2016 Season - Week 18

The biggest play of the Wildcard weekend may have been an incomplete pass. With only 19 minutes played in the Packers/Giants game Jordy Nelson got hit in the ribs and left the game for good. And in that moment five owners playing Jordy all saw their BUMSBowl dreams disappear for another season. After three consecutive years of huge upsets by the 16 seed over the #1 seed Craig finally stopped the rot, just. Leamington defeated Karori 24-23 as Mason Crosby scored 8 of the 9 points David S needed. The #2 seed Phoenix came from behind by 6 in the final game to defeat Old England 36-30 courtesy of the four Aaron Rodgers TDs, while 3 seed Langley held off Brockley (the first of the Nelson owners) 30-26. #4 seed Willoughby (another Nelson owner) were well beaten by #13 Misunderstood 14-30. Westmorland defeated Rhodesia 26-14 as Cheryl saw her last hope die with Nelson’s injury. 6 seed Underachieving was soundly upset by Gang Green, 18-39 (the biggest margin of the weekend), so Nelson probably wouldn’t have helped Daz anyway. Like Craig, Tring hung on to defeat California by 1 as Wayne couldn’t get that extra point from Crosby in the final game. And Perivale defeated our final Nelson owner (Sofa) by 10. So the Divisional round is Craig (1) v David S (13), Marcus (2) takes on Ron (11), Chief (3) plays Andy H (8) and Mark (5) hosts AP (7). Teams to me by 10pm Friday so we can sort out swaps. This is a strict deadline, miss it and you are out, sorry. The Relegation Battle As nothing could separate Ron and Wayne through 17 weeks they faced off in a wildcard tie-breaker as the lowest scorer would be relegated. And like the regular season the tie-breaker came down to the end of the final wildcard. With 3 minutes left Ron lead 39-37 and had Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams on the field, while Wayne’s team included Mason Crosby and Ty Montgomery. Green Bay had a first and goal at the three with the Giants well beaten so the only thing riding on the action was who would stay up. If Montgomery scored Wayne would survive, if anyone else scored a TD Ron would stay up, if Green Bay didn’t get in and settled for a field goal Ron would be relegated and if Green Bay just took a knee Wayne would be down. On first down Ty Montgomery lined up in the back field and got the hand off. The line plunged forward and Montgomery followed but was tackled inside the one yard line. With Wayne 2 feet from survival on second down the Packers ran the ball again but this time it was fullback Aaron Ripkowski who carried the ball and he was also stuffed just inside the one yard line, however with second effort he stretched as he fell and got the ball to pay-dirt. Mason Crosby kicked the PAT but it wasn’t enough for Wayne and Ron won the tie-break 39-38 and so stays in the Premiership while Wayne joins Cheryl, Dave G, Alex and David Stamp in the Conference next year.