BQBL: Week 15 Scores

No one in our group had the top scorers this week: the Bears, Titans, and Jets. Maybe I can fill the space with fun anecdotes from your team to entertain you, non-NFL people.

• Nan: 91
• Panthers - Cam Newton: 12
• Jaguars - Blaine Gabbert: 42
• Chiefs - Kyle Orton: 10
• Buccaneers - Josh Freeman: 27

Did I tell you that the Broncos released Kyle Orton a number of weeks ago? Let's not get into the Denver Tebows side of the conversation, let's be more concerned about the state of the QB landscape out there that there was a brief scrum for the services of one Kyle Orton? Trust me when I tell you this, non-NFL friends: The chances that a man can take over in the middle of the season at the QB position and have success is ridiculously low. Take into account the following 1) if you were obviously the better QB, you'd have won the starting job before the season started, 2) you don't have the benefit of practicing with the first team all this time. Some of these guys have been dumped into their situation without even the benefit of knowing the playbook - hired during the season due to injuries to the original QB's and completely new to the team. As they like to say in the sports-casting world, "was sitting on the couch last week". And yet, the list of QBs that have been used on bad teams is substantial. I haven't had a spreadsheet for previous years that I have this year, so this may even be normal operation for bad teams in the league - you know, the ones we don't hear about on SportsCenter. The good teams have fielded just one QB for almost every snap in every game [every team in the GQB-NPC team, Panthers, Lions, 49ers, Bengals, Steelers, Ravens, Giants, Falcons], while several teams have had to use three different faces at QB in just 16 games [Eagles, Dolphins, Raiders, Colts, Texans, Cardinals, Bears, Vikings, Rams]. Even if you barely know anything about the league, you should know that those are two VERY different lists. At any rate, it gives us an unusual situation where Kyle Orton faced the same team twice while a member of two different teams (and beat them, the second time!) and also the odd situation where both Rob and Nan have fielded Kyle Orton this year!

• Alison: -7
• Cowboys - Tony Romo: 0
• Eagles - Michael Vick: 7, Vince Young: 2
• Browns - Seneca Wallace: 5
• Lions - Matthew Stafford: -21

Your story is less heart-warming, sorry Alison. Browns QB Colt McCoy got popped last week (technical term for getting hit really hard, see also: "having your bell rung" and "getting your clock cleaned"). He went to the sideline, said what I assume was the equivalent of "Ish fine, lesh do thish" and stumbled swirly-eyed back onto the field (you know how I like to embellish with made-up things). Whatever the case may be, he was apparently not checked on the sideline for a concussion like he should have been, and there was a stern-faced investigation this week, resulting in yet another new rule: a completely independent, NFL-paid consultant will now sit in the upstairs booths and watch specifically for concussion checks on the sidelines. It will be his only job. I feel like I'm not understanding something in this situation.

• Me: 64
• Redskins - Rex Grossman: 26
• Bills - Ryan Fitzpatrick: 21
• 49ers - Alex Smith: 6
• Bengals - Andy Dalton: 11

Still mad at my teams, so let me talk about the Vikings, who I should have picked instead. They won their third game of the season against the Redskins, but lost Adrian Peterson (their superstar running back) and Christian Ponder (their pretty awful quarter back) to injuries. Everyone says how awful that is for a bad team, but I was more concerned about the fact that they won the game! They need to lose their remaining games if they're going to have a shot at Andrew Luck! Don't let the Rams beat you to it, Vikings!

• Rob: 36
• Dolphins - Matt Moore: 5
• Raiders - Carson Palmer: -9
• Broncos - Tim Tebow: 5
• Colts - Dan Orlovsky: 35

So the Colts got their first win of the season, and the Packers got their first loss this week. Oddly, both the Dolphins and Chiefs won tough games less than a week after firing their head coaches. The scene goes like this: the Chiefs fire their head coach, even though he wasn't really doing all that badly. The Dolphins, scared that the Chiefs will get the leg up in courting some big name coaches that might be ready to come back to the NFL, fire their head coach the very next day to... stay competitive?

• Xian: 99
• Texans - TJ Yates: -8
• Steelers - Ben Roethlisberger: 32
• Ravens - Joe Flacco: 45
• Seahawks - Tavaris Jackson: 10

A few weeks back, the primary running back for the Seattle Seahawks, Marshawn Lynch (affectionately nicknamed "The Beast" in Seattle) ran for a touchdown and was subsequently videotaped on the sideline accepting a handful of Skittles from his coach. I say 'caught on tape' because apparently this has been going on for a long time and we just didn't know about it? Ever since he was little, Lynch says, his mom would give him a handful of Skittles for doing well, and it's just a tradition that stuck. Well, now that everyone knows about it, Seattle is determined to destroy market value for Skittles through inflation. After a touchdown this week, Lynch was absolutely inundated in the endzone by a hail of Skittles from the Seattle faithful, and other Seahawks players complained good-naturedly about getting hit in the face with bags of Skittles. The company also gratefully gave Lynch another huge pile of candy in thanks for all the free publicity.

• GOOD QB NPC: -29
• Patriots - Tom Brady: -9
• Chargers - Philip Rivers: 0
• Saints - Drew Brees: -27
• Packers - Aaron Rodgers: 7
• MEDIUM QB NPC: 77
• Giants - Eli Manning: 27
• Falcons - Matt Ryan: -5
• Cardinals - John Skelton: -13
• Jets - Mark Sanchez: 65, Mark Brunell: 3
• BAD QB NPC: 216
• Titans - Matt Hasselbeck: 62, Jake Locker: -3
• Bears - Caleb Hanie: 106.5, Josh McCown: 21.5
• Vikings - Christian Ponder: 27
• Rams - Kellen Clemens: 2

ESPN streams some twitter remarks during games on it's front page sometimes. During the Seahawks/Bears game, the Bears fans were checking out early with statements like: "this is unBEARable" and "goodbye season, go bulls!" Gotta love it.