Pittsburgh Franchise Football League
2008 News & Notes 

Week Five

PFFL EAST

PFFL CENTRAL

PFFL WEST

There is now just one undefeated team remaining in the PFFL but just barely! The Downtowners couldn't have been too confident going into Monday night with a 17-point lead because their opponent MNE had the explosive Reggie Bush left to play. If kick returns counted for individual players there would be no undefeated teams remaining. Although a very respectable number, Bush managed just 16 giving the Downtowners a one-point win and a commanding lead in the West. Since the VP system was instituted in 2006, the largest VP lead after five weeks was three. After five weeks this year the Downtowners have a 5VP and two-game lead in the West. I think last year's collapse after a 3-0 start is definitely behind them!

It's kind of hard to feel sorry for a second-place team but MNE's one-point loss to the Downtowners this week was devastating. If Reggie Bush scores just two more points on Monday night, the difference in their position in the standings is major: Instead of the Downtowners being in first with a 5VP lead, they would be in first with a 1VP lead. That's a 6VP turnaround because of just two points not scored! The reality now is MNE is tied with six other teams at 3-2 and three other teams at 5VP behind the leader. You could say the Monday Night Express (MNE) was derailed on Monday night by two lousy points.

It seems we jinxed the Rounder 17 when we reported last week that they were the only team in the league without a week under the league average. Well they are just like the rest of us now after losing their second game of the year 128-104. Their 104 points was well below the league average but there were three teams worse than 104 this week allowing them to at least earn 1VP in the loss. They can blame the loss and the low point total on their coaching staff for recording a 67.5 efficiency rating in the game. Hind sight is 20-20 but with 154 potential points for the week, someone's job just may be in jeopardy.

Commish West's slow start is officially behind them. They have now won their last three in a row and finished first or second in those three wins. They too left some serious points on the bench this week but unlike the Rounder 17 it didn't cost them a game. Still feeling the effects of their slow start they were unable to overtake anyone with the win. But now that they have moved up into fourth in conference points and are tied with the entire top tier except the Downtowners at 3-2 and 13VP, another good week could easily move them into second.
 

PFFL Information

High Week

Justice

PFFL STUFF

● Well the down-up down-up trend continues in the scoring as week 5 is down after an up week 4. Here is the average scoring through the first five weeks for all three conferences: 113, 124, 110, 121, 110. As you can see the bye weeks seem to have no effect at all on the scoring pattern. In fact sometimes NFL scoring doesn't either because it is reported that week 3 of this year was the 10th highest single week for NFL scoring with 747 points yet it was a down week for us. Like I said last week: go figure! This latest week dropped the yearly scoring average 1.5 points to 115.5.

● Please take care in choosing your waiver picks each week. A couple of you have selected sound-a-like players in the list without realizing it until it was too late. It is very easy to do as alike names are right next to each other in the list. I myself have done it but caught it after I went back in to double check my selections. These are the kind of mistakes that cost GMs their jobs.

● They might start calling it the cardiac East! Two more one-point games this week brings the total to five one-point games through the first five weeks. There have been a total of two - both this week by the way - in the other two conferences.

● There's no Justice in the East. Justice and Commish East are 2nd and 3rd in conference scoring yet Justice is 6th in the standings and Commish East is 9th. I guess the VP system can do only so much.

● How frustrated are the Sharks? They just chastised B&B on the message board for not responding quick enough to their trade offers. B&B's reason: I was in the hospital, sorry. And Franklin is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. They may call it fantasy but it feels real to us!

● Hey give me about 10 points and I can rewrite the standings. With seven one-point games and a few more two and three pointers, turn those games around and the standings would look significantly different!

● CORRECTION: This is where I fess up to my mistakes. I reported in week 3 that Little Johnny's was the first team to be in the top tier with a losing record. Actually last year MNE was in third place in week 9 with a 4-5 record, dropped out in week 10 with a loss then a week 11 win earned them the third rank with a 5-6 record because of a high point and VP total.

● TIP: In the future I will have a printer-friendly page available but for now if for some reason you would like to print this newsletter the best method is this: Simply select (hold down the left mouse button and drag the cursor over the area of choice) the newsletter portion of the page, right click anywhere in the selected area, and choose Print... with the three dots after Print. Then under Page Range check off Selection. This will print only the area you selected and not the links to the left or the top section.

● The League Average has proven to be a tough competitor. Through the first five weeks it sports a 10-5 record. It especially likes the East competition where it has gone 4-1. It is 3-2 in both the Central and West.
 

PFFL Trivia Answer

Terry Metcalf