The Source

Going to stay away from the NFL during this article, because there are only three weeks left in the LiveWorld fantasy football regular-season, and while some things are coming into shape, there’s still plenty left to be decided.

Things in the Fortitude division are settled as far as the playoffs.  The Marauders and my own team will be representing the division in the playoffs as we each have a four-game lead over the next closest competitor, and with only three games remaining, that makes it a lock.

However, in the Temperance division, things got very interesting last week when the Losers defeated the Ballers.  Even though the Ballers have been the team to beat all season, they still have not locked up a playoff spot.  Magnolia Bridges are looking good at 7-3, the Ballers are one game behind at 6-4 while the Losers are still right in the middle of the Chase at 5-5.  The Swashbuclers are eliminated from playoff contention at 3-7

Also, to show just how competitive the league has been, prior to the start of this week on Thursday, there were only six total points separating the top three teams!  And, while it seems like a large number, there’s only just over 200 points separating the top scoring team from the bottom scoring team.  We have had more separation than that by the fifth or sixth week before.

1. Bushwood Ballers (1), owner Jeffrey Smith: a terrible performance this week, worst of the season.  Could it be that this team’s destiny, their ability to dominate, all derive from Phyllis cry baby Rivers??  If so, then much like anybody who hitches their wagon to Romo, this team is going to find it difficult in the late-season/playoff portion of the game


2. Ar Tarnsmen (2), owner Briant Laslo: a very big victory this week as my own team secures a playoff spot, even with. Big Brother Manning only managing seven points while my defense LOST four points for my team.  Without question, the Fred Jackson pick up in the middle of the week made all the difference.


3. Mopar’s Marauders (4), owner Larry D’Antonio: another outstanding performance by the Marauders keep them moving up the rankings.  They are actually number one overall in points scored right now, and the top three teams are so close in terms of overall power that it might come down to a Photo Finish


4. Lunar Losers (3), owner Adam Greuling: they get a big victory, but it’s not a very dominating performance, so they slide down the rankings a little.  Still, the victory was the important thing for them this week as it keeps their playoff hopes alive


5. Magnolia Bridges (5), owner Usha Kizhakekara: this team has suddenly become very intriguing, dangerous and mysterious.  They picked up Blount, which I think is a FANTASTIC pickup and everybody’s favorite, lovable dog murderer is showing that you don’t have to be a good human being to be an amazing player.  They have locked themselves into the playoffs, but this is one of the teams that still has the possibility of sweeping all of the awards: overall points total, Super Bowl and top spot of the power rankings.  None of them are out of the question.


6. Farva’s Fury (6), owner Kathleen Farber: well, they have been eliminated from the playoffs, but they went down fighting!  They were actually projected to win this game right up until the Sunday night game and a big performance from Mike Wallace.  They have periodically shown the ability to separate themselves from the bottom three, unfortunately it hasn’t been consistent or powerful enough to break into the top five.


7. Divine Comedy (7), owners Jonathan Richards, Mark Williams: they do enough to stay out of the last-place spot, and that’s about the best they can hope for right now.  .


8. La Swashbuclers (8), owner Christy Bohannon: in the end, I think that, as I said earlier this season, Larry Fitzgerald was the downfall for this team.  Yes, there were other factors, Ray Rice underperformed and Thomas Jones was never a frontrunner.  But, Larry was supposed to be the top scoring receiver in the league, and he’s nowhere near that.  When you spend such a high-pick on a player that bombs, it can be exceedingly difficult to recover

I fear football tomorrow.  If Pittsburgh loses to Oakland, I won’t be able to watch any football the rest of the week

I’m not too worked up over a specific topic this week, so I wanted to instead comment on how amazing I find “fans” in general.

First off, let’s just focus on American football fans.  If we focused on those who follow various other sports, I think we would wind up including the entire population of the planet..

One of the great things about football fans in America, is that the sport has grown to the point where it crosses over most of your population segments.  There is no specific color, race or religion that are particularly drawn to football.  The age range is massive, with kids starting to follow their favorite teams as early as 10 or 11 years old and those who remember “the good old days” following their team up to the day  they die.

Also, while the world of the football fan does have a majority of males in its population, the female football fan is having more and more of a presence, to the point that the NFL has now released a “for her” line of sports jerseys.

