2017

Week 1 is in the books! Congratulations to all 10 teams, who put forward their best effort, and made four out of our five games very close contests including two games decided by one point! There were a few notable pieces of Week 1 NFL news that affected the NHL, so without further ado let’s look at what happened.

In the Bald Headed-Battle, Al Davis Genius faced down with Team T. Holden. Zach Ertz and Ty Montgomery both turned in solid performances for their respective teams, but the aging Oakland owner failed to sign a quarterback capable of feeding his hungry receiver group, as Dak Prescott left the door open for what amounted to most of the roster of the Green Bay Packers to take the win.  Watching the prime time game on Sunday , this writer is sure that Packer-leaning Team Holden fully enjoyed the repeated Pete Carroll meltdowns on the sidelines, that undoubtedly inspired that half of his fantasy team.

In the College Kid Showdown, Foot Jive Monster Mash hosted It Ertz Wentz Eifert. FJMM took out an early, 60+ point lead, before the walking fart joke came storming back Monday night, bolstered by a surprising 14-point performance from FART’s midweek kicker acquisition Will Lutz. In the end, it proved to be too little too late, as FJMM would prevail.

In the first of our two close battles, Team Stehle visited Team R. Holden in the “I Forgot to Change My Team Name Still” Bowl. Despite Stehle’s tight end Hunter Henry failing to even arrive at the game, the other Team Holden came up just short while playing the entire game with a man advantage.  Of course this happens all the time in unwatchable soccer matches, and even this year when Louisiana Tech nearly won it’s college basketball game finishing with 4 on the floor, but it's not a good way to fill out a fantasy team. This also means that Team R. Holden now is in last place in the NHL in power-play efficiency. 

In the Wayne Division, the two K. Holleys faced off for the Twin Cup, the most prestigious award in the NHL for perennial 10-handicap golfers. While team NoKe NoKe’s game was marred by a poor run game (with the RB corps only providing a measly combined 8 points), by contrast You Betcha’s victory was spearheaded by an astonishing 44-point, 3 total TD effort from Kareem Hunt, who played against some thin air while the Patriots offense watched from the sideline. While NoKe had a strong defensive performance, the double-generation Holley team would come up just one point shy in Week One, when You Betcha’s flex RB A.J. Anderson would run 3 yards on his final attempt at the end of the last Monday night game to put him over 80 yards, giving YouBetcha the 1-point win. After all, who needs Adrian Peterson or David Johnson when you have a proven, fully developed, top tier running back in Carom Karen Kareem Hunt? (Who is this dude, anyway?)

On the complete other hand, The Full Monty would visit Team Rockme in the only interleague matchup of the week. Much like the misbalance in the NBA, the WarriorsRockme would strike the first blow in the battle for divisional supremacy, giving the Western ConferenceWayne Division the early edge. TFM’s effort was the weakest in the league thus far, with poor running back performance and injuries at the TE and WR positions. On the contrary, Team Rockme turned in the best overall performance of the week, led by Stephon “Sticky Hands” Diggs and the owner of the worst possible throwing face, Sam Bradford. (Seriously, go Google “Sam Bradford throwing face” and then look at the images page. Do it. I’ll wait.) Team Rockme was assigned the Troy State award for high points for the season, as well as the Bellicheck/Carrol (Merrill?) Memorial award for biggest margin of victory. TFM’s strategy of hoping for a court injunction at half-time to uphold the Ezekiel Elliot suspension did not pan out.  Unsurprisingly, TFM would take home both the Soda Can Award (for getting crushed, get it?) and the Wimpy Award for worst overall score. 

Good luck next week to all the teams!

(You googled the Sam Bradford thing…that’s pretty funny, right?) 

In case you didn’t notice, the nominees are in and voting has started.  No I’m not talking about the best all time toys for the Toy Hall of Fame (yes there is one and the this year’s nominees include Nerf Ball and Battleship) nor am I talking about the oldest skating legend in the NHL not named Hull (that would be the ageless Jagamir Jagr).  No in fact I am talking about this year’s nominees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Who can’t get excited about that???!!!.  Are the Cars going to make it this year? Can the cult fans of Judas Priest push him up the ladder to challenge the Moody Blues?  Will Slow Hand (Eric Clapton) get recognized with yet another band?  Will Tom Petty be memorialized as the captain of the 80-lb bench press club.  These are the questions that rock our news (pun intended) – do we really care if half of our fantasy draft choices are on IR?  Hell no.  So I interviewed the Hall curator, Thunder Road, (who is actually related to Knute Rockme) to get his take on the action this week in the NHL.  By the way Mr. Road readily acknowledges that, like BSPN, the R&R Hall does only mainstream stuff and is totally political and bullshit in no way represents what is best in rock music. Just saying….

