FISO NFL SEASON 8 - match reports

[Rick Spangle]

WEEK 15 - SCORES IN PROGRESS

Putney Gooners 66 @ 90 Fulchester Fish - YTP S.Graham (Fish)
The Fish will be going to the championship game, with a 24 point lead and kicker Shayne Graham still left to play on Monday night. A well-balanced show all round, with RB DeMarco Murray getting 20, and fellow RB Eddie Lacy 16. For the Gooners, not a great way to end it - other than RB LeVeon Bell (23) and QB Peyton Manning (13), no one else into double figures.

Crystal Tipps 69 @ 57 Chingford Gingers - YTP M.Forte (Gingers)
This is the semifinal where there's still doubt about the result - Gingers need 12 points from Matt Forte tonight. (As per ESPN rules, if there's a tie in the playoffs, the higher seeded team advances). A low-scoring affair for both sides - WR Mike Wallace scored 16 and QB Andrew Luck 14 for the Tipps, while QB Eli Manning led for the Gingers with 22.

Bruschi 54s 60 @ 98 Cornish Tinners - YTP M.Ingram (Tinners)
Tinners confirming their overall strength after being unluckily bounced out of the playoffs. WR Dez Bryant had a great match last night collecting 3 touchdowns on his way to 29 points, and the Patriots D also had a good day with 18. Double digit score from the defensive position too for the 54s (Texans managing 14), but aside from QB Tony Romo's 20 not much else.

Forest Tigers 64 @ 53 Portsmouth Pirates - YTP A.Jeffery (Tigers); J.Cutler, P.Thomas (both Pirates)
Lots to play for here, with three players still to play Monday night. Again, in a generally low-scoring week, two teams not exactly tearing up the scoreboard. Only player into double figures for the Tigers was QB Tom Brady with 18, while the leading scorer so far for the Pirates is K Cody Parkey with just 11.

Get It Right Next Time 45 @ 85 X-Men - YTP D.Brees, J.Graham (both GIRNT); M.Bennett, M.Colston (both X-Men)
Again, lots of action left in this one, but it's going to take something special from the Saints duo of Brees and Graham to overhaul a 40 point deficit plus whatever Martellus Bennett and Marques Colston can add. So far, just the Seahawks D (10) to climb out of single figures for GIRNT - a healthy chunk of X-Men points came from rookie WR Odell Beckham with 30.

Caracas Firecrackers 55 @ 56 Barry Crockers - completed game
No doubt about the unluckiest team of the year - after three successive weeks of just failing to overhaul their opponents total with one last Monday Night Football player remaining, the Firecrackers now go down by just a single point to the Crockers. Another very low-scoring event though - TE Owen Daniels top for the Firecrackers with just 12, while the Crockers got enough points out of WR DeMaryius Thomas (18) and TE Rob Gronkowski (15) to just snatch the win.

[Rick Spangle]

WEEK 15 - FINAL SCORES

Putney Gooners 66 @ 97 Fulchester Fish
Shayne Graham added 7 points to the final-bound Fish score.

Crystal Tipps 69 @ 66 Chingford Gingers
Not quite enough from Matt Forte, falling 3 points short of his required 12. Tipps through to the final.

Bruschi 54s 60 @ 109 Cornish Tinners
Ingram rumbled his way to 11 points, including a last minute TD, to cement the Tinners 5th place on the overall ladder.

Forest Tigers 77 @ 75 Portsmouth Pirates
13 from Alshon Jeffery, 22 from the combined forces of Jay Cutler and Pierre Thomas - just good enough for the Jeffery-owned Tigers team.

Get It Right Next Time 80 @ 102 X-Men
Brees had a good game with 27 points, but from the GIRNT point of view, not enough targets went to Jimmy Graham, and with Marques Colston having a reasonable game for the X-Men (12), GIRNT end up falling some way short of the target.

Caracas Firecrackers 55 @ 56 Barry Crockers


WEEK 16 FIXTURES

Championship game
Crystal Tipps @ Fulchester Fish

3rd/4th place game
Putney Gooners @ Chingford Gingers

Consolation ladder
Forest Tigers @ Cornish Tinners
X-Men @ Bruschi 54s
Barry Crockers @ Portsmouth Pirates
Caracas Firecrackers @ Get It Right Next Time

[Rick Spangle]

WEEK 16 - SCORES IN PROGRESS

Crystal Tipps 49 @ 76 Fulchester Fish - YTP CJ Anderson (Fish)
Fish are the champions. A comfortable win by 27 plus whatever CJ Anderson wants to add on tonight. It was a bad week for the Indy-heavy Tipps to enter the title game, as the Colts had a complete meltdown against the Cowboys, resulting in a total of 4 points from the three Colts players on the Tipps squad. WR Mike Wallace (17) had a good game, but that was about it. Not a great score from the Fish either, TE Antonio Gates leading with 21, but good enough for the 2014 title.

