Week 8: Jinxed

Distillers PK Butker KC

Dah Blog put the jinx on Hurricane Quags after Week 7 with a post about the Quags' potential record-breaking winning streak. With seven wins to start the season, the Canes needed two wins to tie former owner Mike Wilcox's record of nine consecutive league wins.

But the Distillers beat Quags 58-43 in Week 8. The Distillers picked up PK Butker KC in Week 8 to add to a roster of three PKs. Distillers owner Dan Cassidy was forced to start Butker due to byes for his other kickers (Crosby GB and Succop TEN).

Butker, who was only added to the KC roster in Week 4, kicked five field goals of 42, 51, 43, 32 and 25 yards on Monday night against DEN. That single performance turned the Distillers from a possible loser to an upset winner. Butker's Player of the Week 25 points is the second greatest POW total of the season behind RB Hunt KC's 26 points in the opening week for Quags.

Butker is 18-for-19 on field goals this season and perfect on all 11 of his extra-point attempts. 

Butker's 25 points also eclipsed another great Week 8 performance. The Brawlers won their second game of the season with a 53-46 win over the Jays behind QB Watson HOU's 21 points.

Hurricane Quags bearing down

Don't look now, but Quags is 7-0 and is two more wins away from tying former Finks League owner Mike Wilcox for most consecutive wins in league history.

Wilcox (pictured right) won nine consecutive games with his Kansas City Kings in 1995. No league records are kept for wins to begin a season, so we are not sure when those wins came for the Kings. The record has stood since the second season of Finks League.

That 1995 season was the only one for the Kings. Hall of Famer Wilcox moved to St. Louis the following season and became the Spirits for several years. Of course, Wilcox won the first Finks League title in 1994 as the Cooperstown Strikers.

In 1995, the Finks League grew to 10 teams from its four-team 1994 inaugural season. Mike Miazga and Stan Goff, along with Dah Commish, remain the only present owners from 1995.

But just because you win nine in a row, that's no guarantee toward winning a Finger Bowl championship. Wilcox's Kings lost the semifinals in 1995 to the eventual champion Stone Blue Bombers.

That's Finks League.

Week 7: QB Follies

QB Palmer AZ

Just when you think you've got everything figured out in Finks League, imagine the past few weeks for Brady Gaga owner Sean King.

"I am the QB grim reaper," King shared in an email.

That feeling comes just a few days after Week 7 completed when recent King pickup, QB Palmer AZ, suffered a likely season-ending broken bone in his left arm. King lost elite QB A. Rodgers GB to another season-ending injury in Week 6.

To top it off, Gaga lost back-to-back matches to division-leading Quags by a 57-37 score in Week 6 and a 27-6 score in Week 7. Perhaps the only good news for Gaga is that they don't have to play undefeated Hurricane Quags anymore.

Finks first: Jake Elliott

Usually it's all business when playing Finks League football, but Week 5 became a first in the history of Dah Commish teams in the league.

Playing with my heart, Dah Commish picked up free-agent PK Elliott PHI, a former Lyons standout athlete I used to cover as a sports writer for Pioneer Press/The Doings before taking a buyout last year. Elliott was a state-qualifying tennis player, who doubled as a PK for LT. He only kicked his junior and senior years when he was discovered in a homecoming kicking stunt by football coach Kurt Weinberg.

I was there in the LT press box when Elliott kicked a game-winning, 52-yard field goal against OPRF. Elliott broke Stephen Gostkowski's records at Memphis, drafted by the Bengals and then was cut by Cincy before the season opener over PK Bullock. The reaction of Elliott's parents in Week 3 to his 61-yard game-winner against NYG has gone viral.



Here are a couple of my stories written about Elliott while I was with The Doings:

Elliott picks Memphis

Elliott sets records for Memphis

Week 2 review: A missed PAT

Quags beat Serkus 46-45 in the feature matchup of Week 2, but Canes owner Dick Quagliano had to break the bad news to Serkus boss Stan Goff.

"My loss was even tougher than I thought as Dick just informed me the Blair Walsh Project hit the uprights on a PAT or else we would have tied," Goff reported via email. 

Serkus PK Walsh SEA missed the point-after in the fourth quarter by hitting the right upright after a QB Wilson TD pass. It was Walsh's only PAT attempt of the game after earlier making field goals of 27 and 25 yards.

The crusher prevented a tie for the Tomlinson Division rivals. There was only one tie in Finks League action in 2016. 

Finks Auction 2017

Thanks for getting in your bid sheets on Saturday. We have kicked off our 24th Finks season with another auction, the same method used to disperse players from our inaugural season of 1994.

As I've written before, the first Finks auction was held by using a silent-bid process since two of our original four owners, Matt Simo and Mike Wilcox, did not live in Chicagoland in order to hold a live draft. This was before the internet became popular. At that time, I was in a baseball league that would sometimes hold live drafts via telephone for out-of-town owners. That was always a dreadful experience to be in a draft room with someone needing to make a phone call during every round only to start each conversation with a list of who was selected.

I wanted to avoid that, so the silent-bid auction was born. I think it works.

In 2017, Anthony Quagliano is our only out-of-town owner since he is attending grad school at the University of Delaware. We could still hold a live draft, but I like the idea of waiting until Labor Day weekend and after Preseason Week 4 to select players. A live draft would have to be held earlier, given our different schedules. I like the auction. It's me and sheets of paper.

My wife is in a fantasy league through work and her live draft is tonight over Yahoo.com. That could be a two-hour process.

Here's some news and notes regarding Finks Auction 2017:

"Wow, two Bryants": Serkus picked them both up, getting Dez from Dallas and Martavis from Pittsburgh.

Three's enough: Two Finks owners reached out to their favorite NFL teams for new players, picking up three each during the auction. Goff won bids for Prescott, Elliott and D. Bryant from Dallas and Bucs fan Herigodt picked up Winston, Martin and Evans.

Don't read too much into Dah Commish getting three Lions (Stafford, Tate and Prater), other than his Finks moniker this season -- Portsmouth Spartans -- was the original team from Ohio that would become the Detroit Lions in the 1930s. Bears fan Cassidy won bids for three Saints, Brees, Peterson and M. Thomas.

Top bids: Here are your auction champs, by position. QB: Rodgers GB, $33.00 (won by Gaga); RB: D. Johnson AZ, $41.45 (Jays); WR: A. Brown PIT, $31.00 (Gaga); PK: Gostkowski NE, $6.03 (Eggers).

Lotto fever: With so many owners throwing penny bids at players, there were five tiebreaking lottery selections made among Finks owners. QB Luck IND proved to be the most popular with three teams -- Cats, Jays and Gaga -- seeking to own Luck as a backup. The Jays won.

Other players selected by a blind draw with penny bids were WR Hopkins HOU (won by Gaga), QB Cutler MIA (Quags), RB Fournette JAX (Cats) and RB Abdullah DET (Jays).

Welcome to Finks League 2017

My 11-year-old son, A.G., took the honors this year of pulling names out of a hat to decide division affiliations. In honor of new Pro Football Hall of Famers, the division names are from a couple of new inductees: LaDainian Tomlinson and Kurt Warner.

If you have any suggestions or new ideas for the website, please contact Dah Commish.