Week 12 is a go

The All Picks for Week 12 have been posted -- sixteen games and no throwaways. See you on the sidelines.

"I went downstairs and started smashing things."

Man, was it a wild weekend or what? In NASCAR, Carl Edwards won the battle with a ninth Cup win for the '08 season but even that couldn't keep Jimmie Johnson from winning the war. By finishing where he did, J.J. grabbed a third-consecutive Cup Championship. Not since the '76-'77-'78 seasons have we seen this which is when racing great Cale Yarborough was the first to put up a three-peat. But we're here to discuss football, right? Well, there was a pair of wild outcomes which took place on the gridirons too.

In the San Diego-Pittsburgh game, the final score was 11-10 in favor of the Steelers. Never before in NFL history has a game ended 11-10. The score should have been 17-10 or 18-10 but, due to yet another blown call by the refs, a final TD scored by Pittsburgh's defense on a fumble recovery as time expired was reversed. The refs decided the fumble resulted from a tipped illegal forward pass (lateral) and therefore deemed the ball to be dead and the play over. As told by Las Vegas professional handicapper Ted Sevransky, "It was chaos...I've never seen anything like it." What Ted is referring to is the hair-tearing confusion which ensued throughout bookie community after it was determined the Chargers covered the 4 1/2 point spread. As a result, winners became losers (Pittsburgh bettors) and losers became winners (San Diego bettors). How bad was the damage? Early estimates put it at something close to $4 million. Hmmm...maybe this could qualify the sports books for a bailout.

In the Philadelphia-Cincinnati, the score at the conclusion of the overtime period was 13-13. This caught Philly QB Donovan McNabb surprise when he commented to reporters that he didn't think NFL games could end in ties. Let's not miss the point that Donovan was playing in the game! In any event, not since the 2002 Atlanta-Pittsburgh regular season pairing has a NFL game ended in a tie. And if you're wondering how a tie is handled here at FU, well, it's handled as a tie. Does that clear it up for you? Please say yes. Please don't suffer a McMental laspe.

So, should we call her "Two-Hound" now?

Back in Week 9, FU'er Ruhound earned her first win on a tiebreaker just nudging out Marino13 by five points. Well, in Week 11, Ruhound became "TwoHound" by earning her second win for the '08 season. TwoHound...er, Ruhound is the first FU'er to win two weeks this year. And she got her win thanks to a missed field goal. No less than eleven FU'ers were still alive going into the Monday Night game. Among these, only Ruhound had picked the Cleveland Browns. So when Buffalo Bills' kicker Rian Lindell's 47-yard attempt with 43 seconds remaining missed wide right, Ruhound took the win and now has a Benjamin's worth of cash kicking around her pocket book. Just goes to prove that some weeks won't end until the final whistle is blown.

Now on top: YankeeMan

It's been a slow crawl but, YankeeMan has finally made it to the top. Pretty much staying in or near the Top Ten (positions) throughout the first Ten (weeks), YankeeMan just bumped BobMcSister from the perch she's held for the previous two weeks. McSister slipped to fourth and Eagle1 moved up to second. Both of these FU'ers and Ruhound and CowGirl round out the Top Five (Wazoo is in there) and are just one win behind the leader. Another seven FU'ers are within five wins of YankeeMan which means there's bound to be a few more shake-ups in the Season Standings as we continue play through the holidays.

Survivor is in the single digits

First, a quick apology: The Commish was alerted to the fact that he didn't properly link to the Survivor Contest page last week. Sorry 'bout that but, all is well now. As for Week 11, only one strike was awarded to the remaining Survivors and that resulted in a boot. JungleMan may be playing hot in his fantasy football league with five division wins, two straight victories, and a move into a playoff contention spot. Here in Survivor, though, JungleMan is playing cold. Cold as in room temperature which is JungleMan's situation now that he received strike three on a St. Louis loss. Sorry 'bout that, JungleMan but, thanks for pointing out to the Commish that he boned up that Survivor link last week. As for the remaining Survivors, there's only nine now. Marino13 continues his unblemished streak and NotEasyBeingGreen is still holding at one strike. The other seven are still holding with two strikes.

Be "Perfect" and play FREE in FU09

The Commish occasionally conducts an unannounced contest when the annual prize purse can support it. This is one of those years and here are the details:

The first FU'er to post a 16 & 0 will be awarded a FREE Full Season Pass for FootballUnlimted 2009. This "Perfect Contest" does have a few conditions, though. The first condition is that you have to win with the Commish's definition of "perfect" which might be a little different than you're thinking. Not only do you need to correctly predict all sixteen games, you need to have predicted at least one game differently than Wazoo (remember, that's the line). So, if both Wazoo and you post 16 & 0's, the win goes to Wazoo. The second condition deals with tiebreakers. If more than one FU'er posts a non-line 16 & 0, the FU'er who had the most non-line picks win. If a tie still exists, then we'll use the standard "coming closest to total score in final game" tiebreaker. The third condition is also pretty basic: Kind of like Survivor, once a FU'er wins this contest, it is over for the rest of the season. Sooooo....

If you want to compete in this unannounced contest, start by making one or more non-line picks each week, be perfect with those picks, and be first. Good luck.