I deal with the bad drivers by always expecting stupid. I always look both ways on a green light, seriously, especially if I've been sitting at a red light. Cars running lights a few seconds after it changes is one of the most common things I see.

Basically I'm always on high alert, which is probably why I sometimes freak out online. When my job is busy, it can be stressful keeping the customers happy but it's worse when other drivers are trying to take me out on the roads lol.

I also deal with it by screaming in the car and exercising my middle finger a lot.

What's really funny/sad is a lot of the time if you honk at someone doing something stupid, they get offended and pissed off and start getting mad at you.

Week 7

Congrats to ex Cincinnati Red Michael Lorenzen on his no hitter tonight.

Speaking of baseball, they had a fight recently where an actual punch landed, which leads into the heavyweight fight for the Southwest division. It might be too early for "must win" games but if Houston lost to Oklahoma they would be 2 games behind with a loss to the Outlaws, making a division title and possible bye extremely hard. That's what she said.

Oklahoma had a rough first half offensively as the Houston defense shut them out while Dale Baber threw a pair of TD passes to give the Gamblers a 14-0 halftime lead. Both teams combined for 9 first half punts.

I wish we could know what happened in each locker room at halftime but neither defense forced a single punt in the second half. Oklahoma scored the first TD of the second half and the teams traded TDs until late in the 4th, when Oklahoma recovered an onside kick and scored two TDs in a row. Houston led 35-20 before the first of the back to back Outlaws TDs, after which they went for two points and failed to trail 35-26. The next TD they kicked the XP to trail 35-33 but they couldn't recover this onside kick and Houston drove deep in Outlaw territory before a missed FG in the final 20 seconds. Oklahoma had 1 play that went nowhere and time ran out on their comeback attempt.

In the loss Raymond Settles threw for 450 yards, 5 TDs and an INT, completing 39/47. Surprisingly no receiver topped 100 yards for Oklahoma although 3 had 80+ and Gary Kahn caught 2 TD passes. For Houston, Dale Baber was 34/51, 395, 4 TDs and 1 INT. Lex Luger caught 9 for 124 yards and Harley Race caught 6 for 113 and a score. Randy Savage had a combined 120 yards with 1 TD rushing and 1 TD receiving.

That loss by Oklahoma means we are down to two undefeated teams, Birmingham and Pittsburgh.

Charlotte is now the lone winless team after Boston defeated Denver 23-7. The 7 points for the Gold give them 35 on the season. That's still last in the league but it guarantees their point total won't be the lowest ever.

Winning Streaks *at least 3 games

7-Birmingham, Pittsburgh
6-San Jose
5-Memphis
4-New Orleans, Philadelphia
3-Orlando

Losing Streaks

7-Charlotte
5-Arizona
4-San Antonio, Shreveport
3-Detroit, Tampa Bay, Baltimore

Current Division Leaders: San Jose, Portland, Oklahoma, Michigan, Orlando, Birmingham, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia

Pittsburgh enjoys a 5 game lead while Oklahoma and Michigan have 1 game leads. The rest all have 2 game leads.

Current wildcard teams (according to MFN): Houston, Memphis, Honolulu, New Orleans, Jacksonville, and New Jersey.

Birmingham still leads in scoring offense, defense, and point differential. The Stallions have scored 279 points, essentially 40 points a game if you round it out while giving up 38. Yes, they average more points scored per game than they have allowed all season. Their point differential is +241 points, or nearly 34.5 points a game.

On to the rest of the games in order listed...

Florida beat Tampa Bay 16-3 in a Southeast divisional game. Not much to talk about here other than Graham Folks had another 100 yard rushing game, his 4th this season. I imagine he ran into Chester Janik a lot as the Bandits WLB recorded 11 tackles and a sack.

Cleveland beat Detroit 12-0 in a Midwest divisional game. Not much to talk about here either as neither team topped 200 yards of offense. Detroit's defense played well but Cleveland's played better. Carlos Reed kicked 4 FGs to account for the game's points.

Jacksonville beat San Antonio 16-0 though it should have been worse. The Bulls scored just 1 TD in 6 red zone trips with 3 FGs, and their kicker Charles Tello made just 3/6 FG attempts. The Bulls defense forced 4 turnovers, including 3 INTs, allowing zero red zone trips and less than 18 minutes of possession.

