Running Backs to Sort Out Pro Bowl Picture in Afternoon Games

Oddly enough, the NFL decided to prominently feature our Pro Bowl Running Backs in their afternoon segment.

Four Games, each featuring either Maurice Jones-Drew, Chris Johnson, Ray Rice, or Adrian Peterson.

Tune in to see who breaks the Pro Bowl open for their respective conference.

Football Movie Marathon #10 & #11: The Longest Yard (1974 & 2005)

Since last week required a brief sabbatical from the movies for me, I'm doubling shit up this week. Appropriately, I'm going to go with one of the better football movies and its not-so-great remake, both entitled The Longest Yard.

Bill Simmons was once working on a project someone like this one, reviewing the top 74 sports movies of the last 40 years or something of the sort. He wasn't going in any order, just sporadically picking whichever film he felt like talking about. He abandoned the project perhaps a tenth of the way through, only having wrote a review for one top 10 movie. Said movie was The Longest Yard, which placed third. High praise, considering he was writing about all sports movies. With Rocky, Raging Bull, Field of Dreams, Bull Durham, Hoop Dreams, Hoosiers, Juwanna Man and more still out there, its hard to envision a movie that so few people these days have seen being so high. Well, it was. Number 3. The 2005 version, starring Adam Sandler in the role previously occupied by Burt Reynolds, was bashed in his column just as much as the 1974 movie was praised.

The story is pretty simple. Paul Crewe (Reynolds/Sandler) is a former MVP quarterback that has been exiled by pro football for throwing games. Early in the films his alcohol fueled behavior lands him in prison. The guards have a talented football team and the evil warden wants Crewe to put together a team of prisoners to give the guards a tune up for their season. When the team of inmates looks more promising than expected, Crewe is tempted to revert back to his game throwing ways to placate the warden and be rewarded accordingly. This creates a serious dilemma, as he has earned the trust and respect of his teammates.

1974's version of the story is a fairly slowly paced drama with some solid comedy sprinkled throughout. In the time the movie was made, Burt Reynolds was one of those actors that defined manliness...sort of America's answer to Sean Connery. This role suits him well. Also serving him well is that he was an accomplished football player in his day, before being held back by injuries. He is certainley one of the actor's in a sports movie that actually appears to know what the hell he is doing (a huge plus in my book...stuff like Wesley Snipes dribbling up to his armpits in White Men Can't Jump drives me crazy). I suppose that my biggest complaint is that there is about 85 minutes of a movie I really like in this thing, but there is about a half hour that needed to be left on the cutting room floor. Important scenes are frequent, but too often there are just spots that meander 5 minutes to long that don't advance the story or make me laugh much. The whole climatic football game is shot in the same manner that a game in the 70s would be. Simmons praises this trait, while I was just kind of bored by it. Ever watched a Super Bowl or anything from the 70s? You get impaitent. Now on a football telecast they'll jam in a replay of the down, a peek at the coach, a look at the quarterback, etc between every play. It's really just kind of...plain at times. Overall the movie is really solid because the story is so good and there isn't anyone that seems to be miscast. It is a ways out of first on my football movie list (and will only go down farther, I'm saving quite a few movies I like for later or next year), but I can recommend it for sure.

The 2005 version plays out as more of a straight comedy, and is the second best Adam Sandler football movie ever. They really jampacked this thing with cameos...Nelly, Michael Irvin, Goldberg, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Kevin Nash, and a bunch of ESPN personalities (yes, for some reason ESPN is broadcasting a scrimmage of a prison football game....better than Around the Horn I suppose). Burt Reynolds himself even is there for a small role. The laughs really seem to come from these smaller roles more than the main characters. Sandler, Chris Rock, Tracey Morgan, etc just aren't that funny throughout in my mind. The movie also tweaks the story at the ending a little bit, and in my opinion, the change is a lot worse. So yeah, this one isn't very good, but certainley not a diaster like Little Nicky or something like that. Perhaps I would think a lot worse of it if I held the first one up to "sacred sports movie" status. I mean, it isn't like Adam Sandler is trying to be Rocky Balboa here...

