Pleasure in the pain, learning to share, and oh my goodness I smell horrible.

Another saturday, another chapter in the new gfl.

We had a decent number today.....oddly enough I didn't actually count. I think we had 10. Chuck was there, and Gunder. My bro bro and future brother-in-law. Bryan Ingebrand. And a bunch of Chucks friends.

It was a pretty good time.

We played 2 games for the first time in a while.

In the first game, I had Gunder, my future brother-in-law and a couple of Chuck's friends. We had the sun in the recievers eyes, and that made it kind of difficult, but for some reason, it didn't slow me down any.

I don't really know how it happened, but I was dialed in this game.

I intercepted the first pass of the game. They threw it short to my brother, I tipped it up and caught it. Solid start.

From there, I went NUTS offensively.

For the first time, maybe ever, I was a devastating reciever. Jake couldn't stay on me. I caught fucking everything. Sliding grabs, jumping grabs, and one amazing sliding grab with Jake on me and the ball lost in the sun, I just stayed with it and somehow caught the ball.

I honestly couldn't see it. I was just dialed in.....I didn't give up on the play and somehow it worked out. I can't explain it. It may not have looked like THAT great a play, but I think it was the greatest catch of my life.

Can't really put it in words.....but wow. (DooHow, it was kind of like "the gapper" in 9th grade.)

Anyways, It looked like we were going to kill them. We went up 5-1, but they had Chuck, and a team with Chuck seldom loses. At the the half it was 6-4.

One thing about some of the guys Chuck brought this time, they weren't as hardcore about playing football.

For the bulk of the first game, I had no idea if we were playing man or zone. I was in my newly acquired safety spot, just trying to make it happen. Often times, no one qould cover a reciever, for no discernable reason. They just ran free, from the line. Fortunately, they always went deep, so I'd be able to give a pretense of coverage.

I played adaquately defensively. Knocked down a couple of passes. After the first pick, nothing flashy.

Offensively, I scored 3 touchdowns. Bryan also scored 3, but his man often just didn't cover him.

We were up 9-7 and they scored twice. At 9-9 I made my team huddle up, told them about my career winning % with Chuck on the other team, and told them that I really wanted this one. Then we broke with a "stick it in Chuck" and scored 2 plays later.

I dove and slid a LOT in the first game. I was beat up. Sore. I hurt my pinky diving for the endzone. Sucked. Not a wicked pain, but I can't really bend it anymore.

I was out of gas.

Spent.

But we did play a second game. Everyone was pretty tired. I switched teams so it was me, Chuck, Bryan, Jake and another guy on a team.

I played QB a couple of times. I was awful.

My forearm was sore from the first game. Throwing hurt.

It sucked. I am so rarely on Chuck's team that I just wanted to sling it around and piss-pund em. But outside of one Chuck-burns-everyone TD, I couldn't get it done.

I gave up QB for most of the game, but I made a terrible mistake in a critical part of the game.

We weren't far from the endzone. Maybe 2nd and goal. The passrush was a quick 5 count, Gunder forced me to my left. I spun around, eluded him, and started sprinting to my right. Gunder is quicker and faster than me. It was only a matter of time before he caught me.

Bryan yelled, "Throw it up Tom". He was wide open in the back left corner of the end zone. His man was 10 yards in front of him. Chuck and the other reciever were in the front right corner of the end zone, covered.

Smart play:Run the ball, get the two or three yards before Gunder catches you, take a shot next play.

Less smart play: Throw it up to Chuck, assume that he'll make another circus catch and watch him deliver.

My terrific choice: Throw it across my body, with all my momentum heading away from my target, and try to loft it to Bryan, underthrow him by 10 yards, and watch his defender take it all the way to house for a TD.

I should have been wearing my Plummer jersey.

Sigh.

Anyways, the second game was largely bombs, and we wound up losing. It didn't sting much. Wish I hadn't thrown THAT pick, but I won't let it bother me too much.

