ZFL

QB: Aaron Rodgers, Holy Rollers

SEASON PRIZES
1st place: $300 + one ring -- DHARMA INITIATIVE
2nd place: $200 -- DIGITAL FUNKY
3rd place: $150 -- JUNIPER CREEK SISTER WIVES

$20 - Highest weekly score of the season (currently 157, Action Jeans, Week 2)

WEEKLY PRIZES
Week 12
$25 - 6-legged Turkey Award (Most Thanksgiving Day points)
DIGITAL FUNKY

Week 13
$25 - Highest average points per defensive player
HAMBASSADORS

Week 14
$25 - Highest scoring backfield (QB & RB duo)
HAMBASSADORS

Week 15
$25 - Golden Hands Award (Highest scoring TE & WR duo)
NOT GAY

Week 16
$25 - Biggest upset based on ZFL standings
MUHAMMADS

Week 17
$25 - Highest scoring losing team
SISTER WIVES

The Funky came within seven points of Victory Uno de 2007 but lost their seventh straight game going back to last season falling to the Hams, 114.5-108. And proving the fact that when it rains, it pours bong water, the 0-4 Funky stand to lose RB Travis Henry for the year due to a failed drug test. When asked by reporters about his illegal activities, Henry pointed across the locker room to his fantasy team owner and screamed, “I learned it by watching you!” Henry comes from a proud line of dope smoking Tennessee Volunteers including RB Onterrio “Whizzinator” Smith.

Speaking of winless, the Gravy joined the Funky in the seventh straight loss club (going back to last season), losing to the Not Gay by 13, 117-104. The Gravy were able to break the century mark for the first time of the season, so things are looking up ever so slightly.

NOTE: The league can’t help but notice that the two teams that are winless through four weeks are also the two teams whose owners spent the days leading up to the draft in a drug-induced coma somewhere in the desert. The lesson: You reap what you sow, or in this case, smoke (and snort).

The Drifters could only muster up a week-low 69 points (just over 6 points per roster spot) in a 86-69 loss to the first place Sister Wives. The defeat may have been a wake-up call for the Drifters, who responded to the poor performance with a flurry of roster moves. The win moved Juniper Creek’s win streak to 10, which according to the prophet is the ideal number of wives to have.

In Dharma, the motto continued to be, “Win, and win small.” The team eked out a 3-point win over the Pressure, 78-75. While currently in fourth place at 3-1, the Initiative are ranked ninth in points scored.

And lastly, the league’s highest scoring team, the Dillon Panthers, moved to 3-1 by defeating the Actions Jeans, 116-88. The game was to be a high-powered match-up of the top two picks of the draft, LT and Steven Jackson., but Steven Jackson’s groin had other plans.

When the #2 overall pick in the ZFL draft puts up a season high for your team, you’d think victory would be probable (P). But when that season high is just 12 points as it was for Jeans RB Steven Jackson, victory is downgraded to not much of a fucking chance (NMFC). And while the Actions Jeans lost by 35 to the Phil Rivers and Marion “Thurston Howell” Barber III-led Pressure, the worse news for the Jeans was that Steven Jackson would be lost for at least a week due to injury.

Hamtown gave the league a needed assist by knocking the Drifters from the unbeaten ranks. The Drifters had a chance for the much-coveted Monday night comeback, and QB did his part with a Madden Curse-defying 20 points. But the Ham got 27 Monday night points of their own courtesy of Reggie Bush and LenDale White. Despite falling to 2-1, the Drifters continued to live up to their name by announcing the team will be drifting down the left coast to a new team headquarters in Orange County, CA. NOTE: 90% of the ZFL’s teams once resided in the Portland area. But under Commissioner Asplund’s aggressive expansion policy, only 30% of the teams remain in Oregon.

Their third straight loss to start the season has left Funky coaches reaching for their Levitra. The Initiative were hitting on all cylinders on Sunday, and looked to set a new weekly high score mark with a good Drew Brees Monday night performance. But Brees had other plans, tallying 5 turnovers and –1 fantasy points. To his credit, Brees was able to knock Panthers RB Deuce McAllister out for the year with an errant pass that took out McAllister’s knee. Before you get too impressed with the Initiative’s 2-1 record, you should know that both their wins have come against the ZFL’s winless teams.