So personally, while I think they aren't even close in terms of quality, I dont really think either is among the best or worst sports movies (I suppose the 2005 version is one of the worst football movies I've seen though). The old version is "just" good, the new version is pretty flat with some fun cameos and cheap laughs.

Football Movie Marathon Rankings:
1) Any Given Sunday (1999)
2) Brian's Song (1971)
3) Knute Rockne: All American (1940)
4) Varsity Blues (1999)

5) The Longest Yard (1974)
6) Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? (2009)
7) The Waterboy (1998)
8) The Band That Wouldn't Die (2009)

9) Invincible (2006)
10) The Longest Yard (2005)
11) Two For the Money (2005)

First Annual LFP FFB Pro Bowl

Week 12 rolls in with the regular excitement of any other LFP FFB week, but packs the promise of turkey dinners and tons of Thursday football to boot.  Why not make this an even more special holiday week by enjoying our first ever LFP FFB Pro Bowl?!  The All-East and All-West rosters are posted on the Week 12 Scoreboard page, and I'm happy to see that all ten teams in the league have a representative!  As commissioner of the league, I've made the decision that this game will have no bearing on this season for anyone, but that is something we can discuss at the owner's meetings prior to the 2010 season of LFP FFB.  Instead, I propose the following three outcomes, up for vote until Thursday morning just prior to the first game of the week, so don't delay in responding!

Proposal 1:
Losing division is responsible for purchasing the draft board and stickers for the 2010 LFP FFB Draft, average cost between $25-35.

Proposal 2:
Each winning division member will be allowed to give a losing division member a whipped cream pie in the face at the 2010 LFP FFB Draft.  Highest point earner in winning division will pie highest point earner in losing division, and so on down to the lowest point earners.

Proposal 3:
Each losing division member will be assigned to a winning division member as their servant for food and drinks at the 2010 LFP FFB Draft.

Feel free to vote as soon as you can and if you have a better idea that has no bearing on this season, feel free to respond with it and try to garner votes!

-Commish

Week 11 Shaking the League Landscape

We've seen a lot of tight games this week heading into Monday Night Football, and we also watched J-Jak get blown up by my mom... Yep, she's at it again leading the league in scoring this week.

The Stiffies are poised to drop a heartbreaker to J.J.'s Curbstomping hoodlums thanks to matching zeros by free agent pickup John Carlson and supposed accuracy king Nick Folk, sucks to miss a field goal that costs the game, doesn't it?

Meanwhile back in the West we had a pair of matchups, one directly involving playoff positioning for the upcoming weeks between the LFP Phreaks and Kyle's Fisters.  Kyle got great performances from Detroit studs Kevin Smith and LFP Benedict Arnold, Megatron, combining for 43 points, but his poor QB play out of Cutler and Romo left the door open for nice showings by DeAngelo Williams, THE Steve Smith, Pierre Thomas, and utility man Carson Palmer to leave it at a 1.3 point game... Matt Schaub is lurking on Monday Night Football's main stage to try and steal this victory for the Phreaks, and give the squad some breathing room at third in the West.

In the other West Division showdown, first place runaway Breaston My Face is staring down the barrel of fellow mammary allusionist squad Show Me Your TD's gun heading into Monday night.  Jared holds a nice little 15.05 point lead while hiding Andre Johnson for this potentially rainy day, but Sean's TD's look to get big behind Chris Johnson and the Tennessee defense once again.  This one could get interesting...

Over in the East we had one heck of a barn-burner between the minority contingent in the league, as the Angriest Asians took out Tony Le's gaggle of Chefs by a narrow margin.  261.05 points between the two teams is an achievement, but Roethlisberger and Rodgers edged out Brady and Favre in this one by just 4.34, which makes you wonder why Favre wasn't crying once again this Sunday.

And of course this brings us to the laugher of the week...  Just under 40 points as a margin of difference between Vick's Party Animals and J-Jak's crew of Blowpops as Jason's team lived up to their label.  Peyton Manning, Adrian Peterson, and Ray Rice are typically unstoppable, but apparently Drew Brees, Hines Ward, Wes Welker, Heath Miller, and Visanthe Shiancoe took their blue collar tour of devestation to the division leaders in a big way.  Eat it J-Jak, and mom says to tell your parents hello... Ouch.

