Will it be 0-3 or 3-0 in Week 3 ??

Funny thing this fantasy football. Never know what can happen.

Just ask the Disorderlys….Just when there Defense scored 34 points they follow up with -4. Just when they were happy that their opponent has 2 players who are not even playing that week….they loose by a margin of 15 points….

Just ask I-love-Harry-Potter-And-I-Love-Tony-Romo fantasy football owner. She decided to ignore Feku baba and did not start Giants D. If she would have had paid heed, then she would have won by 1 point

That’s ok. The Baba’s will still write and predict. Prove them wrong … So far the record is…

Kaam Dev Baba prediction: 8-4 (wins-loss)

Airy Fairy Hawa Hawaii Prediction : 9- 4 (wins-loss)

I will let Murtu run the stats on some of them.

Here is another installment of prediction. Shuffle your team to prove the baba’s wrong.

AWAY TEAM	ESPN PROJECTED PTS	HOME TEAM	ESPN PROJECTED PTS	Sam Dev Baba (SDB) analysis	Airy Fairy Hawa Hawaii Prediction		Feku baba's…If I were you…
DEVISH THE SMASHERS	95	Apni Toh Vat Lagyi MAMMU	117	All SDB has to say….there is no way we see 0-3 this week	Forte + Fred Jackson > Rogers + Choice + Washington		The roster's for DTS VS Mammu look fine
Salazar Slytherin	90	Team Chipolopolo	105	If Moss starts there is a good chance of an upset here. Mrs Pandya takes down Mr.P. If Moss is ruled out then that’s a big blow and baba picks Chipopo.	.Its strange that between the Pandyas. They have 7 NFC East players. So its best to see which NFC players do well. Romo+F.Jones+Giants > Jacobs + D.Jackson+Cooley+Boss		Feku baba would suggest chipopo to start D.Henderson instead of D.Jackson. Feku baba would also like to suggest Salazar to consider D.Ward instaed of F.Jones (only if Barber is playing)
End zone diva	121	Terra Cotta Blitzerz	64	TCB cant pull another upset and EZD's luck is surely better than Disorderlys…	Total points by all 13 players of EZD is double than TCB		If I were you TCB. I would login. That’s all Feku baba would say
The TryThrowCatch!	96	Knock... UDown	99	SDB disagrees with ESPN. Baba thinks that TTC has more consisten team. Possible perfect start! Lets see if KUD can bring the house down.	DeAngelo + inconsitent McGahee out score the in form Mr.44 points Gore + MJD		Feku baba has nothing to Feko-fy in the TTC and KUD rosters
Team Puntars	107	my AYYARS	122	Despite the clear cut Fav tag. Baba go with Puntars. No team goes 0-3 this week. That’s the motto.	Brady and the little Manning our score the in form young kids Flacco and Ryan		Brady on bench and Chotta chetan a.ka. Little john a.k.a Chota Manning as starter. Feku baba disagrees
.... Disorderlys...	77	Rainbow Catchers	78	This is really close. Baba's are a big phan of RC. SDB thinks RC has a good team. So the going with RC this week (again). Also westbrook is Questionable	QB's galore here. Bade Bhaiya Manning + old kaka Farve out score Cutler + Mr.Interception Delhomme + Dog Lover Vick		Feku baba would start Steve Smith instead of TO. Are you listening RC? Why? Its Simple. Less drama more action.
* Red Indicated winners

Pakistan Naming Convention (PNC)

Wrote something on cricket this week ... dont mind eh!

When Yousuf Youhanna converted to Islam, the name he chose for himself was Mohammad Yousuf. What stuck me was not that he chose to convert to Islam but the fact that his new name's last name was taken from his old name's first name. That struck me as odd.

Thinking about this, I realized that no one abuses the sanctity of first and last names more than people from Islam. I always knew that Islam in itself had a paucity of names. That is why Mohammad is the most common name in the world. It wouldn't surprise me to know if Mohammad was always the most common last name in the world.

So I decided to look at the Pakistan cricket team and tried to see just how widespread this abuse is. Turns out, a lot.

A quick google search gave me the names of the 229 cricketers who have either represented Pakistan in Test Cricket or One-Day cricket.

