has guided his Black Dogs
MIDTERM REPORT CARD
Black Dogs ace first-half tests
By R.E. Porter, Associated Web Press
It is the halfway point of the 2008 NFFA season and time once again for the AWP's midterm report card. You know it has been a wacky season so far when the usually snake-bitten 12th Avenue Bakers, who posted a league-worst 2-12 record a year ago, earn a better grade than the defending champions Fidalgo Island Sea Hogs.
1. East Nashville Black Dogs (7-0) — A+
This is a no-brainer. Under the guidance of coach Jim McMahon, the Black Dogs are not only, as usual, the highest scoring team (154 ppg), and in their customary spot atop the Jorge division, they are the first team ever to make it through the first-half of the NFFA schedule without a blemish on their record. McMahon has had the Dogs on cruise control, defeating their opponents by an average of 35 points and running their NFFA record for consecutive regular-season wins to 14 games. With 11-3 being the best possible record any other team could record, the Dogs need to win only four of their final seven to clinch, at worst, the number three seed in the playoffs.
2. 12th Avenue Bakers (4-3) — B+
This is beyond Cinderella. The Bakers are the league's perennial whipping boys; their owner, lovable, yet ineffective, if not outright incompetent. They have never made the playoffs, never had a winning record, never even had a winning record for a single week prior to 2008. But that was the past six seasons, and this is now. Now, they have the second-highest scoring offense (148 ppg) and have posted the two highest, single-game scores of the season. Now, they are second only to the Black Dogs in the league's power rankings. Now, their owner has the second-highest coaching efficiency for the first half of the season. Now, the Bakes are doing more than their share of the whipping. If the playoffs began today, 12th Avenue would be the number three seed.
3. West Nashville Beelzebubbas (4-3) — B-
The preseason favorite of Music City Sports Book to win their second NFFA championship, the Beelzebubbas have had a disappointing first half. The blame rests largely with owner/coach Boyd X. Biggs, who is at the bottom of the coaching efficiency ratings. The 'Bubbas have been up-and-down, like a coke-barbituate roller coaster, winning their first two games, then losing two, then winning two, then losing again last weekend to the Dogs. In spite of all that, and thanks largely to the extreme mediocrity of the Linardo division (or Linardo subtraction, as McMahon recently called it), West Nashville would be the number four seed if the playoffs began today.
4. Fidalgo Island Sea Hogs (3-4) — C+
Since the league's beginnings, each champion has followed their title season with one filled with disappointment. Maybe it is that they spend too much time in the off-season partying, or in some cases, in federal detention; or maybe it is some curse on the victors; but whatever it is, the defending champions from Fidalgo Island seem to be continuing the pattern. While Sea Hogs fans have been quick to blame their team's failures on discredited owner Tirik Obobber, the poor play of star quarterback Peyton Manning, combined with a hit-and-miss Krankenstein strategy, have rendered the Hogs offense so inert NBC analyst Keith Olbermann began referring to the team as the Sea Cucumbers, or Sea Cukes, for short. (After week four, Olbermann also named Obobber his worst person in the world.) Still, because they have scored more points than the Atlanta Smack Daddies who have the same record, they would win the Linardo division and be the seeded second if the playoffs began today.
5. Cambridge Animals (3-4) — C+
After a 3-1 start, the Animals fortunes went south when owner Dave the Animal went west to guest star in six episodes of the AMC series, Breaking Bad. Instead, his team broke bad, losing three straight, and now find themselves looking up from the Jorge division cellar. That's the bad news. The good news is the Animals are one of only four teams to have topped 1,000 points in the first half of the season; plus, it turns out that Dave, a self-proclaimed coaching genius, is a coaching genius after all, sitting atop the coaching efficiency ratings for the first half of the season. So, in spite of Dave the Animal's flirtation with cable television stardom, Cambridge is in good shape for the stretch run to the playoffs; that is unless the meth and crack markets take a downturn.