Enjoy MNF, should be fun to watch as always.

-Commish

No Movie this Week

Too busy...

Football Movie Marathon #9: Any Given Sunday (1999)

The next movie in our marathon is Any Given Sunday, by director Oliver Stone (Platoon, JFK, Wall Street). The film features an all star cast: Al Pacino as the old school coach, Cameron Diaz as the recently installed team owner, Dennis Quaid as the grizzled-veteran quarterback, and Jaimee Foxx as the star backup quarterback. After these principal figures the supporting cast is absolutely stacked as well, featuring James Woods, Matthew Modine, Aaron Eckhart, Charlton Heston, Elisabeth Berkley*, John C McGinely, Bill Bellamy, Lauren Holly and LL Cool J. Then after THAT you get a whos who of football players: Jim Brown, Dick Butkus, the real LT, TO, Ricky Watters, Johnny Unitas, and Warren Moon. Good Lord. I probably know the names of more people in this freaking movie than any other I've ever seen.

So with all these actors and fun older players floating around what is the actual result? In my opinion, its somewhere between the most flawed masterpiece film has ever seen and a big guilty pleasure. Watching this movie is such a befuddling experience that it is difficult to put into words.

So to begin, the bad and ugly stuff. The gameplay scenes in the movie leave a whole lot to be desired. First off, the editing resembles a music video or something, leaving you no real orientation as to what is ever going on in the game. This was really offputting to me for the most part. You know how in some of the fights in The Bourne Ultimatium it seems like they just put a camera on Matt Damon's belt buckle or something and had him kick ass? It is a lot like that, only handled with a lot less skill and care. The camera is always shaking all over the place as if the person is trying to shoot the scene while running on a treadmill or something. Second, the lack of an NFL license is incredibly annoying. The uniforms and appearance of the game in general are ridiculous. Its also kind of off putting how they seem to transplant NFL history into their own leauge: "You'll NEVAHHH be Joe Montana!". I suppose that if asked to defend the style of the movie Stone would likely say that since the drama in the movie is so heightened above what is more or less reality, the action and the appearance should be too. I guess that I can buy that. One of the problems with that Playmakers show ESPN did a few years back was that they couldn't balance the overall craziness against a realistic backdrop ("I'm the best player on this team; I'm also gay")**. Any Given Sunday balances itself well, even if said balancing act gets tiresome and seems like it has had too much caffiene occasionally.

There are several really great dramatic scenes in the movie though that are really where it takes off. Pacino watching TV sadly as he is skewered by a Jim Rome type TV show host. Foxx's personal life falling off the tracks while his public persona soars (highlighted by a hilarious music video "My Name is Willie". Quaid's horribly tense scenes where he mulls retirement while his wife presses him toward staying in the game (wonder what goes on in the Favre and Warner households?). The subplot with LT's character is really interesting too. Essentially, he is playing and get an insentive based million dollar bonus and risking his life to do so, while team doctors argue over the ethics of letting him continue. The movie really breathes through these characters, and is only really slowed down for Diaz and LL, who are significantly less interesting in my opinion. The centerpiece of the movie is a giant Pacino speech before the big game, perhaps my favorite moment of his as an actor that isn't from a 70s movie.

I remember somewhat disliking this movie when I caught it in the theatres 10 years ago. Perhaps it was the fact I was with my parents and it was much more inappropriate then advertised (nudity from both genders...). Honestly, the awkwardness of seeing something you probably shouldn't be seeing with a parental figure can really hurt your opinion of a movie (Why are you doing this to me!?), and this was the second worst of these occasions in my life***. There was also a bit more purity to sports then, at least in my mind. Maybe I just wasn't ready to see a behind the scenes depiction in such an embellished and blunt fashion. I don't know. Watching the movie recently however, I really gained a new appreciation for the whole thing. I'm putting the movie at number 1 for now. Hopefully the 3 of you that read this aren't going to flip out over that.

