I've got big balls!  You've got big balls!  But who's got the biggest balls of them all?  Kevin Sabbe!
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For men who claim to have large stones and make picks that prove this supposed testicular superiority, there's been a bit of bitching regarding those poolsters who don't, and even some theories broached regarding how we might change the rules to reward those manly men who make put lots of points on bad teams.  It was refreshing then, or maybe nauseating then, to see these daredevils rewarded the old-fashioned way: By rewarding their upset picks when the upsets actually happened.  Three players in particular--Eric Franzen, Zack Schwartz, and Kevin Sabbe-- were the only alpha warriors to put over 2300 dots on this week's games, and all three were rewarded with money that can help pay for the women they sleep with or the offspring they have sired.
    Chief among them, Kevin Sabbe took time out of his busy Hollywood schedule to spike a solo shot on the super-macho Road Texans (they even had a player ejected as they outmuscled the Titans), and a near solo shot on the Bears.  Despite missing on a few other longshots, he still cashed in with his 14th career Weekly Win, which puts him 7th on the all-time list with exactly double the Weekly Wins as Councilman JLee.  His 3 on the Texans also made for his 19th solo shot of his career, which is an all-time best in the FMNFLP and at least triple as many career solo shots as anybody on the Council except Godsey (and there were no more than 9 poolsters in the league for the first two years).  Also you should understand that almost a quarter of the pool has never experienced a single solo shot.  This is the kind of man Kevin Sabbe is.
    Elsewhere around the league, Franzen filled up the Smack Page with photos of "weak sauce," a correction on Wego's choice of Raider brew, and an observation of Godsey's leap from the Charger Train, and then came within a Monday Night victory of the weekly win.  Likewise, fellow manlyman Zack Schwartz flew to New York to watch his Jets conquer the Patriots, and he finished in 5th.  Godsey leapt from the Charger train to the Jet bandwagon just in time, but tried a last second flyer on the RoadLions which cost him the week--nevertheless he regained the all-time lead on "money finishes" from Chris Sabbe with 79 in his life.  Thanks to a full boat on the Steelers and an ill-advised Eagle pick, newbie Ken Taylor missed cashing for his second straight week by just two points and forfeited his overall lead.
    And for the moment, it's a bizarro scene in the overall standings.  While notorious class clown KSabbe sits at the head of the class, a solid set of dependable do-gooders (Jen and Dylan Retsek, Diane and Eric Emerton, Kathy Wyatt, and Wego) all sit in detention at the bottom of the list.

Stat of the Week: Jen Retsek and JLee have combined for 5 different FunkyBowl appearances but have never won a Slate.  It's also been 82 weeks since either one of them has won a week (back when John Kerry and George Bush were agreeing to public debate).


If Only....
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...the favored Steelers had beaten the Bears, Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor would've won two weekly titles in his first two weeks in the pool. See stat of the week above.

..the Titans or Cowboys or Jags or Lions had won the home opener, Godsey would have won his pool-best 20th week.

...the Seahawks, Browns, or Dolphins had won, the newly-talkative Franzen would've backed up his smack with a weekly championship.  Or Eagles.

...the Panthers had pulled it off at the end, DOliver pulls it out.



POW!  COW!
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The Pick of the Week is pretty clearly King Kevin's solo shot on the Texans, with honorable mention to Zack's and Franzen's full boats on their respective teams.  The Clown Pick of the Week is just as clearly Godsey's hopeless solo shot attempt on the Lions, an apparent plea for attention that cost him the week.  The results aren't official yet, but we don't hear the rumblings of a stampede to the polls, so we're ready to pull the trigger.



Next Week!
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Another 16-game moving week.  Will the bizarro standings remain bizarre, or will normalcy return to redundant normality?

We got only one real rivalry game and it's:
Raider Nation at Kathy's Broncos.
We know where Franzen stands.  The rest of them?  It could be interesting.  It might not be.

Maybe: Kurt's and Wyatt's Dolphins at Godsey's Chargers?
Maybe: Ken Taylor's Seahawks at Money's Bears?

It's difficult to tell.  In any case, we'll see ya there....