Frenemies

Take a look at this snapshot from Week 11, the first time ever in the history of CTDB that good friends Jon and Greg haev both been in first place. Well, a few weeks later, it's happened again. The DIRTeByRDeeZ and Gang Green are champions of their respective conferences and set for a Super Bowl matchup. Both survived and threw down minor upsets, despite an ugly round of games throughout.

Greg, away on his honeymoon, rode the strong legs of fellow New Yorker Brandon Jacobs (17 pts) on the way to a comeback victory Sunday night. The matchup versus the Fobsters provided few pyrotechnics as Tom Brady and Randy Moss were sleeted out and put up only 5 and 9 points respectively. Still, Jimmy's team had good performances by RB Earnest Graham (19) and WRs Chad Johnson (10) and Jason Witten (15). With such a low scoring matchup, that was almost enough as the Fobsters ended Sunday with 63 points. However, Greg countered with Philip Rivers (13 pts) and Hines Ward (11 pts) and while they didn't have spectacular games, it was enough to make up the difference over the Fobsters, preserving their number one seed and a spot in the big game.

The Dirty Birds might have won by almost twenty points on paper (102 - 84) but the game was much closer than that in reality. At the end of the morning's games, they had only scored 90 points total, with Evan's big three of Peyton Manning, LaDainian Tomlinson, and Terrell Owens still to play. Well, Oakland "shut down" Peyton to the tune of 17 points, Owens alligator-armed his way to 4 points, and LDT was pulled after putting up two touchdowns and 24 points in the first half. The Monkey's kicker Martin Crosby had 16 outstanding points but that was negated by the stiff Patriots Defense of the Dirty Birds, who had 18 points.

For Jon, it was Steven Jackson leading the way with 24 points and QB Matt Hasselbeck contributing 18. The big difference in the game though, was the quality of the receivers. Braylon Edwards, Larry Fitzgerald, Greg Jennings and Wes Welker scored 45 points combined. Evan's Owens, Brandon Marshall, Roddy White, and Antonio Gates combined for 19 points. In fact, White and Gates didn't score at all thsi week.

So what will happen next week? Well, considering the Dirty Birds have scored 90+ in every weeek this season while Gang Green has only eclipsed that plateau six times (with sub 80 point games three weeks running), this should be a cakewalk for the tremendously talented Birds. However, anything can happen and with all the great mojo generated by Greg this year, might a super upset be in order?

In a post-game press conference, Jon was quoted as saying, "Now that we're both here, it doesn't really matter who wins to me. Sure, I deserve (another) ring but I think it might be nice for Greg to finally win something, especially so close to the holidays and right after he got married. Shit. Who am I kidding? I hope I blow him out Patriots style! Go Dirty Birds! Do this for Vick!"