How they got here

In reading the forums, you always have owners sharing their sob stories as to why they lost a particular match or how unlucky they were to miss the cut line. You also hear teams who either didn't win their league or got knocked out of the Vegas bracket early, yet they would have been above the cut every week since.
I'm sure there are hundreds of teams that can play the woulda coulda shoulda game. Let's face it. When cutting down from 6660 teams to 15 teams, a lot of good teams will be left out and it takes some luck to get by each week. Rather than hearing sob stories, I'm going to shed light on how some of these 15 teams could have been eliminated, but weren't.
Aaron (www.peepdot.com soon to be Hasenpfeffer Attack) listed some of his close calls in the forum ( http://www.ffoc.com/forum/thread.php?thread_id=2648 ). That's more info and detail that I have, so please take a look at his post. I am just going to go over some of the close calls during the elimination rounds of the contest.

Week 11 - all 15 finalists made it through with ease

Week 12 - skowman gets 32.92 from Brees on Monday night to push his way into the top 281 by a slim margin of 1.56 pts

Week 13 - Steve Slaton scored 2 TD's and racked up over 70 yards in the last 5 minutes of the Monday night game helping hasenpfeffer attack, skowman and rotoplay all jump above the cut line. Junk yard dog (.66 above) and wolf river dragons (2.86) narrowly eluded the late cut line surge.

Week 14 - It was deja vu all over again as D'Angelo Williams broke loose for 2 4th quarter touchdowns, the last one being with under 2 minutes left where he admittedly should have gone down at the 1 and ensured a Panther victory. If he had taken a knee short of the goal line neither Wolf River Dragons nor Who Wha would be in the finals. The late surge by Williams and Antonio Bryant owners, almost knocked out Cocktails and Dreams which made the cut by .7 pts. If he didn't make the cut, he probably would have second guessed lineup decisions as he had Brian Westbrook (34.3), Antonio Bryant (34.0) and D'Angelo Williams (31.20) all sitting on his bench. Sometimes it's not good to have a loaded team because you have to logically guess which one of your stud players will have the big week and which will be held in check.
Also this week, Junk Yard Dog and skowman barely made the cut thanks to a big second half by Steve Smith on Monday night.

Week 15 - Hip IP Liquos was the cut line at 122.36. A few teams had a chance to pass him in the last 8 minutes of the Cleveland/Philly game, but he just held on. Giantboys got in thanks to a good game by McNabb who was pulled after making his 2nd td pass. Had the Eagles run the ball in, Kenneth probably wouldn't be heading to Vegas.

If you play fantasy football long enough, you'll be on both ends of these good breaks/bad breaks. It's amazing how much a few inches can change a match up or cut line. The difference between a made or missed field goal. Having a receiver make a 74 yard catch only to be tackled at the 1 yard line so the running back (on your opponents team) can get the easy touchdown. Seeing an easy completion by your quarterback go right through the hands of the receiver and into the hands of a defender so you lose points instead of gain points. It's the roller coaster ride that makes fantasy football an adrenaline rush each and every Sunday. I wouldn't change it for the world.
I go through enough highs and lows in a regular season fantasy match up, so I can't imagine how the final 14 owners will be feeling in Vegas on Sunday as their chance at ONE MILLION DOLLARS is on the big screens in front of them. Hopefully they're feeling hung over from partying with Jerry Rice all night!