Official Results 2003 Week #17

2003 Week #17

THE DECEPTICONS ARE CHAMPIONS BY 0.5 PT OVER WAXONWAXOFF!

WaxOnWaxOff finished first in week #17 but fell short by a hair against the Decepticons. Wax finished half a point behind Decepticons in the standings and needed only 2 more pts by loser Todd Heap from the BeaudoinBrothers on Sunday Night Football to clinch the title. However, Wax's chances were not that great anyway, because 5 more points by Heap would have given the BeaudoinBrothers the title, not Wax. So before Sunday Night, Decepticons needed 0, 1, or 2 pts by Heap to win. Wax needed 3, 4, or 5 pts by Heap to win. The BeaudoinBrothers needed 6 or more pts by Heap to win. This loser only scored one point. To make things worse, the loser caught 6 passes for 80 yards and a TD in the playoff game one week later. What a loser. For Wax, Tomlinson finished the season with 31 pts in week #17 and ended 2nd best RB with 18.7 pts per week, slightly behind Priest at 19.3 pts per week. Wax had the best two kickers this year (Vanderjagt and Wilkins) and the team deserves no credit for drafting good kickers as this is mostly unpredictable unlike the Tomlinson pick. Wax also made a good pick with Hasselbeck who finished 5th best QB considering that when Wax drafted Hasselbeck, there were already 7 QBs taken. Shockey's injury in week #11 hurt Wax pretty bad too. Wax lost by 7 pts or less in weeks 12, 13, 14, and 15. Only one additional rank with a good performance by Shockey in any of these weeks would have made Wax the champions.

OldNo7 finished 2nd with 86 pts but was pretty much locked in 4th place before this week. OldNo7 has been too inconsistent during the season. OldNo7's strength this season was clearly at the RB position. Holmes and A Green started every week for Old except for bye weeks. They were the 1st and 4th best RBs this year. Priest was the 5th RB drafted and A Green was the 9th RB taken. Not bad! Rookie Anquan Boldin was a big surprise also as he led all rookies by 2.4 pts per week. If we exclude C Rogers (2nd best rookie) from the BeaudoinBrothers who was injured for most of the season, Boldin dominated all rookies by at least 4.2 pts per week (3rd was A Johnson from Decepticons). The obvious weakness of OldNo7 that made the team finish in the bottom half of the standings was the poor play of the 2nd WR on the team. Toomer and Moulds alternated during the season but both stunk. Toomer finished 16th and Moulds 19th best WR. This was awful and painful for Old. The GM can be blamed for not making much effort for a trade though (unless this was done in secret). The Decepticons had L Coles (9th best) as their main backup and the BeaudoinBrothers had D Jackson (11th best) as their main backup. OldNo7 did not trade all year.

The Spitoons ended the season fairly well with a 3rd place. They beat Decepticons by one point in week #17 in what could have been a very trouble-making result for Decepticons. Between weeks 1-7, the expansion team earned on average 1.4 rank-point per week and 54.9 total points per week. Between weeks 8-17 though, there was a big improvement with 2.6 rank-points per week and 87.1 total points per week. If the Spitoons had played as well in weeks 1-7 as in weeks 8-17, they would have been very close to UJ in 5th place. M Faulk's injury and E James' injury made it almost impossible for the Spitoons to compete between weeks 4 and 7. However, injuries were not the only problem for this team. On several occasions, coaching mistakes cost ranks because injured players or players on bye weeks were put in the starting lineup. These mistakes are unforgivable in such a competitive league.

The Decepticons won the league but were happy to see the season end. If the season had been extended to 18 or 19 weeks, there is a good chance the team would not have been able to hold on to 1st place. Between weeks 13 and 17, the Decepticons were next-to-last with 15 rank-points, compared to 24 for the BeaudoinBrothers, 22 for Wax, 19 for Old, 16 for Spi, and 9 for UJ. The Decepticons beat the BeaudoinBrothers by one small point in week #17 and this was enough to clinch the league. This was the 3rd time this season that the Decepticons beat the BeaudoinBrothers by one point or less. The Decepticons were relatively injury-free this year. Culpepper missed 2 games, S Davis missed 2 games, and T Owens missed one game, but nothing major other than that. Only OldNo7 had fewer key injuries. Oh, I forgot. E Smith missed 7 games due to an injury. Anyway, the success of the Decepticons was due to the fact that the team had no weakness in their lineup (although they had only two stars). Culpepper finished the season as the #1 QB. Torry Holt finished 2nd best WR behind Moss. Holt was the 6th WR taken in the draft. This was without a doubt the best pickup by the Decepticons. At other positions, the Decepticons were strong but not great. Ricky Williams had a subpar season, but Stephen Davis produced more than what most expected. S Sharpe was good as usual. T Owens had a below-average year by his standards, but was 7th best WR anyway. Having no weakness on their roster, this contributed to the team being the most consistent team of the season. The Decepticons finished in the red (5th or 6th) only three times and in the black (3rd or 4th) only three times. The Decepticons finished first only once (compared to 6 times for Wax, 5 times for Beaudoin, 4 times for Old), but an amazing 10 times second. This made it hard for other teams to gain many rank-points on them except at the end of the season. Congrats to Decepticons for a great season.