Out of the 229, as many as 80 cricketers have first names that are also last names of some other Pakistani cricketer. Conversely, as many as 89 players had last names which were first names of some pak cricketer!

All in all, there were 131 cricketers whose either first names matched someone else's last name or last name matched someone else's first name. Thats more than half of them! That means when you come into the Pak side to play circket, there is a more than 50% probability that either your first name is someone else's last name or vice versa!

I know I have used 'first name' and 'last name' more than 10 times in the article so far ... so let's get down to specifics. The crazy in me wanted to form the longest string possible of people whose last names were someone else's first name.

The longest I could go was 13. If any of you can get a longer string, I'd be very interested to look at it.

I started with Asif Masood.
Then I came across Masood Anwar.
That led me to Anwar Khan.
which bought me to Khan Mohammad (LOL!!! I found this name extremely funny ... Khan Mohammed ... can you get anymore generic than that!!)
That brought me to Mohammed Asif
which I found linked to Asif Iqbal
which was similar to Iqbal Qasim
who I hope wasnt related to Qasim Umar
whose last name matched Umar Gul
who I likened to Gul Mohammed
who is kinda like Mohammed Wasim
who is a close match to the cool Wasim Akram
who also shares part of the name with Akram Raza!!

So let's go again
Asif Masood --> Masood Anwar --> Anwar Khan --> Khan Mohammed --> Mohammed Asif --> Asif Iqbal --> Iqbal Qasim --> Qasim Umar --> Umar Gul --> Gul Mohammed --> Mohammed Wasim --> Wasim Akram --> Akram Raza.

Out of the 229 players, 10% of them either had Mohammad as their first name or last name (23). Second most common name is Khan ... But you all knew that already!

Here is what I found surprising ... in all the common names, I couldnt find a single example of 2 players who had their first and last names interchanged. Surprises me for sure. But I am sure that in a small village in Pakistan, there is a cricketing prodigy growing up right now by the name of Mohammed khan! :)

Amen to that!

Listed below are all players whose FIRST names match someone else's LAST name. How many of the below can you find players with matching last names? :) (Might be an exercise only for Saumil & Kelkar)

Shahid Afridi (eg. Haafiz Shahid)
Akhtar Sarfraz
Akram Raza
Ali Naqvi
Anwar Hussain
Anwar Khan
Arif Butt
Ashraf Ali
Asif Iqbal
Farooq Hamid
Fazal Mahmood
Gul Mohammad
Hanif Mohammad
Hasan Raza
Iqbal Qasim
Israr Ali
Javed Miandad
Javed Qadeer
Kabir Khan
Khan Mohammad
Mahmood Hussain
Masood Iqbal
Mohammad Yousuf
Mushtaq Ahmed
Nazar Mohammad
Pervez Mir
Qasim Umar
Rana Naved-ul-Hasan
Rashid Latif
Saeed Anwar
Sajjad Akbar
Sarfraz Nawaz
Sikander Bakht
Sohail Fazal
Umar Gul
Wasim Akram
Wazir Mohammad
Younis Khan
Zahid Ahmed

Bad Newz Bears.

 

Last week the babas went
5-1 in the Kaam Dev Baba
(KDB) prediction prediction and 5-1 in the Airy Fairy Hawa Hawaii Prediction.  Pretty darn good I’d say. Or let’s leave it at
beginners luck.  But what does that mean
for this week? You better hope KDB is wrong (or pray hard to prove him wrong).

 

This week the babas are mortified to agree a lot with ESPN. (damn then what’s
the point of prediction if you are going to agree with ESPN). So to make up for
it we are going to introduce a new Baba….Maharaj Feku baba.  ;everyone stand up and clap>

All Feku baba is going to do is pick the loser predicted by Kaam Dev baba
….Analyze his roster and give suggestions. Also give some last minute start em/
sit em advice. Feku baba gives no disclaimer on the players to start or sit,  So if they screw up feel free to curse the
Baba but if they do well Feku baba is going to call you out and dance all over
your loss. (Pretty F#$% ing narcissistic right! Hell ya. This is football,
Fantasy football. Not a Barbie doll house game)

 

Enough said. So here it goes.