Speaking of Clapton there’s a new sheriff in town.  NoKe NoKe is being recognized by the R&R Hall for not only taking over first place in the NHL but for having the name most likely to be used by Paul Simon on his upcoming Botswana reunion album.  The Hall noted that T Holden preferred something more Bobby Darin-ish/Mack the Knife-style but he couldn’t stick it to NoKe who ran away with the score like a boy band being chased by Hell’s Angels.  Hall really liked the way NoKe played the lesser known sibling of Heart, Russel Wilson; who was the inspiration for the Ann and Nancy inspired album “Alive in Seattle” (yes – look it up).  The sisters send their love and congrats to their little brother on his fantasy performance.

Like another bad Steve Miller song that steals the character and lyrics of other songwriters, Team T. Holden did the Monster Mash on Grant the Younger and stole away his fleeting moments of joy and hope in this humbling football season.  For Monster Mash, fittingly sung by Bobby “Boris” Pickett, the Hall noted that RB Alfred “Morris” Pickett foot jived just enough for an overwhelmed Dallas team to help T. beat Mash by a mere 2 points.  (somehow I have diverted to Civil War references)  Even though T’s QB Colonel Prescott scored only ZERO points in the QB position, Mash’s team could not muster the guns or the music to get to a three digit total. Nelson Nocolor and not-so-Golden Tate combined for 6 points.  Had Mash subbed off the bench with the Coop for either player that would have done the deed for bragging rights around the Holden turkey on Thursday.  But alas instead of flying like an eagle Mash played the joker role and took the jet airliner out of town just the way all the Saints fans left the stadium when the Redskins went up by 15 in the 4th quarter…

Speaking of Eagles, Al Davis Genius hit the no fly zone this week.  We suspect that the Full Monty was broadcasting his subliminally subversive electronic music via subsonic waves to the Genius players.  Or maybe he did that to his own – I mean you can’t account for 159 points on THAT team.  And it’s no mystery to me that the Hall HATES electronic music.  No Depeche Mode (although up for nomination), no Kraftwerk, no New Order, Tangerine Dream, Daft Punk, not even any pie-a-la-mode in the café.  As much as the Hall wants the Euro influence for their world sounds, like the NFL or the NBA (wait – not a NBA reference – Uhhgg) they just can’t get their corporate heads around acknowledging where some of the influences come from. But congrats to Monty on his successful ‘Europe’ Détente’ and moving to within ½ game of 2nd in the league for the final countdown.

Ah how the mighty have fallen.  If only You Betcha has played the Baltimore DST (on the bench) against his beloved Packers.  But he didn’t. He left his team in dire straits hoping that the zombie Julio Jones could rage against the Matty Ice machine to get the ball a little more.   No way out.  He spent too much time trying to figure out if Link Wray and the J. Geils Band should even be on the same nominee stage as Radiohead while Team Rockme was waiver-wiring kicker Will ‘Klutz’ into the lineup for 17.  If they had just ended the game when all the Saints fans left the field we wouldn’t have this issue as Klutz got 6 points in 6 minutes after that.  Somewhere Garo Yepremian is smiling.  So Rockme asks “Who’s Next?” in his quest to fight into playoff contention. 

Well you can tell, I’ve been drinking too much in Cleveland and I need to ramble on like a rambling man.

Atom Shuffler (or an imposter)

It’s another crazy week.  6” of snow-covered surface. Doping charges. Arrests. Suspensions. Guys with funny names eliminated from participation.  Coaches screaming about unfair officiating.  Are we talking about Russians in the Winter Olympics or the NHL?  Or is it all the same?

So you ask what’s up with the scoring this week.  In a bizarre twist NoKe didn’t score this week. In fact they had no players on the field.  Must be a league office glitch – right?  Except your Commissioner Roger Stern-Bettman just got a lifetime contract extension and 0ne hundred bizzillion dollars for outstanding work and was granted the title Omnipotent and All-Knowing so how could he be overseeing a system that could make any errors and certainly not one of this magnitude.  Deep investigation by yours truly, tapping into my Soviet contacts, revealed that NoKe was THROWING THE MATCH to INFLUENCE THE PLAYOFF SEEDING.  Where is the sportsmanship in THAT??????

