Semi Final Reax/Finals Preview

This is architect construction. Who wanna battle the Don? Apollo kids live to spit the real.

Talk of the end of the world has gone out with a whimper as a minor footnote, the only significant piece of evidence of its legacy being an incredibly terrible John Cusack film- doubtful that future history textbooks will even give the topic passing mention. It is now official: not even false Mayan prophecies of the apocalypse can prevent D99 from rightfully claiming fantasy glory.

Unfortunately for Yahoo Public 606206, Unseen's march to the title will not be stopped by the cataclysm

The concluding Week 16 is finally here and the championship round is set as a rematch between D99 and DESTROY JEW BREES. And it's for all the cookies in grandma's cookie jar; all the presents under the Christmas tree; all the marbles in the marble sack; all the chips on the poker table; all the pieces of fruit in the basket; all the pogs and slammers in the stack; all the pokemon in your poke collection, or whatever the fuck have you. It's like machine vs. man, man vs. woman. Woman vs. your mother.  It's gonna be instupituous.

Like a true boss, Unseen feels compelled to mention his personal disappointment with his final foe. DESTROY earned the opportunity for another shellacking mostly due to the fact that Butt Munchers inexplicably replaced his kicker (a kicker, dog?) last week, trading out Minnesota's Blair Walsh (who put up 25 points) for Cleveland's (really?) Phil Dawson (who put up a mere 3 points). Needless to say, if he didn't swap kickers, he would have easily topped the 100 point threshold and soundly defeated DESTROY for a position in the finals against D99. After a very strong regular season as the top scorer in the league, Munchers will be duking it out for 3rd with Nemisis1, who had his title ambitions vaporized by Unseen with the continued help of Adrian Peterson operating on Beast Mode setting.

If ever, one qualified to have accidentally made it to a championship round on the wings of fortunate luck, DESTROY JEW BREES surely fits the bill. As was chronicled in last week's commentary and throughout the campaign, D99 has made no secret about the distortions associated with DESTROY's presence in the playoffs. After last week's victory, his record over the second half of the fantasy season -including playoffs- stands at 3-5, and he has still failed to chart over 100 points. Although he has a good lineup of solid receiving options (B. Marshall, D. Thomas, R. Wayne) DESTROY's squad lacks serious and consistent punch mostly because his top running back selection (MJD) has been sidelined with an injury. Instead, he has been playing Frank Gore and Pierre Thomas. Over the past two weeks, despite the wealth of rb talent on his roster (Peterson, Rice, Charles), Unseen has been snatching up emerging late season backs who have been putting up points (Moreno, D. Williams, D. Wilson)- a deliberate set of defensive maneuvers made to ensure opponents with weak running games like Nemisis1 and DJB aren't handed his crown on the shoulders of a last moment waiver-wire pickup. D99 makes no games of this business. This shit right here is a grown man's sport- ain't no place for accident murderers.

The snowball just keeps rolling downhill and gaining momentum, irregardless of setbacks along the way. Last week served as yet another reminder that Phillip Rivers cannot be trusted, even in proxy, after late season phenom Danario Alexander put up a goose-egg with only three targets against Carolina. Fortunately, plug and play Cincinnati defense came through and delievered on Thursday Night Football as hoped, dropping a solid 23 points. The win was not without drama, however, as Chris Johnson ran for an early 94 yard score in the MNF matchup against a hopeless Jets team. Although they dropped the ball on offense, the Jets D held up in the end (for fantasy purposes, at least). This week, D99 is opting to use the Charger D against 3rd stringer McElroy in New York, anticipating a low scoring offensive matchup featuring two offenses who just can't seem to get their shit together.

Is he crazy for this? Did he just completely disregard his own statements about Rivers in proxy? Or is he mastering the blueprint for defensive use in fantasy football? D99 has already previously demonstrated his prowess on the defensive front. As NFL offenses evolve and trends come and go, adaptation is required in the fantasy game in order to stay ahead of the curve. Not so long ago, the game revolved around workhorse backs, and fantasy seasons could be won and lost solely on the basis of who got one of the first two or three picks in the draft. With the emergence and growing popularity of running back committees, coupled with the evolution of the passing game directly correlated with changes in defensive rules, it is true that the more common NFL offense is now based around use of marquee quarterbacks. It is highly unlikely that a dominant defensive team with combination poor passing/strong running game like the 2000 Ravens will win another Super Bowl any time soon. Consequently, in the fantasy world, it is much more common for QBs to go earlier in drafts, and in the case of this year, even TE's were going in the first/second rounds. Though a top level quarterback like Drew Brees is mos def highly desired, the rarity of workhouse/premier runners like Foster, Peterson, Rice, (and surprisingly) Lynch, and Martin still makes them, by positional comparison, much more valuable an asset for fantasy purposes. It is simply much more common and likely for a QB to score 20 points in a week than it is for a running back. Sacrificing an average of 5-8 points weekly difference at the quarterback position (most likely due to variance as a result in matchup or play conditions) in exchange for 10-12 points at the RB position is an obvious swap any competitor would take. The wild card in the situation is that it is more common for guys like Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Cam Newton, or (now) RGIII to drop high 20's to high 30's than it is for even the top backs in fantasy, especially if their team falls behind early.