Washington beat Charlotte 21-14 to break a 4 game losing streak. Federals QB Michael Erickson completed 21/26 for 220 yards, 2 TDs and an INT. Erickson also scored a rushing TD. Charlotte QB Chris Miller completed 23/31 passes and the Hornets BCBC gained nearly 4 yards a carry but they managed just 1 offensive TD. Rodger Brown returned a kickoff 102 yards for the Hornets other score.

San Jose beat Honolulu 28-12 and the scoring didn't go as you might think. Conventional wisdom suggests San Jose had 4 TDs and 4 XP while Honolulu had 4 FGs, but just the 4 SaberCats TDs actually happened. San Jose goes for 2 after every TD and they converted 2/4 2 point tries today. Honolulu trailed 22-0 after 3 quarters so they also went for 2 points after their two 4th qtr TDs, only to fail both times. Larry Henderson threw 63 passes, completing 39 for 451 yards, 3 TDs and 2 INTs. Henderson was also sacked 6 times. Jacob Newman Sucks caught 8 for 136 yards while Raymond Still caught 13 passes, had a combined 122 yards and scored 1 TD on the ground and in the air. Honolulu QB Victor Russell threw for 289 yards, yet produced a pair of 100+ yard receivers...Michael Sinclair caught 6 for 112 yards and Richard Klein caught 6 for 100 and 2 TDs.

Pittsburgh beat Baltimore 38-19 although the Stars kept it close for most of the first half before Pittsburgh started pulling away. The Maulers defense had 7 sacks, 2 INT and held Baltimore to 1/13 on 3rd down. Pittsburgh QB Brian White threw for 343 yards, 3 TDs and 2 INTs with the usual support from Matthew Goebel and Patrick Howard. Goebel ran for 81 yards and 2 TDs while Howard caught 7 for 199 and a TD.

Michigan beat Los Angeles 44-20 although there is plenty for the Panthers coaches to be upset about. Michigan had 543 offensive yards, ran for over 5 yards a carry, converted 6/14 3rd downs, the defense allowed just 43% completion, got 3 sacks and 5 turnovers so what's there to be mad about? The offense committed 5 turnovers of their own and allowed 2 long TD passes in the final 3:07 including a 96 yard TD pass from Myron Dustin to Richard Neufeld. That long TD made his stat line 5 catches, 157 yards and a TD. Michigan QB Willie Reddish threw for 370 yards and 3 TDs, overcoming 3 INTs.

8 games covered, 8 to go plus stats. Good time for me to take a break and start some laundry.

Got to watch him a bunch this season as a tiger. Dude is a beast, never heard a ton about him prior to this year.

I felt like he was a solid pitcher and couldn’t believe the tigers locked him up on a one year deal. Don’t know much about his injury history but I’m generally happy to hear him fairing well in Philly.

I can say for certain his presence on the tigers seems to have rubbed off on other pitchers. Casey Mize is returning from Tommy John and is like twenty pounds of muscle bigger than he was last season. Hard to imagine Lorenzen didn’t have some impact on that.

When Lorenzen was with the Reds, he wanted to be a starter and he wanted to play the field and bat. The club preferred him as a reliever but they did let him play the OF some and used him often as a pinch hitter.

Baseball is cool and all but we're here for football and I still have games to talk about so...

Chicago beat Southern California 28-24 thanks to 118 yards rushing from Brian Smith and 2 TD passes from Steven Wagner. The Blitz were 9/12 on 3rd down and 4 for 4 scoring TDs in the red zone. Sun QB John Barrios only had 2 passes hit the ground, completing 18/21 plus an INT and 2 TD passes to Jonathan Phillips, who had 107 receiving yards. Wagner completed 20/25 for Chicago for a combined 38/46 passing.

Birmingham beat Shreveport 37-7 as the beat rolls on for the undefeated Stallions. Russell Gall had un uncharacteristic 19/36 passing day with an INT but he still threw for 308 yards and 2 TDs. Lee Ramos caught 5 for 122 yards and 1 of the scores while the BCBC had 198 rushing yards and a TD. Shreveport has lost their steam after a 3-0 start as this is their 4th straight loss. They couldn't run the ball today, gaining 20 yards on 26 carries and the passing game was dink and dunk.

It was divisional week for the South as New Orleans beat Georgia 28-16, overcoming 3 Willie Graham INTs with a suffocating pass defense. Graham balanced his 3 INTs with 3 TD passes and the VooDoo defense allowed just 11/32 passing for 63 yards net. Five sacks took away 39 yards of that. The Force BCBC did rush for 137 yards but it's tough to come back from a 21-6 deficit with a limited passing attack.

