants’ D on his side, leading Rosenbloom 90-80; Alex’s fate lay in the hands of Braylon Edwards.

The matchup may have been the most dramatic in the ALACS this season. At one point, Braylon Edwards caught a 75-yard pass…and was tackled just close enough to the goal line for Jamal Lewis to run it in for a crucial six points. With just 8:22 left in the game – and on the strength of Edwards’ best fantasy showing of the year, by far – Roxy Returns led the Blazin’ Hits 102-99.

And then….boom. An Eli Manning pass down the sideline is picked off and returned 94 yards for a Touchdown. Just like that, Meyer and Rosenbloom are tied 99-99.

Now this is where things get fun. Up to this point – immediately after the interception return for a TD – the Giants’ D had allowed 33 points to the Browns; if the Browns reached 35 points, the Giants’ D moved from -4 fantasy points to -7. Thirty-four points allowed would have kept the Giants’ D at -4.

So what do the Browns do? They go for two. And who scores the two-point conversion? Braylon Edwards. Final score: Blazin’ Hits 101, Roxy Returns 95. Roxy Returns’ loss meant bad things for the rest of the ALACS, however, as current ALACS: Year One leader Dan Goldman moved into first place in the USC Division on the strength of Tricrownthreat's 110-96 victory over Jon Goldberg’s Ecto Cooler. Jordan Spektor’s Seahawks Nation continued to move up in the USC Division standings by leading the league with 136 points in Week 6.

The Giants’ D also made the difference in a pivotal GU Division matchup between Tim Hokit’s Hail Hokit and Matt Crevier’s El Segundo Teen Wolf. Hokit, 4-1 on the year and clutching first place in the GU Division through five weeks, went into the MNF matchup losing 92-86. Hokit had no one playing; his score was set in stone at 86. Crevier, however, had both the Giants’ D and Amani Toomer in action. Amani Toomer? Zero receptions, zero yards. Giants’ D? –7 points. Final score: Hail Hokit 86, El Segundo Teen Wolf 85 – and the victory keeps Hail Hokit on top of the GU Power Rankings. Sean Stokke’s The Taters led the GU Division with 131 points and pulled within 1.5 points of Hail Hokit in the Power Rankings. Speaking of the GU Division Power Rankings…well, it’s hard to know what to make of them. Two teams sitting at 4-2 have the two worst Breakdown records and the two lowest Points totals. The Taters, leading the league in both Points and Breakdown by a comfortable margin, have had such bad luck in their H2H matchups that their record sits at 2-4. The discrepancy in the GU Division’s PWR numbers is truly a rarely seen fantasy phenomenon.

Both Pick ‘Em games saw their standings get a little more intriguing this week, as a recently adopted rule allowed each participant to drop their worst weekly score of the year. Both Pick ‘Em scorecards have been updated to show each participant’s overall record as well as an adjusted record to account for the removal of their worst week to date.

Brett Mullin moved into 1st place in the NFL Pick ‘Em game with a 59.42% winning percentage on the season; John Rosinbum, last week’s leader, took a hard fall down to 2nd after a 4-10 week. Kyle Davis, Steve Duin, Andy Popp, and Billy Schreyer are close behind. Dan Goldman led the field with a 9-5 record in Week 6.

In the NCAA Pick ‘Em Game, Joe Simich and Corey Rhodes are separated by mere percentage points (Joe is 36-22, Corey is 36-23) but are comfortably ahead of the rest of the field. Andrew Gay – the darling of the NCAA Pick ‘Em Game after an impressive 31-19 showing through the season’s first five weeks – is now in 3rd place after turning in a 5-13 record over the last two weeks (Coupled with Gay’s two week fallout in fantasy football, it bears asking the question: Gay, you been alright these past 14 days?). Damon Pryor and Rhodes both finished 7-2 in Week 7 to lead the ALACS.

Ok I need to stop writing before I get fired. Cheers.