I got home, and started stripping down for the shower, and I realized, I smell AWFUL.

I don't wash my football clothes. I feel like I need the ghosts of past games with me, to hang onto all my positives and keep me from repeating my mistakes.

I'm still a baseball guy. Superstition runs in my blood.

The Worst Weekend of My Life, Part II: Into the buzzsaw.

I KNOW what you're thinking....."Holy shit Tom said he'd write a post, and then he DID it!"

On Sunday, I had the last regular season game for my beloved Yahoo fantasy football league. A league that I believe is in it's seventh year. A league that I won last year.

From a standings viewpoint, it was a meaningles game. A throwaway. I was guarenteed to finish near the bottom of the standings, my opponent clinched a playoff birth weeks ago.

But this game carried a tremendous amount of meaning for me. For starters, it was against the DooHow. And he needed a win, badly. I was the final obstacle. The last hurdle. If he could JUST get past me, he would have done it. For the first time in my Yahoo league history, a team would go undefeated.

Rewind a couple of weeks. As the trade deadline approached, my team was a disaster. Grossman was falling apart. Edge was taking a dump on my team week in and out. Willis McGahee was hurt. I was decent at reciever with Muhsin Muhammed, Reggie Brown and Greg Jennings. I was 4-6 and probably had to win my last four games to sneak into the playoffs.

I offered my entire team to DooHow for LT.

Everyone.

DooHow declined.

I tried offering just my talented players. No dice. LT was staying put.

I turned my attention elsewhere. I tried to land an injured Shaun Alexander. I was real close, but in the end, Casey said no deal. I went after Larry Johnson.

I got him.

I then added Carson Palmer and Javon Walker.

Suddenly, 4 in a row looked possible, even if DooHow was in the way.

I won the first. I was ready to go. 3 games left.

Then I lost. And I lost again. Now at 5-8, the season was over for me, I had only one hope left.

To beat the streak.

To keep AJ from going undefeated.

I could live with my big deadline deals not getting me into the playoffs, as long as they were enough to beat AJ.

DooHow has a wicked lineup. Drew Brees piling up passing yards. LT and his tiny touchdown-hoarding troutfucking penis. T.O. AND Ocho Sinko. Kevin Jones, a worldbeater this year, as his #2 back.

DooHow wasn't jsut beating people, he was destroying them.

Watching the early games, I thought I had a chance. Kevin Jones was held to -3 rushing yards. My defender, E.J. Henderson was having a great game. LJ was piling up yards. CPalm tossed a couple TD's. Corey Dillon was getting the ball.

I slowly built up a cushion. Chad Johnson wasn't beating me. Andre Johnson wasn't beating me. AJ's defenders were playing alright. When it was apparent that the Vikes had the game firmly in hand, I had to turn the TV off. I couldn't take it. I turned on the XBox and didn't look at scores, stats or stattrackers.

I knew LT was going to score. LT always does.

I expected Brees to pile up yards, but 5 TD's? Ridiculous.

Kevin Jones, with -3 rushing yards scored almost twice as many points as LJ.

T.O. must have had a touchdown.

Those 4 players combined to outscore me.

It was a brutal end to the season.

DooHow has Manager of the Year all but locked up. Undefeated in Yahoo, in the playoffs in the keeper league.

DooHow put together a hell of a team, and I'm glad that if someone other than me ran the table, that it was him. He's been in the league since it's inception. While we're rivals (he HAS used my trademarked Berserk Weasles as a team name in a public league, the civil suit is tied up in the courts) I'm now pulling for him to cap off the perfect season with a championship, and become the first two-time winner of the Yahoo championship. And maybe the first to win both leagues (the keeper league is only in it's second year). All marks that I wanted to set.

Dammit DooHow, I guess you leave me no choice but to steal all your Christmas presents.

You can flaming bag under the Christmas tree with "Greatest Fantasy Football Player Ever" written on it.

