CyberZahm

November’s Full Beaver Moon is soon upon us. Just under 700 caged ones remain. Don’t look down, animals. 7 weeks to go. Outwardly their strut is as obvious as it is obnoxious. They prattle on with the most boring tales of superior football knowledge and genius acumen to whatever hapless trapped animals they can corner, defenseless animals still broken from sudden cage expulsions into the miserable ...

... void of second place, now forced to listen to these self-professed prognostication peacocks drone on about why the Giants were a bad pick against the Cowboys, or how they knew that the Titans would score on that final drive, or why you should have never taken the Patriots on the road against the Browns. It’s no wonder that the other animals hate them with such a passion and so eagerly await their demise every Sunday.

It was Carolus Linnaeus who first grouped species together in shared physical characteristics. Species, Genus, Family, Order Class, Phylum, Kingdom, Domain, and Life, soon followed as scientific hierarchy of rank. THE ZOOKEEPER, a man of many learned disciplines, has studied the works of this mid-eighteenth century scientist and has discovered the following seven ranked nomenclature codes of animals living in the cages (with their scientific identifications):

IKNEWITUDIDNTUS - This is perhaps the most hated of the animal classes. These animal take immense joy in torturing other animals when they find out that those, who obviously didn’t know JACKSCHITT, were on an opposite side loss of a game they had chosen correctly. No matter what freak occurrence lead to their win (can you think Bears over Lions in WEEK ONE?), they remain more unaware of their despised status than Charlie Rangel.

DOYAWANNAHEARWHYISELECTEDTHUS – This grouping is noted for their unyielding belief that everybody really gives a rat’s ass what they think about each game on the board, and why their next selection is the only possible logical choice. You’d be just as well off taking tax advice from Wesley Snipes as you would listening to this bunch.

DOYAWANNHEARWHYIDIDNOTSELECTHUS – A close cousin of the former, this group has the same blind insistence on letting all around them know their proud reasons of why your wrong pick was really, really,stupid, while their pick was brilliant. An interesting characteristic of this ranking is that they never tell you their reasons until the games are finished.

PESTSAMONGSTUS – These beasts are THE ZOOKEEPER’S worst nightmares. Their main focus in the cages is pestering him to change the rules to allow them to continue, or to start a secondary pool so that they can have something to do on the weekends. Generally they have never lasted longer than five weeks, but they insist that they are only out because they got screwed by a bad call.

LEMMEFIXUS – This is an especially nasty group of animals. Although they themselves have never organized anything more complex than a quick game of UNO, they insist that THE ZOOKEEPER needs to change THE WORLD’S GREATEST FOOTBALL POOL to make it “better”. Better is typically anything that involves complex spread sheet manipulation and data monitoring that these geeks pride themselves on. Degenerate gamblers all, when William and Kate tie the knot, this group will want to bet on the horses in the wedding promenade

STATMANDINGUS – This common breed charts game trend results with a frenzy rarely seen outside of TSA strip search opportunists looking to punk your junk. Road dogs, Divisional rivals, Inter-division meaningful games, Monday Night follow ons, Home favorites, Bye Week indications, and the killer detail of them all – Injury Reports – are the stuff that rocks their world. You will generally find them in a tormented state when they mistakenly pick against a team that is being led by their leading fantasy point earner. A trait of this ranking is that they ALWAYS belong to more than one fantasy league.

FOOTBALL GENIUS – This is the rarest of animals. They go about their cage business in timely fashion for their sponsors each week and never give THE ZOOKEEPER any back sass. Unfortunately their minimal numbers are in constant decline bordering on extinction as a breed each week. If you find one, just sit back and admire the beauty of it all. They are ephemeral sightings. Show them your love and admiration.

And now for your numbers:

6098 OUT, 11 DQ’D, 696 IN. 245 COWBOYS (when will they ever learn?), 175 LIGHTNING BOLTS, 74 J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS, 61 MIGHTY MIGHTY STEELERS, 39 SAINTS, 30 TITANS, 24 BENGALS, 20 CHEFS, 16 FALCONS, 5 RAVENS, 2 BUCS, 2 JAGGYWIRES, and 3 lone wolf selections – 1 BEAR, 1 BROWN, 1 PATRIOT.

PICK OF THE WEEK HONORS goes to SCRUFFY taking the 2 point dog Browns on the road in Jacksonville. Honorable mention goes to LLCP who gives us all a little Thursday night action with his Bears pick over the Dolphins, and BOHICA 36 taking the Patriots over the Colts. One of you guys might be able to buy Graff Pink if the action goes down right this weekend.

That’s it for this week, folks. The Irish look to continue their win streak waking up the ghosts along with the echoes this weekend against Army in Yankee Stadium. Makes you want to run out and buy a nice top coat and fedora to wear to the game. There may just be a ZOOKEEPER sighting in NYC. Get your picks in EARLY next week so we can all enjoy some football with our turkey. LMS Gift Certificates will go on sale on Black Friday. R.I.P. Ed Kirkpatrick. Peace. Out.