Enter the fucking monster of a season Adrian Peterson is putting together (who, by the way, is unquestionably the most valuable player of the NFL this year). Recall that he was taken in the third round after two consecutive RB selections. Then recall the fact that D99 has already elaborated upon the offer he posed to DESTROY JEW BREES in order to solve his Phillip Rivers QB issues. In retrospect, this deal may very well have simultaneously been a season breaker for the Unseen and a season winner for DESTROY if he had taken the offer. Only this week will reveal just how incredibly and ridiculously stupid ignoring the offer was. If All Day puts the nail into the DJB's fantasy coffin with a solid performance against an admittedly insanely difficult Texan run D, he'll only have himself to blame. On the flip side, if Marshall (and Cutler) show up at Arizona, he may be singing a different song, and Drew Brees may or may not dismantle Big D's secondary, which is also in play. Or, in the big picture, will DESTROY JEW BREES be the last of the 2012 sacrifices made to the fantasy football Gods? All of these questions still demand resolution, and leave it up to the championship round to provide it.

Unseen has crafted these jewels in order to more fully and comprehensively depict the DaVinci-like masterpiece of his grand and sweeping statement: Here is your shovel, go ahead and start digging your grave, shark-bait. D99 smelt blood a mile away from day one, and he's done nothing but follow through upon proclamations of his dominance over this here motherfucking jungle. Yal's scent must be so undeveloped that you failed to pick up the markings on the territory. Consequently, if you enter the Tiger's domain, you're gonna be lunch. If you're flying through the Eagle's hood, best believe those feathers gon' get snatched up. If you travel down to the watering hole, don't be surprised to find yourself caught in an alligator's jaws. If you get lost in the tundra, wolves will hunt you down until you get tired of runnin'. If you venture into the cave, a bear's got no choice but to maul you apart. Cross Unseen's path, and you've got no choice but defeat.


Until next week...

End of the Regular Season Reax

Months have passed and seasons have changed. The leaves have fallen from the trees and shit, Thanksgiving turkeys have been carved, and as we approach the Christian holiday the fantasy playoffs are in full gear. And in case yal blockhead fools still haven't put together the X's and O's like those 3rd grade valentines you used to write to your "auntie" or bus driver, D99 has taken another step toward unparalleled fantasy greatness. Unseen has continued to roll down this road with a swagger so obnoxious it has motherfuckers caught up on some envious "what the fuck is that dude on?" shit. D99 flashes them high beams- you get the fuck up out the lane.

Yea, some of these joints be tight, some of these joints be fucked up. At the end of the day though, truth is, these flaky ass competitors are on some sincere phoca vitulina shit. Motherfucking mammals with fur and blubber and flippers and whiskers and webbed feet tryin' to play in the ocean with the real badass fishes. You don't fit in on land, and you get hunted every time you venture into deeper waters. Yal are in the presence of the true Great White, and the rest of these consolation lames just got passed up in favor of a bigger meal- congratulations for playing, now go back to shore and maybe someday you'll be lucky enough to procreate some other weaklings, young pup. It's just the laws of nature. At an earlier period perhaps you'd receive a participation medal or ribbon or somethin', but at least you can rest and take solace in knowing you lost to a true legend.

D99 is on some Planet Earth shit

It hasn't been made easy though- sometimes these pinnipeds make a trill predator like Unseen work for their grub, getting all evasive with the ducking, diving, twirling, and jumping and such. D99 enters the playoffs in the 4th seed on the momentum of a two week win streak with crucial must-wins over Jew Brees and Muddogs. Meanwhile, Sucka failed worse than a sheltered fundamentalist virgin trying to put a condom on a banana in sex ed...consider that imagery. Son, you had so much potential as a foil too. Unseen really wanted you to succeed simply on the basis that it would allow further degradation of your already pitiful condition by way of an insulting playoff victory. You've denied D99 the opportunity to put a cherry on top...which might actually be the best move you've made all season, by the way. Go ahead and crawl back into that cave of obscurity you'd ventured out of: your fantasy career has been assassinated.