	PROJECTED PTS			PROJECTED PTS	Kaam Dev baba prediction	Sam Dev Baba (SDB) analysis	Airy Fairy Hawa Hawaii Prediction
Team Neil B. Formee	99		The TryThrowCatch!	107	The TryThrowCatch!	The last place team of loserland (0-1) plays the last place team of the winner world (1-0). SDB has to say the RB's of TTC will carry the team.  The ship seems to be sinking on NBF. The last place is safely secured for NBF for week 2	NBF is going down. But the bench is going up. This is one of the cases where the bench out scores TTC. NBF bench will score 60% more than TTC and still NBF losses
Team Chipolopolo	86		Team Puntars	94	Team Puntars	UPSET Alert..Brady vs Rivers. 2 RB strategy  vs 3WR's.   SDB thinks Chipopo take this one. Puntars goes 0-2 for the first time.	Any 2 WR's of Puntars will score twice that of Chipopo.
Terra Cotta Blitzerz	73		.... Disorderlys...	89	.... Disorderlys...	SDB hates to agree with ESPN again. But unless TCB shakes the line up SDB thinks TCB is the second team to go 0-2 this weekend. TCB's team has a lot of Red's in the roster, too many players with O's, D's,Q's. Kinda looks my school report card	Peyton + 'Maro Chokro' Westbrook  = TCB's 2 RB's + 2 WR's
Knock... UDown	115		DEVISH THE SMASHERS	91	Knock u down	Damn. What the bleep. SDB agrees with ESPN again. SDB thinks KUD's overall consitency will beat DTS. DTS has to hope that his WR's have to step up to make an impact. We have another 0-2 team	The 2 WR of DTS kick ass on this one. But dude still loses. 2 WR of DTS >  2 WR of KUD + TE/K.
my AYYARS	113		Hogwarts Gryffindor	104		Matchups. Matchups. That’s all MA has. Turner vs Carolina. Portis vs STL for MA. HG on the other hand….Romo vs Giants D.  K.Smith vs Min.	The RB's of MA are going to rock the week. They will outscore the 2 RB's of HG + the jucy match up of Berrian vs Detroit.
Rainbow Catchers	82		End zone diva	101		UPSET Alert. All SDB has to say Brees is not throwing 6 TD's or Cutler is not throwing 4 INTS. But Peterson can still score 3 TD's. Another 0-2 in the making	Points by Peterson = Points by 2 WR of EZD

 

 

Feku baba's - If I were you ….

Feku baba says…If I were you NBF…. 1. I would hid my face in shame when you loose coz everyone will call you and laugh at you 2. start either Forte/Slaton (despite the match ups against Pit/Tenn)

Feku baba says…If I were you … I would not start Parker. Hes past his prime. Your bench has upcoming players like Hester, Brown who can kick ass.

Feku baba says…If I were you TCB… 1. shuffle a whole lot of players 2. And without fail would have drafted Sprolesif you own LT :-) (Remember the fanasty draft class- Handcuff RB 101)

Feku baba says…If I were you DTS…. 1. Leon washington is explosive and we get points for punts. And let Feku baba remind you that Washington returns punts. Comprende!

Feku baba says…If I were you HG….I would do the following 1: Pray that Tomo can stand on his legs 2. Start Giants D.

Feku baba says…If I were you EZD…..I would start Darren Spoles in place of Addai

 

Truth is stranger than fiction

In the first week of 2008,
Meghna lost to Niral
Murtaza lost to Vishal
Saumil lost to Prashant
Darshini lost to Valmik.

In the first week of 2009,
Niral lost to Meghna
Vishal lost to Murtaza
Prashant lost to Saumil
Valmik lost to Darshini.

(In 2008 and 2009, the other 2 matchups involved rookies and weren't managed by the same managers.)

In the first week of 2008, Valmik beat Darshini by getting the highest score of week 1 with 114
In the first week of 2009, Darshini beat Valmik by getting the highest score of week 1 with 118

In the first week of 2008, Prashant beat Saumil by 12 points (76 - 64)
In the first week of 2009, Saumil beat Prashant by 12 points (92 - 80)

You cannot make this up!

