Well here we go again. Our 16^th season is under way. I hope everyone enjoyed the draft. I'd like to thank Ron for hosting the draft once again. I failed to get a list of people who want Notes mailed to them. Give me a call, I think we can avoid the postage, one way or another, if not I will mail you a copy of the notes. It is cheaper and also much quicker to go electronic. The league's url is http://swffl.50megs.com .

Key Matchups to watch this Week

  The Quiet Storm and M. Takers face-off in a matchup between teams that had disappointing starts. The veterans will try to bounce back in week 2. The Jelly Beans and Black & Blue attack will meet as undefeated teams that put up lofty numbers in week 1. I am not trying put too much emphasis on one week, but it might be better to extrapolate the first week, then using last years numbers to rate the teams. If so these are the teams to beat. The Dream Team and Sharks meet up in a battle of winless teams. Have to give the Sharks the edge here as they actually got points from something other than their PK and ST. The Good Fellas and Black Revenge meet in a battle of the grizzled vets against the young upstarts. The Young Upstarts became very used to knocking off veteran teams last year. The Bull Dogs and Body Shop square off in the final game. The Shop is trying to recover from a heart-breaking loss in week 1. The Bull Dogs are trying to recover from too much celebrating of their week 1 'W'.

  Spock will begin the defense of the Oddsmakers this week, as defending champ he gets top billing and his lines appear above. Norm's Lines for Week 2 are:

  I did that analysis based on last year's points, It is 0 for 8 in picking Elite Teams the last 2 years. In the prior 10 years it picked 18 out of the 40 Elite Teams. As always, this analysis is based on last year's performance in points per game. If you are depending on a rookie or a comeback player then ignore these results. If you aren't necessarily relying on either of these type players and you're on the bottom of the list, you might want to consider hitting the transaction wire hard. See the web site for details on what players made up your 2003 Best Lineup.

TEAM	03 TOT	TEAM	03 TOT
QUIET STORM SHARKS JELLY BEANS DREAM TEAM BULL DOGS	69.91 68.35 65.57 65.46 62.88	BLACK & BLUE BLACK REVENGE M. TAKERS BODY SHOP GOOD FELLAS	61.98 61.25 58.37 58.19 56.33

  There was only 1 game that was technically over by Sunday night. Two games were more or less over. Two games were still in doubt.

  The Bull Dogs built up a decent lead against the Dream Team early. They added to that lead later although it did not matter, as the Dream Team must have gotten caught in pre-game traffic and they did not get a police escort. The Bull Dogs were led by Palmer and Moss. The Dream Team was led by the CHIEFS and Josh Brown (actually they were pretty much the only guys on the roster to score).

  The Black & Blue Attack, a 44 point lead and Steve Smith were too much for the Quiet Storm and Ahman Green on Monday Night. The Storm was led by T.O. in the losing effort. The Attack was led by Culpepper. You know before Griffin and Holmes put the RBs back on the map on Sunday night that Culpepper 1st round pick was looking like the genius move of the draft.

  The Sharks and Javon Walker could not overcome a 16 point lead, the PANTHER ST and the defending Champion Good Fellas. The Fellas were led by Alexander and McNabb. The Sharks started out with an Thursday 12 from Manning and an early bang from Portis, but they pretty much stopped scoring after that.

  The Black Revenge and a 10 point lead were too much for the Body Shop and Kasay to overcome. This game's outcome was more in doubt than the "GOW

  The "Game of the Week" honors go to the contest between the M. Takers and the Jelly Beans. The Beans and Favre barely overcame a 6 pt. lead on Monday night. In fact they only managed a tie and got the "W" because of the roster tiebreaker. This game was selected for "GOW" honors because both teams scored 80+ points. This game was really exciting as Holmes and Griffin went toe to toe on Sunday night. Elam also made it interesting. In the end the Takers, just did not build up a big enough lead to hold off Favre on Monday. If you gotta lose in Week 1, I think it is best to lose this way. The Beans are the sentimental favorite to win it all this year. And with the big "W" this week they may be turning sentiment into reality.