Football Movie Marathon Rankings:

1) Any Given Sunday (1999)

2) Brian's Song (1971)

3) Knute Rockne: All American (1940)

4) Varsity Blues (1999)

5) Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? (2009)

6) The Waterboy (1998) up a few spots by popular demand and a rewatch

7) The Band That Wouldn't Die (2009)

8) Invincible (2006)

9) Two For the Money (2005)

*For all the Showgirls fans out there

** For a terrific reinactment of this scene in any scenario, whether it makes sense or not, talk to Kyle Stinson. btw, I love that the actor they have playing the all-pro wide reciever is a white guy that looks about 5'-4"

***The first was seeing He Got Game (1997) with a friend and his mother.

8 & Out

We're going streaking!  Actually, we're not anymore, J.J. rained anger and furious vengeance on Jared's squad on Sunday to end the record-tying win streak at eight games.  Meanwhile, Vick's trying to mount an interesting comeback on Wong, where Wong's QB utility man will have to lead the comeback...  Interesting week to say the least, stay tuned for the thrilling Monday night conclusion!

Week 9 GO!

Rosters are up, here we go!

Some Semblance of Order

One real life sports element that has never transferred to the fantasy world (at least to my knowledge) is All Star Games. Given how bad the all-star games are in some sports, namely the Pro Bowl in football, one might say this is a good thing. Despite this, I was just kicking around an idea that might be fun to try out.

What if, on week 11 or 12 of the season, when all the players have had their bye weeks, we had a seperate little side matchup in addition to the regular games for the week. The extra matchup would be between the East and West divisons, featuring the best players in leauge. Basically we would go to the leauge leaders pages and take the best QB, two RBs, three WRs, TE, K, and DEF from each division and match them up with those of the other division. Of course, they would still be allowed to play in their regular matchup as well (for example, Drew Brees score for the week would count for both the Party Animals and the East Division All Stars).

The team that wins the ASG would get a small reward. For example, each owner in the winning division would get $5 free agency money, or each winning player would bring $2 back to their owner, or something.

Just trying to think outside the box a little bit....

Football Movie Marathon #8: The Waterboy (1998)

Time to go in the exact opposite direction of the documentary movies and onto the Adam Sandler college football comedy, The Waterboy.

Sandler plays Bobby Boucher, the waterboy for a major college football program who is fired and has to go work for a much less prestigous school also in the nearby vicinity. Always picked on, Boucher takes a lot of crap from everybody, until he finally snaps and learns to channel all of his anger onto the football field. With encouragement from Coach Klien (the Fonz himself, Henry Winkler) and his love interest (Fairuza Balk, American History X), Boucher becomes one of the best defensive players in the nation and the sparkplug to pull his team of misfits from their losing ways.

Most of the comedy from the movie is derived from the ridiculous way Sandler plays the character, stammering constantly in a ridiculous voice. This is blended with a goofy supporting cast, including Rob Schneider playing the "You can DO IT!" guy in his first (and only necessary) appearence in Sandler comedies.

Overall its a pretty silly movie with some laughs, falling somewhere in the middle to low range of Sandler's movies. Some people seem to have the tendency to label Sandler a one trick pony, a critiscm that I don't think is all that fair. In Punch-Drunk Love and Happy Gilmore, I think Sandler gives two of the better comedic roles I have ever seen, and those movies are quite different from one another. It is in the roles like The Waterboy and Little Nicky where the whole funny voice gimmick starts to feel like an overly streched out SNL sketch and gets a little tedious.

It's probably unfair to group this with the likes of the movies I have written about so far, but its my list and I can do what I want to. I'll get some more comedies in here soon (including another Sandler film nonetheless) to make this one look a little more at home.

Football Movie Rankings
1) Brian's Song (1971)
2) Knute Rockne All American (1940)
3) Small Potatoes: Who Killed the USFL? (2009)
4) Varsity Blues (1999)
5) The Band That Wouldn't Die (2009)
6) Invincible (2006)

7) The Waterboy (1998)
8) Two For the Money (2005)

Week 8 Wrap-Up

Wow, what a week!  Why waste time talking, let's get into the results.