So, in my conversation with the Commissioner, OAK Stern-Bettman came up with irrelevant and completely indefensible and unsupportable penalties for this etiquette breach.  First, for avoiding the spirit of a good fight, NoKe is awarded the new “Bitch-slap” Award recognizing that there is nothing so unproductive as two un-athletic girls slap fighting, scratching, pulling hair AND squealing. Second NoKe will now be known by their revised team name LoTe.  Finally, Third for sitting 16 players on the bench at once, OAK Stern-Bettman has determined that the NoKe ownership must present a silly selfie of themselves sitting on a park bench prior to the end of the season.  This image shall be posted in a prominent league site location. Jerry Jones and Bill Belichek confirmed the ownership votes on this penalty.

And now, as if I didn’t have something better to do, on to the league action.

The aforementioned LoTe was not on the field against an excellent team fielded by It Ertz Wentz Eifert.  EWE got contributions across the board including a great showing by L’Veon Bell as the Steelers eked out a win. With a little more personnel selection, EWE could have added another 30 pts off the bench making this team one to be reckoned with for the 2-week high point total award and prize. 

Speaking of bleating lambs, Al Davis Genius could be heard whimpering as star QB Carson ACL Wentz said it really does Ertz.  Nick “I-was-great-for-half-of the-2014-season” Foles is an admirable fill-in and Philly did win but Genius may have to fall back on Cam Newton to do his playoff damage.  The simpering Genius couldn’t’ believe his bad injury luck as rookie stud Alvin Kamara got the Ertz disease and went down early with a possible concussion. Backup running back Samaje Perrine wished he had a concussion as his Redskins forgot to play football.  Genius will need Clara Barton in the backfield to patch up his broken crew.  Remarkably this group won over Team Stehle who had 3 players between starters and bench who did not score at all. Stehle’s trusty Big Ben tolled the point and rang up the score but the other Stehle players just couldn’t keep time.

Foot Jive Monster Mash keeps on the retread train and puts up impressive scores with players who are on their 2nd,3rd and 4th teams (especially if you count Josh Gordons’ prison team QB’d by Bert Reynolds). Once again the second version of Todd Gurley is so much better than the first scoring 27 and wide receivers Gold Tate and Copper Cup put up a pair of 22’s which is bad in BlackJack but good in the NHL. FJM2 did great to leave nothing on the bench and needed it all beating YouBetcha who had enough but started the wrong guys.  Like EWE, FJM2 can post some tall numbers in the playoffs.

In a battle of Holden royalty, Team T. Holden took on Team R. Holden.  Team T was one of several teams that put up more than 140 this weekend and, like the others, screamed “Where the **&%##* has that been all year!”  On the other hand Team R just doesn’t have the big guns – when your kicker is your second-highest scoring position player your team needs all the high future draft choices it can acquire.  What is really irksome to these teams who essentially split the Green Bay Packers roster this year is that Team R got the only guy, Devante Adams, who has kept producing.  Once again it will be fodder for the family holiday table.

Finally in the late game, The Full Monte was hoping to move into the second seed playing Team Rockme playing for a respectable finish. But TFM got rocked. Recently acquired TE Austin Disappearing-Jenkins gave the team a brilliant 1-yd reception, his only one of the day. Tom Brady couldn’t see Brandin Cooks (like running backs - never start a Patriots WR) and Derek Carr was outscored by several kickers in the league although he did double up Greg the Leg’s 5 points for TFM.  Rockme warmed up for a playoff points run by posting a 144 with good showings from RB’s Jordan Howard and LeSean McCoy and a remarkable 29 from a Denver DST that pitched a shutout.   

So the bottom 5 teams pretty much stomped the top 5 teams showing that week to week who knows what goes. I’m reminded of my vodka-chugging Polish Grandma who would put me on my knee and sing this bedtime tune -

“You put a player in, you pull a player out, you do the hokey-poker that’s what the waiver wire’s about.”

Then she’d give me a shot of the juice and tuck me in.  Ahhh the good ‘ol days.

Remember – OAK Stern-Bettman’s words to us all “play hard and play fair and good luck next week and don’t forget my paycheck”

Hello readers! In an exciting piece of distribution news, I’m told that there is pending communication from The Office of Media Coordination. Unfortunately, this will make this week’s article too long to be posted to the league site. Owners will receive a communication with the league’s messages attached, as well as a copy of my article for this week! How cool is that!

