I hit refresh on my laptop at 6:01 London time to see what my opponents had picked. And just like last AJY231 had not put his picks in. I had a sneaky suspicion that something was up and his picks would still come in late.
However I had to concentrate on the rest. FreePlaxico was three behind me and he picked four different games to me: I had the Titans, Ravens, Cardinals and Broncos; he had the others, meaning if he got all four he would jump ahead by one point and win. I did not need any other games to go my way, as long as I just won one of those games I would win the season.
Meanwhile RPC was four points behind me as and we had 7 different games. Because of the amount of different games he was actually a bigger threat. I had the Eagles, Bears, Saints, Dolphins, Ravens, Steelers and Cardinals of those seven games.
I needed at least three of those games to go my way to beat him. Then there was Timadams5 who was 5 points behind me and he had picked 5 different games, but he had a better tie break score than me, so had he got all 5 he would have beaten me. I just needed one of these games to come in to beat him: Lions, Bears, Saints, Colts and the Ravens.
My main goal for the 1pm games was for the Titans to win by 3, which knock away Freeplaxico leaving me with hoping for 3 wins against RPC. At one stage all of my 1pm games were losing. By the 4th quarter all of them were winning. I was 9 for9 in my 1pm games. Then things went south.
The Saints were killing the Panthers, the Eagles were holding on as were the Bears and the Dolphins started to beat the must-win Jets. Any three of those hanging on meant RPC was out the picture. But it was on all the Titans. They were winning by seven points in their must win game with a minute to go. But they foolishly fumbled in their own red zone practically and gave a TD to the Texans, who played very well. The Texans opted for the 2 pointer. By not going for the extra point meant it couldn't be a tie, which meant no overtime, which meant the Titans could not win by 3. They won by just one point and the Titans had crucially let me down for the second week running.
Although I could have been celebrating a win by the time the late games started if the Titans had won by 3, I was still happy that I had knocked away two of my threats. Timadams5 and RPC were both gone. That's when I got an email from the Commissioner of our league, telling me that he had put in AJY231 picks in late for him. I rushed to the laptop and hit refresh, and there were AJY231 picks in black and white. Thankfully he had only 4 different picks to me and I had already won three of them so he was gone.
And then there wastwo
It was me and FreePlaxico left. With his Texans pick over the Titans he was now two points behind me. I needed just one win from the Ravens, Cardinals or Broncos. The Broncos were playing the Chiefs live on Skysports. Despite the Broncos fending off the Chiefs to just 7 points, Tebow and all his magic couldn't do squat all game. They had to win to get in the playoffs, hence why I picked them. Luckily for them the Raiders lost to the Chargers, and Tebow and crew sneaked into the playoffs for the first time since 2005.
While watching the Broncos go nowhere it was down to the Cardinals, who had to win by 3 for the pick and the Ravens against the Bengals, who I also needed them to win by three.
The Ravens started off flying with a huge Ray Rice TD. Though my worry is that the Ravens often fail to finish off games and seem to run out of steam. This is exactly what happened. The Cardinals had similar stories, whom were up early while the Seahawks clawed back to 20-20 in the dying minutes.
I watched the ticker on NFL.com and saw with angry orange lines, that the Ravens had no offense in the second half. Andy Dalton for the Bengals was firing all over the field making the so called scary Ravens D look out of sorts. The Ravens don’t normally give up the big play but with the Bengals needing a win were not going to lie down.
The Ravens were 17-3 up at the half, but by the fourth it was 17-13 and the Bengals looked hot on home turf and had the momentum. Step up MR. Terrell Suggs. Thankfully he knocked the ball out of the Bengal's RB's arms and the Ravens recovered the fumble with a short field. Ray Rice ripped through for another big TD making it 24-13 with five minutes to play.
Surely even if the Bengals did get a TD, then the Ravens should be able to hold a drive and maybe get a FG? The Bengals responded quickly and marched down the field taking huge chunks of yards each time. The Ravens D was not really slowing the clock, but thankfully they stopped them on third and short and the Bengals played safe and popped in the FG. 26-16.
With 2 minutes and change to play the Ravens had the ball on their own 20 yard line. A couple of short runs lead to the Bengals burning their last two timeouts. Despite a first down, the Ravens couldn't kill the game and punted, but it went deep.
Then came my minute from hell. With one minute to play the Bengals needed 80 yards to score and had no timeouts. All the Ravens had to do was stop the deep ball. A 30 yard strike was then followed quickly by a 20 yard strike and now the Bengals with 30 seconds were on the Ravens 35 yard line. They had enough time for three passing plays.
The first was knocked down, but didn’t take much time off the clock. The second was thankfully incomplete, leaving just 2 seconds and 30 yards to go. Dalton went for the Hail Mary and thankfully amongst the crowd the ball was knocked away. I jumped up and hugged Steph knowing that I was the new champion for the 2011 season. I was so overjoyed.
After all the drama with the Cardinals, they ended up winning by 3 in overtime, giving me a three point cushion by the end of the night. I have never won Fantasy Football or this spread tournament before and I felt like I was the show called The League.
Though sadly I hear there is no trophy to go with this tournament. Would it be sad of me to buy my own and get it engraved? Probably. But I'm still going to do it!My team name "The Tailgate Knight" will be engraved on the trophy that will sit proudly on my mantlepiece for years to come.
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