There’s also no real physical/mental makeup that is more or less likely to follow football.  From the physically fit to the handicapped, intelligent to the… not quite so intelligent, handsome, ugly, beautiful, overweight… fans arrive and cheer for their teams in all shapes, sizes and any other dimension we can include.

And this brings me to what I think is the most amazing aspect of the football fan: their teams.

No fan has it easy, even those fans of dominant teams feel that their specific team has a special way of torturing them, even when they’re winning.  I can speak to this personally having been a fan of the Steelers for as long as I can remember.  Yes, more often than not the Steelers are competing for the playoffs, more often than not they are successful in playing past the end of the regular season and more than any team, they’ve gone all the way to take the Super Bowl.  Even with all of that success, most of the time I am watching the Steelers game, I feel like there is some element in the universe that is making sure the game is close, threatening to go against us at any time and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  I feel like we NEVER have an easy victory where we can take it easy midway through the third quarter and enjoy the victory.  I feel like the game ALWAYS comes down to the last minute or two, unless of course we are getting blown out.

Now, is any of that true?  Not really.  In general, the difference between a beleaguered football team and a really good football team is not that much.  That’s why there have been so few winless/undefeated teams in NFL history, even the worst can beat him the best on the right day.  So, I believe that every NFL fan feels the same way about their team of choice.

However, let’s be honest, cheering for a team like Green Bay, Dallas, the Giants or the Steelers is a different kind of animal than sincerely cheering for Detroit or Cleveland since they have returned to the league.

All teams go through time frames where they are struggling, rebuilding, competitive or even dominant.  Even teams like Pittsburgh and Dallas, who have won 11 Super Bowl between them, go through struggling/rebuilding times.  See Pittsburgh in the mid-eighties, or Dallas in the late eighties or this year.  But, more often than not, teams like Pittsburgh, Dallas, Green Bay and so on seem to have the ability to minimize their downtime and extend their time being truly competitive for the top spot.  Pittsburgh and Dallas have won super Bowls in the seventies, eighties, nineties and 2000s.  Green Bay has won in the sixties and nineties, the Giants seem good for Super Bowl at least once a decade, and all of them seem to be competitive..  In my opinion, it’s “easy” to be a fan of these teams (note, there is a huge difference between a fan and a bandwagon jumper, but I’ll address that another time)

On the next level down, you’ve got the teams like Indianapolis, San Francisco and New England.  These are teams who have shown the ability to extend their time being competitive, but they haven’t proven their ability to minimize their downturn.  San Francisco was certainly dominant in the eighties and early nineties, but they’ve struggled since the departure of Montana, Young and Rice.  Indianapolis has been among the elite for more than a decade, winning more games in the past 10 years than any other team, but how much of that is because of Manning and what is going to happen to them after he leaves?  Same thing for New England, winning more super Bowls in the last 10 years than any other team, but how much of that is because of the well-documented soul selling incident which I have proven repeatedly with Tom Brady?  These are the team’s that I believe most often attract your bandwagon fan’s.  Everybody wants to be a 49ers fan when they are winning Super Bowl after Super Bowl, but only the true fans stick with them when they are struggling with Alex Smith or Elvis Grbac.

Now, take a team like Detroit, or even Cincinnati.  These are teams that have never won the Super Bowl.  I believe Cincinnati has played in two Super Bowls, Detroit has never even been in the game.  Sure, the mid- nineties when Barry Sanders was at his height, Detroit was reasonably competitive, made the playoffs a couple of times, but they were never that close to the Super Bowl.  Since 1977, Cincinnati has not had two consecutive seasons of winning football, barring a strike.  That is 33 years without being able to play winning football two years in a row!  Not winning the Super Bowl, not making it to the Super Bowl, not even making it into the playoffs, just winning more games than you have lost two years in a row.

These are the fans that I find the most amazing.  They continue pulling for their team, because it’s THEIR team.  They have invested a part of their soul in this team, and regardless of what happened last year, or the year before that… or before that, they are going to look for the positive.  “Everybody starts out 0-0!  I think we might have a chance this year!”

