2009 Season - Week 16

AP has cut his RB Kevin Smith who the Lions had placed on IR. In his place he has signed Cleveland rusher Jerome Harrison who scored 3 TDs and rushed for the third highest total in NFL history (286 yards) against Kansas City last week. Harrison immediately paid AP back by scoring a TD in his first game for the Tring Tarantulas. Reality Not Fantasy The NFC playoff teams are sorted, now it’s just who plays who. New Orleans(13-2) have home field advantage through-out. Slumping Minnesota (11-4) & Arizona (10-5) have won their divisions. Philadelphia (11-4) and Dallas (10-5) play for the NFC East on Sunday with the loser joining Green Bay (10-5) as the wildcard teams. It’s not so straight forward in the AFC. All divisions are won, Indianapolis (14-1) with home field throughout, San Diego (12-3) first round bye, New England (10-5) & Cincinnati (10-5) are the other division winners. But it’s the wildcards where it gets very messy. Seven teams are still fighting for the two places. Baltimore (8-7) and NY Jets (8-7) control their destiny. Denver, Houston and Pittsburgh are also (8-7) while Miami and Jacksonville (7-8) are also still alive, in that order. Any questions? Play-Offs Looming The good news for the BUMS is that everyone makes the play-offs with the Road to BUMSBowl XIV starting in 11 days with the Wildcard Round. Saturday January 9th and Sunday January 10th see the first round of our playoff competition. You will need to create a team of 1 QB, 1 Kicker and 4 outfield players from a $7.5m budget. Remember it is a head-to-head knockout contest against a fellow BUM and each team of 6 can have only 2 players which match your opponent so first to get their team in gets to keep more of their chosen first team. More details next week. The final regular season newsletter will come out next Tuesday giving everyone 4 days to get their Wildcard teams back to me. BUMS on Seats. We will be at BUMS HQ on Sunday from 6pm to see Sky’s doubleheader. The games have yet to be announced but you’d expect the 6pm game to be either New England @ Houston or Pittsburgh @ Miami while the 9pm game should be the NFC East decider as Philadelphia travel to Dallas. The Sunday Night game will decide if the Jets make the playoffs as they host Cincinnati. We’ll watch it on Monday at H’s from 6:30pm. If Chief is no more than 6 points behind Johnnie after Sunday’s games then this will also decide the BUMS Premiership as Johnnie has Bengal kicker Shane Graham and Chief has Jets Head Coach Rob Ryan. Call if you are coming.