PFCC Week 2: Close Games, New QBs and our Runaway Winner

by: exRegionalWeenie (September 20, 2019)

Week 2 was full of NFL action. Several games were decided in the final seconds and five games were decided by 3 points or less. At the opposite end of the spectrum, one game was decided by 43 points as one of the league's best teams (Patriots) faced the South Florida Tankers in Miami. New QBs made their presence felt in Week 2. Pittsburgh's Mason Rudolph filled in after Big Ben was lost for the year and sixth round draft pick Gardner Minshew played well for the Jags in a 1-point loss to the Texans. The Browns made up for losing to the Titans in Week 1 by cruising past the hapless Jets, 23-3. Everyone hop back up on the Browns-to-the-Super-Bowl hype train!

Week 2 Results: It's all about Mark Searcy
Individual names are not highlighted in these subheadings but I made an exception this week. Mark Searcy had one hell of a week! He was 14-1 with 118 points - holy cow!! How's that even possible in the NFL? We're impressed, Mark. His lone loss was his lowest-ranked team... the Philadelphia Eagles. Mark had ** 30 ** more points than the next highest competitor. Robert Long and David Carroll tied for second place with 88 points each. Marty Mullen was fourth while Paducah, Kentucky's, Pat Spoden finished in fifth place for the week. Nice work, gang. The rest of the week's Top 10 were Larry Vannozzi, Brandon Black and Tom Morrill and included a five-way tie for 9th place between Bob Fogarty, Christine Kruse, Jeremy Menhennett, Gibson Rothschild and Eric Coleman.



Overall Standings
Needless to say, Mark Searcy's monster week propelled him all the way up to first place overall. Tim Doggett is just 8 points behind Mark. The rest of the overall Top 10 is made up of many of this week's top scores. Marty and David are tied for third place, Robert is in fifth, Jerry Bailey is sixth and Gibson is seventh. Jeff Vitale is in eigth place and two players are tied for 9th/10th place - Jeremy Buckles and Nathan Jurgensen.

Group Play Standings
In Group Play, Hailraisers have the lead with 148.33 points. Second place belongs to a team called Johnny Insurance. Yes, that Johnny. The same Johnny that we're subjected to commercial after commercial after... That team is made up of a bunch of people from Texas so we're gonna assume they're A&M types who still are hanging hopes on the man formerly known as Johnny Football. Ugh. BoomerBacks have a history of doing well in Group Play. They're off to another strong start this year and they find themselves in third place after Week 2.

PFCC Week 1: Bad Week for Brown(s)

by: Sugar (September 12, 2019)

The marathon of the dirty-dawg contests is off and running for 2019. One week down and only 17 to go, plus the playoffs and the Super Bowl. That's right, we will be writing this column through February 2, 2020! While it was a good week for the NFL and dirty-dawg.com, not as much can be said if you have some semblance of "Brown" in your name. I have never seen so much press during PFCC Week 1 about a dude who didn't even play a snap. Antonio Brown? Helmets, frost bite, missed walk-throughs, sexual assault accusation, bad tweets, bad attitude and halitosis. I'm just guessing on the last one. This guy has done so many questionable if not bad things, I just had to look up where he played his college ball. Central Michigan University. Otherwise known as my alma mater, much to my chagrin. Good luck to the Pats.

The other brown story, of course, is the Cleveland Browns. Some had picked them as a Super Bowl team. While one game certainly doesn't mean they aren't going to the Super Bowl, it is looking less likely(?) after wonder boy Baker Mayfield threw the pigskin to the wrong team. Three times. I think a couple of those picks were returned for 14 points, too. On the flip-side, the Patriots looked every bit the defending champ even without their new star receiver. Isn't the NFL wonderful? Should be an interesting season for sure.

For Week 1 PFCC, we had 4 players that went 14-1 and all of them lead the rest of the standings. Nathan Jurgensen is the overrall leader with 116 points after missing 2 on Tampa Bay. Jeremy Buckles is in 2nd place with 112 points dropping his 4, also on the Bucs. PFCC 2005 Champion, Tim Doggett is in 3rd with 110 points. Tim dropped 5 on the...wait for it...The Browns. Lori Orosco was also 14-1 and lands in 4th place with 108 points. In 5th place is Jerry Bailey with 108 points and, what do we have here, 2018 Champion Gary Petti begins his title defense in 6th place! Gary is currently in 2nd place in CFCC. Somebody needs to stop this guy!

After Week 1 in Group Play, Going up 4 the TD has the early lead with an average score of 89.2 points, followed by Hailraisers and Desert Dawgs. The good news is that Week 2 does not have any of those Zero-Dark-Thirty starts over across the pond, but keep an eye out for those in future weeks. For now, get those Week 2 picks in my Noon CDT on Sunday and good luck.

CFCC Week 2 Wrap: Enemies

by: Sugar (September 11, 2019)

It's not often I stop to think about the events 18 years ago today. But for some reason today I have been. I had just arrived home from working the overnight shift at National Weather Service Detroit/Pontiac. It was a beautiful late summer morning across the Great Lakes and the whole eastern half of the country for that matter. I got home just before the first plane hit the first tower. Our neighbor called and I watched the rest of the horrific events live that morning. Now at 53 years old, those events are still the most personally shocking things I have witnessed. There are two lessons from that day for me. 1) Don't underestimate your enemies. Especially those that are highly motivated and well funded. 2) Don't forget what happened that day. When people forget history, it has a tendency to repeat.

Even though events like 9/11 are sobering reminders of really how unimportant sports and sports contests are, we can still apply these lessons without dishonoring the source of the tuition. Case in point: Army at Michigan. We know Army is well coached and has quality players. They took CFP participant Oklahoma to OT last year using their grinding, ball-control offense and a solid defense. Michigan didn't play like they knew any of this! The dirty-dawg pucker factor ran about as high as it can with most players having high double-digits on the Wolverines. Only two players took Army. Two players. Well, you say, Michigan was the right call, but this dirty-dawg was sure sweating that long Army field goal attempt that just came up a little short and a little wide. Michigan got lucky and so did most of the dirty-dawg field. Of course, we always look for those games that may be more interesting than they look at first glance. While Michigan did eventually pull it out, those of us that still believed in Miami and Tennessee paid the price. And a big thank-you to Nebraska for blowing a nice 4th quarter lead. The smart dawgs had Colorado all the way.

After two weeks of play, Felecia Bowser continues to pace the field with a stellar 27-3 record and 218 points. Gary Petti, our 2018 PFCC Champ no less, is in 2nd place with 200 points. Jenn Varian from Las Vegas had the top score for Week 2 with 108 points, which vaulted her 101 spots to #3 overall. Great job, Jenn! Hank Bauer was the Week 2 runner-up with 104 points and that allowed him to climb 177 positions into 4th place overall. And Trevor Boucher, another Vegas type, was third for Week 2, with 102 points which launched him 86 spots to number 5 overall. Not bad T-Rev!

Padookie Possum Quackers continue to lead Group Play with an average score of 168.00. Fake News Forecasters and Mr.X are tied for 2nd with 164.25 points and we are forced to mention 4th place Chucked Up Picks, because we dig their name.

Week 3 offers some interesting match-ups and that game form closes at the usual time. Is Maryland for real? Can Kentucky beat Florida again? Can Florida State win a game? Can Texas Tech tackle Kahlil Tate during PAC12 after dark? Do people still wear crocs? Most of these questions will have answers by Sunday morning.