Championship Press Conference

In our Joywok fantasy football league, some awesome members write news stories and press conferences for big events. I'm posting them here so they are public to all and are never lost. 

DECEMBER 24, 2013

David Du, manager of Infamous Bumpshead -

As your League Champion, I would like to take the time to thank the people who made this all possible.

Chalupa Batman, for proving to be a worthy adversary throughout the entire season and for knocking out Futt Bumblers in the semifinals, who I would have lost to otherwise. For this, I thank you.
The Pharma-niners, for trying as hard as you did in endlessly scouring the waiver wire. Your diligence forced me to stay on my toes. For this, I thank you.

Me Gronk You Long Time for giving my team its worst beatdown during the season. That bitter loss infused my team with a spirit of uncontainable vengeance. For this, I thank you.

Logan, for the rather epic season collapse, starting off 5-3 but ending with 4 straight losses sadly leaving you out of the playoffs. For this, I thank you.

And the rest of the league, for the easy wins and for beating up on each other.
A special shoutout goes to my core 4 starters of Tony Romo, AJ Green, Jamaal Charles, and Danny Woodhead for being the only reliable ones that went the whole distance. And to Rashad Jennings for being my most valuable pickup of the season by far. I don't think I had a team that particularly scared anyone, but when you have heart, that's all that matters.
It was a wild year - from winning my first 6 out of 7, to losing 4 out of my next 5, to turning it up big-time in the playoffs in rattling off 3 straight wins, I hope this can be a lesson to you all to never give up.
Until next year!

-- Written by David Du (Infamous Bumpshead)

Week 6 Joywok Fantasy Football League Preview

In our Joywok fantasy football league, some awesome members write news stories and press conferences for big events. I'm posting them here so they are public to all and are never lost. 

OCTOBER 12, 2013

PALISADES PARK – With 5 weeks into the 2013 Joywok Fantasy Football season, the top storyline can be summarized in one word: Parody. This is the second year that the Joywok League has expanded its playoffs to eight teams, up from the four postseason entrants in the initial two years of the league. After five contests, only one game separates the entire top half of the league from one another. In addition, if the current trend holds, for the first time in league history, a team with a losing record will be able to sneak into the playoffs. Once there, in a one-and-done scenario of the fantasy football playoffs, anything can happen, as witnessed by last year’s upset of 11-2 BetterFosterStronger in the first round by The Brady Bunch. Without further ado, here are the key matchups of Week 6.

Blowout Game of the Week:

While the Jacksonville vs. Denver game in the NFL has set a new Vegas record for largest point spread in history, that is nothing compared to upcoming contest between Infamous Bumpshead and WildWildWes, where Bumpshead is projected to demolish the league cell dweller by 59 points. General Manager David Du once again has his team in contention for a league title as he seeks his 3rd playoff appearance (not to mention, also a third semi-final appearance) in league history. Infamous Bumpshead currently leads the league with both a 4-1 record as well as 933 points scored, more than 12/game higher than 2nd place, Futt Bumblers.
On the other side of the ledger is WildWildWes. It seems as if this franchise still has not recovered from the first round knockout it suffered last year as the league’s top overall seed. After winning the 2011 championship as the Throwin (Te)Bows and running roughshod on the league to a 11-2 record last year, Joe C. entered the 2012 playoffs having won 9 of his last 10 contests. That would be the last highlight for the franchise as Joe C. has now added five straight losses to open the season to its first round upset. Much like their Jacksonville counterpart, WildWildWes struggles offensively, having gone over the 110 point mark just once all season while failing to reach the century mark in three other contests. In fact, WildWildWes owns four of the five lowest fantasy point totals all season. This is a historically bad team on the levels of 2012 Charlotte Bobcats, 2013 Houston Astros, and the 2008 Detroit Lions.

Prediction: Infamous Bumpshead dominates early and often and the commissioner is summoned around 4 PM to begin discussion of a fantasy mercy rule.