Now that the "I just do it for fun" season is over, Unseen did some deep meditation on the shit and came up with a few inspired comments to drop and a few bars to craft drawn from the highest Himalayan spiritual peaks and the holiest shrines containing the seeds of the same bodhi tree the Buddha became blessed under. The type of all-seeing, all-encompassing awareness shit which transcends metaphysical boundaries and manifests itself as an enlightened statement of unity with the entire universe itself. The type of shit written on divine tablets that angels sing to while floating down on puffy white clouds surrounded by doves in flight and laced with a light so powerful it cuts through all darkness and reveals the purity of the soul. The type of shit so absolutely unfathomable and incomprehensible that it could only be expressed mathematically as perfectly balanced and infinite in character. Actually, about 98% of that shit was entirely made up- D99 has got just ONE thing to say to the hate train:

Paired up with D99 in the first elimination game is Nemisis1, aka the team formerly known as Nemisis, which gained the additional digit partway through the season because apparently this dude has FIVE other teams with the same title. And, for the record, every one of the Nemisis squads resides in a public league- so it's not as if the Andy D plethora is due to some sort of competitive/social obligation with his co-workers or friends: he simply chose to make six fantasy football teams. Unseen never fails to find humor in fantasy football players with the combination of excessive league membership and lack of results (see also: sucka). Consider, perhaps, that maybe your pathological commitment to failure is directly due to your inability to make good managerial decisions, and that increasing the number of teams you run WILL NOT increase your probability of winning- especially when your number is pulled for a league with a legitimate monster like D99.

The matchup against Nemisis1 represents the opportunity for a reply to the loss Unseen took in Week 8 while playing with a shorthanded bye-week squad, in addition to starting the San Diego human turnover machine more commonly known by the legal name of Phillip Rivers (who managed, literally, only 154 yards passing week 8). Barnwell had an entertaining writeup of the worst throws of the year a few weeks back, and of course Rivers made the list with this beauty of a pick-6 while playing against Tampa Bay. Needless to say, the ship has since been corrected and the Chi is now in balance. It was nothing a few L's and gut instinct couldn't fix...Rivers has simply failed to live up to any real or fantasy expectations of a "bounce back" from last year's terrible turnover-plagued campaign. In his place now stands Carson Palmer, underrated fantasy producer of patented junk-time tounchdowns, like a poor-man's 2012 QB version of the 2008 Calvin Johnson (the year the Lions went unvictorious). Unseen has been stuck rolling with Palmer due to the fact that multiple teams have legitimate starting-quality quarterbacks they could have traded for profit who are simply sitting on their bench collecting dust (a la DESTROY JEW BREES).

A monster fantasy season, but you wouldn't know it in Yahoo Public 606206

Way back in August, Unseen employed the entirely unconventional draft strategy of taking three straight rbs (Rice, Charles, Peterson) with his first three picks in a public league with no flex position. Somewhere across the planet, the rainforest was being torn down. Mystics began to prophesize the coming of days. Devastating hurricanes materialized in the Gulf, and executives at Pepsi-Cola considered going for broke and bringing back Crystal Pepsi. The Earth was damned near thrown off its axis. Fast forward to Week 15 and the first round of the playoffs, and D99 sits in a comfortable position with three of the top ten backs in fantasy. Coupled with some keen pickups like Danario Alexander, Carson Palmer, and various flavor-of-the-week defenses, his squad appears to be peaking at the right moment. When it all boils down, the essential remaining ingredient which separates the real from the fake is simply the employment of superior personal research and strategy.

In other relevant league news, Butt Munchers was bumped down to the 2nd spot in the last week of the regular season and as a result, faces a matchup against 3rd place DESTROY JEW BREES. Interestingly enough, these two knuckleheads also last faced each other back in week 8 when a strong Doug Martin performance (33.4 pts on 135/1 and 79/1) and typical Tom Brady domination (304/4) allowed Munchers to cruise to an easy 107-73 victory. Unseen has strongly maintained since Week 4 that DESTROY JEW BREES enjoyed the benefit of a creampuff early schedule and sincerely lacked the talent to go the distance. Subsequent facts have proven this position to be correct: Since that Week 8 loss against Butt Munchers, DESTROY has limped into the playoffs by going 2-4 while also failing to score over 100 total points in any week. As a matter of fact, DESTROY has topped the century mark only THREE times over the course of the season, and last accomplished this feat back in Week 5.  As a point of comparison, Butt Munchers has dropped 100+ a record 9 times this season, and also remains the single-week high record holder by virtue of that historic Doug Martin performance back in Week 9. In determining this semi-final pairing, if Butt Munchers matches his weekly average output of 101.52, he'll have assured himself a position to challenge for D99's crown.


Until next week.