Chatterbowl II Awards

1. James Goodson – Regular season record 10-2-1 – 51 points (14 out of 15 people gave James points – obviously James was the 16th league member and couldn’t give himself points)
2. Chris Braithwaite – 10-3 – 46 points (11/15 – 2nd for the second year in a row)
3. David Slater – 10-3 – 43 points (12/15)
4. Dan Smith – 9-4 – 30 points (10/15)
5. Dan Sayles – 8-5 – 18 points (9/15)
6. Max Cubberley – 7-6 – 15 points (8/15)
7. Mat Ward – 6-7 – 10 points (5/15)
8. Phil Malcolm – 5-8 – 9 points (4/15 – and no, he didn’t give himself any points)
9. Mark Simpson – 7-6 – 8 points (6/15, made the playoffs and below Phil in the vote-off – there’s something wrong here)
10. Neil Hawke – 2-10-1 – 3 points (2/15)
=11. Geoffrey Manboob – 4-8-1 – 2 points (2/15)
=11. Benjamin Hendy – 4-9 – 2 points (1/15)
=13. Ben Archer – 6-7 – 1 point (1/15)
=13. Jay Kelly – 2-11 – 1 point (1/15)
=13. Pete Conaghan – 7-5-1 – 1 point (1/15 – you know he had a winning record and made the playoffs, right?)
16. Ian Kulkowski – 5-8 – 0 points (0/15 – punished for not chatting in the huddle, I feel)

Your feedback

Ben

• Bizarrely quit on his team very early on – why win tomorrow when you can win today?
• Blinded by his unnatural love of the New Orleans Saints. It was to prove his downfall. He gets his single solitary point for his trade moves for next season.
• Ben is a man of contradiction. On the one hand he entered some wilfully bad trades purely to try and assemble as many Saints players on one team as possible but on the other he traded away Drew Brees. Clearly he is either mentally unstable or not a man who sticks to his guns. Either way, I couldn’t possibly give him any CotY points despite the fact he won the Fishcuit Man competition.
• He appeared to be auditioning to fill in for Sean Payton’s next suspension, by being absolutely shit. I remember him saying he was going to start tanking for draft position, but haven’t been able to spot the difference between him being intentionally bad and him trying to be good.
• Almost made the play-offs despite trying to tank from about week 6.
• Did better after he started tanking, says it all really
• Poor coaching, poor decisions and poor tanking….an all around poor season.
• Over reliance on the Saints. Far too little faith in his team. Early and questionable trades.
• Ben got very down early and didn’t change, trading away his better players when it seemed he couldn’t make the playoffs, though statistically he was in with a good shout. Was this terrible, or genius (in that his decision was justified in the end)? Who knows?
• His only remaining player from the draft is his kicker – says it all.
• Seemed to give up after the first game of the first week despite remaining playoff relevant until the last week. Needs to stop being such a negative nelly
• Gave up too soon. Traded Brees to Dave and might have handed him the title in the process. Bush league move.

Benj

• Little bounce at the end, but didn’t do anything other than damage his draft position next year in the process.
• Great at Commish duties (and I enjoyed the mandatory question on the Pick Six every week), seemed to tank a bit as coach. The Rice/Bernard trade bit him in week 1 but I think has been justified since?
• Some great waiver wire work after an appalling draft.
• When you draft Ray Rice, Julio Jones, Colin Kaepernick, Tavon Austin and Bernard Pierce in 5 of the first 6 rounds you’re doing pretty well to win any games at all. For such a shitty hand I think Ben did well to get anything out of the season.
• Ran the league superbly, but his team did stink a bit (sorry Ben!).
• Not the best after his last years performance. zero points
• Average draft, average depth, little to show for most games.
• The epitome of a mediocre team, maybe a bit harsh but you sold me a broken Ray Rice.
• The Hellcats, much like the other Chatterbowl bottom-feeders were awful in almost every way.
• Apologies Benj but I’m sure you wouldn’t have wanted a pity point.