Pseudo Elimination Game of the Week

While neither team will be mathematically eliminated with a loss Sunday, the game between the Black Soldiers and Manning the Deck can result in the loser facing an uphill battle to make the playoffs during the 2nd half of the season. Both teams enter the weekend with losing records (Black Soldiers at 1-4 and Manning the Deck at 2-3). While it was previously mentioned that a losing team can very well make the playoffs this season, the odds will be stacked against the loser as they currently represent 2 of the 3 lowest scoring teams in the league, the other being WildWildWes who might need to be relegated after Week 14 to the NCAA. A 1-5 Black Soldiers or a 2-5 Manning the Deck team will not only need to almost run the table the rest of the way to secure the coveted 8th and final playoff spot, they will also need to significantly up their currently weekly scoring output to ensure they do not lose on tie breakers. The task is especially daunting considering that Manning the Deck will face 5 teams with winning records in their final 7 games while the Black Soldiers will play all four of the current 4-1 teams in the final 6 weeks of the season. A Blain Gabbert-like performance by Eli Manning on Thursday night did not get Manning the Deck the start it needs for this important contest but they can hope that the wide receiver spot in the Black Soldiers starting lineup continue to remain vacant once Sunday games kick off.

Prediction: Black Soldiers fills the vacant roster spot, takes a comfortable lead into Sunday night where it barely survives RGIII, and gives GM Brian Wuu his second victory of the season.

Game of the Week

In a battle between identical 4-1 teams, the Futt Bumblers will face off against the Pharma-Niners. In addition to their strong win-loss records, the two most experienced (aka old) GMs in the league also leads two of the four highest scoring teams. Earlier this week, Pharma-Niners GM, Matthew Lau, ceded to Futt Bumblers GM, Shawn Wu, that with star quarterback, Peyton Manning facing the lowly Jaguars this week, he is “tempted to not even [bother] drop a player to pick up a defensive player.” and have conceded that this should be an “automatic win” for GM Shawn Wu and his team. Ironically, it was Wu who was managed to not pick up a defensive player, incorrectly starting the inactive Charles Tillman. “We certainly didn’t do ourselves any favors there,” said Wu when reached for comments on Saturday evening, “the Pharma-Niners have a great team and we’ll have our hands full when we take the field Sunday. In a complete reversal of the Manning the Deck vs. Black Soldiers game, the winner of this game will be 5-1 and be in a commanding pole position to secure a high playoff seed.

Prediction: No predictions will be issued for this game, just know that after Monday night…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrOH-KHxXg0

Team to Watch This Week:

The GioDudes. With a 2-3 record, GM Caleb Tseng knows that his team is now entering a critical stretch of the season. After a heartbreaking loss to Matt Lau and the Pharma-Niners last week, a contest in which Tseng made the critical decision of not playing Alshon Jeffrey, Tseng learned earlier this week that he has now lost star wide receiver, Julio Jones for the season. He then watched Jeffrey return his lack of faith in Week 5 with a pedestrian 1 catch for 27 yards Thursday night. Facing the 4-1 Chalupa Batman on Sunday, it will be interesting to see how Tseng and his men respond to the latest setbacks.

-- Written by Shawn Wu (Futt Bumblers)

Blockbuster Trade Rocks Joywok Fantasy League

In our Joywok fantasy football league, some awesome members write news stories and press conferences for big events. I'm posting them here so they are public to all and are never lost. 

OCTOBER 4, 2013

PALISADES PARK – Though it has been more than a week, the full effect of arguably the greatest trade in the history of the 4-year history of the Joywok Fantasy Football League is still being felt. In a span of 24 hours, seventeen players were reshuffled from their original rosters, a change that can have major ramifications to all 12 teams for the remaining 12 weeks of the 2013 season.

According to insider sources, the trade originally came out of a proposed 3-team deal between Logan, Manning the Deck, and the GioDudes. Despite a 2-1 start, it has been an open secret throughout the league that GM Caleb Tseng of the GioDudes has been desperately shopping for upgrades to the quarterback and wide receiver positions. By last Monday night, Tseng has already designed the frameworks of two separate 3-team deals that will allow him to net
Matthew Stafford, Julio Jones, and Tavon Austin in one package or Demaryious Thomas and Calvin Johnson in another. The major players of both 3-team trades will involve Tseng and his GM counterpart, Tim Yu of Logan with Manning the Deck’s Thomas Wei and Black Soldiers’ Brian Wuu as supporting components of their respective deals.