Putney Gooners 72 @ 88 Chingford Gingers - YTP P.Manning (Gooners), AJ Green (Gingers)
Still something to aim for here, with two potentially big-scoring players yet to play this week. Manning will have to outscore Green by 17 points for the Gooners to grab 3rd place. RB Jonathan Stewart scored 18, and WR Sammy Watkins 14 for the Gooners, while QB Eli Manning was the star for the Gingers with 27. Let's see what big brother Peyton does tonight!

Forest Tigers 78 @ 108 Cornish Tinners - YTP E.Sanders (Tigers)
Tigers relying on a huge game from Emmanuel Sanders tonight - it's not out of the question. Packers DST managed 17 points, and RB LeSean McCoy got 16 for the Tigers. Tinners collected 24 points out of QB Philip Rivers, plus a slew of scores in the low teens for a nice weekly score. With a win here, the Tinners would get the number 1 draft pick for next year.

X-Men 70 @ 55 Bruschi 54s - YTP A.Dalton (54s)
On for a tight finish here as the ESPN projections have Dalton scoring exactly 15 tonight - have they taken into account Dalton's legendarily poor performances in nationally televised games? Two big scorers for the X-Men, WR Odell Beckham (26) and RB Marshawn Lynch (23), but nothing from anyone else - and the handicap of the worst weekly score by anyone for the whole season (I think), the Cardinals D ending up with -5 points. A few scores in the low double digits for the 54s, led by the Texans D on 12.

Barry Crockers 49 @ 72 Portsmouth Pirates - YTP D.Thomas (Crockers)
Similar to the Tigers/Tinners game above, the Crockers need a big performance out of the other Denver WR Thomas tonight. Three main scorers for the Pirates, RB Lamar Miller (20), WR Torrey Smith (17) and RB Arian Foster (15), and that was about it. Poor score so far for the Crockers with only WR Doug Baldwin hitting double figures - can DeMaryius Thomas salvage the win?

Caracas Firecrackers 70 @ 71 Get It Right Next Time - YTP G.Bernard (Firecrackers)
True to recent form, the Firecrackers come into the MNF game needing just a handful of points from their last man standing - in this case, it's RB Giovanni Bernard and only 2 points needed - surely 4th time lucky? Exactly half the Firecrackers total so far has come from a star performance by QB Russell Wilson last night (35) while TE Jordan Cameron's 81 yard TD run was also good for 14 points. In contrast, the GIRNT score was a real team effort - it's just that no-one had a stand-out day, with another DST, this time the Seahawks, leading with 12.

[X-Man]

My research shows that there has been a -6 for the Falcons v Minnesota and thereby avoids the wooden spoon - but that is just scratching around for something good to say and doesn't really explain why I didn't use the Chargers who would have added a further 17 points to my score (or Tannehill instead of Stafford who would have scored an addition 24 points - but that's the irritation and embarrassment of this game... )

[Rick Spangle]

Correct, I missed that one - well spotted Statto!

[calc]

Like all losing teams I will look to the draft to improve.

Congratulations to Andy and thanks for another well-run competition.

[Rick Spangle]

WEEK 16 - FINAL SCORES

Crystal Tipps 49 @ 95 Fulchester Fish
Anderson continued his fine run of form with another 19 points for a big victory for the Fish.

Putney Gooners 84 @ 88 Chingford Gingers
Gingers must have feared the worst when AJ Green suffered a first-quarter injury - although he played a few snaps, he didn't record a catch so a zero for Green. Fortunately for the Gingers, Peyton Manning's poor recent play continued for one more week as he threw 4 INTs, resulting in just 12 points.

Forest Tigers 97 @ 108 Cornish Tinners
A big game from Sanders with 2 TDs, but not the huge one that was needed.

X-Men 70 @ 68 Bruschi 54s
Dalton came up just short of the points required for a 54s win as the Bengals concentrated more on the running game.

Barry Crockers 60 @ 72 Portsmouth Pirates
Thomas got reasonable yardage points, but no TDs meant that the Pirates hang on.

Caracas Firecrackers 83 @ 71 Get It Right Next Time
Finally, a successful Monday night for the Firecrackers, as Gio Bernard got enough points to lift them to the win - and avoid the wooden spoon for the year.

[Rick Spangle]

SEASON REVIEW

Fulchester Fish
After the first round of divisional games, Fish were sitting at 1-2, but from then on in, a very successful season with only one real thumping (to Bruschi 54s in week 9), and one narrow loss (to Tinners in week 13), versus 11 wins.

