ISFL NEWLETTER |
The
Internet Simulation Football League Newsletter
Volume #19 Issue #19 – January 8, 2016
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Current League Officers
Commissioner: Mark McNeil (blades99@rochester.rr.com)
League Statistician: Mark McNeil (blades99@rochester.rr.com)
ISFL
WWW site: http://www.blades99.com/ISFL/ISFL.htm
ISFL
Review Board: Jeff
Barricelli, Dave Stewart, Don Antonelli
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LEAGUE NOTES
I.
Message from the Commissioner
II.
News from Around the League
III.
Standings
IV.
Wild Card Results
V.
Divisional Round Schedule
VI.
Transactions
VII.
Other News including Players of the Week
I.
MESSAGE FROM THE COMMISSIONER
The
wild card round is complete, with an upset and four good games. Files
are located on the main page of the website and you can get started
setting games up with them due on 1/11/16.
Good luck to all in your quest for the Super Bowl.
Please feel free to send nominations for the awards and thanks to
the teams have done them so far link is on the website.
Also the ballot discussion is under way if you have any input you
would like to give or proposals to add.
Game files are located on the website for the end of the regular
season. Please make sure you
get started on game contacts asap, home teams should make contact by
Wednesday and the game should be set up no later than Thursday of each
week.
I
can’t stress enough that you need to IMMEDIATELY send me your game
export when the game is complete.
Send your write up later on, that’s fine, but I MUST have the
game export as soon as the game ends or I’ll have to sim the game to
keep things moving along if it is missing at the deadline.
Don’t
forget, if you lose a player for 2 or more games, you can ask for an
injury replacement, but it must be done the same week as the injury, so
don’t wait, get those requests in right away and take advantage,
especially the teams who are already challenged for the amount of games
they have to work with.
Also, be sure you give me enough names as the more injuries the more
likely someone else already grabbed the guy you want.
Reminder that you MUST send a boxscore and writeup to the league after
each game. The home team is
responsible for this, but either team can do it, as long as it does get
done. Also, you MUST send me
the game export immediately after the game is complete.
It takes about 30 seconds, so I shouldn’t have to chase you down
for that file after a game, just get it in right away so I don’t have to
guess whether a game has happened or not.
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II.
News from Around the League
AFC
Wild Card Round Recaps
BRONCOS FALL TO COWBOYS, 34-28
Denver, December 30th, 2015: Drew Brees completed 31 of 42 passes
for 345 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Dallas COwboys to an upset
victory over the Denver Broncos in an AFC Wild Card matchup.
But it was
two turnovers by the Broncos that greatly helped the Cowboys upset
Denver. Trailing by six at 27-21, the Broncos lost two fumbles in the
fourth quarter, one by Tre Mason at the Dallas 23, and the other by
Perrish Cox at the Broncos 29.
While the
Mason fumble denied the Broncos a chance to put points on the board and
maybe take the lead, the Broncos defense stepped up and forced a punt
and that proved to be the Broncos undoing - as Cox fumbled the ensuing
punt return and long snapper Stefan Wisniewski recovered at the Denver
29 yard line.
"You can't
turn it over in this league and hope to win," Bronco head coach Hank
Sienzant said after the game, "especially not against a team with an
offense like the Dallas Cowboys. You're just giving them extra chances
to score, and there's only so many times you can put a defense in a hole
like that. The first fumble hurt, but we got the ball back, or so we
thought. But we win and lose as a team, and we just didn't do enough in
the three phases of the game to overcome the mistakes we made.
Congratulations to the Cowboys and head coach Dan Roach on the victory.
They deserved it and did a heck of a job against us."
After the
fumble, LeSean McCoy ran three times for 18 yards, picking up a first
down, but after a incomplete and a penalty, the Cowboys faced a third
and goal from the Denver 12. On the next play Brees calmly stood in the
pocket and waited for veteran wideout Reggie Wayne to break open and
Brees hit him to put Dallas up by 13 at 34-21 with just 6:23 to play.
On the first
play after the kickoff return to the 21, dynamic rookie running back Tre
Mason made up for his earlier fumble by breaking four tackles on a
pitchout around left end, and raced 79 yards to a stunning touchdown to
cut the Dallas lead to just 34-28 with 5:56 left in the game.
Each team got
the ball back twice in the remaining minutes, and the first three
possessions (two by Dallas, one by Denver) ended in three-and-outs, and
punts by each team.
The Broncos
got the ball back with 1:56 remaining for the final time at their own
37, and managed to get the ball to the Dallas 32, but could get no
closer. Foles final two passes of the game fell incomplete, with the
final one tipped away by Darrelle Revis at the goal line as time expired
to give the Cowboys the win.
