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Home , Marshall Faulk, Priest Holmes, Terrell Davis

Manatawny Football League Newsletter Vol. V, No. 1 • January 5, 2001

Hello out there! which is more than any other player. The MVP Mike Self and The Machine were the 2001 MFL list is filled some repeat performers, but there champions. His name is now included in the were a couple of surprises. prestigous MFL hall of fame.

2001 – The Machine (Mike Self) 2000 – John Bobbitt 1999 – Darren Crowe 1998 – Tracey Hebert 1997 – James Greenwood 1996 – John Bobbitt 1995 – John Bobbitt 1994 – Tracey Hebert 1993 – Eric McPherson 1992 – Butch Ellis 1991 – Jeff Werkheiser

QB – , STL RB – , STL RB – , KC TE – , KC WR – , IND WR – , SF K – Kris Brown, PIT Mike Self receives the 2001 MFL Pen DEF – Cleveland Browns

2002 Draft Order Kurt Warner returned to his 1999 form throwing Now the moment that everyone has been for 4550 yards and 33 touchdowns. It doesn’t waiting for: The 2002 MFL draft order. Below is hurt playing most of your games in a dome the order for the 1st round. (TWA dome, Georgia Dome, Superdome, et. al) with guys like WR , WR , Pick Coach and fellow MFL all-star RB Marshall Faulk. 1. Jeff Werkheiser of Colts came in second 2. Tom Jeremiassen despite losing RB to injury early 3. John Bobbitt in the season. Second runner up was Aaron 4. Tracey Hebert Brooks of the Saints, followed by Jeff Garcia of 5. Kent Baggett the 49ers. 6. Darren Crowe 7. James Greenwood At , Marshall Faulk of the Rams 8. Rob Greenwood was the top performer, despite missing two 9. Butch Ellis games due to a knee injury. This makes 3 years 10. Mike Self in a row for Marshall to be an MFL all-star. He scored 20 TDs and had 1921 total yards rushing 2001 MFL all-star Team and receiving. Coming in a distant second was For the fifth time, the MFL has named an all- Priest Holmes of the Chiefs. His coach, Dick star team. This year, the league MVP is QB Vermeil, successfully made him a poor man’s Kurt Warner, who scored 332.8 MFL points,

1 Marshall Faulk. This guy wasn’t even drafted WR Eric Moulds– Eric signed a big contract coming out of the University of Texas. extension in the offseason. He ended up with only an average year. In fact, Peerless Price, This year there were a fair amount of decently who lined up as the second starting Bills performing TE’s. For the third year in a row, receiver had more yards, and touchdowns than Tony Gonzalez was the top TE, although he did Eric Moulds. Not good for one of the highest it very quietly this year. There have been paid receivers in the NFL. rumors circling about his interest in playing in If you thought Eric Moulds disappeared this the NBA. Coming in a close second was Marus year, what happened to Derrick Alexander of Pollard of the Colts. Like Tony Gonzalez, the Chiefs? Despite playing in 12 games, he Marcus played basketball in college. Marcus’s ended the MFL season with only 26 catches and college career was played at Bradley University. 3 TDs. The injury bug hit RBs Fred Taylor and Jamal Marvin Harrison of the Colts was the top Anderson again this year. Fred Taylor only saw receiver this year. Last year’s second place action in 2 games and didn’t score any finisher finished second again this year. Terrell touchdowns. Jamal Anderson was off to a good Owens wasn’t far behind Marvin who had 100 start before blowing out another knew in game catches and nearly 1400 yards receiving. 3. Neither one of their replacements was able to Honorable mention candidates include the 3rd fill their shoes very well. and 4th highest scoring receivers David Boston of the Cardinals and Rod Smith of the Broncos.

