The Year in Review - 1997

 

New Owners:  We began our fourth year with two new owners, Arnold Garcia and Keith Squier after Cory and Beaman left the Association.  Cory had finished last the two previous years and left with a 17-32-2 record and a 35.3% winning percentage.  In his honor we named the loser bowl championship, the Cory Dodd's Cannibal Bowl, after his team names in 1995 and 1996.  Beaman fared a little better winning 41.2% of his games (21-30) but never making the playoffs.  With a few free agents he could have done better but he was usually AWOL by October.  Jessie was promoted to a director but we decided to give him a "grandfather" exemption and allow him to stay in the league.  Jessie responded with "you are making excuses already. Director or not that trophy is mine and will be mine again this season. I expect at least 3 extra points in each game."

 

The Draft:  We changed the way we had drafted the three previous years.  Before, we had one draw for the draft order, and reversed it for even numbered rounds.  We found that teams with the 3rd to 7th picks seemed to fare better than the other picks.  We altered the draft to have a random draw for every odd round and reverse those for the following even rounds.  Another rule change is that we decided to give 1 point for yardage between 63 to 99 yards for runningbacks and receivers.  The draft was held in two parts with the first half at Mr. Gatti's and the second half at Legend's Sports Bar.  Mary picked Brett Favre with the first pick.  The rest of the top five were Emmitt Smith, Jerry Rice, Steve Young, and Barry Sanders.  Mary was picked as the preseason favorite with Bobby and Gary tied for second.

 

The Season:  Bobby began the year with eight consecutive wins with the 49ers and Terrell Davis scoring big.  Counting his four wins to close out 1996, Bobby won twelve games in a row.  The streak ended when he lost to Darrell 79-73 after a huge comeback by Darrell on a Monday night when there were two games played.  A Bears/Dolphins game, scheduled for Sunday, was flooded out and the game was played on Monday.  Bobby had taken the lead with the help of 20 points by Isaac Bruce.  Fortunately for Darrell, Warren Moon scored 27 points by throwing td's to Bruce.  Darrell got 27 points from Dorsey Levens and others on Monday night and Bobby had the record for most points scored in a losing cause.

 

The Playoffs:  Keith began the season at 7-2 after winning his first five games and Jessie started out at 8-3.  Martin lost eight games in a row after winning his first.  Mary began the season at 2-8.  Darrell started out at 2-5-1, in part, because Emmitt Smith did not score until week 8.  That week, Darrell traded Emmitt to Danny for Raymont Harris and Keyshawn Johnson, and his season began to turn around.  He went 5-1 and just made the playoffs at 7-6-1, after defeated Danny the final week, 54-40, for the last wildcard.  With an 11-3 record, Bobby claimed the #1 seed in the playoffs.  Despite losing his last 3 games, Jessie got the other bye with an 8-6 record.  Mike won the other division and faced Darrell in the first round.  On Thursday night, Darrell failed to start rookie Corey Dillon, who ran wild against Tennessee for 4 td's and 200+ yards.  Mike won the game by 1 point, 39-38.  Gary had an eight game win streak to finish 9-5 and faced Keith (10-4) in the other first round game.  Gary won 32-15 to force a matchup with #1 seed Bobby.  Jessie was on a four game losing streak, including a minus one-point game during the bye week.  But Mike scored only 9 points and Jessie won, 44-9 with the help of 18 points from tightend Ken Dilger.  For years Jessie had been arguing that we needed a run-and-shoot offense with no tightends.  Bobby defeated Gary, 73-29, with all eight of his starters scoring.  Before the title game, Jessie picked up QB Eric Zeier of Baltimore.  Bobby didn't know which Broncos runningback to start so he started both.  Neither did anything, and Zeier scored 15 points for Jessie, allowing him to win his second championship, 42-35.

 

Loser Playoffs:  Martin (3-11) and Rob (5-8-1) had the byes in the loser playoffs.  Rob's 4th win in a row sent Arnold to the Cannibal Bowl Championship to face Martin, who had lost to Danny.  Martin got 21 points from the Chiefs and defeated Arnold 32-28.  Arnold lost six of his final seven games while averaging only 28 points.

 

Milestones:  Jessie won the title despite being outscored by almost 14 ppg by Bobby, who led the league with over 53 ppg.  During week 7, Terrell Davis of the Broncos scored the WMDFFL's 25,000th point with his first quarter touchdown for Bobby on a Monday night verses the Patriots.  Brett Favre won the league MVP with 162 points.  Terrell Davis, the 49ers, and Cris Carter led their positions. 

 

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