2011 fantasy recap, week 17

NFL executives would prefer you remember this season as the year multiple passing and receiving records were broken, but what fans should remember is just how bad nearly every team played the last four months. Consider the following:

** The Patriots come-from-behind win on Sunday was the 11th time this season a team trailed by at least 17 points but found a way to win. According to the NFL stats department, that's a new record.

** The Broncos and Bengals, both AFC teams facing a win-and-in scenario on Sunday, opted to lose their way into the playoffs instead. The Broncos actually lost their last three games, but still got a playoff spot.

** Only one team who won their division in 2010 managed a repeat in 2011 (The Patriots).

** The 8-8 Philadelphia Eagles would have earned a playoff berth if they had managed just one more win over the course of the season. The Eagles led in the fourth quarter of five of those eight losses.

** Only 12 teams (out of 32) managed a winning record this season. The only team above .500 not to make the playoffs was the Titans, who lost out on the last wild card spot on tiebreakers.

QB: Matt Flynn, 51.20 pts -- on the wire
RB: Ray Rice, 33.63 pts -- started by Jim
WR: Jordy Nelson, 37.80 pts -- started by Ant
TE: Rob Gronkowski, 27.20 pts -- started by Ant
K: Dan Carpenter, 18.00 pts -- on the wire
DEF: Chicago, 24.00 pts -- started by Dad
D: Curtis Lofton, 12.50 pts -- on the wire

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa Matt Flynn. Congrats on winning a big free agent contract from the Maryland Racial Slurs with that 480-yard-six-TD performance. Whoever said the final week of the season doesn't matter? Oh, wait, that's right, everyone said that. Because it doesn't.

Top performers of the year
QB: Aaron Rodgers, 487.42 pts -- 1st QB drafted (Bobert)
RB: LeSean McCoy, 318.90 pts -- 8th RB drafted (me)
WR: Wes Welker, 275.84 pts -- 11th WR drafted (Sam)
TE: Rob Gronkowski, 260.69 pts -- 18th TE drafted (Ant)
K: David Akers, 176.00 pts -- 2nd kicker drafted (Jo)
DEF: San Fran, 216.00 pts -- 11th defense drafted (Jo)
D: Jared Allen, 85.00 pts -- undrafted (NewMike)

Props to Joanna for getting on this list twice, but Anthony found the real steals this year. Besides Gronkowski, he got the #4 QB (Cam Newton) off the waiver wire and grabbed Jordy Nelson -- who later turned into the league's sixth best WR -- as the 46th wideout taken in the draft.

Biggest bust of the year goes to Dad, who had the unfortunate luck to see his #1 pick (Jamaal Charles, fourth RB taken) go down in game two of the season and finish the 103rd ranked RB in the league.

Honorable mention goes to ChampMike, who started QB Tony Romo for most of the season, thereby forfeiting his soul for eternity.

Worst performers of the year
3rd place: Bills QB Tyler Thigpen, -0.20 pts
2nd place: Chargers QB Billy Volek, -0.50 pts
1st place: Eagles DB Curtis Marsh, -3.10 pts

Only five players managed to finish the year in negative territory. Four of them were QBs who saw just a few snaps and combined to total fewer than -1.00 pts. And then there was Curtis Marsh, whose only significant contribution to the world was two special team fumbles on consecutive weeks.

But I can't think of anyone more deserving to end up at the bottom of the pile at the end of this wretched football season than an Eagles defensive back. No team is spending more on their secondary this year than Philadelphia, and few teams saw less from their investment than the Eagles.

Here's a quick round-up of the New Year's resolutions members of the Eagles' team made this weekend:

** Mike Vick: Get injured fewer than six times next season.
** Asante Samuel: Double this year's work, make two tackles next year.
** Juan Castillo: Learn what a linebacker does.
** Nnamdi Asomugha: Double this year's work, block two passes next year
** Andy Reid: Find some more bad defensive backs to throw money at.
** LeSean McCoy: Stop trying so hard for really lousy teams.
** DeSean Jackson: Find another team to play for.

Sport Illustrated had a snotty little column today by Michael Farber calling the annual hockey Winter Classic a fraud because "This group of NHLers never played hockey outdoors" and the premise doesn't have any real connection to the sport. A few points on that:

1) Shut up.
2) Hockey fans don't love this game because it reminds them of when Jeremy Roenick was a kid playing hockey outside. They love it because it reminds them of themselves playing bad hockey outside.
3) Shut up.
4) Since when does there have to be a good reason for a fun new venue? One of the best college football games of the last 10 years was that ridiculous contest Northwestern had at Wrigley Field. Sports are allowed to be fun sometimes.
5) Heaven forbid the NHL stick with something popular. It'd be terrible if a loosely justified event like this drew in more fans.
6) Shut up.

ESPN developed a new stat this year -- Total Quarterback Rating -- designed to account for a QB's entire repertoire, and give fans a better perspective on signal callers' true effectiveness. So, what great revelations did the QBR give us?

** Top three QBs in the league were Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady. They were also 1-2-3 in any other traditional QB measurement system.

** The bottom three started were Blaine Gabbert, Curtis Painter and Tim Tebow. Gabbert and Painter were the bottom two in traditional QB ratings, Tebow was sixth worst.

** 49ers QB Alex Smith was the ninth best QB in the league in passer efficiency, but the ESPN QBR rating has him ranked 22nd in the league. I guess it doesn't account for things like "winning."

** No matter how the stats are divided, Maryland QB Rex Grossman (25 turnovers in 13 starts) is just terrible.

We've poked a lot of fun at the Cowboys over the course of this year, but now that they've suffered a heartbreaking loss in their finale on Sunday night ... it's time to have even more fun. It's not a matter of meanness -- it's cosmically ordained fate. Just look at this anagram:

Dallas Cowboys stunned again, choke in their final season game
A rainy onion: We laugh at the fools' sadness and bask in comic glee.

If the universe is telling you to ridicule the Cowboys, who are you to disagree?

** Congrats to Dad for winning our weekly picks match-up yet again. He came into the weekend with a four-game lead and won handily after I posted an 0-for-5 performance on our different picks for the week. For the year, Dad finished with a 170-86 record picking games -- that's a 66% correct rate. For the record, that's better work than any of the so-called experts that ESPN uses every week.

** Illinois beat UCLA 20-14 on Saturday in the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl. The teams both came into the match-up at 6-6 and saw their head coaches (and other key coaching staff) fired in the weeks leading up to the game. I know the sponsors can't manage every aspects of these bowls, but you know what helps fight hunger the most? Having a job. So maybe sponsoring the all-unemployment bowl wasn't the best idea.

** Biggest mistake of the hockey game at Citizens Bank Park: No Phanatic. That's an unforgivable oversight. And I thought Lauren Hart was banned from singing at Citizens Bank Park after the clunker curse she put on the Phillies right before game five in October.

** Ha again! The Cowboys ended up in third place behind the Eagles after that loss on Sunday. It'll probably screw the Eagles come draft time, but it's funny anyways.

Final standings will be revealed tomorrow, in the season wrap-up column.