The successful inaugural season of the NHL ended on Monday night. The NESBYS program has awarded all the trophies, and the owners will be collecting their concessions and TV rights revenue soon. In the meantime, I will be forced to retreat to my Canadian single-wide and stare out at the sky wondering if I’m seeing the Northern Lights, or I’m just hallucinating off of a bad batch of neighbor Dave’s bathtub firewater. I’ll be breaking up the recently inherited Aunt Mildred’s stick furniture for my front porch open pit fire and trying to fill that old oil drum with empty crushed Labatt’s cans for the recycler in the spring – in short, I can’t wait to get home. But first let me share with you my closing season thoughts.

First of all, my congratulations to League Champ You Betcha. In a match that came down to Monday night, NoKe NoKe (recently renamed) came extremely close to making up a 40-point deficit, and therefore justifying the team’s #1 playoff seeding…but it just wasn’t meant to be. After weeks of destroying the league with 150-point-plus performances, there was no little blue pill to save NoKe, despite WR Andre Hopkins’ ludicrous pinball catch in the end zone. You Betcha was the most consistent all year, and consistency ruled the day with 122 points being enough to bring home the Commissioner’s Championship Award For The Best Team This Year. You Betcha’s team members were observed trying to detach the football part of the trophy to have a catch in the locker room. As far as I know, they’re still there.

On the top rung of the consolation ladder, Al Davis Genius brought home 3rd place with the weekend’s high score, after a séance with the real Al Davis convinced the ADG owner that the Bear Spirit was strong in Chi-town. That defense, with nice help from Superman Cam and an un-hurt Ertz put Genius in firm control of his game with The Full Monty. TFM’s epic playoff run from week 8 into week 12 ended in an epic playoff meltdown that continued into this week. In the final game of the year, TFM just never got it going and had too many 4, 5 and 6s on the board when he needed double digit scores. Despite being in contention for a season podium, TFM tied for lowest score this week, after last week’s score, the second-lowest in league history (TFM’s Round 1 score of 66 was only eclipsed by NoKe’s week 14 zero, where he pulled his whole team off the field).

Before we go any further, congrats to fellow rookies NoKe NoKe and Al Davis Genius for very successful opening seasons, both teams taking home medals in the first year of their franchises. Well done for silver and bronze.

In the run for the “Damn, I at least want to get my league fee back” total points score award, Foot Jive Monster Mash sure didn’t leave the door open after an opening week 157. Although the Mash didn’t win his Round 2 match, it was a low scoring week and none of the other contenders could get the 30+ points needed to overcome FJM2’s solid 111 in Round 2. Funnily enough, his only contender for the cash was this week’s opponent, Team Rockme. Team Rockme was better in the game with good double-digit numbers from his top 5 starters but the Mash once again rode piggy back on Todd Gurley II’s 48 points to take home his chunk of the cash. Outside of the championship game, this was easily the best game of the week, and productive for both teams. Rockme was able to salvage a winning record, and FJM2 was able to take home some bread.

In another consolation game, Team T. Holden tackled It Ertz Wentz Eifert. It seems that as the season wore on and the namesakes of FART got injured, it was as if the spirit was blown out of the team’s other players as they faded down the stretch. Dion Lewis, the most consistent Patriots RB in the second half of the 2017 season (which let’s be honest, isn’t saying much), gave his 31 points to Team T. Unfortunately, Kyle Rednose Rudolf was called away on Santa duty for FART and only delivered a single point and a lump of non-denominational holiday coal. Additionally, WR Michael Crabtree’s no-show zero again emphasized his lack of clutch, and the extremely slim margins that led to FART being a Keenan cellar-dweller (seriously, look at the points for and against in the Keenan. A few different plays and FART is a contender). In winning, the THLD squad finished a very respectable 3rd among the rookies.

The last battle in the Octogon this year was between the doggedly determined Team R. Holden and Team Stehle. Stehle had 5 players (count ‘em) on the roster who posted goose eggs, including 2 starters, and it looked like RHLD would get the late season victory and some minor vindication after working the waiver wire hard all season. A surprising Redskins D/ST looked like it would anchor the team and lead them to the promised land. However, Stehle’s Steeler D/ST came out on fire Monday night, welding Houston to the loser’s anvil and hammering Team R on his way to a win.

I’ll be around for a day or two, hitting on team manager’s sisters and owner’s ex-wives, trying to get some 2018 draft insights and invites to a warmer timeshare. The glaciers tend to creep in a little close to my winter propane tanks at home and the sheep look a little too inviting in February. But I hope BSPN doesn’t cut my gig while I’m away and tell me I need to work at that stupid Playland theme park in Vancouver in the offseason. I’d rather cover these 10 owners again next year. Until then, readers. See you in 2018.

Atom Shuffler

BSPN NHL insider