Crystal Tipps
A 5-2 record after 7 weeks was promising - they then hit a 5-game losing streak, but 2 wins in the last 2 weeks of the regular season just got them home as divisional champions - collected a narrow win in the semi-final, but the championship game did not go quite as well as hoped!

Chingford Gingers
Got off to a cracking start, and after 8 weeks stood at a league-best 7-1. 2-4 from then until the end of the regular season wasn't so good, but the early form still meant that they topped their division. They suffered a close loss in their semifinal, but came out on top in a similarly close 3rd/4th playoff match.

Putney Gooners
Always in the mix for post-season honours, after also starting out 5-2 over the first 7 weeks, but ended up needing wins in weeks 13 and 14 to grab the wildcard slot as the Gingers disappeared over the horizon in the Eastern Division. Post-season play ended in round 1 however at the hands of the Fish, and a close loss to division rivals Gingers in the last game meant that they end up in 4th place.

Cornish Tinners
7-2 after 9 weeks, and all was looking comfortable - then along came a 3-game losing streak. Needing wins in weeks 13 and 14 for any chance of the title, these two wins were achieved, but other results didn't go their way. 5th place though, and the number one draft pick for next year as consolation.

Forest Tigers
A poor 2-5 start proved costly - then went on a 4-game winning run to get back into slight contention, only to end up with a 3-game losing skid.

X-Men
Never really in contention this year - after starting out with two out of three wins against divisional rivals in the first three weeks, not too many success stories for the rest of the season. Played hard to the end in the consolation ladder though, improving their draft position for next year.

Bruschi 54s
After a 0-3 beginning, not looking good for the 54s, however 3 wins then levelled their record. Still, by week 10 in a tough division, not a whole lot of chance for post-season play, but they made a fine attempt with 4 wins over the last 4 games to still be in with a go at the wildcard place - other results meant that they just fell a bit short. They then had a couple of losses in the consolation ladder games to drop a place or two in the draft order for next year.

Portsmouth Pirates
After week 10, they were sitting at 6-4 in the weakest division, and things were looking good. 2 losses in the next three games meant that week 14 ended up being an effective playoff game to settle the division, and the Pirates loss not only cost them the title, it knocked them out of the wildcard hunt as well.

Barry Crockers
The Crockers season never really got going after an 0-3 start, and another 3-game losing streak between weeks 9-11 settled matters.

Caracas Firecrackers
2-6 after week 8 meant that they were out of the running quite early in the season, so a run of three heartbreaking losses in weeks 12-14, while annoying, wasn't costly. Won the final consolation ladder game to at least avoid the indignity of the wooden spoon.

Get It Right Next Time
After another loss in week 8 to take their record to 1-7, GIRNT posted on this forum "reserve the wooden spoon for me now". From that point, they went 4-1, obviously far too late for meaningful post-season play, but two losses in the consolation ladder meant that their prediction ended up correct.


FINAL STANDINGS

1. Fulchester Fish - 10-4 - 2015 draft position 12
2. Crystal Tipps - 7-7 - 2015 draft position 11
3. Chingford Gingers - 9-5 - 2015 draft position 10
4. Putney Gooners - 9-5 - 2015 draft position 9
5. Cornish Tinners - 9-5 - 2015 draft position 1
6. Forest Tigers - 6-8 - 2015 draft position 2
7. X-Men - 6-8 - 2015 draft position 3
8. Bruschi 54s - 8-6 - 2015 draft position 4
9. Portsmouth Pirates - 7-7 - 2015 draft position 5
10.Barry Crockers - 4-10 - 2015 draft position 6
11. Caracas Firecrackers - 4-10 - 2015 draft position 7
12. Get It Right Next Time - 5-9 - 2015 draft position 8


Thanks to all of you for another season, hope you enjoyed playing - let's do it all again next year - and a happy Christmas to all

[X-Man]

Thanks for running the league again Rick. I enjoy reading the weekly match reports and the generally efficient way the league operates.

It's very hard to do well consistently in this league as there are very few opportunities to improve your team because every decent pick off the Waiver Wire is snapped up immediately.

My basic lesson from this year was - don't miss the Draft. I was left with three or four players I would never have chosen and its clear that the auto-picks leave you high ranking players who are for some obvious reason not being picked (eg injured) and/or decentish picks in areas you don't need (eg two decent TEs). The standard in the league is so good that any weakness in a general area means you're going to struggle.

That and having weeks where everybody performed with too many other weeks where no one performed.

I'll be back next year!!

Congrats to Fulchester Fish - like the Premier League, this league is always won by the best team overall.

[Asdral225]

Thanks for running the league. The only way is up as someone said once.