Week 17 – Championship

Tee Higgins and Joe Burrow went nuts for the Banthas, who weren’t playing. Ah well.

Winners

Marshfield (9-6), Culver City (6-9), Holley (4-12), Linn County (8-8)

The Oregon Dream Team find themselves in the Most Futile Franchise title game after losing by 2 to the Lumberjacks.

Prediction Record

Week 16: 1-3

Overall: 53-41

Not a good week for me. Still above .500 overall though! Slightly better than a coin flip.

2022 Divisions (Official!)

Week 17 Matchups

Well, COVID has come around to ruin another Christmas. We traveled back to Chicago to see friends and family, but most of those friends got COVID, so we’re just hanging out at home for the whole time. Fortunately, they have been vaxxed and boosted so the infections are mild, but it’s still a bummer.

Really looking forward to going back to work next week in Florida, where the governor is on vacation as the state sets daily records, and the law expressly prohibits schools from making things safer. Haha, just kidding, it sucks.

For Christmas my present was that I would get to go back to St. Paul, MN for the first in-person Alumni Weekend (for my grad program in Creative Writing) in 2 years! I bought plane tickets and booked a hotel room. Did that event get moved to online only? You know that it did. I’m trying not to complain too much because there are lots of people having a tougher time, but man, the abject failure of all of our institutions really isn’t my cup of tea!

Immersion Bowl XII

Culver City (6-9) @ Marshfield (9-6)

Speaking of institutional failure, look how the deck was stacked against good teams, and our championship game features clubs that benefited immensely from Gold Privilege™. The Pirates pulled out the literal game of their lives to beat Fransburg. One of their defensive lineman scored on a 40-yd interception return. A corner they signed off the street before the game scored 20. To be fair, he is an undrafted fourth year guy out of Ferris State. Obviously he was going to blow up.

And of course I was wrong about Justin Jackson, who has always sucked, until last week when he scored 23.

Culver City was able to shut down an undermanned Chitons squad thanks to Patrick Mahomes returning to form and a Detroit wide receiver named after an Egyptian sun god somehow scoring 18 points.

This means we have to choose between Enright, who seeks his 5th title (BOO), and Marcot, who lucked into the playoffs and title last year with a losing record, only to luck into the playoffs again this year with a losing record. I swear to God if that happens again next year I’m going to be pushing for 3 division winners and 3 wild cards based on all-play.

I like the Krakens to repeat, only because they have more guys who I have actually heard of playing. That could change by Sunday when 90% of the country has COVID. Of course, in the NFL (and, to be fair, the US writ large) it doesn’t matter if you have COVID, you still have to go to work, peasant.

Most Futile Franchise

Madtown (4-11) @ Oregon (7-8)

Madtown didn’t even submit a lineup last week, and I didn’t notice until today. Following the rules outlined in the rulebook, I submitted their previous lineup, and they scored a whopping 74 points. Holley managed to pull off the surprise win, but that’s partially due to Matt’s failures as a human. At any rate, the Marauders are STRONG favorites to take down the Most Futile Franchise award.

Oregon has been seriously jobbed this year and they shouldn’t even be in this game. I think they will win. 138 points wasn’t enough last week, but honestly 90 should do the trick against the Marauders. Oregon fans are looking forward to the offseason, where they will see if they can get the #1 draft pick in the lottery for the 5th year in a row.

Enjoy the games. Hopefully they are a little more watchable this week. Stay safe out there! One good thing about being locked down is that I’ve been able to do a lot more reading. Remember reading? I just finished The Night the Lights Went Out, by Drew Magary, and I highly recommend it, especially if you were a fan of the old Deadspin site or the new Defector site. I made it known that I wanted that book for Christmas, so I wound up with two copies, naturally.

Oh, and RIP to John Madden, an absolute legend. I grew up with him calling games, and I think that’s why I have a harder time enjoying broadcasts now. I can’t think of a color guy that comes close. Can anybody really tell the difference between Aikman, Romo, Greg Olsen, Darryl Johnston, or Chris Collinsworth? They are all kind of the same guy, albeit Collinsworth has significantly more smarm. FWIW, I do like Romo, and Olsen surprisingly isn’t bad, but none of those guys make me excited to learn about football like Madden did. I remember reading his biography when I was in middle school, and thinking how awesome it would be to have a Madden Cruiser. Then, of course, there were the Madden games, which is a whole nother ball of wax. But ultimately, Madden was a guy who loved football, and through his sheer enthusiasm taught you to love football too.

Boom!

© 2021, Josh Hammond. All rights reserved.