Our Damn Rankings, Can’t Miss Random Pick, and Pillowfights – Week 3

Has Joe fallen in here? My excuse? Would you believe I was drugged by attractive women, who wanted to have their way with me? Stockholm Syndrome is a bitch, guys.

Joe’s trapped under something heavy, so I’m making the rankings happen. It’s not my shtick to make fun of Grampa Gary, so I’m going to make my own rankings, and bring back the haikus. If you’re curious what Gary thinks, his rankings are here. not happening this week? What’s going on here? Whatever, fuck it. Also, Philly beat LA last week. We’ll take that into account. Why not?

After the jump: random decisions.

Power Rankings, Week 1: Can you say ‘Rohan Davey’?

New York, welcome back your second-string QB.

Has it really been six months since I’ve peer-reviewed Grampa Gary Horton’s AFL Power Rankings, and supplemented that with a Can’t Miss Random Pick and a Weekend Pillow Fight? Poke Gramps with a stick and give him a scotch, it’s story time!

Week 17: Yes, the regular season is over

Wow. This is it. This is the end of the regular 2007 season of the AFL.

We’ve had laughter. We’ve had tears.

I’d go more in depth at the present moment, but (not to bitch about non-AFL trivialities such as work) I need to seriously get back to work – two nights with an extra four hours at the office, any my boss just totally caught me in the act of starting this draft. Sorry, Boss. At least I’m not across the street at the strip club [Ed. note for new readers: there is a strip club across the street from my office. I can see it from the window. Sometimes when I leave work late, there are women in minivans co-opting our parking lot like vagrants in an ATM vestibule, scowling, waiting for some poor dumb putz to wander out in a lusty-seedy haze to get slapped with a palm and divorce papers. It's fantastic. Fantastically depressing].

Before we jump into it, note that there are four teams that could get two playoff spots this week, and the various scenarios are batshit insane. By the way, I never thought I’d write this, but if Columbus wins their final game, they will clinch a spot in the playoffs. Amazing.

LAST-EVER REGULAR SEASON CMRP: Tampa Bay and Austin. Do you think I’ll go with Team Brett Dietz? Does the Pope shit in the woods? Tampa Bay 72, Austin 45. CMRP hopes to finish the season with a playoff-worthy record of 9-6.

WEEKEND PILLOW FIGHT: Nashville and Grand Rapids. Should be a piece of cake for the Kats to win and clinch a playoff berth, right? Sure, except that last week Nashville QB Jeff Pole Smoker was benched after missing team meetings. Let’s hope Jeff pulls his head out of his ass and gets the W for Nashville, because we’d love to have a few more weeks to call Jeff Pole Smoker “Jeff Pole Smoker”.

Lastly, as an apology for missing my promised weekend coverage and in anticipation of not being able to deliver this weekend (Lumberg’s gonna make me work this weekend, I can feel it), please enjoy this picture of Peyton Manning looking delightfully uncomfortable with having his photo taken with an underaged member of the opposite sex.

The ESPN Schedule Monkey does its worst

If you were hoping to catch ESPN2′s live coverage of the Chicago Rush at the Colorado Crush tonight (the now-meaningless C/Rush Bowl, as both teams were already in the playoffs), the Scheduling Monkey that runs ESPN2-4 decided that you were going to watch the NCAA World Series, fuck you very much. Actually, from ESPN’s standpoint it makes perfect sense. The NCAA Softball tournament (get ‘em next year, Wildcats!) drew close to 1.7 million viewers for the final showdown between Arizona and Tennessee, whereas the AFL has been struggling to get its weekly ESPN viewership into the seven figure range. If you were willing to stay up, though, you could watch the game in its entirety on tape delay. Or in real time on ESPN 360, but seriously, nuts to ESPN 360.

Me, I turned on the tube at about 9:15, saw NCAA baseball instead of my required 2 minutes of Bobby Sippio, and figured that was as good an excuse as any to get out and have a few beers with some friends.

Oh, by the way: CMRP: I freely admit I have a man-crush on Brett Dietz. Tampa Bay 65,  Grand Rapids 45. [Update: I was right!]

Weekend Pillow Fight:  Wee, two terrible teams: Las Vegas at Los Angeles. [Update: easy win for LA, not the worst game of the weekend]

Week 15 Power Rankings, CMRP, and Weekend Pillow Fight (with beer)

In the interest of brevity, we’ll just get right to it. Especially because quitting time is in 29 minutes and damn if I’m sticking around here any longer than necessary. This week’s Beer-Themed Power Rankings are brought to you by Alcoholism, right after the jump:

Week 14 CMRP + Weekend Pillow Fight

UPDATE: TC’s canuck-inspired post is way funnier than this, so I’ll put a break right at the top so you can still see his. Oh, we loves us our Shaun King!

