Congrats to P-U-N-T PUNTPUNTPUNT for being the highest scoring team in all the FFRLs last week with 202.1. Josh had even more points on his bench too. Just a silly week!

Josh - Go ahead and get in touch with Jeff - jeff.brubach@gmail.com about getting your shirt.

Badass week man, congrats. Should go a long way to moving you up the overall standings too.

The refs are back!! Horray!! Wait a minute, these guys suck too! What the hell!!

Week 2 is over and everyone is all over the refs, that makes me want to rant, so:

Can we please stop talking about the damn officials so much! So far the only things I’ve noticed about the replacements is a bit of a lack of control of the game and they are pretty damned slow to make/figure out/decide on/be told a call. I mean, at 11 o’clock last night it was midway through the 3rd quarter. I couldn’t hang and had to go to bed, it was like watching a Sox/Yanks game.

So, the games are slow and clunky. Other than that, and I might be the only person who feels this way, I’ve not noticed a HUGE difference like every flipping announcer wants to tell me there is. Gruden last night spent the entire game talking about how bad the officials were. I’d like to take that long talking about how the sound of his voice and the phrase “this guy” makes me want to put my head in an oven, but I won’t. Shut up already and talk about football, talk about how Manning looked like garbage, talk about Turner looking like molasses flowing uphill, talk about something else already!

The players and coaches are paying waaaaay too much attention to the refs when they should be paying more attention to the damn game. I thought Fox’s head was gonna explode last night (and he was wrong on the 12 man call btw, way to look like a total ass-clown). If that were a baseball manager, he’d have been tossed in a second, why does an NFL ref have to take that shit? Toss his ass and you’ll have a lot less coach screaming in the future. They’re trying to bully these officials and have no respect for them. I say, start ejecting fools and get this shit under control.

The players are taking advantage of the refs as well, which is expected and frankly, I don’t mind so much. I like less calls for DPI, the offense gets away with enough. (Actually, if you look at the numbers, refs this year have called more DPI this year (43) then any year through 2 weeks since 2003 (47). Doesn’t seem that way, but numbers don’t lie). I like more physical play. It was just last year everyone was crying about putting flags on the QBs and saying it was turning into a pansy league with all the rules to protect the QB. So, Sunday I watch Vick get hammered all day, hit late, hit low and hit high and people are complaining about no flags getting thrown. Huh? Which is it people? Seems convenient to want the rules one way because it builds a case against the replacement refs and the other way if it doesn’t.

Everyone is so focused on these guys and I think it’s being blown way out of proportion. The regular refs make a lot of bad calls too. One of these next few games is going to have a bad call that costs a team a game and there will be an uproar. Everyone will conveniently forget Ed Hochuli’s awesome fumble call a few years ago and pile on the NFL. Yet, everyone will still watch, complaining the whole time while setting viewing records. If the games are really “Unwatchable” as Gruden pointed out 5 bagillion times, then viewership should go down, right? I bet SNF NE vs. BAL will set a new record for ratings. For that reason, the NFL has no reason to cave to the officials holding out. It doesn’t matter, football will go on and continue to dominate.

Has anyone looked at the numbers involved in the holdout. NFL officials make on AVERAGE $149,000 a year. Working what, 17 Sundays and some playoff games if they're lucky. They also got guaranteed pensions and benefits. For a PART-TIME job! So, they want a pay raise to bring the AVERAGE up to $180,000/yr. The NFL wants to do away with the pension and put it in a 401k. That seems to be the big sticking point for the refs. The pension...for a part time job. The NFL also wants to reduce the amount of money they are contributing, by about $27,500 per official. Yet, they’re getting a pay-raise of $31,000. The NFL has already agreed to the salary increase but won’t budge on the pension. I have an idea, put the freaking pay-raise in the bank and plan for retirement like the rest of America! You’re making $180k for a PART-TIME job, I think you’ll be OK. I’m tired of the “The NFL makes billions, just pay the guys” argument too. That’s terrible business and my political views may shine through here. Why should the NFL give out more money just because it has a lot? Successful businessmen don’t become successful by running a company with that attitude. It’s bad business. There’s a reason replacement officials were found so quickly. It’s a sweet gig with a FAT paycheck. Get over yourselves. Ed Hochuli, people aren’t tuning in to see you in your smedium zebra shirts, you’re not the show, the show goes on without you.

Anyway, I’ll end my rant now, feel free to disagree with me in the comments. I love a spirited debate. Really, I just can’t wait for the real refs to cave and come back so I can stop hearing about it on my TV screen and games can go back to being called 100% flawlessly.

Week 2 is over and man, everyone is all over the refs, that makes me want to rant, so here it goes:

Can we please stop talking about the damn officials so much! So far the only things I’ve noticed about the replacements is a bit of a lack of control of the game and they are pretty damned slow to make/figure out/decide on/be told a call. I mean, at 11 o’clock last night it was midway through the 3rd quarter. I couldn’t hang and had to go to bed, it was like watching a Sox/Yanks game.

So, the games are slow and clunky. Other than that, and I might be the only person who feels this way, I’ve not noticed a HUGE difference like every flipping announcer wants to tell me there is. Gruden last night spent the entire game talking about how bad the officials were. I’d like to take that long talking about how the sound of his voice and the phrase “this guy” makes me want to put my head in an oven, but I won’t. Shut up already and talk about football, talk about how Manning looked like garbage, talk about Turner looking like molasses flowing uphill, talk about something else already!