Chris

• Always a strong showing from his side. Knows his onions. Disappears from the huddle for days at a time. I think he might have some sort of drug habit.
• Had a decent draft, I think, and then made a number of very good trades (admittedly from a position of strength). Bonus point for his revelation that he analysed games for Football Outsiders. Minus 1 point for his preposterous trade offers (99% of them).
• Strong all season.
• Top scorer (for the second year in a row?), second seed because of Goody’s tie. Arguably the man to beat. Always a good and amusing presence in the huddle, but needs to spend more time there. Also, needs to sort out his priorities after failing to meet any league members at Wembley.
• Solid draft. Excellent knowledge of depth charts, rosters and schedules. Played to teams strengths and weaknesses. The only thing that helped was low waiver order compared to competition which allowed him to pick up players to gain him the extra points at the latter stages.
• Would have got more if he didn’t make so many boring posts about the Rams (this may, in fact, be heavily influenced by the last 2 hours of the huddle and not actually be true)
• Absolutely hammered me twice and looking at his squad can understand why. Great depth and no St Louis players.
• Still a cunt to try and trade with, good team though.
• Obviously the absolute best coach, and dashingly handsome too.
• Consistent good performance, impressive stats.
• Went heavy on WR in the draft and got great value out of Pierre Thomas to compensate for a one dimensional rushing attack. A stuttering start lead to a monumental surge up the standings. Josh Gordon has to be one of the trades of the season too.
• Most overall points, won a tricky division

Dan Smith

• Had a great draft, didn’t need to do much of anything on the waiver wire for a good season. Steadfastly refused to trade Eddie Lacy to me (wisely), and foolishly ignored a deadline day trade for Adrian Peterson.
• Great record in one of the stronger divisions. Haven’t really looked at his team ever, but worth a COTY point or two.
• I always get the two Dan’s mixed up
• A coaching powerhouse, would have been top of my rankings but he let himself down by letting Slater win the Division. Great first name too.
• A good season for the All Stars with early round picks of Charles and Lacy paying off handsomely. His squad seems to have remained largely unchanged and you have to appreciate a coach that sticks with his boys.
• Started strong, but has faded badly, really tough division.
• Knows his onions. Dangerous. Second impressive year in a row.
• Just quietly went about his business. His lack of bragging and/or showmanship shows that he is slowly morphing into a true Canadian.
• A real force. Superb depth. Excellent trades a good draft too.

Dan Sayles

• Pulled off the trade of the season.
• Solid but not spectacular, fell away towards the end of the season, but always a threat. Good, funny huddleman.
• Excellent start but trailed off. Good squad. Superb WR choices dominating his field. His PLOB management should be commended.
• A solid year for the Bounty Program with a lethal 3 receiver set and a well-covered QB weakness. Somehow ended up with Ray Rice though so has to lose points for that.
• Should possibly have done better given the strength of his squad, will be one to watch in the playoffs.
• Cunt
• Started strongly, and then conceded the division to me in proper gentleman’s fashion.
• Again, always a strong showing from his side. A tough out.
• I always get the two Dan’s mixed up

David

• He’ll be insufferable if he actually does win but he’s done an outstanding job. good trades, good team selection, consistently high scores week after week.
• My CoTY. Superb draft, excellent depth. Some shrewd acquisitions and his power rankings meant that he had to use the WW carefully and he did well. A couple of his trades, i felt, were a little exploitative,but that’s more to do with him taking advantage rather than anything negative.
• Envy breeds disdain. A strong year for Slatz, which is why we all hate him with the fury of 1000 suns.
• Pains me to give the all time “go fuck yourself” champion some points but he’s worked hard this year.
• Refused to be distracted by my consistently ludicrous trade offers, and made some great ridiculous ones in return.
• There can be no doubt that David knows absolutely everything, even when he’s wrong. It would be very easy to give him no points but that would be to penalise his exemplary fantasy football skills (this season) for his personality. Been lucky with injuries, but a strong team with a good shout in the playoffs. Let’s knock him down a peg or two next year, eh?
• Must sort out Iran’s phone.
• Go J-E-T-S!
• Clearly a steam train of a coach and possible winner this season.
• Would have got more if he wasn’t, well, you know.
• Got a bit lucky and is unbearably smug
• Did he actively decide to become the new Gareth? We’ll never know I guess. Unless we ask him – maybe I’ll go ask him.
• Had a great draft, and kicked on from there. Enjoy his analysis and chat (is that a first?)
• It pains me so much
• Frankly managed to put together a great team from an inauspicious draft using relentless, whirlwind trading and endless reams of statistical beatdowns.
• A grudging one point for this years Gareth. Somehow lucked his way in to winning a division, I presume whoever manages the team isn’t the same idiot who comments on the huddle.

