Hey folks, after keeping you updated all season, I shouldn’t drop the ball come the playoffs, even in the middle of Original Fiction Week. Speaking of that, sorry for the lack of a story snippet yesterday…it’s a true original, being written as we speak, and I had a hectic week that saw it drop in priority. I will finish it tonight by hook or by crook and post it, and then put the poll up and leave it running through Monday when more people will see it (hopefully…I have this nightmare of having a poll with three votes on it).

Ok, on to football. Thank goodness for the fantasy playoffs, since so many of our teams are finishing the season in dreadful fashion and looking to miss the playoffs or squeak in without any momentum whatsoever. You guessed it, I’m a Cowboys fan. But I could just as easily be a Jets or Vikings fan, eh?

Round 1 of the fantasy playoffs around here were pretty intense. I played Westbrook this week, thankfully, and was able to hold off what looked to be an incredibly strong #8 seed in the form of the Shreveport Steamers. In fact, there were few teams I wouldn’t have rather played last week, and going into it I was pretty nervous. My instincts turned out to be right, too, as the Steamers would have steamrolled any other team in the league other than me. Yeah, it sucks to lose as the second-highest scorer, but that’s what happens down in 8-Town.

In shocking news, a severely shorthanded Red Dragons team upset league powerhouse Goff’s Gunslingers, whose slide reminds me of last year’s Cowboys team…awesome to the very end, except the end came more quickly than anyone expected. That’s the good news for the bloggers.

The bad news is, Chatty’s team couldn’t hold up against a strong #6 seed in the Uther’s Rectifiers, who rode a bunch of no-names and Matt Forte to victory…hm, sounds like the meatspace Bears. Nor could the Critical Anklebiters, who I thought were a lock, hold off the Doomgrinders. What a week for MJD to go off, eh?

For those playing at home, that makes me the only favorite to win this week. The remaining teams are the 1, 5, 6, and 7 seeds!

At least that makes for an exciting Round 2, as we’ve got two bloggers going head to head with two industry types. This week could be for all the marbles…can the league pull of a playoff coup after being crushed in the regular season? We’ll see, so let’s take a look at our Final Four:

The Gamer Dome vs.
Doomgrinders

Uther’s Rectifiers vs.
Red Dragons

For new readers, Doomgrinders is captained by Aaron Acevedo, artist extraordinaire, and Uther’s Rectifiers is helmed by C.A. Suleiman of Code Monkey Publishing and many fine roleplaying products. Red Dragons is Yax from Dungeon Mastering, and I’ll let you figure out The Gamer Domes.

I’ve made a habit of not directly alerting owners to fix their lineups, but have mentioned a few here, so I don’t feel bad saying that I wish Yax would at least swap out the player he’s got that’s on IR. Do it for the bloggers, man!

I’ll keep you updated as usual, and sometime next week we’ll have our fantasy bowl matchup!