The Year in Review - 1999
You know the Champs... Jessie, Darrell, Arnold and Mike
Those are the Owners we want to be like
But it could be bad; we've all heard the
stories
So we pray our team won't stink like
Cory's
Preseason Stuff: We
began the year with two new owners, Matthew Morgan and Neil LeBlanc. Rob Hunter decided to take a break after
three years in the league and Martin Rodriguez, a founding owner, moved to
Dallas. Martin made the playoffs 3 out
of five years but finished with a 36-47-2 record (43.5%). Jessie was picked as the preseason favorite
with Darrell and Bobby close behind.
Jessie was also picked as the owner you most want to beat and he
received no votes for the owner you most want to win the trophy. For the first time, the league had a web
page. In early October, the page
reached 1000 hits! Arnold's Fighting
Frijoleros was picked as the best team name with Bobby's Whoop-Ass a close
second. The draft took place at
Hooters. With the first pick, Steve
selected Brett Favre. The rest of the
top 5 were Terrell Davis, Randy Moss, Fred Taylor, and Antonio Freeman.
The Early Season: Two
great free agents were picked up after the first week. Mike got Stephen Davis, Was and Darrell got
Kurt Warner, SL. A big trade occurred
early in the season after Terrell Davis of Den tore his ACL. The injury left Darrell with Peyton Manning
and Kurt Warner but sorry runningbacks.
Darrell traded eventual league MVP Kurt Warner and others to Arnold for
Fred Taylor and others. Arnold began
the season at 0-3, but after the trade went 10-1-1. Arnold became the first team to lose his first two games and
still make the playoffs. The hot teams
early were Darrell at 6-1 and Bobby at 5-1-1.
Teams that struggled early included Mark at 1-8 (he lost his first
five), Gary at 1-7 (he won his first game), and Keith at 2-5.
Week 8 was the match up
between division rivals Darrell at 6-2 and Mike at 5-3. They placed a bet that the winner had to pay
the loser $5. After Sunday's games
Darrell was up by 13 but Mike had Jeff George (Min) against Dallas on Monday
night. They both thought that the other
would win so they asked Bob the Sage what would happen and who would win. He replied that Jeff George would throw for
3 td's, 230 yards, and 1 int and that the game would end in a tie. Bobby missed it by a yard. George threw 3 td's, 229 yards, and 1
int.
The Playoffs: That
tie was the only blemish on Mike's record until the last week. Mark and Gary were eliminated early while
Mike and Arnold were first to clinch.
Mike went 9-0-1 while averaging 65 ppg to win the #1 seed. Arnold won the other bye by beating Bobby
the last week and finished with a 9-4-1 record. In the first round, Bobby trounced Steve 71-44 and Darrell got 10
pts from Fred Taylor to eliminate Neil 56-51.
In the second round, Bobby got 22 pts from Brad Johnson to counter Kurt
Warner's 17 for Arnold to help Bobby win 62-58. Mike thumped Darrell 58-32 with Edgerrin James scoring 22 for
Mike. The title game featured 1996
Champion Mike versus the 1997 runner-up Bobby.
These two teams had met during the first week of the season with Bobby
winning.
DangerBowl VI:
That weekend Bobby was at the
hospital with his wife while she was going through labor. "I picked up my scoresheet on Saturday
night because I had been getting on my wife's nerves and she told me to take a
break and go get something to eat" said Bob. "The only reason I came by to get the scoresheet was because
I was in the title game. I got to bring
my wife and newborn daughter home on DangerBowl Sunday at about 1:00. I didn't get to watch much football that day
obviously but later that night when I got on the internet to get the box scores
for the games to see who had scored, I started seeing that my guys were getting
some points and Mike's were not. I told
my wife that I actually might win the damn thing and she did not believe
me. That will be a day I never
forget." Bobby won DangerBowl VI,
58-37. Despite an effort by some owners
to go to Sugar's, we celebrated Bob's triumph at Fuddruckers. Mike finished with a 3rd best ever 990 points
scored during the season.
In the loser's bracket,
the Cannibal Bowl Championship placed Mark at 2-12-1, who had lost to Keith,
and Gary, at 2-14, who had lost to Jessie 31-30. Gary lost 37-27 and set the record for the fewest wins (2) and
the most losses (15) in a season. Gary
lost his last 8 games to tie a record.
In other postseason games, the league had the first ever tie in the
postseason when Danny and Matthew each scored 34 points. Danny's top three backup's enabled him to
win.
Milestones: Week
15 was the 100th week of the WMDFFL.
During week 6, Danny beat Gary to record the 500th win and the 500th
loss in league history. The season
finished with the league scoring 11 fewer points than last year, 9358 to
9369. Darrell set a record by having
83.1% of his starters score during the season.
Kurt Warner won the league MVP after being picked up as a free agent and
being traded. Mike scored a record 313
points from his runningbacks, which included Edgerrin James and Stephen
Davis. Bobby set a record by having all
eight of his starters score during a week 5 times. It only happened twice the first two years of the league.
On January 11, 2000, we got some terrible news. Our friend, coworker, and former league owner, was killed while riding his motorcycle. To honor him, we bought a larger and nicer trophy. We named it the Robert L. Hunter Championship Trophy. We all miss him.
The Year in Review Links for 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004