Cubit
1601
Haha, well just send me a PM when you know what shakes out. I’m pretty free tonight.
I’m available anytime after 5 or 6pm PST.
Let me know.
My weekend has become fully booked since yesterday. Can you do Monday night, say 7 PST?
Hey NOOU we’re up this week, lemme know when brudda!
That’s Week 7, yo. It’s Week 6 currently; both of us got a bye.
So you admit your running from us…that’s cool. :p
Aki
1607
Let’s aim for Monday at 9 EDT. If we see each other online prior to that, I’d be up for knocking it out extemporaneously too.
Wait, what? Who is Mizzou Rob? For some reason I didn’t think we had any humans in the AFC west, but my game this week is against his Broncos. Mr Mizzou, whoever you are, Monday or Tuesday around 8-9 EST is best for me.
Mizzou Rob is me. I changed my gamertag recently. I will shoot for Tuesday around 5 PST. Sorry, I picked a division where I thought the division would be baby friendly.
49ers 24 - Vikings 17
The Niners eked out a crucial home win against the Vegas Vikings. We traded field goals in the first quarter. The second quarter was all about turnovers. Shaun Hill struggled with his accuracy all day and threw two pics in the second quarter. Nate Clements snagged an errant pass in the endzone but I stupidly tried to get him free and got tackled at the 2. On my first play I rolled the dice and threw a quick fade to Crabtree who proceeded to break a tackle and run all the way to the Viking 9 yard line, only to fumble and give the ball back to Rob. He made the best of it and hit Percey Harvin off play action for a 91 yard score. 10 - 7 Vikings at the half. After starting the third quarter near midfield my offense marched down the field and Frank Gore scored his first TD. On the ensuing kickoff Harvin struck again, picking up some great blocks and breaking tackles for a 102 yard kickoff return TD. San Fran got the ball back and after a long drive Gore caught a screen on third and short and took it 35 yards to tie the game. My defense took over in the late third and fourth quarter: we kept AP to just 46 yards rushing, got 3 interceptions, and made up for the offense’s early problems with solid tackling and tough coverage. After a 3 and out the offense came back out and on the third play of the drive Gore waded through the defense and ran 64 yards to the endzone and the game winning score. Gore was the MVP of the game by a wide margin, scoring all three of our TDs and gaining a season high 197 yards on the ground. If it weren’t for all of my stats from game 3 not being added to my season totals he would be leading the league in rushing by two yards over Giovanni “the Genetic Freak” Girley.
Cool. Since you’re PST, if you want to start later I’m fine with that, I just can’t start any earlier.
Looking forward to the game.
Strummer! The Saints and Panthers meet this week to try to establish the leader in the NFC South. When are you available, once the week has rolled over?
And in checking the scores, you took it to early favorite Cleveland! How in the world do we not have a recap of Giovanni Girley’s mortality being proven?
This! Not that I’m not over the moon with glee about one of my divisional rivals finally being tripped up, but HOLY CATS LOOK AT THE NUMBERS. What did you do?
Yeah, WTF happened? How in the world does Girley finish with -4 yards rushing?
Must’ve been a battle of the run defenses, and obviously Ryan’s wasn’t up to the task, as DeAngelo Williams gets 204 yards and 4 TDs for the Panthers.
Did you play the AI or something? Or did his Faustian bargain with the Madden gods expire?
Mizzou Rob couldn’t make it last night so once again I will submit to the whims of the Madden Simulation gods. Looks like the Bears are up next. Technoverse, I might be around over the weekend, but Mon. or Tuesday evenings is usually better for me. Anytime after 8pm EST.
Speaking of Faustian bargains - Omniscia! Your 1-4 Bucs face my 1-4 Steelers in what is destined to be a slugfest of Epic Fail. When’s a good time for our soon-to-be-shipped-to-NFL-Europe teams to meet up in the least-watched game of the week?
This is actually the type of game I really want to watch. I might have to sit in on the Party line to hear what happens.
The Office and 30 Rock are both in reruns this week, so I could probably do sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 pm EST on Thursday. Or, if not then, the weekend is flexible. But Thursday night seems to have been a pretty good option thus far.
Be my guest. Good to have some color commentary.
Heh, I am just as shocked about the outcome as you guys (and I’m sure Ryan is too).
