What's up Special Ed?!?!?!?
We went on twitter today and saw "The Rise of Skywalker" trending. We clicked on it to find out why and all the top posts are like "Why tf is TROS trending? Now I need therapy again." or "TROS is trending rn because 2020".
Fuckin hate that shit. Twitter's been doing a better job lately of curating their "Trending Moments", but that "Whats Happening" pane is still full of fuckin landmines.
So we had to scroll through that palaver for like 5 minutes before we found out that ILM had just released a portfolio of concept art from the film's pre-production. You can check it out here, and we highly recommend it.
These images are spellbinding. Pure Star Wars magic. Takes us right back to the old days, back when we thought Star Wars was good.
Like, all the way back to spring 2019. The trailers for TROS last year were fucking mind-blowing. They had us geared up for an all-time great Star War, and these pics capture that same sublime potentiality.
Goosebumps.
We've seen TROS about a dozen times at this point and it didn't ever get better. We're acutely aware of everything that went wrong with this movie; but still, even now, these images are stirring. They're meticulously detailed and intensely evocative of all the symbolism that has come to define Star Wars.
It really makes us appreciate what a spectacular failure TROS was. Like, how did they fuck this up? A lot of movies are just bad. Most bad movies are cheap and sloppy and unimaginitive. The Rise of Skywalker was not any of those things. Sure TROS is bad in many ways - the dialogue sucks, the character treatments are unsatisfying, the actors mail it in, even the visual effects production feels rushed.
But, at least at first, there was a lot of good shit here, so it's like, it didn't have to be bad, ya know? Fucking Abrams had it right there on a fucking tee and he whiffed. All he had to do was not fuck it up.
THE 3rd ANNUAL
BYE WEEK DFS SHOWDOWN!!!
DYM -168.42 / PAT -140.00
Can you fucking believe this guy started Kirk Cousins? smgdh. We would never.
The Showdown is all about pitting the league's best against one another. It's an opportunity to test your mettle against the toughest competition, and see how ready you are for the championship run. As the league's 2nd place finisher, the opportunity to take down the #1 team really fires you up, even in a friendly exhibition match. PAT outscored us by about 15 pts per game this year, so this win was extremely heartening as we prepare for the Special Ed Playoffs.
These aren't crazy big scores, but they do portend well for our respective playoff runs.The most important thing for both teams is just staying sharp over the bye week. This was a successful showdown for us both, because we both kept our wits about us and managed not to play any total duds. PAT only chose one player from his Special Ed roster in this contest - Brandon Aiyuk, who came through with 10 catches for an even 100 yds. Conversely, DYM, might be feelin themselves a little too much right now. Rolling out 4 guys from our Special Ed team took a lot of chutzpah, but they all wrecked shop. Let's hope they saved some of those points for this week too.
WHOS HOT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Tobin & The Rippers came through week 14 with a HUGE statement win. They put an incredible 100 point beatdown on The Commish, and officially put the league ON NOTICE.
Bring It On Home entered week 14 FLAMING HOT with the 2nd highest per game average. Now with two sub-100 pt games in the last three weeks, they exit the playoffs ICE COLD.
The Rippers look like world-beaters right now, but the two bye week teams quietly put up the 2nd and 3rd highest scores of the week without setting their lineups. PAT remains the league's highest scoring team; and DYM is flying up the Heat Index rankings, moving all the way up from from #9 last week to #2 this week.
The top two highest scorers from last week are also the two HOTTEST teams in the league. Rippers vs DYM is shaping up to be a heavyweight slobber-knocker.
PAT and PHP are both trying to stay warm here in late December, but both have scored over 150 within the last three weeks so they're both still very dangerous.
THE CONSTELLATION TOURNAMENT:
Where Everybody Is A Star!!!!
The Constellation Tournament Championship
is the 3rd most prestigious honor in all of Special Ed. America loves second chances, and there's nothing more American than naming the 8th place team "Champion". So, GET FIRED UP, Special Ed!!!! This is your time to shine!!!
ZOMBIE PATERNOS vs. SHARON ERTZ
These two teams were bitterly snubbed from the running for the top 2 most prestigious Special Ed honors, so they'll both be hungry for the Constellation chip.