Now sure, many of these fans will not be that positive.  The Lions have beaten down their fans to such a degree that I don’t blame a fan for entering the season with little to no hope.  But, there are still fans of the Lions (I know one personally) who, every year after the NFL draft, sincerely believe the team has made themselves better and will be competitive this season.  “Sure, we have no offensive line, no real defense, no secondary, no running back since Barry Sanders, no quarterback who has shown he can play in the NFL level, but we used our first-round picks in three consecutive years on Charlie Rogers, Roy Williams and Mike Williams, three awesome receivers!”

Is it a form of delusion?  Is it some kind of lack of understanding of the game, or perhaps an insanity?  Would I myself remain as positive and supportive of my team if it seemed to me that the Steelers had no idea what they were doing and the ownership showed either no interest or no ability in changing that situation?  I honestly don’t know.  I believe I would, but I’ve never been tested in that way.

And that’s why I don’t believe these fans suffer some form of delusion.  I don’t believe they are insane or just don’t understand the game.  I believe that these fans are, at the core of things, the very definition of a fan.  They are a fan of their team the same way that their eyes are brown, or blue: it is just part of who they are.

So, from a Steelers fan to all those true fans of Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Houston, all those teams who have struggled to be competitive and continue dreaming every season of the Super Bowl, I sincerely hope your dreams continue to be dreams and that you continue to amaze me in your fanship while I am able to hopefully celebrates another six Super Bowl victories

1. Bushwood Ballers (1), owner Jeffrey Smith: 140 points with superstar running back Chris Johnson off for the week?  Yeah, this is the team to beat


2. Ar Tarnsmen (2), owner Briant Laslo: a very disappointing performance this past week, and Ryan Matthews hurting his ankle again really has me frustrated.  I’m still looking pretty good for the playoffs, but my hold on the number two spot might be slipping, and not necessarily because of the team directly behind me.


3. Lunar Losers (3), owner Adam Greuling: probably the most disappointing performance of the season for the Losers, only managing 70 points and losing a crucial game.  I still think they have a powerful lineup, IF McFadden and Andre Johnson can resume supporting.Rodgers


4. Mopar’s Marauders (5), owner Larry D’Antonio: well, they certainly reclaimed their position in the top half.  I seriously considered jumping them all the way up to number three, but that would be a huge jump this late in the season and I don’t think I’m that far off that I require a rankings readjustment.  The Marauders have come together in the past couple of weeks, and this is the team that is looking to leapfrog into the number two spot of the power rankings.  One more dominating performance combined with another less than stellar performance from the two teams in front of them might just see that happen..


5. Magnolia Bridges (4), owner Usha Kizhakekara: they get a victory, but I think there are some reasons to be concerned.  They only managed 75 points, and my concern would be coming from Tomlinson.  Just as it has happened in seemingly every year of his career, Tomlinson’s point total seems to be dropping the further into the season we get.  This team has shown the ability to explode, so the question is going to be can they score consistently if Tomlinson continues to drop off?


6. Farva’s Fury (6), owner Kathleen Farber: if we would only look at the top three players, then this team did amazing!  71 points out of a quarterback and two running backs…. And then 16 points out on the remaining six positions.  They now face an elimination game against my own team this coming week.  If they lose, they are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs


7. Divine Comedy (7), owners Jonathan Richards, Mark Williams: they are playing for pride at this point, but they are playing and that is awesome!  Their remaining goals appear to be: stay out of the basement, tried to get to number six in the power rankings, and wreck the playoffs for anybody that they can.  .


8. La Swashbuclers (8), owner Christy Bohannon: they scored over 100 points, was a good sign, but they still lost their game and now face a must win situation to have any hopes for the playoffs.  It’s also not enough to move them out of the basement in power rankings

The week is off to a good start, Baltimore lost in Atlanta, the Steelers play in their third straight primetime game and we now have at least three nights of football all the way until the last week!

That’s much better.  Even though James Harrison receives another ridiculous $20,000 fine, at least scoring was more in line.  I originally really liked Roger as our newest commissioner, I’m starting to think there’s some kind of disconnect between him and the game itself.

The hit the James Harrison delivered against Golden boy Brees was indeed a late hit.  He took an extra step before hitting the quarterback, and he was penalized 15 yd. for it.  No need for a fine or any additional action by the commissioner or anybody else.  Nobody was hurt, there was no intention to injure anybody.  End of story, or at least should be the end of the story.

