suspense

Stan and Seth set up the FFOC to get suspense with weekly cut lines, and they got it. I'm sure the Monday night games will be more intense in the coming weeks as the teams still in the hunt get closer to their goal of making it to Vegas.
I wasn't online reading the forums or watching the cut line change as the game went on. I was under the weather and actually slept through most of the game, but got to see the excitement in the final quarter. I marked a few keys to the week and wanted to see how many people advanced or just missed advancing due to the following:

-Steelers D not getting credit for the fumble recovery and TD as they should have (6 pts)
-People who started John Carney at kicker when he wasn't active
-Lee Evans owners who got 0.0 points out of him
-Dawson/Lindell owners who made out big or lost due to the last few big kicks
-Anyone who missed by less than a point and had someone playing last night

The worst way to miss the cut is when the league admits they made a mistake, and it costs your team points because they can't/won't change it. I call this, the "Charger Effect" in reference to the Chargers this year when Ed Hocule was so juiced up that he blew his whistle when the play wasn't dead. It cost the Chargers the game, and possibly a playoff birth and all the Chargers got were an apology.
Both "Anarchy3" and "Steelers rule" would have made the cut if their Steeler DST got credit for those 6 points. Instead, they join me in the 1st and goal bracket with nothing to show except an apology from the NFL.
Now we move on to the last minute when Phil Dawson drills a 55 yarder giving his owners a 6 point swing, which led to Buffalo needing to score and Lindell losing 2 points due to missing a 46 yarder by 4 feet.
"Dallas Dragons" were the big winner. They made the cut by 1.32 thanks to Dawson's long field goal. Two teams, went from above the cut line to below the cut line with Lindell's miss. They would have made it if Buffalo never got in field goal range. My guess is that "Loonzilla" and "25-1" will put Rian Lindell on their kicker blacklist and never draft him again because of that miss.
It's funny how owners hold grudges and will not draft players who have hurt their team in the past. This may also hold true for "Team JB2", "Americas Team", "Medfield Mechanics", "Rags to Riches", "LR Roosters", and "djkevkev" who all would have made the cut if Lee Evans had at least 60 yards receiving. Instead, he got a big goose egg, and they fall to the 1st and goal bracket. I wonder if any will bench Evans next week in spite, only to have him go off for 140 yds and 2 tds?
Week 9 was the last week for roster moves, and I went back and forth on various roster moves. One of them was kicker. Did I want to help my thin RB and WR groups by keeping only Jason Elam or should I play it safe and pick up a second kicker? I decided to play it safe because you can't afford to take a 0.0 from your kicker. Well a few teams went with 1 kicker and when the Giants decided to go with Lawrence Tynes instead of John Carney, they lost their chance at a million dollars.
Two of the first 3 teams to miss the cut (by less than half a point), had John Carney as their only kicker. No teams got shut out this week, so if they started any kicker, they would have made the cut. Sorry "Snakes ona Plain" and "Flash80". I'm sure you'll learn from your mistake and carry 2 kickers next year.
For "Jay travis" and "Superbass", I have no sympathy. They were just below the cut line and also had Carney. However, they had Longwell on the bench so this was a matter of not doing your homework. To be fair, I didn't watch any pre-games this week so I don't know when/if it was announced that the Giants were making Carney inactive.
Here are a few other teams that were so close last night, but didn't quite do it:
"Rubber Buns and Liquor" - needed 2 more yds out of Braylon Edwards (plenty of drops again)
"Godz" - needed 5 more yards from Winslow Jr
"CA Trash Talkers" - started BJGE on Thursday because at the time, it was made clear Portis would not play. I hate thursday games
"Dick Hertz" - got to watch brady quinn take 2 knees to drop .2 points and he missed the cut by .5. At least the two kneel downs didn't drop him below the cut, but he just needed 3 more rush yards or 8 more pass yards from Quinn. Wouldn't it have been ironic if the "victory formation" kneel downs cost a team a shot at a million dollars?

With all these close scores, it's been brought up that a league stat change could be one person's savior and another team's worst enemy. "Casey's biggest fans" and "Rock Ur World 58" are currently at the bottom of the cut line. They will now have to sweat out a few days to make sure no team gets an extra few tenths of a point due to a stat change to leap from them for 467th place. The chances are slim, but they still can't celebrate about making it.
The FFOC hasn't posted anything in the rules about stat changes, but so far, Elias has published stat changes prior to the first game of the next week. There are cases where they change it weeks later, but I would have to think that scores are final as of midnight Wednesday, so people know they move on to week 12. I can see problems if a stat change comes up after the week 12 games start, which would have changed who advances and who doesn't. Suggestion for next year Stan....cover this in the rules. Say stat changes will be incorporated up until 24 hours before the first game of the following week (or something to the sort) to cover yourself.

If any of you have a hard luck story from missing the cut this week, please leave a comment about it. I tried to find all the ones readily apparent, but there may have been a freak play or two in another game that I missed which cost someone a point and led to you missing the cut.

Good luck in week 12 to the 467 teams that advanced.