6. Atlanta Smack Daddies (3-4) — C
After a disappointing 3-11 campaign in 2007, team owner Lex Dominica has zealously worked the waiver wire, but the results have been mixed, at best. Two of the team's keeper players, Eli Manning and LaDainian Tomlinson, are on the verge of being benched, and general manager Tony Soprano has indicated disciplinary action may be forthcoming for what he described as "disrespecting the Bing." Frankly, the club has never recovered from the loss of tight end Alge Crumpler, the team's spiritual, chemical, and pornographic leader, to free agency after the Smack Daddies championship season in 2006. (It should be noted, that Crumpler now plays for the 12th Avenue Bakers.) Atlanta fans were baffled when Dominica chose not to make Crumpler a keeper player and local sports talk radio has been flooded with calls demanding that the team make a trade for Crumpler. In spite of it all, the Smack Daddies' record is identical to the division-leading Sea Hogs, which leaves them well-positioned for the run to the playoffs.
7. Alamo Scouts (2-5) — C-
The Scouts started 0-4, but two of those losses were narrow, and they all were before Meemaw Murrman, grandmother of team owner Thurman Murrman, and her cast iron skillet became team symbols and inspirations. The Scouts may be the league's lowest-scoring team, but they have the good fortune of being in the Linardo division, where two wins puts you just one game out of first. The Scouts are the second-hottest team in the division and enter the second half of the season with reason for ThurMurr to have high hopes of making the playoffs, instead of just hoping to get high when the playoffs start.
8. Midtown Mojo (2-5) — F and B-
Under the direction of team owner Mojo D, the Mojo began the season like the second coming of the Bakers — the pre-2008 Bakers. After dismissing team mascot Mojo Jojo, and having, by his own admission, a "bad" draft, Mojo D turned the reigns of the team over to the Mojo's Pompatus of Love, Miss Lee-Yhn. After getting schooled by the Black Dogs in her debut, and suffering a half-point loss to the Scouts in her second game, the Pompatus has put together a two-game win streak, even though she has never run a team before. The team has averaged a respectable 140 ppg in her four weeks at the helm and are the hottest team in the division. Therefore, the Mojo get a split grade: Mojo D gets an F; the Pompatus gets a B-.
1. East Nashville Black Dogs (7-0) — A+
This is a no-brainer. Under the guidance of coach Jim McMahon, the Black Dogs are not only, as usual, the highest scoring team (154 ppg), and in their customary spot atop the Jorge division, they are the first team ever to make it through the first-half of the NFFA schedule without a blemish on their record. McMahon has had the Dogs on cruise control, defeating their opponents by an average of 35 points and running their NFFA record for consecutive regular-season wins to 14 games. With 11-3 being the best possible record any other team could record, the Dogs need to win only four of their final seven to clinch, at worst, the number three seed in the playoffs.
2. 12th Avenue Bakers (4-3) — B+
This is beyond Cinderella. The Bakers are the league's perennial whipping boys; their owner, lovable, yet ineffective, if not outright incompetent. They have never made the playoffs, never had a winning record, never even had a winning record for a single week prior to 2008. But that was the past six seasons, and this is now. Now, they have the second-highest scoring offense (148 ppg) and have posted the two highest, single-game scores of the season. Now, they are second only to the Black Dogs in the league's power rankings. Now, their owner has the second-highest coaching efficiency for the first half of the season. Now, the Bakes are doing more than their share of the whipping. If the playoffs began today, 12th Avenue would be the number three seed.
3. West Nashville Beelzebubbas (4-3) — B-
The preseason favorite of Music City Sports Book to win their second NFFA championship, the Beelzebubbas have had a disappointing first half. The blame rests largely with owner/coach Boyd X. Biggs, who is at the bottom of the coaching efficiency ratings. The 'Bubbas have been up-and-down, like a coke-barbituate roller coaster, winning their first two games, then losing two, then winning two, then losing again last weekend to the Dogs. In spite of all that, and thanks largely to the extreme mediocrity of the Linardo division (or Linardo subtraction, as McMahon recently called it), West Nashville would be the number four seed if the playoffs began today.