Boston traveled to the Rocky Mountains to face the Denver Gold, fresh off their first win of the season. The Gold were looking for a winning streak with the winless Breakers coming to town, but Boston played ball control offense (almost 37 minutes T.O.P.) and stifling defense to get their first win of 2006. The Breakers had 2 sacks, an INT, fumble recovery and held Denver to 2/13 on 3rd down. The Breakers BCBC had 157 yards and 2 TDs and Gonzalo Burgess booted 3 FGs.

Philadelphia defeated Portland 30-10 in a game between World Bowl contenders. Looking at the box score, it seems the defenses of both teams only played hard on 3rd down as despite 763 combined yards, the teams combined to go 3/29 on 3rd down. That's probably not a fair assessment as the QBs combined to complete 47/99 but those complete passes did go for nice gains as both teams were over 10 yards per. Philadelphia's Joel Jasso was 29/54, 303 yards with no TDs and an INT. Roderick Uribe caught 9 for 127 yards and the Bell BCBC had 154 rushing yards and 2 scores. Portland QB Raymond Oswalt completed 18/45, 244 yards and 4 INTs, one returned for a TD.

Orlando beat the NY Stars 40-10 behind 403 yards and 4 TD passes from Dwayne Byrd. John Jones caught 11 for 165 yards and 2 scores while the Renegades BCBC had 121 yards and a TD. Defensively Orlando gave the Stars no running room, holding them to 8 yards on 17 carries. They also had an interception and sacked Jamie Orman 5 times.

New Jersey's 29th ranked defense out played their ranking today, holding Oakland to 175 yards, 1/14 on 3rd down and keeping the Invaders offense from invading their red zone. The Generals forced 3 turnovers (2 INT and a fumble), had 3 sacks and held them below 3 yards a carry. Offensively we're 14th in yards but our free agent QB seems allergic to the end zone. In 7 games he has only 2 TD passes and the offense as a whole has but 5. The red zone is where our drives go to die. Howie "Stump" Schwab kicked 4 FGs for the Generals 12 points and they get the win.

Memphis beat Arizona 37-3 in a game between teams going in opposite directions. Week 2 was awhile ago but after those games, Arizona was 2-0 and Memphis was 0-2. Since then, including this game, Arizona has lost 5 in a row while Memphis has won 5 in a row. The Memphis defense held Arizona to 118 total yards, had 3 sacks and forced 2 turnovers, with the Wranglers lone red zone possession coming after recovering a Showboats fumble on the Memphis 16 yard line. Erik McNamee threw for 4 TDs, 2 to Wayne Ross.

Taking a brief break then stats...

It's looking like a 4 man race for passing leader. Joel Jasso (Philadelphia) still leads over Larry Henderson (San Jose), Dale Baber (Houston), and Dwayne Byrd (Orlando). Jasso has 2,707 yards and a 9.18 YPA while Henderson has 2,565 yards and a 6.61 YPA. Baber has 2,506 yards while Byrd has 2,472.

Larry Henderson has been sacked 42 times, 6 times per game, leading the league. Adam Patrick (Georgia) is next with 38.

The TD pass race is tight. Dale Baber and Russell Gall (Birmingham) are tied with 22 while Raymond Settles (Oklahoma) has 21. Three more are tied with 19 each.

Nine QBs have thrown 10+ INTs and 7 of those are from winning teams. Dwayne Byrd has thrown 17, Dale Baber 16 at the top of the list.

Russell Gall leads in QBR (120.84) over Joel Jasso (106.98), John Barrios, Southern California (102.65), and Raymond Settles (101.41).

Barrios is a surprise entry as he doesn't light up the box score (only 163 pass attempts in 7 games) but there he is, third on the list. Barrios is 2nd in completion percentage (71.2%) right behind Gall (71.4%), he has a 7.08 YPA and a 12:5 TD:INT ratio and the main reason the Sun are looking like a team on the rise.

The rushing yard lead looks like a 2 man race for now as Matthew Goebel (Pittsburgh) still leads but his 695 yards is just 16 more than the 679 of Florida's Graham Folks. Third place Steven McCurdy (Oklahoma) is 119 yards behind Folks, although he averages 6 yards per carry, 1.5 yards more than Goebel and Folks.

