The Year in Review - 1995

 

New Owners and the Draft:  We began our second year with two new owners, Mike Nezzer and Mary Lopez.  Johnathan had moved to California and Daniel just lost interest.  Jessie was picked as the unanimous preseason favorite coming off his DangerBowl I victory while Martin was picked to finish last for the second year in a row.  We held the draft at Mr. Gatti's on a Saturday afternoon.  With the first pick, Jessie selected Steve Young.  The rest of the top 5 were Dan Marino, Emmitt Smith, Marshall Faulk, and Drew Bledsoe. 

 

The Season:  Martin and Gary each won their first four games.  Danny was the Juggernaut though, and after a 10 game winning streak, he was 13-1 and averaging 62 ppg.  Cory was 1-6 with his lone victory an embarrassing 18-14 win over Beaman.  Others that struggled early include Mike at 1-4, Mary, who lost her first four games before beating Mike, and Beaman, who lost five in a row after winning the first game over Mike.  Defending Champion Jessie was 2-7 after a four game losing streak.  Mark was eliminated early at 3-8 after losing six in a row. 

 

Danny won his division by five games over Martin.  The other division was close but Gary lost three of the final five games while Darrell won five of his last six to win the division.  The lone loss was a 71-69 battle with Danny week 13.  Two weeks later, the two division champs met again the last week of the season with Darrell winning this time 60-57 to give Danny just his second loss of the season.

 

The Playoffs:  The playoffs featured Gary (10-5) at Danny (13-2) and Martin (8-7) at Darrell (11-4).  Danny and Darrell were each in the playoffs for the second time.  Danny beat Gary 65-47 with the 49ers and Rashaan Salaam each scoring 21 points.  Darrell smashed Martin by 52 points, 92-40, with five starters scoring 11 or more points, including 21 from Chris Warren and 30 from the Lions, a free agent pick that week.  The two best teams were in the finals! 

 

DangerBowl II:  Danny's starters included the 49ers, John Elway, Emmitt Smith, and Carl Pickens.  Darrell's main starters included Warren Moon, Marshall Faulk, Chris Warren, Robert Brooks and Cris Carter.  Darrell started eight more players than Danny during the year including eight different defenses.  In title game, Darrell started the Lions for the second time and got 30 points from them again.  Darrell had learned the year before with his loss to Jessie in DangerBowl I that NFL teams that clinch a division title early take it easy the last game of the season and sometimes get blown out.  This happened again, this time to Danny with the 49ers only scoring 3 points for him.  In his second attempt, Darrell had won the championship, 72-50.  Darrell had averaged 75 ppg while winning seven of his last eight.  Danny let the league in scoring and through 2000, was the only team to score over one thousand points with 1040, while Darrell just missed it with 998.

 

The Loser Playoffs:  Cory lost to Mark and become Loser of the Year with a 4-12-1 record.  Cory only scored 494 points while everyone else had at least 600.  His first three picks in the draft were the Cardinals, John Carney, K, and Ben Coates, TE.  Garrison Hearst led his eight runningbacks with 26 points, the Redskins led his eight defenses with 46 points, and Yancy Thigpen led his nine receivers with 18 points.  That's just pitiful and kind of sad.

 

Milestones:  Danny's 49ers (290 pts), Danny's Jason Elam (110), Beaman's Brett Favre (208), Danny's Emmitt Smith (204), Darrell's Mark Chmura (32), and Mark's Jerry Rice (132) led the league at their respective positions.  Brett Favre, who was the 7th pick in the draft, won the League MVP.  Darrell was the only team to score over 90 in 1995 and he did it twice.  Darrell also tied for the lowest score of the year with nine points during week 4 while Jessie did it week 7.

 

The Year in Review Links for 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004