Tis the season

Forgive me for my uncreativeness (made up word) when it comes to the titles for my blog posts. To be honest, I just like to get straight to rambling on about sports rather than spending time thinking of a witty, attention-getting headline. This will have to change should I actually be doing this for a living one day. Don't have too much to get to today, but I wanted to stop by before the Christmas festivities begin to touch on the NFL as well as a few other things since it could be a little while until I'm back. Hopefully by now, you all have your shopping out of the way because lord knows it's getting to be a real barn burner out there. We'll start out how we usually do and reveal the NFL picks for week 16. Let me just say this...I'm in need of a Christmas miracle if I want to beat Kyle in the overall record contest. On another note, Kyle and I are in the midst of several battles on the inter web...I'll get to that later. For now, the picks!

(DAVE) (KYLE)

Carolina @ PITTSBURGH (-13.5)
DALLAS @ Arizona (+6.5)
NEW ENGLAND @ BUFFALO (+8.5)
NY JETS @ CHICAGO (-1.5)
BALTIMORE @ Cleveland (+3.5)
SAN FRANSISCO @ ST LOUIS (-2.5)
DETROIT @ Miami (-3.5)
Washington @ JACKSONVILLE (-6.5)
TENNESSEE @ KANSAS CITY (-5.5)
INDIANAPOLIS @ Oakland (+3.5)
Houston @ DENVER (+2.5)
SAN DIEGO @ Cincinnati (+7.5)
Seattle @ TAMPA BAY (-6.5)
NY GIANTS @ Green Bay (-2.5)
Minnesota @ PHILADELPHIA (-13.5)
NEW ORLEANS @ Atlanta (-2.5)

Last week/Overall:
Kyle: 9-7/124-100 (9-4-2)
Dave: 7-9/114-110 (4-9-2)

As you have probably concluded by now, I don't stand a chance in this race. Have I come to terms with that? Absolutely not. We live in a world where anything can happen, and that more than pertains to the NFL. I honestly can't believe I've done this well so far, which really shows how good of a job Kyle has done. I'm curious to know what his percentile is on ESPN.com because I'm still currently at about the 87th (leave a comment with the answer after you read this, McClone). Not only have Kyle and I been going toe to toe on guessing the NFL lines all year, but there are some crucial fantasy football matchups this week for me in all three of my leagues...two of them happen to be against the man himself.

Let's go waaaaay back to August of 2010...even before I started writing this blog! Well, maybe not. I had just finished reading a column posted by one of my true heroes, The Sports Guy Bill Simmons, and was curious about one thing he mentioned. Simmons claimed that when setting up your fantasy football league, the auction draft was the way to go. I'm not sure how long ESPN has given the option of holding an online auction draft (fake money, of course), but I had never really given it a second look. It sounded quite intriguing, and Kyle (who is also a follower of The Sports Guy) also mentioned the proposition of giving the auction draft a try. I didn't want to try it out for the league I was putting money on this year (maybe in 2011), so we decided to join a random league that held a draft in which you had to buy enough players to fill out your roster with an alloted $200. You're not going to believe this, but Kyle and I find ourselves facing off in the championship game which spans over the final two weeks of the regular season. In fact, neither of us payed particularly close attention to the league and still kicked the ever living crap out of eight random people from across the country. Poor guys didn't know what they had coming. Anyway, it should be a good match-up and I'll keep everyone posted on who prevails.

Now this next part may sound a little strange at first, but the most important of the three showdowns that Kyle and I are involved in is actually a battle for 3rd place. Why is this, you ask? The winner of the 3rd place game in our ESPN league will earn a $10 prize (their money back) seeing as this fantasy football league is for money. Unfortunately, after seizing the number two seed for the four team playoff, I fell in the first round by 30 points. My team was beginning to falter towards the end of the regular season so I can't say I was surprised by the result, but it's disappointing that I will not be raking in at least $30 this year (the winner will get $80). So I guess the next best thing is not only getting back the money I put into this league, but doing it while beating Kyle. Since he's pretty much already locked up the NFL picks competition, I'm hoping he'll show a little mercy and let me win at least one of our fantasy encounters (get your mind out of the gutter).

Yeah...like I said, not too much to talk about. It's the calm before the storm as we await the fate of the Green Bay Packers' playoff hopes and the Wisconsin Badgers' showdown with TCU in the Rose Bowl on New Years Day. Extremely pumped for both of these things. It would be ideal for the Pack to take down the Giants so that the Bears/Packers game that I'm attending on the last week of the season is actually meaningful...I'm not expecting the Packers to compensate for me though based on the way this season has been going. We shall see...I'm hopeful. Anyway, keep an eye out for all of these games as they should all be about as significant as they get for us Wisconsin sports fans. We need something good to happen to take our mind off the below freezing temps!

I wish all of my readers safe travels and a Merry Christmas. Hope everyone gets what they want!

Go Pack, On Wisconsin and Fear the Deer!