Week 1 of 2009 is also special for another reason.
This has been by far the highest scoring week since the formation of NJ Rookies. This week, we have scored a combined total of 1057 points! Thats more than 88 points per team on an average!

Compare this with 2008 where we scored around 75 points on an average per team (888 points on average as a league every week!)
Even our highest total as a league was 1013 points (week 2) which was special in itself because the next highest is 934 (week 10)!

Just to further this point a little bit, we ended up scoring so much not just because a few of us had exceptionally high scores. It is because each one of us had representative performances. The lowest score of week 1 was 70! That has never happened before. In every week of 2008, there were ATLEAST 3 teams who had scores of less then 70!

I must also say this though ... that although none of us scored below 70, there seemed to be 2 distinct classes ... we had 7 good teams, all of whom scored above 90 and we had 5 not-so-good teams all of whom scored below 80. There was no average team. There was no team who scored in the 80s range. Either below 80 or above 90 (80 and 90 included!)

And as proof that life is cruel, we also had a couple of hardluck losers and one lucky winner. TryThrowCatch (Moi!) won despite scoring the 4th lowest and that too, the win came on 2 points that were adjusted to his defense the next morning!

Valmik was the hardluck loser who outscored all but 2 teams in the league and unfortunately one of them was his opponent ... the wizard of Hogwarts!

The other hardluck loser brings me to the rookies ... Devashree did fantastically well to score 90 upon debut but alas! it wasn't enough as the tag team of Shilpi and Jimit scored a century on debut! Indeed this never looked like a battle of the rookies with both teams scoring often to make it very interesting!

And kudos to Shirin for beating out her elder brother! No matter what happens from here on, she beat out her brother in her first fantasy football game ... and no one can take that away from her!


So as we turn a corner and as yours truly expects this scoring frenzy to cool down a little bit, let's look forward to week 2.

This week is especially important for Prashant & Valmik because they play against each other and that means that one of them will start the year going 0-2.
Conversely, Darshini & Saumil will fight it out because one of them is certainly going to start the year going 2-0 (unless of course there is a tie! :))

As for the 5 couples involved in the competition, there is some respite. No one is playing their significant other! So I hope that everyone is happy with their respective teams and if not, I urge them to go out to the Free Agent Market and try to fill the weak spots in their teams with the talent that is available!

See you all next week!

PS: I HAVE TO SAY THIS TO NIRAL:
Buddy! Between 32 QBs who was the one to throw for the 2nd most yards in week 1, lesser only than the poster boy of the evil corporation himself (Tom Brady)?
It was Big Ben ... even with all the yards he loses not throwing away the football, I guess he still beats out the sissies who at the first sign of trouble kneel for cover! :) ... sorry couldn't resist!

This is late but better late than never!

I was looking at our draft and I saw some interesting things and thought of laying out Oscar ishtyle. Let’s have the NJ rookies’ fantasy draft 2009 awards. So here it goes....

ROD Award (reach of the draft) - HOGWARTS GRYFFINDOR- Tony Romo

Jury Notes: The ADP (average draft pick) for Romo is 32. Darshini has it as a #1 pick. Now that’s called love for a player

SOD (steal of the draft) Award- The TryThrowCatch!- Reggie Bush

Jury Notes: ADP for Bush is 67. Moor got it at pick#81. Well done!

 

All-in-the-family Award -DAZZLING JAMKUDI for picking up Brian Westbrook

Jury Notes: #1 pick for team DJ is Westbook. I met with a certain Mrs.Acharya “why westbrook?” The answer was fairly simple “Mara chipoo ne game che ne”

So once again westbook stays in the Acharya family!

I-need-a-Defense-ASAP Award -Team Puntars- Steelers Defense in Round 6 !

Jury Notes: The draft pundits recommend to draft a defense in the last or second last round. But we had a defense drafted in round 6 of 13!!

Interestingly Pitt Defense was drafted before both the Steelers WR! Goes to show how much we trust the WR (or the QB)

That takes us to the I-Cant-believe-you-would-do-this Award- Team Neil B. Formee Ben Roethlisberger (a.k.a Steelers hater).