The Worst Weekend of my Life, Part I: You can't spell redemption with an all-time D.

Man, do I love weekends.

I've put together a pretty good string of 'em.

This weekend had a couple of epic parts, and so this will be a two part post.

Saturday we had another football game. I looked forward to it all week. I played so poorly for the majority of last week's game, I was looking forward to a big game this week.

We decided to split the teams up based on talent, and not have captains.

We had an odd number of players. When we play, if there's an odd number, we play an all-time D, to try to make it harder to score.

With 7 guys left to be split up, we asked if anyone wanted to volunteer. No one did. We stood around for a couple of minutes, and I took one for the league. I forfeit my shot at redemption and volunteered to play all-time D.

If you haven't played football with me, you should know that I am not a good defender.

I think Pat would testify that I have improved in recent games, but I still wouldn't consider myself good.

On one side of the ball, I played a deep safety with everyone else playing man. It was the first time I'd ever played safety. It was kind of crazy seeing all the receivers coming at me, and trying to read the quarterback.

I've noticed before that chasing down baseballs in the outfield is far different from chasing down a football thrown deep, and that was reinforced on the field.

On the other side, I played man coverage on their quarterback, Gunder. It was far more tiring then playing safety. Gunder will roll side to side, pump fake, let me hit 5 dot on the pass rush, elude me and get the pass off. It was frustrating and exhausting. Side to side, sprint, stop, change direction, jump at a pump fake, sprint to the side, try to block the pass, over and over again.

At half time it was tied at 5-5.

Coming out of the half, Pat's team went from man coverage with me on the quarterback, to playing a zone with me in a short side pocket.

The offense's reaction was typical, and got the usual result.

They throw it deep, I say "That's Pat's ball," and Pat picks it off.

Sure enough, first play, they threw it deep, I said "That's Pat's ball," and Pat picked it off. The zone stopped Chuck's team on four consecutive drives, then Pat's team went on to score each time. I scored one of those touchdowns, but it was kind of a load. Another guy picked it off, blew past everyone, and lateral'd to me so I could walk it in. Minor gesture, but it was nice to have my hands on the ball.

After the 4 stops, it was 9-5, and Pat's team was one score from winning.

Then Chuck's team stepped up, and battled back to 9-8 before giving up another score to lose 10-8.

It was a pretty great game, and it was a lot of fun to be out running around in the nice weather.

My play was pretty insignificant. On Pat's team, I covered the quarterback most of the game and got beat on a couple of touchdown scrambles, and then didn't have a ball thrown near my zone.

On the other side, as a safety, I had a number of near picks.

On a fourth and lock I swatted down a ball in the endzone. On another play, I made a rolling grab on a ball that had already hit the dirt, got up, and ran to the endzone. I thought I was going to be given the touchdown, but a couple of the guys saw it hit the ground and threw the bullshit flag.

Can't fault me for trying.

I tried the same thing later too. Another ball hit the ground, and I made a quick grab and held it up hoping people would think I caught it, but no one was picking up what I was putting down.

The catch of the day was made by Pat and followed by a cheap shot by me. He was all alone in the corner of the endzone, and caught a high pass. I got to him as he was catching it, and I hit him and tried to force the ball out. The Mayor held on for the touchdown, even though it was disputed that he had run out of the back of the endzone before making the catch.

I call this the new GFL, but it's a far cry from the glory days of high school, playing in tennis shoes on iced over pavement. Playing in the snow.

This new crew is far more athletic (at least all the guys Chuck brings are). The games are faster. I can tell that I'm not going to play in a large roll in many of the games.

But on the flip side, It's nice to have 12-13 guys show up for a game. It's great to get out and just have the opportunity to play.

One final note, since I was on defense when the winning TD was scored, I'd have to credit myself with another GFL loss, making my lifetime record an approximate 14-286-1, for a winning percentage of 4.65%.

Approximately.

Part II coming up tonight!