Yes, the first round of the playoffs is in the books for the DN Fantasy Football League, and Round 2 is underway. Let's take a quick look back at the wild-card round to see what happened, who moved on, and who moved out.
The closest game of the week came from the winner's bracket, as my Space Monkey Mafia played host to the defending league champions, Packers Suck. Going into the Monday night game between Cleveland and Philadelphia, I trailed chadly0102's bunch by 19.5 points, and had to rely on Eagles' quarterback Donovan McNabb to have a good game against the Browns' woeful defense. Luckily for me, McNabb did just enough by putting out 22.5 points, allowing me to escape with a 67.5 - 64.75 victory over Packers Suck, ensuring that there would not be a repeat champion this season.
The other winner's bracket game matched the #5 seeded Angry Dragons against #4 dvikings1. While Philip Rivers and DeAngelo Williams put together big games for dvikings1, they couldn't withstand the balanced attack of the Angry Dragons, and the Dragons came away with a 109.2 - 86.4 victory.
The next round of the winners bracket will see the Angry Dragons taking on the top seeded PMak Attack, while the Space Monkey Mafia will battle with UBB's Bombers. While the Mafia/Bombers game is still scoreless, Maurice Jones-Drew has helped the Dragons to take an early 15.2 - 0 lead over the PMak Attack, but there's obviously a lot of football left to be played.
In the bottom bracket, there was one mild upset. In a game that was, literally, all over by the time the early Sunday games had finished, the 12th seeded Rabble Rousers knocked off #9 Elvis Budweiser VIII by a count of 74.1 - 69.1. Nobody in the Rabble Rousers' lineup notched more than 11 points on Sunday, but they had enough balance to knock off EBVIII, and that's what counts.
The other game saw the Hamburglars lay a pretty sizeable whooping on Dani's Purple Team. The Hamburglars recorded the biggest margin of victory of the wild card round by winning by a score of 76.8 - 34.6. Having three guys in your starting lineup is not what one would consider to be an optimal fantasy football strategy, but that's what the Purple Team did, which would probably explain their relatively low point total.
Both of the second-round games in the bottom bracket have gotten the scoring started, as the Hamburglars have already jumped out to a quick 14.9 - 0 lead over #7 seed whodat, thanks to the exploits of Indy's Dominic Rhodes (and no thanks to Marvin Harrison, who was in the Hamburglars' starting lineup but didn't play Thursday night). On the other side, the combo of Peyton Manning and Dallas Clark has allowed the 8th seeded Garnet & Gold to jump out to a big 51.8 - 18.8 lead over the Rabble Rousers, who got themselves some points from Reggie Wayne this past Thursday.
Two more weeks to go, folks. . .who will come out on top? We'll have to wait and see!