Week 13 Power Rankings, CMRP, and Weekend Pillow Fight

Once again, it is time for your ISF team to break down the weekly power rankings from Scouts, Inc. and insert our bold-faced wit and wisdom; also we’ll lay out the Pillow Fight of the Week, and see if Randomness can prevail and get back to a .500 record, all after the jump:

(Ed. note: prior to the jump we will completely ignore the fact we totally jinxed “American Idol” and ruined someone’s life who’s only crime was having a non-sanctioned fan site that commented on an AFL blog) 

I stand corrected

Ladies (Ladies…?) and gentlemen, my humility leaves me no choice but to address everyone directly and in the first person, not like my usual ISF Royal We, and drop a big mea culpa. I was wrong about the Philadelphia Soul.

I wrote them off because they had a first-week bye (like the barely .500 Can’t Miss Random Pick, for which I also apologize – randomness and I do not good bedfellows make). I wrote them off because they were in a tail-spin with the loss of mildly-Joe-Montana-ish Tony Graziani, and it seemed that nothing could pull them back into the playoffs. I wrote them off because I assumed since they are an AFL team, they are incapable of playing defense.

I was wrong.

The mere presence of Graziani charged the Soul squad, to the point where the Soul defense was out-scoring the Voo Doo offense going into the fourth quarter.

Even had Graziani not returned this game, third string backup Leon Murray probably would have likewise led the Soul to victory – he was 3/3 for 15 yards. And 2 TDs.

By the middle of the second quarter, it was clear: this was no pillow fight. Philly has a legitimate shot to run for the playoffs, right along with Dallas and Georgia (but not necessarily a Bobby Sippio-less Chicago).

This was not a pillow fight. Philly put on a clinic. It was an out and out rout.

They even would’ve beat the Cavs.

Preview for Monday Night (Arena) Football: Philly versus Nawlins

Make no mistake: this could be a painful game to watch. Both teams are at 4-6 and limping through the season; Graziani’s status is questionable, which means, “a minute before game time Jaws will determine his arm is still totally fucked”; and if you’re watching this game it means you’re probably missing season finales of either “24″ or “Heroes”. Or a marathon of “Two and a Half Men” repeats. Or “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.”

However, TC and I have decided to watch. Even at 4-6, it isn’t out of the question for Philly or Nawlins to reach the playoffs, and we haven’t live-blogged in a while, which is painfully apparent because pretty much everything that happened this weekend was exactly the opposite of what we said would happen. We need to get back in the AFL groove, get our hands dirty, listen to Trey Wingo be bored out of his mind.

Really, we just need to play Guitar Hero. We’ll live blog tonight on the status of JBJ’s middle digits and the awesomeness that is playing My Chemical Romance’s “Dead!” on cooperative. Rock.

What to look for in tonight’s game: weak defense from both squads, Voo Doo QB Andy Kelly to be either decent or crap-tacular, and a glimpse of Jaws running around in the locker room, looking like he’s either deep in football thought or searching for lost car keys. We can’t wait.

Actually, we probably can.

 UPDATE: Everything I wrote in this post is completely wrong.

Week 12 CMRP + Weekend Pillow Fight

The theme of the Can’t Miss Random Pick this week, following a victorious pick of San Jose over Las Vegas, is: DON’T FIX WHAT AIN’T BROKE. The CMRP is now 5-5 following our week 1 bye (also, we didn’t think of this feature until week 2), and I’d be willing to bet that potential playoff contender Utah won’t drop tonight’s game versus the horrendous, coach-less, Shaun King-less Gladiators. Las Vegas is so terrible I haven’t noticed that Tampa Bay has managed to win some football games – perhaps Primary Gruden put a disguised Jeff Garcia on loan?

ANYWAY, randomness is counting on Joe Germaine to continue to look like his head is a Peep in a microwave every time he throws the ball, and every time he throws the ball for it to go into the hands of a receiver in the end-zone.

WEEK 12 CAN’T MISS RANDOM PICK: UTAH 65, Las Vegas 35.

WEEK 12 WEEKEND PILLOW FIGHT ONCE AGAIN BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE PRESIDENT’S HOT TWIN DAUGHTERS:

This week’s pillow fight is going to be painful. It’s a match between a team that can’t find its rhythm and a team that started strong but is in an uncontrollable tailspin.

We’re talking about the Philadelphia Soul hosting the New Orleans VooDoo. And we’re talking about Monday Night (Arena) Football.

This game will feature bad reads, turnovers, and dropped passes. You’re going to see drives that go nowhere, like Charles Barkley playing golf. You’re going to see both teams commit my favorite metaphor that I’m fairly sure I coined at least in part: squatting over and dropping a collective sporting turd on the field.

You might see Jon Bon Jovi give the double bird to the refs, or if things get really ugly, his own team.

You might see Jaws get so distraught he actually suits up and gets behind center.

You might see all of these things.

I will not. Because I don’t think I could bring myself to watch this game even if doing so would get me my own pillow fight with the President’s daughters and a guarantee there will actually be Social Security left for me when I retire in 2000never.

Enjoy the game, sado-masochist viewers!