4. Fidalgo Island Sea Hogs (3-4) — C+
Since the league's beginnings, each champion has followed their title season with one filled with disappointment. Maybe it is that they spend too much time in the off-season partying, or in some cases, in federal detention; or maybe it is some curse on the victors; but whatever it is, the defending champions from Fidalgo Island seem to be continuing the pattern. While Sea Hogs fans have been quick to blame their team's failures on discredited owner Tirik Obobber, the poor play of star quarterback Peyton Manning, combined with a hit-and-miss Krankenstein strategy, have rendered the Hogs offense so inert NBC analyst Keith Olbermann began referring to the team as the Sea Cucumbers, or Sea Cukes, for short. (After week four, Olbermann also named Obobber his worst person in the world.) Still, because they have scored more points than the Atlanta Smack Daddies who have the same record, they would win the Linardo division and be the seeded second if the playoffs began today.
5. Cambridge Animals (3-4) — C+
After a 3-1 start, the Animals fortunes went south when owner Dave the Animal went west to guest star in six episodes of the AMC series, Breaking Bad. Instead, his team broke bad, losing three straight, and now find themselves looking up from the Jorge division cellar. That's the bad news. The good news is the Animals are one of only four teams to have topped 1,000 points in the first half of the season; plus, it turns out that Dave, a self-proclaimed coaching genius, is a coaching genius after all, sitting atop the coaching efficiency ratings for the first half of the season. So, in spite of Dave the Animal's flirtation with cable television stardom, Cambridge is in good shape for the stretch run to the playoffs; that is unless the meth and crack markets take a downturn.
6. Atlanta Smack Daddies (3-4) — C
After a disappointing 3-11 campaign in 2007, team owner Lex Dominica has zealously worked the waiver wire, but the results have been mixed, at best. Two of the team's keeper players, Eli Manning and LaDainian Tomlinson, are on the verge of being benched, and general manager Tony Soprano has indicated disciplinary action may be forthcoming for what he described as "disrespecting the Bing." Frankly, the club has never recovered from the loss of tight end Alge Crumpler, the team's spiritual, chemical, and pornographic leader, to free agency after the Smack Daddies championship season in 2006. (It should be noted, that Crumpler now plays for the 12th Avenue Bakers.) Atlanta fans were baffled when Dominica chose not to make Crumpler a keeper player and local sports talk radio has been flooded with calls demanding that the team make a trade for Crumpler. In spite of it all, the Smack Daddies' record is identical to the division-leading Sea Hogs, which leaves them well-positioned for the run to the playoffs.
7. Alamo Scouts (2-5) — C-
The Scouts started 0-4, but two of those losses were narrow, and they all were before Meemaw Murrman, grandmother of team owner Thurman Murrman, and her cast iron skillet became team symbols and inspirations. The Scouts may be the league's lowest-scoring team, but they have the good fortune of being in the Linardo division, where two wins puts you just one game out of first. The Scouts are the second-hottest team in the division and enter the second half of the season with reason for ThurMurr to have high hopes of making the playoffs, instead of just hoping to get high when the playoffs start.
8. Midtown Mojo (2-5) — F and B-
Under the direction of team owner Mojo D, the Mojo began the season like the second coming of the Bakers — the pre-2008 Bakers. After dismissing team mascot Mojo Jojo, and having, by his own admission, a "bad" draft, Mojo D turned the reigns of the team over to the Mojo's Pompatus of Love, Miss Lee-Yhn. After getting schooled by the Black Dogs in her debut, and suffering a half-point loss to the Scouts in her second game, the Pompatus has put together a two-game win streak, even though she has never run a team before. The team has averaged a respectable 140 ppg in her four weeks at the helm and are the hottest team in the division. Therefore, the Mojo get a split grade: Mojo D gets an F; the Pompatus gets a B-.
