Tie Game Gets the Boot

Thankfully, the rules in each of our survivor pools specifically stated that the team you pick needs to WIN their game. A loss or a tie results in getting eliminated from the pool. Not that I expected a tie. There hasn’t (pardon me, had not) been a tie since 2002, Falcons at Steelers, until this past week when the Eagles woefully underperformed and tied the Bengals, 13-13. Two entries had the Eagles in our original full season pool, and 4 in our 2nd half pool. Like I said, thankfully I included that in the pool rules, or we could have had a bit of a situation on our hands.

It was a tough week for one of our top pool players, Cacciatorini, who not only lost with Philly in both the original and 2nd half pools, but also the Falcons in the 2nd half pool with another entry. The Falcons seemed like a fairly safe bet going in, as the Falcons had been playing great, were only a game behind in the tough NFC South division, and were at home playing against a Broncos team that has been very average to below average lately, losing 3 of their prior 4 games. Furthermore, the Broncos already terrible defense was losing bodies left, right and center.

Ah, but sometimes when rookies and unheralded backups become de facto starters due to a wave of injuries, those players play with even a little more fire than the guys they replaced. It could be due to fresh legs. It could be due to, “hey, I may not get another shot at this.” Whatever it was, maybe the extra days since their prior Thursday night tussle with the Browns, and trying to stay a leg up in their own division race, the Broncos played well enough to upset the Falcons.

Its been tough knocking anyone out of our pools through the past few weeks. Maybe this is a little foreshadowing to a sudden mass exodus. Tread carefully…