Geoffrey

• He had the best team name. That’s about it. That probably makes him more eligible for marketing exec of the year I guess.
• A good man. And thorough. The Factory weren’t up to snuff though
• very unlucky and tried with trades which never came off.
• Great guy, shit team.
• The team name says it all
• Getting four wins with that shower of awful was a great achievement.
• It all went wrong as soon as I stole Carson Palmer out from under his nose in the draft and he had to start the season with Josh Freeman. There’s no coming back from that.
• LOL! Deserves credit for his name change. Not much else to smile about.
• This poor bastard gets my one and only pity point…
• Geoffry’s fatalism in the face of insurmountable odds was a joy to behold this year. Zero points for coach of the year, but a pleasure to read on a weekly basis.
• Unlucky to lose his best two players to injury. However that’s karma for being a Wednesday fan.

Ian

• Pretty poor throughout. Some tough match ups on his part though.
• Owns the Cowboys D. Enough said.
• Is he dead?
• Nobody did less with more.
• Friends with David. Deserving of either pity of scorn.
• Who? Oh, Iran. Needs to huddle more. Then there might be some feedback.
• Tough division.
• It was always going to be a struggle with S-Jax, Stevan Ridley and Randall Cobb as your first three draft picks given how the season played out. Tough luck.

James

• Rookie coach, stunning season. Let’s chalk it down to beginners luck (whilst ignoring my lack thereof)
• A shrewd coach on the field and a gentleman on it. Well played, sir.
• For a first season, James has done amazingly well. Clearly a talent and next season will be interesting.
• He seems to have done really well without actually having any good players. Great coaching job.
• #1 seed, but doesn’t convince. One of the best, if not the best draft, but trades made the team worse.
• I shouldn’t mark myself but i have done well considering – strong draft, good picks off WW, especially that I was last choice apart from the last two weeks.
• Brilliant debut season from the league’s savant (idiot status yet to be confirmed/denied). Came from nowhere to be one of the favourites for the title. Who let him in?
• Never played before, really threw himself into it. Thoroughly good guy. Outstanding performance.
• Incredible performance by the rookie. Great draft, good luck with the Denver TE in particular, fine pickups during the season.
• Good draft. Got on the Bronco train early. A very serious young man.
• Good debut season, would have been higher except for his desperate attempts to trade me Alex Smith, again and again and again.
• Good all round season from a newcomer, though tailed off at the end a bit (as did I)

Jay

• Foolishly only scored decent amounts when the opposition was planning on scoring more.
• Should have done better with his draft position. Excellent last couple of weeks get the extra point,
• Truly embraced the spirit of the wooden spoon and went down fighting, snarling and biting to the bitter end. No points for you Jay, only respect.
• Great huddle presence. Probably better there than on the Jayhadis sideline.
• Some of it was bad luck, but mostly it was just bad.
• Maybe if we played Fantasy CFL he might have more of a chance?
• Even if I was allowed to I wouldn’t give myself a point.

Mark

• +2 points for ditching all his principles to take Manning. -1 point for keeping Trent Richardson.
• The Roster Doctor. The reason there is a Chatterbowl. We owe him our lives, our friendship, but that doesn’t mean he gets the trophy, just our undying love and respect. Snuck into the playoffs. Destined to fall at the first hurdle. Unless he models himself on the Giants.
• Mark gets 0 on principle.
• Just cos I like Mark really. I guess at least one of the points goes to Peter Manning though.
• The Roster Doctor was crippled by his inner Peter-related turmoil, but still managed have a decent season. Strong first half, but really dropped off when it started to matter. Much like Peter throughout his career. He’ll definitely choke in the playoffs too, like Peter.
• Strong, solid if unspectacular. Slightly over reliant on Peter Manning!
• Quietly snuck into the playoffs. Fully expect him to take home the Chatterbowl.
• The Doctor! The Brady bluff and the Peter Manning pick-up was probably the highlight of my season.
• I have to give Mark a point for somehow making it to the playoffs. How did you make it to the playoffs? Given that understrength lineup I can only assume it’s supreme coaching talent.