Goebel also leads in rushing TDs with 7, followed by Raymond Still (San Jose) and Thomas Frank (Portland) with 6 each. Houston's Randy Savage and New Orleans' Gerald Waldon have 5 each.

Roderick Uribe (Philadelphia) had the early season receiving yards lead and he's still second now with 904 yards. He has been "lapped" by Pittsburgh's Patrick Howard, who already has a 1,000 yard season. Howard has 48 catches, 1,061 yards and 10 TDs.

Those 10 TDs lead the league, just ahead of Benjamin Jones of New Orleans (9) and Brian Henson of Orlando (8).

Howard's 48 catches ties him with New Jersey WR Jeff Lebowski for 4th, well behind the league leading 77 by San Jose's Jacob Newman. Newman might **** but he's 16 catches ahead of 2nd place Benjamin Jones.

We've had 10 kickoff return TDs this season and 1 punt return score.

Oklahoma kicker Samuel Diaz finally missed a FG but he's still 17/18 on the season.

Jonathan Ruch, Michigan has 19 FGs to lead the league by 1 over Howie "Stump" Schwab (New Jersey), Al Borland (Birmingham), and Samuel Oakes (Tampa Bay).

Florida kicker Daniel Pitts could possibly challenge the record of 17 50+ yard FGs made set by Houston's Daniel McCormack in 1980. McCormack is also tied for 2nd on the list with the 16 he made in 1979. Pitts is 8/9 from distance so far this season.

Orlando kicker Roger Love is 13/15 (86.7%) on FGs and 23/28 (82.1%) on XP. He missed his 5th XP of the season this week while no other kicker has missed more than 1.

Baltimore WLB Lazaro Mason still leads the league in tackles (73) and missed tackles (22). Mason is 15 tackles ahead of 2nd place SS Kelley Zook of Denver.

We now have 3 players with double digit sacks, with a pair of youngsters tied at the top with 11 each. Michael Peters (Pittsburgh) and Nathan Explosion (New Jersey) are the tied players and Peters is in his 2nd season, while Explosion is a rookie. Portland's Michael Carter has 10 sacks, and he's "old" compared to Peters and Explosion, although a 6th year LDE is far from old. Five players are next with 9 sacks each.

There are 3 players with 20 or more knockdowns, Philadelphia's Mark Southern has 21 while his teammate Lewis Gomez is tied with Shreveport's Samuel Johnson with 20.

Southern and Gomez are tied for 3rd with 5 INTs each, behind Brian Henry's (Birmingham) 7, then Jason Winborne (San Jose) and Robert Patton (Houston) have 6 each.

We have had 9 Pick Sixes

I don't want to discuss too much yet, I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. I'll be as generic as possible.

Almost half the league has a win or loss streak of 3 or more, 14 teams in all

8 teams have a win or loss streak of 5 or more

I'd say a little more now, but spoilers

I have a draft in one league so I didn't get a chance to write anything this afternoon. Today's 2 picks come at inopportune times, one while I'll be asleep, the other when I'll be at work and I need to fill my queue before bed in a couple/few hours.

I'm gonna try to be brief and I'll probably just do the games this morning and save the stat stuff for tomorrow morning after work.

Week 8

As usual, I'll go in order how they're listed for me.

San Jose lost to Cleveland 23-8, snapping their 6 game win streak. The SaberCats had 363 offensive yards, including 310 passing by Larry Henderson and 19 catches for 169 yards from Jacob Newman. San Jose had 23 first downs and went 6/17 on 3rd down while holding Cleveland to 163 yards. So how did the SaberCats lose? They went 2/10 on 4th down, with 5 of those failures coming in their own territory, leading to all 23 Cleveland points.

Stop me if you've heard this before but Pittsburgh mauled another opponent, this time Charlotte by a 52-0 score. Brian White was 33/41, 473 yards with 6 TDs, Eugene Williams caught 11 for 166 yards and a score while Patrick Howard caught 7 for 126 and 2 TDs. Matthew Goebel ran for 76 yards and a TD to go with 4 catches for 86 yards.

Stop me if you've heard this before but Birmingham won another lopsided game, this time 33-6 over Georgia. The Force kept it close deep into the 3rd qtr, getting within 14-6 before the Stallions ran off 19 unanswered points. The good news for Georgia was QB Adam Patrick was only sacked twice. The bad news is one sack was in the end zone for a safety and the defense couldn't cover Arnold Griego. QB Russell Gall threw for 374 yards and 4 TDs with Griego accounting for 201 yards and all 4 scores.

