Monday Night Drama week 15

This year, the top 6 scores in the Open bracket advance to week 16 for a chance at the grand prize of $10,000 for the Stanima Football contest (www.stanima.com). Heading into Monday night, only one team had secured a spot and a second was pretty much guaranteed a spot. There were 8 teams fighting for the other 4 spots. Half of the teams had players playing in the game and half didn't. The standings looked like this:

Plan Eight for outer space  147 + M.Wallace
Ruggles Roo  143.74
Special K 2    140.34
Boogs 2          137.56
Drabus3         135.08
Brown is best 133.58
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kbach2          127.56 + Akers
naked boot legs 4  125.1 + akers + pitt dst
31st bday present  122.12 + m.wallace + v.davis
panda boy    108.28 + m.wallace + 49ers dst
skowman    108.56 + a.brown
azzurri4     84.24 + mendenhall + brown + pitt dst


The first half was pretty uneventful, but a good one for kbach2 and NBL4 as Akers knocked home 2 short field goals knocking brown is best out of the top 6. The shutout and a few int's by the 49ers defense got panda boy in the hunt. Wallace had a respectable 55 yds, but was open for a few other long plays that Roethlisberger didn't connect on.
Mid way thru the 3rd quarter, Alex Smith hit Vernon Davis 3 times including a touchdown, which ensured 31st bday present a spot in the top 6, giving Zebb 2 teams in (ruggles roo is also his). His Panda Boy team was also in the top  6 for now, but a TD by Pittsburgh, and he would drop out. NBL4 was in 6th even though his Pitt dst dropped a few points on the TD.
As the 4th quarter started, there were still 5 or 6 teams fighting for 3 spots. Zebb was assured of having 2 teams in at this point, with a chance at 3. With 9 minutes left in the game, a relatively new NFL rule, and a dumb one if you ask me, came into play and had serious consequences. SF kicked a short FG which put kbach2 into the top 6 and knocking out drabus3 and putting nbl4 within 1 PAT of passing boogs 2 for the last spot. However, Pitt was called for leaping/leveraging giving the 49ers first and goal and 1 play later gore ran the ball in. This penalty cost kbach2 2 points and nbl4 3 points as his defense loss an extra point. At this point, the top 6 were Plan 8, ruggles roo, 31st bday, panda boy, special k, and boogs2. Kbach was 1.2 pts out of the top 6 and NBL4 was almost 4 pts back. Also, Panda Boy had a chance to drop down if Pittsburgh scored a TD or 2 because of the SF defense.
The 49ers defense held up the rest of the game and got another turnover. No more kicking chances for Akers, so the final 6 stayed as it was after the Gore TD and Zebb had 3 teams in the top 6. The change of a FG to a PAT cost kbach2 a spot in the top 6 and Boogs 2 was the beneficiary.

Good luck next week to the 6 finalists! Kbach2, I feel your pain. I suffered similar disappointment 3 years ago. At that time, there were 15 finalists and top prize was $1 million. Much more at stake, but probably just as disappointing.

Merry Christmas to all!