As the night progressed, it became clear that the former trade proposal featuring Stafford, Jones, and Austin was gaining traction amongst all parties involved especially once it was agreed that Yu’s RB depth allows him to include Ryan Matthews to be sent to Manning the Deck to upgrade Wei’s weak running back core, which previously featured the under-performing Maurice Jones-Drew and Chris Johnson. There are doubts about how much the injury-prone
Matthews can strengthen Manning the Deck’s running back position, though by securing three high-talent players at the position, Wei does increase his chances of coming out with one top-tier RB out of the deal. For Logan, Yu
recognized the need for his team to have a top-notch player, and thus operated accordingly, trading a talented package that included Robert Griffin III, DeSean Jackson, amongst others in order to obtain LeSean McCoy, arguably the best running back this season. Though McCoy under-performed in his Logan debut (failing to score double digit points for the first time this season), he should prove to be a valuable addition to the Logan lineup while also allowing Yu to essentially corner the Philadelphia Eagles running game market as he now rosters both McCoy and his backup, Bryce Brown.

The trade was not without compromises from all three sides. Yu desperately wanted to avoid starting both Andre Johnson and Matt Schaub, whom he would receive from the GioDudes as part of the trade. His attempt to further dump Johnson to secure Cam Newton from Tseng was rebuffed quickly and sharply. “I was like wtfffff.” Laughed the GioDudes’ GM, “THAT DEFEATS THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF THE TRADE.”

Both Wei and Tseng also expressed sadness in sending away top players that were part of their original rosters. When asked about the trade, Wei admitted that “losing the only players that do anything every week” will be tough but the chance to upgrade both his running backs and gain a top-notch tight end in Jordan Cameron made the deal well worth it for his team. In addition, the trade forced Caleb Tseng to give up his top player, LeSean McCoy. “Man my
heart hurts. He’s my favorite player.” But kudos to Tseng in taking an objective approach towards the season as he puts all personal favoritisms aside in order to build upon last year’s playoff appearance and attempt to advance
past the 1st round for the first time in franchise history.

Once the trade was processed, Tseng continued his wheeling-and-dealing ways by completing his second blockbuster trade in as many days by sending Fred Jackson, Martellus Bennett, Miles Austin, DeAndre Jordan, Cam Newton, and BenJarvus Green-Ellis to the Black Soldiers for Alex Smith, Demaryious Thomas, and Arian Foster. The hope is clearly that Foster will supplant some of the lost production that resulted from the loss of McCoy. However, it remains to be seen whether the new quarterback pair of Stafford and Alex Smith is better than their predecessor, Newton and Schaub.

For the Black Soldiers, after last season’s 3-10 disaster, and a mediocre 1-2 start to the season, the thought process was clearly that a shakeup was necessary. However, perhaps even more important than hoping that the new Black Soldiers prove their roster spots worthy, GM Brian Wuu hopes that an easier shift in schedule will inspire a run into a potential playoff position. After one month into the season, the Black Soldiers lead the league in total points against including being on the receiving end of two 200+ point performances by opponents.

The four teams involved in last week’s player shakeup went a combined 1-3 last week with the only victory occurring when Logan beat the GioDudes 191-182 despite strong performances from each of the new GioDude players. Manning the Deck suffered the largest defeat of the season since the trade when they lost 190-109 to the Pharma-niners. Their 109 points was also the 4th lowest point total registered by any team this season. Meanwhile, the Black Soldiers fell to 1-3 when they lost 151-132 to Paul Blart JamaalCop as two of its new additions, Green-Ellis and Miles Austin combined to score 1.30 points. Currently, none of the four teams have records above .500 and it will be interesting to see what ramifications these moves will have the rest of the season both on their respective teams as well as to the overall playoff picture.

Finally, due to the lack of trade activity in recent years, the latest news once again brought attention to the fact that only the commissioner has the power to veto trades. While this is consistent with the practices of similar league entities such as the NBA and NFL, being that the commissioner is also the GM and owner of a team in the league, it raised the question of potential conflict of interest and a league-wide investigation will be conducted in the offseason on possible reforms to the issue.

Written by Shawn Wu (Futt Bumblers)