2011 Chinstrap Ninjas fantasy football contest: Week 17 lineups, Week 16 results

Happy holidays, Ninjas.

I hope the Christmas holiday was better to fantasy owners than it was to our football contest contestants. This was our lowest-scoring week of the season, but despite that there was some shuffling on the overall leaderboards.

Read on to find out what happened in the league this week — including the crowning of our December champion — or skip to the comments and post starters for Week 17.

Despite not turning in a lineup Christmas weekend, Purple Coconuts held on to the December championship. His 25 points topped a five-team race separated by five points.

Krause topped our Week 16 list as the only owner to start Arian Foster. Dante Bruno scored two tough-luck awards, one for starting Cam Newton and another for starting Victor Cruz, to leap past Super Friends i the overall standings.

Team Name Here only scored a tough-luck point after starting Newton, but it was enough to increase his stranglehold on the overall race.

Dr. Zoidberg also started Cam Newton to end our scoring at just nine points, the lowest output of the season. We had low turnout this week. In the holiday rush and with all of the Saturday games I forgot to post a lineup myself. Still, with the playoff rules’ bonus bounty just two weeks away, this race is far from over.

Our most interesting plays came out of the wide receiver ranks this week. Both Roddy White and Julio Jones, started by Chickenheads & Pigeons and MoHawks respectively, were interesting picks. I also liked 69ers decision to go with Malcom Floyd. Floyd finished just outside of the top 10 wide receivers in Week 16.

Brandon started Tim Tebow at quarterback. A solid pick, but the Bills defense harassed him into his worst game as a pro.

Cartisimo, MoHawks, 69ers and Team Name Here all started Drew Brees, who was our fifth best quarterback this week. It doesn’t affect our contest, but it’s worth mentioning Brees’ accomplishment — the Saints signal-caller threw for 307 yards to break Dan Marino’s single-season passing record.

Top performers for Week 16:

Quarterback

Three quarterbacks steamrolled toward the 30-point mark this week. Aaron Rodgers, with his blistering five-TD performance, led the charge with 33.12 points. Cam Newton threw for just 171 yards to break the rookie passing yards record, but fantasy owners were more excited about his three passing touchdowns and one rushing score. he finished with 31.34 points. Tom Brady was third, rushing for two scores, throwing for more than 300 yards and finishing with 29.86 points.

Running backs

Arian Foster was our top running back this week, finishing with 23.4 fantasy points. Foster rushed for 158 yards and a score on Thursday. Rashard Mendenhall also crossed the 100-yard plateau and got into the end zone to finish second with 21.1 points. DeAngelo Williams didn’t do as much damage on the ground in terms of yards, but his 7 carries for 66 yards and two touchdowns is pretty terrific. C.J. Spiller once again flirted with breaking our scoring system, rushing for 111 yards and a touch and gaining 27 yards through the air for 19.8 fantasy points

Wide receiver

Getting into the end zone twice helped Jordy Nelson take the top spot over Victor Cruz and Brandon Marshall. Cruz and Marshall piled up 164 and 156 yards respectively to finish with 22.4 and 21.6 fantasy points each respectively. Nelson caught six for 115 to finish with 23.5 fantasy points. Spiller, who qualifies at both RB and WR, was fourth with 19.8 points.

Tight end

We usually reserve this spot for Rob Gronkowski and Jimmy Graham with an occasional Jason Witten or Tony Gonzalez sighting, but Graham was the only one of those clowns to crack the top 5 this week. Instead, Jared Cook and Brandon Pettigrew dominated the position this week. Actually, it was mostly Cook. The talented Titans TE caught eight passes for 169 yards and a touchdown to score 22.9 points. A total that would have made him a top-2 running back or wide receiver. Pettigrew caught nine passes for 80 yards and scored a touchdown to finish with 14 points.

2011 Week 16 results

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2011 December final standings

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2011 Overall standings

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SPECIAL PLAYOFF RULES

These rules won’t take effect until after Week 17′a games are complete, but rest assured that you’ll want to stick around because things are going to get crazy:

Every team that participates after Week 17 (beginning with Playoffs Week 1) will receive five points just for playing every week. Post a lineup in every week of the playoffs through the Super Bowl and get a longevity bonus of five extra points. That means a team that posts a lineup in all four weeks will earn 25 points just for playing. We recognize and reward sticktoitiveness at Chinstrap Ninjas.

Other bonuses:

• 10 bonus points for starting a week’s top overall scorer. (Example: In Week 16 last year, Aaron Rodgers was started by Chickenheads&Pigeons and was the top point scorer. In the playoffs he would be worth 15 points, not just five.) This could be a real game-breaking jackpot. However, there will be far fewer players to choose from each week and there will likely be several “hits,” especially once we get to the conference championships and Super Bowl. Should be interesting.
• The Pro Bowl does count toward this competition.
• Last year we awarded one bonus point for Tough-Luck Award winners. This year, Tough-Lucks have been worth one point all season. Since we’ve upped the ante elsewhere, let’s award another point. So, in the playoffs, runners-up are worth two points.
• Of course regular season bonuses still stand, so selecting multiple correct responses will get you the usual bonuses.

Post a lineup for Week 17 in the comments. It’s never to late to join up. Each owner has a chance to score up to 35 points in a week, enough to move into the top-10.

To learn more about the contest, including scoring/lineup rules or to see Week 1′s lineups thread, go to the original post.

Week 1 results, Week 2 lineups

Week 2 results, Week 3 lineups

Week 3 results, Week 4 lineups (with September’s champions)

Week 4 results, Week 5 lineups

Week 5 results, Week 6 lineups

Week 6 results, Week 7 lineups

Week 7 results, Week 8 lineups

Week 8 results, Week 9 lineups (with October’s champion)

Week 9 results, Week 10 lineups

Week 10 results, Week 11 lineups

Week 11 results, Week 12 lineups

Week 13 lineups

Week 12 results (with November’s champion)

Week 13 results, Week 14 lineups

Week 14 results, Week 15 lineups

Week 15 results, Week 16 lineups