The BeaudoinBrothers could not complete their late season comeback and fell short. They needed 5 more pts by Heap in week #17 on Sunday Night Football to win. In week #17, if Mason had not been listed as questionable, the BeaudoinBrothers would have started him instead of the old fucker Rice. Rice scored 2 pts and Mason scored 24 pts despite his cracked rib. With Mason in the starting lineup, the BeaudoinBrothers would have finished 1st in week #17 and would have been champions. Losing Portis to an injury in the last two weeks explains why the BeaudoinBrothers only got 6 rank-pts in the last two weeks. Nobody can lose their #1 player and be unaffected. The fact that Charles Rogers never came back from his collarbone injury in week #6 was also costly because backup Josh Brown slowed down late in the season. Brown missed a FG in week #17 and it would have given the championship to the BeaudoinBrothers if he had made it. McNair's unclear injury status did not help either. So many "what if" scenarios would have given the BeaudoinBrothers their 5th championship in 7 years. Overall, the BeaudoinBrothers did a good job drafting because they would have won if it had not been for so many injuries. One owner of the BeaudoinBrothers recalls saying "what a steal" during the draft after taking McNair with the 88th overall pick (17th QB taken!) and the owner of OldNo7 replied "Brady was a bigger steal with the 86th overall pick from Wax". Well, McNair finished the season 3rd best QB and Brady 11th best QB. Portis finished 3rd best RB, S Alex 6th best RB, Moss 1st WR, Mason 6th best WR, the Patriots 2nd best D, and the BeaudoinBrothers drafted the 2nd and 5th best rookies. The BeaudoinBrothers scored the most total points for the sixth time in seven years and for the second straight year without winning the league. By adding the average for each starter (McNair, Portis, S Alex, Moss, Mason, Heap, Carney, Pats D, J Brown), the BeaudoinBrothers had the best lineup in the league. OldNo7 was 2nd, Dec 3rd, Wax 4th, UJ 5th, and Spi 6th. The BeaudoinBrothers also had good depth (backups T Henry, D Jackson, A Brooks, J Brown could have been starters on other teams) but it was not enough to overcome the injuries. However, the BeaudoinBrothers can be blamed for several coaching mistakes during the season. Early on, the team kept Gannon in the action for too long. McNair was clearly the better player but Gannon had 3-4 starts. Several times, the BeaudoinBrothers hesitated between S Alex and T Henry (and Mason / D Jackson) but started the wrong player. Late in the season, the BeaudoinBrothers were so loaded at RB that K Barlow was benched when scoring in the high teens for several weeks. TJ Duckett was also doing fairly well. The BeaudoinBrothers' only weakness was the stupid kicker. The team had Carney (#7) and Mare (#8) and both were awful this season. Every team in the PQBFL had a better kicker. This unpredictable position will most likely be yanked next year. Several teams have said they would prefer to keep the kicker, but none gave an argument in favor of keeping it.

UncleJack had a very rough end of season with 4 fifth places and 1 last place between weeks 13 and 17. UJ was only 4 pts behind the BeaudoinBrothers after 12 weeks but the team fell apart. Warrick Dunn's injury after UJ traded for him before the deadline in week #11 killed the team. Dunn scored 15 pts in week #11, then 19 pts in week #12. Dunn was out in weeks 13-17, which coincides with UJ collapsing. The GM can also be blamed for some poor high draft picks, especially C Garner taken 24th overall but finished 21st best RB. The lack of productive rookie also hurt UncleJack. The nicest draft pick was Jamal Lewis (17th RB taken!!!! - amazing - and he finished 5th best RB). Manning, Ward, and T Gonzalez were early draft picks and they all performed as well or better than expected. UncleJack had depth at the QB position (Garcia #6 QB), TE (Heap was traded), and especially defense. UncleJack drafted three of the top 5 defenses this year (Ravens #1, Bucs #3, and Rams #5). This is outstanding. UJ had the luxury of alternating the Ravens and Bucs based on matchups.

Enjoy the off season and good luck preparing for next year. Don't forget to e-mail me any suggestion for rule changes. I sent you an e-mail about that and I will expect some feedback from you some time in the next few months. Thanks for the season!

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