Jury Notes: How could you draft a QB which you hate from the bottom of your guts! Well just goes to show what fantasy does to you.

Runners up to I-Cant-believe-you-would-do-this Award - HOGWARTS GRYFFINDOR-

Jury Notes: For picking up Giants DST. (even though the Cowboys DST was available). Now that’s what I call Fantasy bhai-chara.

I-am-faithful-to-my-Jaadiya Award- Team Chipolopolo Brandon Jacobs

Jury Notes: Once again Jadiya Jacobs ends up with Chipolopolo who interestingly drafted him despite Thomas Jones still available (who helped his team go places). I met with the team owner after that draft and all he had to say “Mera jaadiya sirf mera hai”

Are-we-there-yet Award - END ZONE DIVA

Jury Notes: The rookie team owner was very frustrated for being the 12^th pick. She has appealed to the drafting committee for keeping the draft time shorter. She took few short naps, watched Bidayii, mere babul ki saans pata nahi kahan chali gayi….. and a few more soaps while we all were drafting.

All those who have not won any award don’t worry. You were all considered in special categories viz

I-Cant-believe-I-did-not-draft-Tom-Brady: Team Knock U Down

What-do-I-Do-with-pick#168- Team Rainbow Catchers (Michael Vick! Come you could have done better)

To-Auto Pick-or-Not-To-Auto Pick- TERRA COTTA BLITZERZ

Can-I-start-adding-and-dropping-Players-Before-I-Draft Award - DEVISH THE SMASHER

Also every week I am going to attempt to predict the winner between our match ups and keep a record of my prediction. The section will contain

KDB prediction – Predict who will win or loose and challenge ESPN stats

SDB Analysis – Explain on the whys and hows and strengths and weaknesses.

Airy Fairy Hawa Hawaii Prediction- Predict something weird or something which has very low chance of happening.

Disclaimer: The predictions are based on the line ups I see (last minute changes are not accounted but that's OK. KDB and SDB are not going to whine about it). Form next week I will update this on Sunday before the game.

	PROJECTED PTS			PROJECTED PTS	Kaam Dev Baba (KDB) prediction	Sam Dev Baba (SDB) analysis	Airy Fairy Hawa Hawaii Prediction
Knock... UDown	111		Team Neil B. Formee	120	Team Neil B. Formee	Both teams are projected to score high. Infact higher than any other team. SDB can see with the third eye that Team NBF is going to have a upper hand coz of its WR. Despite opening the season with -4 and 14 Team NBF will bounce back.	Hassleback scores more than Warner
DEVISH THE SMASHERS	105		The TryThrowCatch!	102	The TryThrowCatch!	Last years Rookie QB vs This years rookie QB. On this one I am going against ESPN. SDB thinks 2 RB's of TTC will our run the stud WR of DTS.	Dallas Clark scores more points than Leon Washington
my AYYARS	106		Team Chipolopolo	101	my AYYARS	Good team but bad match ups is the reason SBD is thinks Chipopo is doing down this week. Interesting to see both teams are overall stable. But Sam Dev Baba thinks in the battle of the bulges (mota pet vs guju seth) Ayyars will come out top	Ayyars bench scores 30% more than Chipopo's bench
Hogwarts Gryffindor	97		Team Puntars	101	Hogwarts Gryffindor	Brady, Larry Fitz vs Romo, Moss. Close very close. But HG is going to edge out Puntars. The difference maker is going to be the HG's RB	Total points scored by 3 RB's on the bench (combined) for HG will be less than the points scored by Tom Brady alone
Rainbow Catchers	82		Terra Cotta Blitzerz	94	Rainbow Catchers	Adrian Peterson, Cutler,Steve Smith, TO. SBD looks no more SBD thinks no more SBD writes no more. SBD predicts RC as winner	TO + Bowe < LT + HighTower TO+Bowe <>
End zone diva	84		Dazzling Jamkudi	84	Dazzling Jamkudi	Battle of the Rookies and Battle of the QB's. Brees vs Manning. SDB thinks Chad Ochocinco is going to break the tie.	TD's by Brees + Addai > TD's by P.Manning + Westbrook