Mat

• First year, tremendous effort.
• Very good and solid. Some stellar weeks really showed how good his team was. Some questionable trade offers but in a strong division did very well.
• The best team not to make it to the post-season, Mat just left his charge a little bit too late which is a shame as I had him as a dark horse for the title.
• Highest scoring team to fail to make the playoffs speaks to a lack of luck. A pre-season favourite based on the draft but couldn’t quite coach the shit out of his team. He’ll be back, and deadlier than ever, no doubt.
• Too many Washington players on his roster to be a coincidence, closet racist.
• Extremely unlucky to drop into the bottom half of the playoffs.
• Good effort for a novice, bad luck to miss out on the playoffs

Max

• I especially like the over the top and unnecessary justification for each trade offer. Very entertaining.
• Much like the Jerk Store, came out of a competitive division. Has as good a chance as any. On a very good run.
• Won his Divison but I’ve run out of points. The alphabet has really fucked him over.
• Had no right to be a playoff team with 3 weeks to go, but really should have sewn the division up weeks ago.
• Defending champion unlikely to repeat but a spirited effort made the playoffs. A solid member of the huddling community. A prince among kings.
• What a roller coaster ride of the season. I hope he goes all the way.
• Just got better as it went on. Flew under the radar in a very tough division.
• Seemed out of the reckoning, but roared back into contention.
• A woeful home record suggests him team might have left him at home for road games.

Neil

• Oh dear. That is all.
• A ray of sunshine in the huddle it’s just a shame about the lineup. Something must have gone horribly wrong as Neil’s draft doesn’t even look that bad. That’s the rub of the green I suppose.
• It takes a lot of skill to only win 1 game until the final week of the season, then seek to sabotage draft position for next year,
• Some big scores for a team who someone only managed two wins. Needs a new defensive coordinator.
• Unrelentingly positive, even when being negative. Something needed in the huddle. Some odd decisions this season, but finished on a flurry. Onwards & upwards.
• He was shite. Mostly.
• The thinnest squad in the world. Either an auto drafted disaster or the ultimate inept coaching performance.
• Stuck at it in the face of loss after loss and injury after injury.

Pete

• Slow start overcome by some good coaching to make the playoffs. An outsider for the title but has laid down some markers for future years.
• Got better as the games went on. Won some important divisional match ups.
• You have to get kudos for rolling with a Chargers 1-2 punch at RB for the season but the Flakes were too tied to Andy ‘streakier than bacon rashers’ Dalton and the Chargers.
• Anyone that can coach the shit out of Andy Dalton deserves our respect.
• Yes, he’s made the playoffs, but he should feel as proud of that fact as the AFC’s #6 seed. Benefited from being in the worst division.

Phil

• Poor trades, a lack of faith.
• Won some games! How?
• Will live on eternally for Ingramgate and defying all the odds and managing to still be in the playoff runnings in the final week despite having only half a team for the whole season. Wait, that probably deserves a point actually.
• He started off dreadfully by making Stafford his keeper, and then seemed to decide that was going to be the high point of his season.
• 5 wins? from that dross? dreadful trades but still managed to coach THE SHIT out of his team. outstanding
• How did manage to get 5 wins with that pile of shit?
• Where do we start? Ingram for Marshall? Probably best to end it there too.
• A terrible draft and terrible trades, what more can be said? Surmounting impossible odds to get to where he ended up, you could give him 0 or 10 points. I’m giving him 0 though.
• To win any games given the choice of keeper, auto-drafting no running backs and the awful trades was quite an achievement.
• Mark Ingram for Brandon Marshall. Not so much as trade rape but ‘Trade 30 year career as a silver haired BBC light entertainment presenter.’
• He gets a point for managing to win matches despite his truly terrible draft.

Best Team Name

The Factory of Sadness x 12
West Cumbria Banana Slugs x 1
HeHe x 1
Carl Weather’s Tasty Stew x 1
Salt Lake City Dechlorinators x 1

Worst Team Name

Flutie Flakes, Jerk Store, Salt Lake City Dechlorinators, Bart Starr’s All Stars, Simian’s Saints x 2
Albuquerque Blue Sky, Holloway Honey badgers, Shite City Barons, Spunky Beans x1