In my estimation, it really boiled down to the Panthers’ strengths and weaknesses (on a player level, my approach and play calling tendencies) seemed to match up favorably for this game. Additionally there is always some amount of luck involved in Madden and at times it seems the game has predetermined particular outcomes. And then there is just that I executed one of my better games and, perhaps, Ryan would feel this was not one the better games he has played.
As for stopping the Browns’ running game:
[ul]
[li]My D-line was able to get penetration against his O-line. I usually control a DT and Kemoeatu was usually able to get a great push[/li][li]My OLBs were in a good position and able to really fly up to support the outside runs and stuff them behind the line.[/li][li]I rarely blitz, but the couple times I blitzed up the middle they worked well - even brought down his QB before he could pitch the ball a time or two[/li][li]Got an early lead, stuffed a couple of the Browns runs early and controlled the clock through my running game seemed to lead them to go to the air more often (I think the Browns only attempted about a dozen runs)[/li][/ul]
One of key plays in the game to me was the the 70-yd TD pass to Smith. Carolina is obviously a run-first team and I try to occasionally run a play-action, but they usually end up in either a sack or having to hurriedly chuck the ball away because the Panther O-line just allows too much penetration on PA plays. This time, however, it worked. Smith had a man press coverage which he was able to slip by and get a step ahead of the defender while Delhomme threw a rare perfect pass to hit him in stride. Now whether that had any impact on Ryan’s play calling I cannot say, but I am sure Ryan is used to playing with a lead and against teams that pass much more frequently than I do. That, combined with the Panthers O-line seemed to have their way with the Browns front seven and the Browns inability to wrap up, made for some decent holes to run through and I was able to consistently run the ball.
There were also the examples of DeAngelo Williams being DeAngelo Williams and Madden 10 being Madden 10:
[ul]
[li]Williams hurdled over a DB Ryan was controlling on his way to a long TD in the 3rd quarter[/li][li]He also broke through a pile of would be tacklers for his third TD of the game[/li][/ul]
Overall it was a fun and competitive game, at least until the 4th quarter. I am sure if we had a rematch the results wouldn’t look the same.
I’d say you and I are set up for Game of the Week, then. New Orleans is coming off a hot streak, winners of four in a row with a high-octane passing offense and a suddenly punishing, opportunistic defense after the trade for OLB Lamarr Woodley and the drafting of OLB James Sneed - but their one loss to the Ravens was thanks to a punishing ground attack that never slowed down and put Brees behind early, leading to a five-pick nightmare.
Carolina’s power running game just upset the early Super Bowl favorite in dominating fashion, holding the league’s leading rusher to negative yards and DeAngelo Williams making a statement that he’s the league’s best rusher. Last season Carolina and New Orleans matched up for one of the most entertaining games of the year, with victory coming off a swing pass on a two-point conversion with less than a minute remaining, and the Saints then held on to win even after fumbling away the game-sealing interception.
If the Saints win, they take control of the NFC South, with a bye and the Bucs coming up after that. They could go into the halfway point of the season with a commanding 7-1 record. If the Panthers win, they send a message that the Saints will need to play mistake-free football to hold onto the division lead through the end of the year.
Either way, this is gonna be AWESOME.
How’s Thursday night sound?
Meanwhile, coming into week 7, the Steelers have already had their bye week and their free win against the Chefs, and the remainder of the season looks… less than promising. Thankfully, both our division games against the Cleveland Oranges are in the books, so that particular mugging is over and done with.
Going forward from here, Pittsburgh is looking at both our Ravens games - and believe me, pucker factor is high after looking at Fuzzyslug’s record. We’ve got the Bengals, but I think we can teach them a thing or two with some hospital ball. Carson Palmer’s knee has a bullseye on it once more and we will have no qualms about unleashing hell.
Outside of the division - four games against the AI. I want to say “Easy wins!” but one of those AI teams is the Dolphins and they’ve carved some folks up. My remaining human opponents outside my division are…
- Omniscia and the Bucs. I’m actually looking forward to an evenly-matched team!
- Strummer and the Panthers. Ow. Just leave the money on the dresser, please.
- The Bills? Hey, the Bills! … oh shit, that’s James “91 points!” Gutierrez, innit? Half my team is cowering in fear and the other half is sharpening their knives. Put those knives down, Hines Ward.
- and then DGS and the New Jersey Yets. I refuse to lose to a team from Jersey. We have our pride! Somewhere…