Breaston My Face 125.15 vs. I Stiff Armed Your Mom 96.7
Craig looked to stop Jared's team from tying his two-time record of eight consecutive wins in the 2006 season, but behind a huge day from MJD (34.3 points) it was in the stars for Breaston My Face.  Craig countered with strong days from Donovan McNabb (23.4 pts) and Matt Forte in his farewell effort with 24.1 points, but it was too little too late and this one wasn't close.

My Team Blows Again 111.05 vs. Angry Asian 106.75
Peyton (17.35 pts), Purple Jesus (20.1 pts), Ray Rice(16.8), and V-Jax (16.3 pts) all had big-time days in a big time game where J-Jak just edged defending East Division champ Wong, extending the lead for the Blowers and Angering Asians even more.  Rodgers (30.55 pts) had a huge day to match S-Jax (22.6 pts) and LT (17.6 pts), but boy that New Orleans defense (12 pts) couldn't combine with Devery Henderson (4.9 pts) to do enough for Wong this time.  Close one at the wire, but with Henderson's TD chance getting picked off it just wasn't meant to be.

Hail to the Chefs 67.8 vs. Party Animals 95.6
Well Brett Favre went for 28.2 points, but that was it for the Chefs this week as Tony Le's squad lost the second straight match-up against the Party Animals.  Brees continued to roll with 21.7 points this week and led the charge for Vick's team who suddenly owns the wild card spot in the East just ahead of the aforementioned Chefs.

Fister?  I hardly know her. 75.7 vs. Lynnhood Curbstompers 99.3
In another big division match-up, J.J.'s Curbstompers said goodbye to Sidney Rice after his four point effort, and hello to Michael Turner's 21.1 and Reggie Wayne's 20.7 points.  That would prove to be the nail in the coffin for Fister this week as Kyle's squad couldn't muster much to support Romo's 24.8 point effort.

LFP Phreaks 108 vs. Show Me Your TD's 110.95
What a heartbreaker for the Phreaks this week and a HUGE win for Sean's TD's.  Chris Johnson threw down 40.9 points on Sunday, making a Monday night comeback look unlikely, but with Pierre Thomas posting two touchdowns in a 21 point effort, the Phreaks were in it until the wire, and if Thomas wasn't pulled for Reggie Bush on the goal line or Darren Sharper held on to a missed interception of Matt Ryan (16.35 pts) things would be the other way around.  Either way, this division just got a lot tighter!

On to next week!  Good luck.

-Commish

Week 9: A Look Ahead

Week 9 Matchups:
  My Team Blows Again @ LFP Phreaks
  Angry Asians @ Party Animals
  Fister?  I hardly know her. @ Show Me Your TD's
  Hail to the Chefs @ I Stiff Armed Your Mom
  Lynnhood Curbstompers @ Breaston My Face

Monday, November 2nd:
  Monday Night Football - Pittsburgh Steelers @ Denver Broncos, 5:30pm PT

Tuesday, November 3rd:
  Free Agency Opens on Forum - 12:00pm PT
  Blog - Week 8 Wrap-Up by Mike


Wednesday, November 4th:
  Blog - Week 9 Breakdown by Mike

Thursday, November 5th:
  Blog - Football Movie Marathon by Jared

Friday, November 6th:
  Blog - Team Owner Profile: Sean Gaskill/Nick Perrault by Mike

Saturday, November 7th:
  Free Agency Closes on Forum - 5:00pm PT
  Blog - Some semblance of order... by Mike

Sunday, November 8th:
  Roster Submissions Due - 9:30am PT

Favre does it again...

How soon will we see Brett Favre crying at his post-game press conference about such an emotional win?  Tick tock tick tock...

Scores Updated

Scores are updated on the homepage and the Week 8 Scoreboard to reflect all the action from the morning games.  Ch-ch-ch-ch-check it out!

Guess who shows up?!

...on the bench!  T.O.'s official tweet from the sidelines:  "How can you not start me?! [sob sob]"

Fast start!

...on the bench!  Boy does it hurt to watch that 64-yard TD knowing you decided it would be a tough match-up.  Just the first second-guessing moment of the day!

Week 8 Hits NOW!

Website, rosters, scoreboard, and all your dreams are updated!  An extra hour to sleep off your Halloween hangover (mom...) and here comes football!  Good luck to everyone!