Best Chatterbowl Moment

• Some awful shit chatted by D-Slatz at times but amusing.
• The Wembley game meat
• Ingram finally being dropped and then putting up his best week ever.
• Gareth
• Mark drafting Peter Manning
• Jay losing a match because of a score correction
• David winning the Go Fuck Yourself award every week
• The decision to have a dynasty league
• Mark’s stubborn insistence that Peyton is evil and shit
• Meeting most people at Wembley (fuck you Chris)
• It was pre-season, it wasn’t in the fantasy football, but was when fantasy ‘soccer’ was part of the huddle, and Pete called Jamie (RedDread) a cunt and he flounced
• Gareth! (“Hey Gareth”)
• My win against Slate. Makes the whole season worth it. Shame it turned out to be an early peak.
• Jay discovering the late score adjustment had screwed him out of a win or tie.
• Me and Mike staying up into the wee small hours during the Pats-Panthers game whilst incredibly drunk. We were sitting next to each other on the sofa ignoring each other whilst chatting to Mat and Mark in the huddle.
• It’s just one big stream of consciousness for me really so hard to pick out any particular moment.
• Geoffrey renaming his team to TFOS
• Thinking that I had tied a game, then finding out that the racists at ESPN had confused my player with another.

New Rules

• Later trade deadline if possible
• none. it worked fine.
• No trades involving future draft picks
• A later trade deadline.
• Revise the rules for draft order. Something influenced by basketball, whereby there’s a raffle for the first 8 picks. The worse your seeding at the end of the regular season the more chances you get in the raffle, but you also get more chances in the raffle for winning in the post season loser ladder. Thus tanking only gets you so far. And this is from someone who (sort of) tanked.
• No points for David, ever.
• Top of the losers bracket get’s 1st pick next year. Keep something to play for
• No Homers.
• Remove all of David’s draft picks.
• Absolutely no loans
• Everybody contributes £10 to the commissioner so he can go out for a sensational meal at the end of the season as a treat.

Superbowl Picks

Three people prove their idiocy… see below:

• Seattle – Kansas City. Winner: Seattle
• Seahawks (win) vs Broncos
• Seahawks v Broncos
• Goody and ChrisB
• Seahawks – Broncos: no other teams really convince you they can win on the road. Manning to win.
• Seahawks and Broncos and I’ll go Broncos to win
• Seahawks vs Broncos, Broncos win
• Seattle and Broncos. Broncos win.
• Bronco’s over Panthers
• Seahawks and Patriots and the Patriots will somehow
• Chris B and Myself. He will win.
• New England and Carolina. Carolina will win, and within 4 seconds someone will say “Sweet Carolina”.
• New Orleans Saints beat New England Patriots
• Patriots and Lions. Patriots win.
• Chris and Goody, Chris
• Giants vs Patriots, Giants win. Or Panthers over Broncos.

Winners:
Broncos x 6
Seattle x 2
Patriots x 2
Panthers x 1.5
Saints x 1
Giants x 0.5
Confusing the Superbowl with the Chatterbowl x 3
Naming teams but no winner x 1

Disappointment

• Peter Manning
• Sam Bradford getting injured. It still hurts me to think about it
• The RBs. Complete lottery
• 1. The Chargers’ D
• 2. The Texans
• 3. The Dolphins
• 4. Joe Flacco
• The NFLs continued non shit giving about player safety
• The Falcons. So bad the NFC East would turn them away.
• San Francisco have been pretty miserable. And the Green Bay defence, that’s one I take more personally.
• I’ll go with RG3s season. Not all his fault and he’s come back from injury but he was pretty hyped going into this year.
• The Redskins offence.
• Big name runner backs under performing
• Concussions and injuries in general
• The Houston Texans.
• Having to watch the Washington Racists each week
• Tebow hasn’t gone to the Jags.

Pleasant Surprise

• Panthers
• The fantasy football huddle
• Some teams who were completely written off proving people wrong
• The Redskins being terrible again. It made everything seem right with the world.
• The Eagles. Chip Kelly could well be everything he’s cracked up to be.
• Cammy-Cam
• My luck and Julius Thomas emerging as my 14th pick being up there with Jimmy Graham on TDs.
• 1. The Chargers’ O
• 2. The Bengals transcending an extremely limited QB
• 3. Reggie Bush (not really a surprise but still)
• 4. The Giants early season woes. I don’t like the Giants.
• The Jets won more than one game.
• Riverboat Ron!
• that the eagles weren’t the utter shambles I half expected
• The Kansas City Chiefs – hopefully they can stop the skid and play well in the playoffs.
• Kansas City Chiefs. A great start, and just solid in general.

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