Both teams
scored on their opening drives of the game, with Denver taking the
opening kickoff and driving 83 yards in eight plays to score, with
Lorenzo Taliaferro banging over from two yards out for the score. The
march was highlighted by two 11 yards Foles to Bowe connections, and an
exceptional 33 yard run off-tackle by Ronnie Hillman to the Dallas two
yard line. Mason had 23 yards on three carries on the opening drive.
But the
Cowboys came right back, and they drove 80 yards in ten plays to a
touchdown of their own, with Brees sneaking over from inches out on
second and goal. Brees went 5-5 on the drive, completing passes to four
different receivers. LeSean McCoy added 21 yards on four rushes.
To stop the
Denver running game, the Cowboys, who had opened in a 4-3, went to a 4-4
as their base defense for most of the rest of the game after
surrendering a touchdown on the opening drive. And it worked on the next
Denver possession, as the Broncos could not convert a third and two
after having a first and five because of an encroachment penalty against
the Cowboys.
Once Dallas
got the ball back, they marched to a 54-yard Steven Hauschka field goal
on a nine-play, 37-yard drive. THe Broncos forced the field goal when
Prince Amukamara stopped Reggie Wayne three yards short of the first
down at the Denver 35 yard line.
The Broncos
took the lead back at 14-10 on just three plays, and Tre Mason broke a
19-yard run right up the middle against the Dallas 4-4 defense, then
Nick Foles completed passes to Rueben Randle for 14, and to Golden Tate
accross the middle for the touchdown on a nice catch and run by Tate.
The touchdown pass covered the final 47 yards of the possession. That
touchdown came with just 2:34 elapsed in the second quarter. Up to that
point, the Bronco offense was moving the ball crisply and gaining
yardage in big chuncks. Over the next 36:26, until the final six minutes
of the contest, the Broncos could score only one more touchdown as the
Cowboys offense and defense inexorably took control of the game. In that
time, the Cowboys outscored Denver 24-7.
The Cowboys
got three back almost immediately on a Hauschka field goal to salvage a
nice seven-play, 71-yard drive that started when Brees hit Wayne for a
49-yard gain on a bomb down the sideline, and ended when Connor Barwin
got a strip sack of Brees (recovered by Dallas guard Vladimir Ducasse)
in the red zone to put Brees in a third-and-14 hole he could not get out
of.
After three
possessions ended in puts, the Cowboys got the ball back with 1:57
remaining in the half and marched to the go-ahead touchdown, scoring
with just seven seconds left on the clock on a third and 12 from the
Denver 19, with Brees connecting with tight end/wide out Jimmy Graham
for the score. Dallas overcame a sack of Brees by Jason Pierre-Paul when
cornerback Kareem Jackson got called for pass interference on a
third-and-17. That touchdown made it 20-14 at the half.
The Broncos
got the only touchdown of the third quarter by coming off their own goal
line on a drive that lasted nearly eight minutes and took 17 plays to go
97 yards for the touchdown, with Lorenzo Taliaferro scoring his second
touchdown from short yardage, this time from a yard out. The biggest
gain was a Foles to Randle 25 yard pass on a long slant to move the ball
to the Cowboy 37. That touchdown gave Denver their final lead of the
contest at 21-20.
GAME NOTES: LeSean McCoy had 104 yards rushing on 25 rushes, averaging
4.2 per carry. Tre Mason had 181 yards on 20 carries, averaged an
incredible 9.1 per carry despite Dallas' best efforts to stop him, and
scored once.
Nick Foles
finished with 16 of 26 for 217 yards and one touchdown, with only one
sack and no picks. He finished with a 101.0 passer rating. Brees had, as
noted above, 31 of 242 for 345 and two touchdowns, but was sacked five
times. The Broncos appeared to have another sack and fumble recovery
early in the third quarter, when Jacquies Smith had a strip sack of Drew
Brees and recovered the ball himself. But after a conference, the ball
was ruled to have come out just after Brees' arm was coming forward,
making it just an incomplete pass.
Reggie Wayne
caught seven passes for 117 yards and one score, while Andre Johnson had
eight for 88 yards for the Cowboys. Rueben Randle had six receptions for
83 yards to lead the Broncos in those receiving categories.
Cornerback
Johnthan Banks was the Cowboys leading tackler with seven tackles.
Brandon Graham had the only sack of Foles, while Cliff Avril had the
forced fumble on Mason and recovered the lose ball. Backup linebacker
Brad Jones was credited with the forced fumble on the Cox fumble on the
punt return.
For the
Broncos, they had several defensive standouts. Connor Barwin was a
terror all day, with eight tackles, three sacks, three hurries, a forced
fumble, and a stuff. Jason Pierre-Paul had two sacks and three tackles,
while Dont'a Hightower had seven tackles.