If your team has a good defense and can’t score from the RED ZONE, chances are your kicker will get a lot of work. Kris Brown proved this theory once again and finished as the top rated kicker. There was actually a 3-way tie for Draft Analysis and Nice Pick ups scoring leaders among kickers. Kris Brown gets Bull’s Eyes – Jeff W. raised some eyebrows the honor, since he missed 14 field goals, which when he made QB Donnovan McNabb the 1st is at least 9 more than the other two kickers. pick in the 2001 MFL draft. With Deuce Staley coming back from serious injury and a receiving We had a surprise at defense. The top scoring corp that was unproven, he seemed like a defense was none other than the Cleveland reach. However, Donnovan ended up being the Browns. Really??? They 41 sacks, 30 4th highest scoring QB in the MFL this year. RB , 9 fumble recoveries, 5 TDs and 1 safety. Ladainian Tomlinson of the Chargers was also a nice pick at the top of the 2nd round. While playing on a bad team, he had 1603 total yards Protected Player Analysis and 10 TDs in his rookie season. The following Like last year, there weren’t many duds in this players were not high draft picks, but they year’s group of protected players. A few of the turned out to be gems. protected players got injured or had trouble th recovering from previous injuries. Unfortunately, – Not drafted until the 9 you can’t predict injuries. round of the MFL draft. He came in when got hurt and finished the season as the 4th best running back in the MFL. Surprisingly,

2 he lost his starting spot when Ricky Watters lb. kicker, quipped “Now THAT came back from injury. That didn’t last long, does NOT look like a football player”. however, when Watters got hurt again his first game back. State of the MFL Marcus Pollard – Was the 2nd highest ranking I hope the move to Yahoo worked out okay for TE this year. Some how he slipped through the everyone. It has its quirks, but it makes the MFL draft without getting selected. Speaking of commissioner’s life much easier, and it allows TE’s, Bubba Franks picked up the tradition of the coaches real-time roster adjustments. I good Green Bay tight ends by catching 9 know that a few of the coaches signed up for the touchdowns. He wasn’t much of threat outside real-time stat service, which cost under $10 for the red zone, catching passes for only 299 the year. I plan to use Yahoo again next year yards. Butch Ellis grabbed him in the 6th round (provided it is available). I might have to charge of the draft. a token $2-$3 dues next year to pay for the – was drafted in the 9th round of the escalating price of the MFL award pens. MFL draft and had a nice season. He had over 1000 yards in receiving and 9 touchdowns. Highest Score Award Who said he was too old? This year, the highest weekly score was 132.45 Antowain Smith – No one seemed to know by Mike Self and The Machine. I had thought who was going to carry the ball in NE. And, it we might beat the all-time high score of 146 seemed, no one cared. Out of nowhere, points (held by Darren Crowe) due to the slight Antowain Smith had over 1200 yards from tweaks we made in the scoring rules this year. scrimage and 12 touchdowns. Could he be a Well, the record is safe for this year, at least. keeper next year?

Busts – Some picks never pan out. Michael Bennett (RB Minnesota) – This rookie was handed the starting job in Minnesota and didn’t do much. He only scored 3 touchdowns. He was expected to be the “faster” replacement for the retired Robert Smith. He was the 2nd overall pick in the MFL draft, but didn’t live up to expectations. Ed McCaffrey (WR Broncos)– Ed looked like he was going to have another nice season alongside WR Rod Smith. He was drafted near the top of the 2nd round. Unfortunately, he had an ugly break of his leg on Monday night in the first week of the season. , Mike Anderson, (RBs Broncos)– Since when do three running backs from the same team get drafted in the MFL? No one knew who was going to carry the load in Denver. It started out being Mike Anderson, then Terrell Davis. Sometimes Olandis Gary even got the ball. Various injuries to all of them at different points in the season Finally, congratulations to the Detroit Lions, who made it an MFL coach’s nightmare. The were able to finish the season without the worst question is…. Who’s going to start in Denver record in the NFL. next year? MFL on the World-Wide-Web Don’t get too dramatica Gramattica Last year was the year of the injured kicker. http://www.concentric.net/~greenwrt/MFL.html This was the year of the self-injured kicker. Bill Gramatica of the St. Louis Cardinals put himself Office of the commissioner: on IR in week 13 while he was celebrating a Rob Greenwood successful field goal attempt. One week later, 9114 La Fauna View his brother Martin, of the Bucanneers, pulled his Austin, TX 78737 hamstring kicking an extra point. During a Buc’s Home: (512) 288-6902 game, when the camera panned to the 5’8” 170 Work: (512) 996-7242 See you next year! 3