Early in the season we considered Zombie Paternos among the strongest DYM MVP contenders. We love the new team name, and the homer draft was hilarious. But the real surprise was how they came out like gangbusters on the group text after 9 years of near-total radio silence.
At some point we're going to put together an oral history of Cousin Mike's dramatic exit from the original group text, but the new guys'll have to wait til the offseason to hear that story.
Sharon Ertz technically finished the regular season with fewer points than The Commish, but we still feel like Sharon was the more worthy Playoff squad.
They've got something to prove this post-season, and Lamar is stepping it up just in the knick of time. There were about 40 something points on Sharon's bench last week, so if he can get around to benching Taysom and Antonio, they'll be on their way to REDEMPTION in the Constellation Tournament.
SHARON ERTZ WINS!!!!
PICKLE RICKS!! vs. DOUGY TACOS
Just so you guys know, Pickle Ricks finished the regular season in first place in Eugene's New league.
They went 10-3 with 136 pts per game, and are the only Special Ed team in The New League Playoffs.
Pickle Ricks were running roughshod over that league up until Tony Gibson got hurt. They don't really have shit on the bench, but there's a few choice RBs coming off waivers later tonight. If we were them we'd think about prioritizing Devin Singletary, since they've been getting shit from Zack Moss for the last 9 weeks. But with only 3 other teams out there, it may be better to just let the waivers run - Jeff Wilson, Tony Pollard, and Latavius Murray are there too and all have a chance to be serviceable this week.
PICKLE RICKS!! WINS!!!!
SPECIAL ED SEMI-FINALS!!!!!!!!!!
POLK HIGH PANTHERS
vs.
PAULS AWESOME TEAM
Polk High has some FIRE greenlight matchups - Woods at home vs The Jets, Hines at home vs Houston. The only guy with a bad matchup is Kirk vs Chicago, but it's pretty obvious that Matt's gonna drop Cousins for Carr or Goff (Friday night waiver).
There's a chance Brees could play this week but we know Matt's NOT thinking about starting him. We're sure Matt realizes that Drew Brees is the same age as him. Matt's back probably kinda hurts right now and he doesn't really know why. And he knows that Drew Brees has 17 broken ribs. If Brees plays, he won't play well. And he's only getting 25 attempts, tops: They're gonna run the ball a ton trying to slow down KC anyway; and Taysom Hill was already taking 4-5 snaps a game when Brees was "healthy", so 10-12 snaps for Taysom in Brees' first week back is not out of the question. And that's the game script that favors Kamara anyway, so he's not gonna limit his upside by playing the QB and RB from the same team.
PAT has the sneaky good matchups. Akers and Cook don't have greenlights on paper, but Dalvin went for 114 yards last time he played Chicago, and you have to like Akers vs The Jets better than Woods. Conner is not looking likely to play, but we assume they were gonna start Dobbins in the total smash spot vs Jacksonville anyway.
If they pull the right strings, we could be looking at 300 combined points from these two teams.
POLK HIGH PANTHERS WINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
TOBIN & THE RIPPERS
vs.
DEFEND YOUR MOVES
HOW THE FUCK IM GONNA LOSE TO A TEAM WITH 2 (TWO) CHICAGO BEARS??? DAVID MONTGOMERY IS THEIR BEST PLAYER!!!!!
David. Montgomery. You guys. Look at this.
This guy was clocking a 4.6+ 40, 15 bench reps, and a 13th percentile SPARQ score. And that was before he got groined and concussed this season.
Anyway, he's gonna get 150 and 2 TDs and it's bullshit.
Fortunately Al Rob is still in a Reverse Revenge situation, and is destined to NOT score a TD this week. The other potential bombers on this squad are Chubb and Ridley, two long-time members of Special Ed The Team. Over in the other league we drafted Chubb as rookie keeper and he was smokin hot fire for us from October 2018 til December 2019. Ridley was a guy we coveted in trades throughout '18 and '19, and drafted this year in the 4th round as our WR1.
We've been burned by this kind of prediction before, but we feel like Chubb and Ridley are our guys, and we were always cool with them, so we don't think they'll flex on us.
DEFEND YOUR MOVES WINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
