That's right, ladies and gentlemen. . .much like the NFL is down to the last week of its season, the Daily Norseman Fantasy Football League has reached that point as well. Let's do a quick review of what took place last week and what the championship matchups will bring us for this week!
In the upper bracket, it was clearly advantageous to get that first-round bye, as the #1 and #2 seeds have advanced to face each other in the Championship game. On one side, we had the #1 seeded PMak Attack taking on the #5 Angry Dragons. The Dragons had players that played exclusively in Sunday's early games, and had built up a 6.9-point lead going into Monday night's game between Chicago and Green Bay. However, a strong performance by Bears' running back Matt Forte put the PMak Attack over the top, and they won by a final score of 88.55 - 79.35. The Dragons, inexplicably, started Dan Orlovsky at quarterback in this one. . .Orlovsky put up a blistering 2.25 points against the Saints. Meanwhile, Chad Pennington (23.55) and Tyler Thigpen (29.7) were riding the pine.
On the other half of the bracket, the #2 seeded UBB's Bombers played host to the #3 Space Monkey Mafia. In a game that really wasn't even as close as the final score indicates, the Bombers got jump-started thanks to Visanthe Shiancoe's huge. . .er, afternoon. . .and coasted on to an 84.85 - 57.3 victory over my team. I actually started a guy that got 0 points (T.J. Houshmanzadeh), but it really wouldn't have made a whole lot of difference.
So, the two best teams in the league will battle it out for the championship. Based on their rosters, here are my projected starting lineups for both teams. (These won't necessarily be the lineups. . .just my projections.)
| UBB's Bombers | Position | PMak Attack |
| Tony Romo, DAL | QB | Drew Brees, NO |
| Pierre Thomas, NO | RB | Brian Westbrook, PHI |
| Larry Johnson, KC | RB/WR | Matt Forte, CHI |
| Santana Moss, WAS | WR | Andre Johnson, HOU |
| Mark Clayton, BAL | WR | Santonio Holmes, PIT |
| Visanthe Shiancoe, MIN | TE | Tony Scheffler, DEN |
| Ryan Longwell, MIN | K | David Akers, PHI |
| Ravens, BAL | DEF | Cowboys, DAL |
Well, it should be interesting. On paper, it looks like the PMak Attack has a significant advantage in terms of star power, but as we all know. . .the games aren't played on paper. (Except for fantasy football, which pretty much IS played on paper. Man, that saying doesn't really work at all here, does it.) These two teams met once during the regular season, and the PMak Attack won in rather convincing fashion to the tune of 73 - 41.9.
In the consolation bracket, getting the week off proved to be not beneficial at all, as both the #7 seeded whodat and the #8 seeded Garnet & Gold lost their matchups last week against the lower seeded teams. In the first game, despite a strong performance from Jay Cutler, whodat simply couldn't withstand the huge game put together by the Tennessee Titans' defense, and fell to the #10 seeded Hamburglars by a score of 94.5 - 78.45. . .and it would have been much worse had the Hamburglars started David Garrard at QB (28.35 points) instead of the Kurt Warner Experience (1.5 points). whodat left a big performance from LeRon McClain on his bench, but I won't fault him for not starting McClain over Adrian Peterson.
On the other side, the Rabble Rousers, the #12 seed, have an opportunity to get as many victories in the playoffs as they got through the entire regular season, as they advanced to the Consolation Championship in a thriller over the #8 seeded Garnet & Gold by a score of 95.1 - 92.8. G&G had the combination of Dallas Clark and Peyton Manning to help them jump out to a huge lead, but after the Sunday late afternoon games, their lead over the Rabble Rousers was a mere 3.7 points. It was then up to the performance of the Carolina defense, and by sacking Eli Manning three times, they got enough points to put the Rabble Rousers over the top by that final 2.3 point margin.
So, the matchups for the season's final weekend, once again, look like this:
League Championship Game - #2 UBB's Bombers @ #1 PMak Attack
Third Place Game - #5 Angry Dragons @ #3 Space Monkey Mafia
Consolation Championship - #12 Rabble Rousers @ #10 The Hamburglars
Consolation. . .er, Consolation - #8 Garnet & Gold @ #7 whodat
It's been a great season, folks, and it finishes up tomorrow! Good luck to everybody that's got a game tomorrow!