2002 Season - Week 17

It was fitting that the top two scorers in week 17 were the Division winners. After 8 years Chief finally gets his hands on the Papas Fritas Trophy after he posted 545 points the highest total since 1995. Chief set the 3rd highest score ever finishing just 12 points short of his own runner-up score that year. Johnny won the inaugural BUMS Championship with a never matched 574 points. Phil finished a whopping 57 points ahead of AP to be the first winner of the Conference. AP also gets promoted along with Ron who had a most profitable visit to BUMS HQ on Sunday seeing his Jets win the AFC East as his QB threw 4 TD’s to cement his promotion bid. John (the architect of the split division promotion/relegation system) falls short and has to console himself with knowing his score would’ve been a top 6 finish in the Premiership and that in week 14 he set a new BUMS weekly record with 67 points. The Great Escape The Championship and Promotion places were sorted by Sunday’s second games but the relegation battle went down to the last 2 minutes of the season. After the second group of Sunday games Cheryl had climbed out of the relegation zone 1 point ahead of Andy H and 2 ahead of Mark but she had no more players to play. H was relegated when Rickey Dudley failed to score for Tampa Bay in the Sunday Night Game. With Keyshawn Johnson also shut out Mark needed at least 3 points from Kevan Barlow or a Rams win to send Cheryl down with H and Dave G. With 11 mins left San Francisco lead 20-3 and the Rams looked down and out but Barlow hadn’t seen paydirt. However after two quick offensive Ram touchdowns Dre Bly simply stole the ball out of Garrison Hearst’s hands and ran it back for a score putting the Rams 24-20 up with 6:54 left to play. As the 49’ers drove down the field for the game winning score the usually sure-handed Hearst fumbled again and on the ensuing drive on 4th and 1 the Rams went for it. Ernie Conwell caught a short pass and ran 32 yards for the TD with just 1:53 remaining. Cheryl’s beloved Rams scored 28 points in 10 minutes to come back and win the game and send her down to the Conference as the 6 points Mark got from Ram Coach Mike Martz lifted him from 10th to 8th and another season in the Big League.