Week 3
Piana stuns Irwin 17-3
Winless Raze end Hellions' 8-game regular season winning streak, and the Machines build momentum with a romp of the Banshees. All this and more in...

The Week That Was in Fantasy League Football

In the season finale of 1999, Irwin embarassed the Piana Raze 20-0 at En Fuego Field. The Raze atoned for that defeat and a rought start to the seas on with a stunning 14-point upset of the Hellions at the 2000 En Fuego Field opener. With Edgerrin James on the sideline with a bye, the highpowered Hellion offense looked out of sorts, finishing with 28 offensive points. With 12 points, receiver Isaac Bruce led the aggressive Raze attack, but the fate of the game was decided on the other side of the ball.

Irwin's Tampa Bay defense - the most destructive the FLF has ever seen - had another massive day, stripping 26 points away from Piana. Yet the Raze held their ground thanks to a herculean effort by their Jaguar defense, which stood toe-to-toe with the Bucs by stripping 25 points away from the defending Western Division champions.

The loss is the first regular season defeat for the Hellions since Week 6 of '99. The gutsy win lifts Piana to a modest 1-2 and keeps them a mere one game back in the Western race.

The Abstract Machines provided a harsh reality check for the Yellow-bellied Overweight Banshees, who were fresh off their first ever win. Perhaps suffering a mental letdown, Brandon's offense was sloppy all day long, with only new quarterback Mark Brunell contributing more than five points. In the game's most alarming stat, Machine Marshall Faulk singlehandedly outscored the Banshee offense 19-18. Yet this is a team sport, and the Machines wouldn't let Faulk take the field alone. FLF rookie QB Shaun King had another stellar 11-point outing, and receiver Germane Crowell brought in another eight. The Machine offense totalled an impressive 53 points without the services of kicker Mike Hollis, who was scratched with a back injury.

The loss drops Brandon to 1-2. The win - their second straight - elevates the Abstract Machines into a tie atop the West.

Last week, the Collosal Waste of Time lost a divisional game on Monday Night. Jody made certain history would not quickly repeat itself by hammering the Stereco with 18 Monday Night points to pull away from their division rival. It was a surprisingly defensive affair, with the Stereco's Kansas City defense edging out Jody's reliable Dolphins squad 23-17. Yet Sims' offense had its problems, particularly in the receiving corps as Rahib Ismail, Albert Connell, and Peerless Price combined for a mere three points. C.W.O.T. veteran Tim Brown returned to his younger form, torching the Stereco for 11 points. The real story for the victorious C.W.O.T., however, was the resurgence of a struggling ground game. Stephen Davis willed himself to 14 points while Mike Alstott pouded out six more in securing Jody's first divisional win of 2000.

Oh, boy. The Super Bowl champions are making a case that last year's Championship run may be a fluke as the suddenly fragile Brewmeisters fell to a resilliant Bock Boys squad. Thomas, coming off a demoralizing 63-4 beating at the hands of Irwin, rode the arm and legs of rookie Dante Culpepper to their second win of the season. Culpepper easily outdueled journeyman Tony Banks 11-3. Banks, along with RB Fred Beasley and kicker David Akers, was brought in to fill holes in the Brewmeister lineup created with injuries and the bye week. Only Beasley had a respectable game (6 points), but the Bock Boys topped the Brewskies in almost every facet of the game. A backfield by committee seems to be working for the Bock Boys, as Warrick Dunn and Robert Smith each posted seven points in the win.

And then there was one. The Pimps removed the Player monkey off their backs and scored a big win to remain the only undefeated team in 2000. The Pimp backfield of Ricky Watters and Jerome Bettis, largely written off by several critics, combined for a gamebreaking 19 points. Their Green Bay defense also came to play, besting The Players' Dallas squad 19-12. The only highlight for the still winless Players was pickup quarterback Jeff Garcia, who stunned everyone for 12 points in a losing effort.

With the win, The Pimps become only the fourth team in league history to start a season 3-0. The Players, on the other hand, have matched last season's 0-3 start. Oh, boy.