2011 Season - Week 22

He started the season answering “yes” to a journalists question as to whether he was Elite and in the same class as Tom Brady. He finished the season with another great fourth quarter comeback stunning Brady and the Patriots as the Giants scored the winning touchdown inside the last minute for he third time in three tries against New England. Replace David Tyree’s helmet catch with a stunning sideline reception from Mario Manningham and this fourth quarter drive was very similar to the Superbowl XLII drive. Eli became the 11th QB in Superbowl history to win the big one twice and was voted MVP for the second time. Is he truly the best Manning to ever play the game? BUMSBowl XVI It’s been a long wait since his BUMSBowl III victory and Mark has suffered three BUMSBowl defeats along the way but 13 years later he is finally back on top. Mark beat Daz 22-13 as none of Daz’s outfield players scored while Westmorland got TDs from Victor Cruz and Aaron Hernandez. Mark joins his brother (last year’s Champ) as a two-time BUMSBowl winners while Daz was foiled in his attempt to pull ahead of Chief and Marcus as the most successful finalist ever, they all have three victories. Daz also lost the final back in 1997 in BUMSBowl II when John Botten defeated him 31-27. All-BUMS 2011 Rob Gronkowski is the 2011 BUMS Player of the Year as he received 25 points in the voting ahead of Calvin Johnson and LeSean McCoy on 17 points each while Drew Brees and Sebastian Janikowski had 12 each (weighted score). Brees quaterbacks the All-BUMS team for the second time in three seasons beating last years starter Aaron Rodgers by one point. Johnson starts for the second consecutive year as does Arian Foster while Gronk, McCoy and Jordy Nelson are all first time starters. Sebastian Janikowski makes his third consecutive starting appearance (and fifth appearance over all). The team are coached by rookie head coach (Jim Harbaugh of San Francisco). Sadly just 60% of the BUMS voted for their favourite players, making 45 different choices (see votes attached). Superfood & Supergames A huge thanks to Cheryl for feeding the BUMS with a balanced diet of New England Chowder, Steak Sub rolls and New York Cheesecake. Aaron had the most successful evening on the Supergames front making a £9 profit while Cheryl, Chief and Marcus made a loss of £5 each. So that’s it for the season but I have two more newsletters to send out over the next fortnight. They will include trading day analysis, the weekly scoring chart and the updated All-time leading points scorer. And if you want to come to Bodeans let me know.