Pittsburgh and Birmingham remain the last 2 undefeated teams and could be playing for home field advantage when they play each other Week 16.

Michigan took a 13-0 first half lead before Honolulu took the lead 14-13 late 3rd on the 2nd Victor Russell to Donald Fleming TD pass. Fast forward to just inside the 2 minute warning, the score is still 14-13 Honolulu and the Hawaiians pin Michigan at their own 6 with a punt. Up to now, the Panthers were 0/11 on 3rd down and they faces a 3rd and 1 from their 15. Willie Reddish found Charles Grasty for a completion and he took it all the way to the end zone for the go ahead TD. The 2 point conversion failed but Michigan had the lead back 19-14. The Panthers defense held and they get the victory to stay 1 game ahead of Cleveland.

The New York Stars overcame 4 turnovers to defeat Jacksonville 28-10. Jamie Orman threw for 348 yards, 2 TDs, and 2 INTs and his favorite receiver today was Dylan Fryer, who caught 6 for 178 yards and both TDs. The Stars defense forced 2 turnovers of their own with 3 sacks, allowing just 229 yards.

Arizona (25th ranked offense) and Denver (32nd offense) met for the second time this season, and these offensively challenged teams combined for 716 yards of course, with both over 340. Arizona led 13-7 at the half but Denver won the 3rd quarter 10-0, taking a 17-13 lead deep into the 4th. That's when the Arizona defense intercepted Richard Crum for the 2nd time, setting up a short field. Curtis Kim later found Erik Estrada's kid Brett for a 35 yard go ahead TD. The Wranglers went for 2 and got it, taking a 21-17 lead with just over 2 minutes to play. Denver would actually get 2 more drives thanks to an Arizona fumble but they couldn't cross midfield either time and the Wranglers hold on to split the season series.

New Orleans beat Washington 23-10 behind 190 yards from their BCBC and 2 TD passes by Willie Graham. Benjamin Jones caught one of those scores as part of his 7 for 109 yard game. Washington had a 10-6 lead entering the 4th quarter, but New Orleans scored the last 17 points, 10 thanks to an INT and a turnover on downs.

Chicago beat Shreveport 16-10 in a battle of streaky teams. Chicago had lost 4 straight before their current 3 game winning streak while Shreveport started 3-0 before their current 5 game slide. The Steamer held the Blitz to 144 yards but did allow Chicago to score a TD and a FG their first 2 drives to fall behind 10-0. Shreveport would tie the game at 10 midway through the 3rd but then bad field position bogged down the offense and Chicago kicked the go ahead FG early in the 4th and held on for the win.

New Jersey beat Tampa Bay 20-10 behind 2 rushing TDs by Malcom "in the middle" Wilkerson on just 7 carries. The Generals BCBC combined for 150 yards and New Jersey's 28th ranked defense again out played their ranking. The Bandits did run for 166 yards, 133 by George Stops but the passing game produced just 86 gross yards before you take away the yardage from 6 sacks. All 6 sacks came from rookie RDE Nathan Explosion, who is making a case for defensive rookie of the year if the commish would ever catch up on All Pro stuff.

I apologize to dfisherman for talking good about his QB John Berrios last game, as it seems I may have jinxed him, or maybe Baltimore just had a good defensive game plan. The Stars held the Sun to 126 total yards and Southern California's lone TD came when Philip Curry returned the 2nd half kickoff 103 yards. Baltimore QB Jerry Parker threw 4 INTs but the Stars offense got 4 FGs, just enough to squeak out a 12-10 win.

Oklahoma beat Orlando 13-10 in a battle of division leaders. There aren't many stats to talk about despite these being 2 of the best teams in the league as this was a defensive struggle. Orlando QB Dwayne Byrd threw 3 INTs and Oklahoma led 13-3 until the final seconds of the game, when the Renegades finally found the end zone. Too little, too late for Orlando but they still have a 2 game division lead at the half way mark with both of their losses coming to 7-1 teams.

Los Angeles beat Detroit 25-7 thanks to both team's running game. The Express BCBC produced 242 yards and a pair of 100 yard rushers. Juan Francis ran for 115 yards on 21 carries while Ernie Lindsay ran 20 times for 107. Los Angeles QB Myron Dustin was responsible for both TDs, throwing a TD pass and a Pick Six. The Express defense held Detroit to 9 yards rushing on 8 carries and they sacked Wheels QBs 6 times (they played 2).