INJURIES: The Broncos lost Delanie Walker in the fourth quarter for
their final two possessions, which hurt as Walker is a key cog as both
an excellent blocker and reliable receiver. Just before the lost Mason
fumble, Walker caught a big deep pass for 28 yards to move the ball to
the Dallas 32. He finished with two receptions for 37 yards. The Cowboy
lost Reggie Bush with a wrist injury early in the contest, and he'll be
a game-time decision next week. Bush is an equally big part of the
Cowboys passing offense. Before he went out, he ran once for eight yards
and caught one pass for four more.
A LOOK AHEAD: Dallas will travel to first seed (and
15-1) Tennessee in the divisional round. Dallas lost twice in two tight
games to Tennessee in the regular season, 19-13 in Dallas in week four,
and 20-17 in Tennessee in week 16. The Broncos will have a final
team meeting tomorrow, and then will start compiling analytics on the
upcoming draft and reviewing plenty of game film in preparation for the
draft to be held probably sometime in May.
Indianapolis at Cleveland
In a game of shifting momentums, Browns
get up top early, Colts battle back but fall short.
Philadelphia at St. Louis
The Eagles knocked off the
Rams in an old-school defensive struggle, 14 to 10 in St. Louis. The
Eagles needed a late defensive stand to preserve the win. Philadelphia
will now head to Detroit to play the undefeated Lions in the NFC
Divisional Round.
The MVP of the game was
Elvis Dumervil who had a career game, and probably the best individual
defensive game in Eagles history considering the circumstances. All
Dumervil did was score the first points of the game with a first quarter
sack/safety of Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford. He also ended the
game with a "walk-off sack" with the Rams threatening from the 2 yard
line with 10 seconds left. In between those two monster sacks, all
Dumervil did was rack up 3 more sacks giving him 5 total to go along
with 8 tackles.
As noted above,
Philadelphia started the scoring with a first quarter safety. With less
than a minute left in the first quarter, the Rams put together their
first significant drive going 78 yards in 7 plays and ending in a 39
yard touchdown pass from Stafford to Malcolm Floyd.
In the second quarter the
teams trailed field goals including one from the Eagles' Nick Folk with
time expiring in the half. The Rams led at the half by the score of 10
to 5.
The third quarter continued
the trend of little offense, no turnovers, and lots of punting. The
only score was a 2 yard run by the Eagles' Alfred Morris finishing off
an 11 play, 90 yard drive. The Eagles missed the two point conversion.
At the end of three quarters, the Eagles led 11 to 10.
With 8 minutes left in the
game, the Eagles added a little bit of insurance with a field goal to
increase the lead to 14 to 10. The Rams next possession resulted in -7
yards and a punt. Philadelphia took over with about 7 minutes left.
The Eagles ran the clock down to about 3 minutes. They had converted a
big third down, but a holding penalty cancelled it out resulting in a
punt.
The Rams took over at their
own 5 yard line needing to go 95 yards in 2:48 with 2 timeouts and the
two minute warning remaining. Unfortunately, for Coach Robinson they
only made it 93 yards. The drive lasted 10 plays. There was a 58 yard
completion to Jeremy Maclin and a 23 yard pass to Dontrelle Inman to key
the drive. The Rams had 1st and 10 from the Eagles 13 yard line and
1:10 remaining. Two short passes left them with 1st and goal at the 2
yard line with 10 seconds left. The first play was an incompletion. On
the next play Dumervil came crashing through the line sacking Stafford.
The Rams tried to line up for one last play but the clock expired.
The Eagles offense was
balanced. Peyton Manning completed 21 of 39 passes for 222 yards.
Alfred Morris ran 24 times for 84 yards and a TD. Calvin Johnson had 5
catches for 74 yards.
The Eagles did a great job
bottling up the run all day. The Rams leading rusher was Stafford with
11 yards. Maclin was the best offensive performer for St. Louis with 7
catches for 128 yards. Stafford completed 18 of 38 passes for 279 yards
and a TD.
Seattle at Arizona
Brady throws for 3 TD's and ARZ defense holds
high flying Seahawks offense (reasonably) in check.
Coming up in the AFC Tennessee will try and keep their momentum rolling
as they face Dallas for the third time this season, holding a pair of
regular season wins. Dallas is coming off an upset win over Denver in
round 1 where they had a great game from their QB Drew Brees.
Looking at the stats the teams are pretty evenly matched with the
Titans holding a slight edge in scoring offense and this one may well be
another shootout as the teams fight for a chance to move to the
conference championships. In
the other matchup we have Cleveland heading to New England, two teams
who played in week 10 and fought to the end in a 34-31 tight win for the
visiting Patriots. Again we
have two big offenses and fairly even defenses and it may come down to
the Patriots offense which was just a bit better over the entire season
and will need to be to keep things rolling towards the big game.
