Fantasies & Flags...

Last week was "crazy busy," as we had three rounds conferences at school. This week has been almost as hectic, as we had to calculate and then enter first term grades for 130 kids. Having put both of those hurdles in our review mirror, we are now catching our breath. As such, here are the football updates:

Fantasy Football -- Let us just say as much as we loved Dallas Clark for saving our ass week 2 with 24 points on a Monday night, we now despise him that much. We entered Sunday night's Colts-Patriots game trailing by 9 points. All we needed was Clark to get us 10 points against the Pats. Our other tight end, Brent Celek of the Eagles, would have given us...wait for it...10 points had we played him. But we chose to sit him in favor of Clark. Of course, Coach Bill was smart enough to take away Clark and hold him to 4 catches for 65 yards (6 points), yet dumb enough to go for it on 4th and 2 from his own 29 yard line. Who knew?!? So we lost by 3 points. Cripes.

Flag Football -- Your Flag Football Cardinals closed out their season with two victories last week to end the season 13-1. Thursday they got revenge against the Eagles (the only team to beat them), with a 35-0 beatdown. The Playmaker had one catch for 12 yards. On defense he guarded the other team's best player and held him to zero (zero!) catches. The kid did have one rushing attempt, but The Playmaker darted in and yanked his flag in the end zone for what would have been a safety in regular football. Last Tuesday, the Cardinals stomped their opposition, 42-21. The Playmaker had two touchdown receptions. The second one was, perhaps, his best catch of the year. We had the ball on about the 15 yard line and it was fourth down. After scanning the field and finding mass congestion in the end zone, The Head Ball Coach noticed The Playmaker open just a smidge. For some reason there were two defenders on him and the opening was mere inches. With no other options, The Head Ball Coach threw the ball as hard as John Elway he could to get it into the tight quarters. The Playmaker calmly caught the ball in his arms (the velocity was too great to attempt the catch with his hands) for the score. It was a D-1 catch, to be sure. On defense, the highlight of his night came just before halftime. On the final play of the half the other team completed a short pass and the receiver eluded his man and darted down the sideline for a sure-to-be momentum building score. The Playmaker was on the opposite sideline, but sprinted diagonally across the field to attempt to cut the kid off from the end zone. As he was just behind the receiver at the 10 yard line, he realized he could not get his hands on the flag. So he did the ultimate next best thing. He simply Bulldogged, errrr, tackled the kid to the ground. Classic. Frigging classic. Luckily, as the kid's body slammed to the turf, the force dislodged one of his flags. The Playmaker got up and held up the flag -- which is what the kids are supposed to do. No one said anything about the tackle.