Portland beat Boston 12-0 behind a BCBC that ran for 223 yards and 2 TDs. Thomas Frank led the way with 99 yards and a 40 yard TD, Travis Hopkins ran for 81 and Gabriel Elliott took his only carry 31 yards for a TD. Aaron David missed the XP after Frank's score and the 2 point try failed after Elliott's score.

Philadelphia beat Florida 27-6 despite one of Joel Jasso's worst games of the season. Jasso did not throw a TD pass, and only had 238 yards with an INT and 3 sacks. The Bell did get 3 rushing TDs from Alfredo Montoya while holding Florida's stud RB Graham Folks to 74 yards on 28 carries.

Memphis beat Houston 22-10, pushing the defending champs down to 3rd place in the ultra competitive Southwest division. The Showboats defense intercepted 2 Dale Baber passes and held Houston to 285 yards, almost 145 yards below their average. Randy Savage was responsible for more than half of that, rushing for 60 yards and adding 4 receptions for 90 yards and a score. Memphis QB Erik McNamee completed 27/32 for 227 yards and a TD with Wayne Ross catching 8 for 100 yards. The oddest stat line of the year just may be Memphis WR Cesar Houser, who ran 14 times for 1 yard and a TD early in the 4th to push the Memphis lead to 19-7.

Oakland beat San Antonio 23-3 behind 2 Hector Bednar TD passes to Miguel Gilbert and solid defensive play. San Antonio could muster only 124 total yards, 1/16 3rd down conversions, 3 sacks and a lost fumble. Oakland also got 170 rushing yards from their BCBC to improve to 2-6 on the year.

Time to get some breakfast and throw some names in the draft queue at MFN 2.

Since we're at the halfway point, now is a good time to look at the division races and how the teams stats look.

Pacific

San Jose 6-2 (3rd ranked offense/4th ranked defense)
Honolulu 4-4 (17th/21st)
Southern California 3-5 (16th/12th)
Los Angeles 3-5 (15th/23rd)

San Jose has a 2 game lead on Honolulu and a 3-0 division record. The SaberCats remaining opponents have a record of 28-36, so they'd have to give away a few more games for Honolulu to have a chance at the division. The Hawaiians remaining opponents are 26-38, and I think they will end up as the #7 seed. Southern California and Los Angeles are tied for 3rd place at 3-5, and they remain alive for the playoffs. The Sun's remaining opponents are 26-38 while the Express face a 32-32 schedule.

West

Portland 5-3 (11th/8th)
Arizona 3-5 (25th/13th)
Oakland 2-6 (23rd/10th)
Denver 1-7 (32nd/26th)

Portland has a 2 game lead on Arizona and while the Wranglers and Invaders have good defenses, they struggle to score and it would be a surprise if one of them overtake the Storm for the division. Portland's remaining opponents are .500, 32-32. Arizona is also 2 games behind the current #7 seed Cleveland and their remaining opponents are 38-26, it's gonna be tough for the Wranglers to play in January. Nobody has been officially eliminated, but it's tough to see a path for Oakland and/or Denver to play January football. The Invader's opponents have a record of 30-34 while the Gold face teams 34-30.

Southwest

Oklahoma 7-1 (7th/6th)
Memphis 6-2 (10th/5th)
Houston 5-3 (6th/31st)
San Antonio 2-6 (30th/19th)

Oklahoma has a 1 game lead on Memphis with a win over the Showboats in their pocket, so Memphis will need to win the Week 11 rematch to have any hope of taking the division. Oklahoma's remaining opponents are a combined 31-33 and barring a total collapse, will be in the World Bowl Tournament. Memphis faces teams with a 29-35 record down the stretch and it's hard to see a path out of the playoffs for the Showboats. They are 6-0 since signing an actual punter and even if they don't win the division, they are probably 98% to make it as a wildcard. Unfortunately I don't have a nerd with a digital percentage chart to tell us exact playoff chances.

All this talk about the Southwest and I'm just now getting to the champs, Houston. At 5-3, they are in 3rd place but with the easiest remaining schedule in the conference (25-39) they could still win the division. They would need to beat Oklahoma again in the Week 14 rematch and get some help from other Outlaws opponents, but at the very least the Gamblers should make the tournament to defend their title. Whether their 31st ranked defense can hold up in January is a question for the future.