It appears that the majority of players in the league right now believe it is a foregone conclusion that there’s going to be a lockout by the owners next season, resulting in a delayed, shortened or canceled season.  Or, perhaps worse, more games with “replacement” players.

Previously, I have been confident that things were going to work out.  Professional football is currently the most popular sport in America, it has essentially replaced baseball as “America’s game”.  It has a salary cap in place, has had no labor disputes in almost two decades and, possibly most importantly, a legitimate revenue sharing system that enables teams from any market to be competitive.  By my way of thinking, there’s no way you would want to screw that up with a strike or a lockout.

Sure, there are some issues.  Rookie salaries are getting more and more out-of-control every season.  Injuries are on the rise, but the owners still want to increase the season to 18 games (while still insisting that their primary concern is player health remember).  So, while owners are not happy paying out millions and millions of dollars to players who have never played in the league before, the players themselves figure if we’re going to keep getting hurt and you still want to increase the season to 18 games, the young guys need to get their money upfront and right away.

But, that can’t be enough to actually cause a strike or lockout, can it?

I didn’t think so either.  But now, with the continued interference from the commissioner’s office, even though the players themselves, even the players on offense who are more often than not the ones getting hurt, are saying it’s a game, a violent game, and we understand the risks, I’m starting to think that there is a larger distance between players and owners than I had originally thought.

So, while my most immediate concern is no longer the 56-47 game becoming a regular occurrence, that concern has been replaced with the fear that a lockout is indeed inevitable following the season.  And unfortunately, this concern will most likely not be alleviated until a new collective bargaining agreement is actually in place.

1. Bushwood Ballers (1), owner Jeffrey Smith: not much new to say here.  They get back on the warning track, have moved into a playoff position, and are still the number one team in the league.


2. Ar Tarnsmen (2), owner Briant Laslo: another decent performance from my guys.  We are able to get a win and go over 100 points. Ryan Matthews seems to be getting more and more integrated into the offense, and with any luck he will wind up being more of a factor later in the season than he has been during the first half.  If Calvin Johnson can stay healthy he is a beast at wide receiver and I would be fairly confident of my chances overall this season


3. Lunar Losers (3), owner Adam Greuling: another good performance, McFadden doesn’t explode but still contributes, Charles looks like the real deal and they’ve got enough talent across the lineup that I believe they have reasonably secured their spot as at least the number three team for now.


4. Magnolia Bridges (4), owner Usha Kizhakekara: they score less than half as many points as they did last week.  Now, Michael Turner was off this week, but this is a definite concern that last week may have been the anomaly and this team is going to go back to not living up to its potential.  They stay at number 4 this week with this coming week possibly being in deciding factor on what trend they will follow the rest of the season


5. Mopar’s Marauders (5), owner Larry D’Antonio: Romo is gone!  Let the scoring begin!  Seven of their nine players scored in double digits.  If they are able to shake off the stigma of Tony “I’m the most overhyped player in the game” Romo, then they may be able to reclaim their position in the top half of the power rankings next week.


6. Farva’s Fury (6), owner Kathleen Farber: well, that charge did not last long.  They get a total of 10 points out of six players.  I said a few weeks ago that I was pretty sure the bottom three teams in the power rankings were locked into that position, none of them have been able to above the number six ranking since that time.  Having seen the recent performances, I still think that the league is pretty clearly divided between the bottom three and the top five.


7. Divine Comedy (8), owners Jonathan Richards, Mark Williams: well, they lose another game and I think that almost mathematically eliminated them from the playoffs.  But hey, they’ve been doing slightly better the past several weeks than the Swashbuclers, so I think they deserve to move up a spot.  There’s no guarantee that are going to stay here.  Right now it’s more a matter of pride to just not wind up in the basement in record, points and power rankings.  .


8. La Swashbuclers (7), owner Christy Bohannon: well, the downward spiral has finally hit bottom, and now they have lost Britt for with the remainder of the season.  They are only two games back, so they have not yet been mathematically eliminated, but they have fallen into the last-place position of the power rankings and I think their chance of making the playoffs is a long shot at this point.

My Steelers don’t play until Monday night, so I’ll have the rare opportunity to enjoy every Sunday game without worrying too much about how Pittsburgh does.