Coming up in the NFC Detroit will try and keep their perfect season
rolling against an Eagles team who pulled a slight upset as the road
team in the Wild Card round.
Detroit handled Philly back in week 6, 16-7 in a slopping contest, but
overall the Lions have the stronger offense and are also a bit better on
defense and the Eagle will have their work cut out for them to try and
stay in this one and pull their second straight upset.
The opposite game is a huge divisional rivalry between division
champs New Orleans and Arizona who finished 2 games back.
The Saints won both regular season meetings but only by a total
of 9 points combined and the stats show a pair of pretty evenly matched
squads, so will home field advantage be enough to swing the game in the
Saints direction or do the Cards finally solve them and move on to the
conference championship?
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III. STANDINGS
http://www.blades99.com/ISFL/Standings15.htm
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IV.
RESULTS – Week 17 Results
Seattle 13
Arizona 28
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V.
SCHEDULE
Divisional Round
VI.
TRANSACTIONS
AFC
BUF –
CLE –
DEN –
HOU –
IND –
MIN – NE
-
NYJ –
PIT –
SF
-
TEN –
NFC
ARZ –
ATL -
CAR –
DET –
GB
-
KC
-
MIA –
PHI –
SEA –
STL –
DRAFT
PICKS FORFEITED:
TB #5
‘15 – No Long Snapper
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VII.
OTHER NEWS:
PLAYERS OF THE WEEK:
WEEK
ONE
OFFENSE: Tom Brady, ARZ – 31 of 43 for 405 yards, 4 TDs
WEEK
TWO
OFFENSE: Nick Foles, DEN – 23 of 27 for 332 yards, 5 TDs
DEFENSE: Ndamkong Suh, JAX – 3 sacks, 5 tackles
WEEK
THREE:
OFFENSE: Leveon Bell, CLE – 28 carries, 212 yards, 2 TDs
DEFENSE: George Selvie, MIA – 3 sackes, 8 tackles
WEEK
FOUR:
OFFENSE: CJ Anderson, MIA – 29 carries, 199 yards, 1 TD
DEFENSE: JJ Watt, SEA – 3 sacks, 5 tackles
WEEK
FIVE:
OFFENSE: CJ Anderson, MIA – 25 carries, 161 yards, 2 TDs
DEFENSE: DeAndre Levy, HOU – 18 tackles
WEEK
SIX:
OFFENSE: Demaryius Thomas, STL – 10 catches, 155 yards, 3 TDs
DEFENSE: Michael Brockers, ATL – 3 sacks, 4 tackles
WEEK
SEVEN:
OFFENSE: Dez Bryant, CAR – 14 catches, 246 yards, 2 TDs
DEFENSE: Timmy Jernigan, SD – 3 sacks, 8 tackles
WEEK
EIGHT:
OFFENSE: Marshawn Lynch, DET – 17 carries, 130 yards, 3 TDs
WEEK
NINE:
OFFENSE: Demarco Murray, MIN – 34 carries, 172 yards, 2 TDs
DEFENSE: Cameron Wake, NE – 4 sacks, 5 tackles
WEEK
TEN:
OFFENSE: Derek Carr, CAR – 29 of 38 for 365 yards, 5 TDs
DEFENSE: Parys Haralson, IND – 5 sacks, 9 tackles
WEEK
ELEVEN:
OFFENSE: AJ Green, SEA – 7 catches for 215 yards, 3 TDs
DEFENSE: Sheldon Richardson, CAR – 3 sacks, 4 tackles
WEEK
TWELVE:
OFFENSE: Le’Veon Bell, CLE – 28 carries, 179 yards, 3 TDs
DEFENSE: Elvis Dumervil, PHI – 4 sacks, 7 tackles, 2 hurries, 2 forced
fumbles, safety
WEEK
THIRTEEN:
OFFENSE: Tre Mason, DEN – 22 carries, 179 yards, 2 TDs
DEFENSE: William Gay, SF – 15 tackles
WEEK
FIFTEEN
OFFENSE: Aaron Rodgers, IND – 25 of 39 for 350 yards, 4 TDs
DEFENSE: Demarcus Ware, JAX – 3 sacks, 4 tackles, 1 INT
WEEK
SIXTEEN
OFFENSE: Antonio Brown, CAR – 19 catches, 285 yards, 4 TDs
DEFENSE: Paul Kruger, NE – 4 sacks, 8 tackles
WEEK
SEVENTEEN
OFFENSE: Marshawn Lynch, DET – 17 carries, 145 yards, 2 TDs
DEFENSE: Calaise Campbell, NO – 3 sacks, 3 tackles
WILDCARD ROUND
OFFENSE: Drew Brees, DAL – 31 of 42 for 345 yards, 2 TDs
DEFENSE: Elvis Dumervil, PHI – 5 sacks, 8 tackles, 1 safety
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