San Antonio's remaining opponents are 41-23, the toughest remaining schedule in the conference. The Gunslingers keep taking it on the chin, playing in the toughest division (the Southwest and South are both 20-12 overall) and the schedule gods did them no favors.

Midwest

Michigan 6-2 (9th/7th)
Cleveland 5-3 (27th/27th)
Chicago 4-4 (22nd/29th)
Detroit 1-7 (26th/30th)

Michigan has a 1 game lead on Cleveland but nobody has played more than 2 division games so there could be some standings jockeying down the stretch. The Panthers do have the easiest remaining schedule in the division at 31-33 and their superior team stats seem to suggest they should win the division. The Thunderbolts were gifted a win by the SaberCats and at 5-3, they are the current #7 seed. Their remaining schedule is 35-29 and their team stats suggest they will have difficulty holding onto that spot. The Chicago Blitz are a streaky team and their most important stretch of games is weeks 10-14, where they are home against Cleveland before a 4 game road trip at Michigan, New Orleans, Houston, and Honolulu. They'll likely need to win at least 3 and probably 4 to have a chance at January football. Detroit's remaining schedule is 36-28, making a post season run unlikely.

National Conference coming soon...

Southeast

Orlando 6-2 (5th/24th)
Jacksonville 4-4 (18th/14th)
Florida 3-5 (20th/18th)
Tampa Bay 2-6 (21st/25th)

Orlando has a 2 game lead, their only losses are to 7-1 football teams, and their remaining opponents are 26-38 so it's difficult to imagine Jacksonville taking the division from them. Speaking of the Bulls, they are tied with New York for the current #7 seed, though MFN gives the Stars the tiebreaker. Jacksonville's remaining opponents are 38-26 so their hands will be full trying to stay in the wildcard race. Florida's remaining schedule is 29-35, and with some help, could find themselves in the wildcard chase. Tampa Bay is 2 games out of a wildcard spot with a remaining schedule of 37-27 so it's gonna be tough.

South

Birmingham 8-0 (2nd/1st)
New Orleans 6-2 (8th/2nd)
Georgia 3-5 (19th/15th)
Shreveport 3-5 (31st/20th)

Birmingham has a 2 game lead on New Orleans with a win in the hand already. The rematch is tonight and is pretty much a must win for the VooDoo if they have any hope of winning the South. Birmingham's remaining opponents are 34-30, but after tonight, they're at .500 at the moment. New Orleans remaining schedule is 39-25, 31-25 after tonight. A Stallions win, while not giving them a "y" next to their name in the standings, will make it a virtual lock to see the "y" soon as they'd have a 3 game lead with 7 to play plus a sweep to win any tiebreaker.

Georgia and Shreveport are just 1 game out of the playoffs at the moment, the Force's remaining opponents are 42-22 and the Steamer's are 37-27. They have their work cut out for them.

Atlantic

Pittsburgh 8-0 (4th/3rd)
Baltimore 3-5 (12th/17th)
Washington 2-6 (29th/22nd)
Charlotte 0-8 (24th/32nd)

Pittsburgh has a 5 game lead with 8 to play and they are already 5-0 in division. They don't have the "y" next to their name in the standings either, but I imagine the playoff chances nerd guy would say the Maulers are 99% to win the division. Their remaining opponents are 34-30, but with a top 5 offense and defense, does anyone really think they're going to collapse all of the sudden? Baltimore is just 1 game out of the playoffs with a remaining schedule of 33-31, January could happen. Washington's remaining opponents are just 26-38, but can their low ranked offense score enough for the Federals to make a run? Charlotte's remaining schedule is 32-32 as they seek their first win of the season. Three of their 8 losses have been by 1 score or less.

East

Philadelphia 7-1 (1st/9th)
New Jersey 5-3 (14th/28th)
(NY) Stars 4-4 (13th/11th)
Boston 1-7 (38-26)

Philadelphia has a 2 game lead on New Jersey with a sweep, the top offense in the league, a top 9 defense, and the easiest remaining schedule in the league at 21-43. It would take a collapse for the Bell to not win the East. New Jersey looks like a wildcard team again but with a horrible defense, they could get caught by New York for second place. The Generals remaining schedule is 27-37 while New York's opponents are 24-40. New Jersey and New York are ranked similarly offensively but the Stars have a much better statistical defense. New Jersey is the current #6 seed while New York is #7. Boston has had a tough season so far and their remaining schedule does them no favors, as their opponents are 38-26.