The Year in Review - 2005

The Preseason:  We had ESPN manage our league again.  This season we decided to try out ESPN's waiver system.  Each owner would make their waiver requests and ESPN would process them on Thursday beginning with the worst team.  It ended up working pretty good.  No fist fights.  We had the same twelve owners as last season.  We voted 3-9 against kicking out the last place owner and raising the number of roster spots to 16 barely failed at 7-5.  We did vote for awarding $20 each to the Survivor winner, high score in a game, and high score for week 17.

 

We had the draft at the Tilted Kilt.  Emmitt took Peyton Manning with the first pick.  The rest of the top five were Donovan McNabb, LaDainian Tomlinson, Shaun Alexander, and Priest Holmes.  Mike was voted the preseason champ for the third year in-a-row with Bobby and Darrell not far behind while Emmitt was picked to repeat his last-place finish.  Darrell had the favorite team name with the Beer Belly Bullies ahead of Steve's Bigfoot BallBreakers.  Mark finished just ahead of Gary for owner we would like to see win while Danny won again for owner we would most like to thump. 

The First Half:  Emmitt started the season at 5-1 despite averaging only 45 ppg.  He scored less than 40 points in two of those victories.  Keith lost his first game to Emmitt and then won five of six.  Mike was also 5-2 after the first seven games.  Darrell started 1-6.  Neil lost his first five before beating Darrell.  Bobby started 2-6 before beating Darrell.  Danny started 3-6 before beating Darrell.  All four were eliminated with two weeks remaining. 

The Second Half:  Keith finished 8-1 while averaging 59 ppg to get the number one seed.  Brian won his last six to get the #2 seed.  Emmitt also won six in-a-row to grab the first wildcard.  After twelve seasons, Emmitt was the first owner with the #1 draft pick to make the playoffs.  Steve, the defending champ, was the next eliminated.  This was the first time Steve had missed the playoffs since his rookie season in 1998.  The final weekend, Mike beat Gary to win his division and eliminate Gary.  Mark won the other division at 6-6-1 while Jessie got the last wildcard at 7-6 with the tiebreaker over Steve and set a record with his league leading 9th trip to the playoffs.   

The Playoffs:  In the first round, Mike spanked Jessie 76-41 while Emmitt, seeded 5th, upset 4th seeded Mark 53-46.  In the second round, Brian knocked out Mike, 86-54, while Keith had his worst game of the season and let Emmitt win 30-22.  Keith was only down four points with four players to go on Monday night.  Favre and the Packers got wasted and Keith lost points to put Emmitt in the championship game.  This was Emmitt's fourth victory of the season when scoring less than 40.  This was the 5th time in six tries that Keith had lost in his first playoff game.  The only time he won a playoff game, he won the following one to win DangerBowl VII.

DangerBowl XII:  Emmitt was just the fifth wildcard team to make the finals.  He was trying to become the second owner to go from worst to first.  Arnold did it in 1998.  Only Bobby (1999) and Arnold (1998) had won three games in the playoffs.  Emmitt was trying to be the third.  Emmitt was the 3rd lowest scoring team to ever make the DangerBowl.  The two lower scorers were both Jessie, in 1997 and 1994, years' that he won the title.  Brian had outscored Emmitt by 9.6 ppg which was the highest in a DangerBowl since 1999 and the 4th most alltime.  The three teams with greater margins, Bobby in 1997 (15.1), Darrell in 1994 (11.1), and Mike in 1999 (10.7), all lost.  Emmitt was the first team ranked as low as 9th in scoring to make the DangerBowl.  Jessie(97), Gary(98), and Keith (2000), all were 8th in scoring and Jessie and Keith won the DangerBowl.  Brian and Emmitt, the league's newest owners, were both making their first appearance to the title game.  Now all twelve current owners have played in the DangerBowl at least once 

Brian was on a roll, winning 9 of 11 while averaging 57 points per game.  This was despite not getting much from his top two draft picks, Kerry Collins and Randy Moss of the Raiders.  That was okay as his later picks, Tiki Barber, Larry Fitzgerald, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Carson Palmer all scored big.  Brian traded Jacksonville to Mike for Mike Anderson (7 starts, 66 points) and picked up Santana Moss (9 starts, 62 points) to round out his strong team.  His team was peaking as shown by his season high of 86 to beat Mike and make the finals.  Emmitt had won his last six but only averaged 47 ppg including scoring just 30 in the win over Keith.  This was the fewest points scored in a playoff victory since 2001.  Emmitt had drafted Peyton Manning #1 overall.  He was having a slow season for him when Emmitt showed his rookie side.  He didn't start Peyton week 4 so of course Peyton goes off for 21 points.  His other draft choices were hit and miss.  Chad Johnson (#3) and Jeremy Shockey (#5) did well but were offset by Curtis Martin (#2) and Anquan Boldin (#4).  The game didn't live up to the hype as Brian got 21 each from Santana Moss and the Steelers and scored a DangerBowl record 77 points in the 77-41 victory over Emmitt.  With Brian winning, only Gary (12 seasons), Mark (12 seasons), Neil (7 seasons), and Emmitt (2 seasons) have not won a championship.  Emmitt rebounded from his last place finish last season and was named Comeback Owner of the Year.  Somehow he won eight more games than last season despite scoring fewer points.  Brian was the 8th #2 seed to win the title.

In the loser playoffs, Gary beat Neil and Steve beat Danny.  Bobby and Darrell both had first round byes.  They had to play the top two playoff seeds in scrimmage games.  Of course they both won with Bobby outscoring Brian 43-31 and Darrell spanking Keith   60-41.  The two were not as lucky in the second round.  They both lost because of the minus three points for homefield disadvantage.  Bobby lost 65-63 to Neil while Darrell tied Danny at 37 but lost the tiebreaker to lose 38-37.  This was a rematch of DangerBowl VIII but this time they were playing for last.  Darrell had his worst game of the season and earned the title of Loser of the Year,      58-21.

Milestones:  For the 5th consecutive year, Mike won the money for scoring the most points during week 17.  He also won the Survivor championship and led the league in scoring with 955 points.  Jessie had the most points in a game with 91 while Mark had the biggest spank with an 81-30 win over Danny.  During week 1, Jeff Wilkins of the Rams scored the 100,000th point in league history for Gary of the Soca Saga Boys.  Danny set a record by scoring 453 points less than he did the prior season, 1117 to 664.  He also has the record for greatest increase in points when he scored 1040 in 1995, a 463 point gain.  Danny had the highest scoring free agent with Joey Galloway (79 points in 13 starts).  Keith drafted the league MVP in Shaun Alexander (231 points).  Week 13 was the 200th week in league history.  After the season, Emmitt Smith became the fourth player voted into the WMDFFL Hall of Fame.   

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