The players and coaches are paying waaaaay too much attention to the refs when they should be paying more attention to the damn game. I thought Fox’s head was gonna explode last night (and he was wrong on the 12 man call btw, way to look like a total ass-clown). If that were a baseball manager, he’d have been tossed in a second, why does an NFL ref have to take that shit? Toss his ass and you’ll have a lot less coach screaming in the future. They’re trying to bully these officials and have no respect for them. I say, start ejecting fools and get this shit under control.

The players are taking advantage of the refs as well, which is expected and frankly, I don’t mind so much. I like less calls for DPI, the offense gets away with enough. (Actually, if you look at the numbers, refs this year have called more DPI this year (43) then any year through 2 weeks since 2003 (47). Doesn’t seem that way, but numbers don’t lie). I like more physical play. It was just last year everyone was crying about putting flags on the QBs and saying it was turning into a pansy league with all the rules to protect the QB. So, Sunday I watch Vick get hammered all day, hit late, hit low and hit high and people are complaining about no flags getting thrown. Huh? Which is it people? Seems convenient to want the rules one way because it builds a case against the replacement refs and the other way if it doesn’t.

Everyone is so focused on these guys and I think it’s being blown way out of proportion. The regular refs make a lot of bad calls too. One of these next few games is going to have a bad call that costs a team a game and there will be an uproar. Everyone will conveniently forget Ed Hochuli’s awesome fumble call a few years ago and pile on the NFL. Yet, everyone will still watch, complaining the whole time while setting viewing records. If the games are really “Unwatchable” as Gruden pointed out 5 bagillion times, then viewership should go down, right? I bet SNF NE vs. BAL will set a new record for ratings. For that reason, the NFL has no reason to cave to the officials holding out. It doesn’t matter, football will go on and continue to dominate.

Has anyone looked at the numbers involved in the holdout. NFL officials make on AVERAGE $149,000 a year. Working what, 17 Sundays and some playoff games if they're lucky. They also got guaranteed pensions and benefits. For a PART-TIME job! So, they want a pay raise to bring the AVERAGE up to $180,000/yr. The NFL wants to do away with the pension and put it in a 401k. That seems to be the big sticking point for the refs. The pension...for a part time job. The NFL also wants to reduce the amount of money they are contributing, by about $27,500 per official. Yet, they’re getting a pay-raise of $31,000. The NFL has already agreed to the salary increase but won’t budge on the pension. I have an idea, put the freaking pay-raise in the bank and plan for retirement like the rest of America! You’re making $180k for a PART-TIME job, I think you’ll be OK. I’m tired of the “The NFL makes billions, just pay the guys” argument too. That’s terrible business and my political views may shine through here. Why should the NFL give out more money just because it has a lot? Successful businessmen don’t become successful by running a company with that attitude. It’s bad business. There’s a reason replacement officials were found so quickly. It’s a sweet gig with a FAT paycheck. Get over yourselves. Ed Hochuli, people aren’t tuning in to see you in your smedium zebra shirts, you’re not the show, the show goes on without you.

Anyway, I’ll end my rant now, feel free to disagree with me in the comments. I love a spirited debate. Really, I just can’t wait for the real refs to cave and come back so I can stop hearing about it on my TV screen and games can go back to being called 100% fla

Well, that's a wrap on week 1. Can't say I'm a big fan of the weekly Thursday games this year. I guess it's nice to have an extra day of football, but it's gonna present some interesting line-up dilemmas and it kinda messes with the weekly flow. Oh well. It'll be interesting to see how the short weeks affect real NFL teams. Seems like it will make the home field advantage a bit higher. Not having to travel when you only have 3 days in between games is pretty huge. Not only that, but homeboy in the blue suit with the big beard is highly annoying. Good luck in week 2 fake footballers.

Well, that was a nice appetizer...Now a 3 day wait for the main course, brutal

What a D-Bag

Welcome Fake Footballers, one and all. Now that everyone is all signed up I thought I’d send out a hearty, WELCOME. Thanks for signing up and showing support for The Fake Football.

Some of you I’m sure have read TFF in the past, I had a little before this year. Some of you may have just stumbled upon it this season. Even more of you, I assume, are like me and just big fans of Chet. I read Chet religiously when he was over with Razzball and happily followed him to his new gig at The Fake Football. TFF promises to be better then sex in a vat of bacon, better then watching someone punch Ryan Seacrest square in the nose and better then, well just about anything else you can think up.

These large-scale leagues are a lot of fun where you compete against your own league as well as everyone in the other leagues. Plus, there’s kickin’ prizes from FantasySportsTrophies.com as well as a Fake Football T-Shirt to each week’s highest point total. That means every single week you’ve got a chance to win free stuff and who doesn’t like that? Hopefully everyone stays active throughout the year, there’s nothing sadder then a team abandoned by week 4, full of IR players and scrubs and the owner won’t respond to trades. Don’t be that guy.

Also, speaking of free stuff, if you’ve signed up for more then one team please delete your multiple teams; it’s not really fair for everyone else competing each week. That wasn’t stipulated in the original rules but it needs to be. Just let me know if this is the team you delete so I can post the opening on the sign-up page. Thanks.

Last but not least, I randomly drew a draft date and time out of a hat. Chances are we are NEVER going to satisfy everyone so, unless there is a riot or a bunch of you show up on my front lawn with picket signs (I'll warn you though, the mosquitoes are pretty bad here in the woods of Maine) we’ll try to stick to that date and time.

Thanks to Brian for starting the twitter thread, that should be a nice way for everyone in the league to get in touch with one another. I’m not a tweeter but I do check it every Sunday during football season. If you want/need to get in touch with me, e-mail is best: trussellm@gmail.com.

Thanks again for signing up and best of luck gentlemen.