When your head coach wakes up with swollen knuckles and mysteriously torn suit pants, you can assume that Saturday wasn’t spent game planning. And that explains the not gay falling to 1-2 with a 16-point loss to the sister wives, who won their ninth straight game going back to last season. Larry Johnson continued to struggle for the sister wives, but Don McNabb and Ronnie Brown’s 37 and 40 points respectively more than made up for LJ’s paltry 4.

Despite their coach having his head buried in a toilet for most of the day, the Romo and Don Driver-led Panthers cruised to an easy 41-point victory. Gravy WR Randy Moss continued his return to his Moss-ome days of old with 23 points, his third straight game of 20+ points. But when your QB Marc Bulger throws in just –2 fantasy points like he did in Week 3, it makes for some lumpy ass gravy and an 0-3 record.

College football rivalry at center of bar fight, gruesome injury
By Associated Press
Sep 12, 2007 - 07:37:41 am PDT
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- To hear Oklahoma football fans tell it, some things just aren't done in the heart of Sooner Nation, and one of them is to walk into a bar wearing a Texas Longhorns T-shirt.

That's exactly what touched off a bloody skirmish that left a Texas-shirt-wearing fan nearly castrated and an Oklahoma fan facing aggravated assault charges that could put him in prison for up to five years.

The shocking case has set off a raging debate in this football-crazed region about the extreme passions behind a bitter rivalry. Some legal observers have even questioned whether this case could ever truly have an impartial jury.

"I've actually heard callers on talk radio say that this guy deserved what he got for wearing a Texas T-shirt into a bar in the middle of Sooner country," said Irven Box, an attorney in this city 20 miles from Oklahoma's campus in Norman.

According to police, 32-year-old Texas fan Brian Christopher Thomas walked into Henry Hudson's Pub on June 17 wearing a Longhorns T-shirt and quickly became the focus of football "trash talk" from another regular, 53-year-old Oklahoma fan Allen Michael Beckett.

Thomas told police that when he decided to leave and went to the bar to pay his tab, Beckett grabbed him in the crotch, pulled him to the ground and wouldn't let go, even as bar patrons tried to break it up. When the two men were separated, Thomas looked down and realized the extent of his injuries.

"He could see both of his testicles hanging on the outside of his body," said Thomas' attorney, Carl Hughes. "He was wearing a pair of white shorts, which made it that much worse."

It took more than 60 stitches to close the wound, and police interviewed Thomas at a nearby hospital emergency room.

Beckett's attorney, Billy Bock, concedes that his client commented about Thomas' shirt, but said it was just good-natured ribbing and that he apologized to Thomas when it appeared to upset the Texas fan. Later, Bock said Thomas approached his client at the bar and threatened him.

"My client is a little man, and this guy (Thomas) is 30 to 40 pounds bigger than him," Bock said. "He's bigger, stronger, younger and probably faster, and he aggressively leaned in and touched my client and threatened to beat him up. ... My guy was defending himself and just took control of the situation."

Thomas' attorney disputes Beckett's version.

"That's total malarkey," Hughes said. "My client never said a word to him. He got up to pay and when he paid and left a tip, the guy grabbed him."

Beckett, a 53-year-old church deacon, federal auditor and former Army combat veteran, has pleaded not guilty. His next court appearance comes Oct. 4, two days before the Sooners and Horns tangle in their annual football game at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.

Thomas, who once lived in Houston and became a Texas fan during the heyday of star running back Earl Campbell, is still recovering from his injuries but has returned to work as a meat cutter at a Sam's Club warehouse store.

Like Beckett and Thomas, many fans of the two college squads never attended either university, but have come to identify so closely with these teams that they attach banners to their cars, wear team colors on game day and even have programmed their car horns to play school fight songs.

Dallas police Sgt. Andy Harvey, a 12-year veteran of the force, said it's not uncommon for fights to break out between fans of the two schools.

"People are passionate about their teams and their universities, and that's a good thing," he said, "but when you mix a real passionate sports fan and then get a little alcohol in there, sometimes it's not a good mix."

On both Texas and Oklahoma fan Web sites, boosters trade familiar tales of having their car tires slashed or windshields smashed for sporting the opposing team's sticker in enemy territory.

Assistant District Attorney Scott Rowland said the rivalry will have no bearing on the way the case is prosecuted.

"It appears that it played a part in the fight," he said, "but that won't play any more of a role in our handling of the case than would a fight over a girl or a car or a song on the jukebox."

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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