Chinstrap Ninjas 2011-2012 Fantasy Football Contest: A champion is crowned

Congratulations to Dante Bruno, who scored the highest weekly point total of the season, allowing him to leapfrog into the top spot and claim multiple championships in the final week of the season.

Dante Bruno correctly started three of four players, including this week’s high-scorer, to roll into the top spot and take the 2012 Overall Championship. The performance was strong enough to earn DB the 2012 Super Bowl Week Championship, the 2012 Playoffs Championship and the 2012 February championship.

The league produced its highest-scoring week of 2012. Thanks to everyone for playing. Read on to find out how the rest of the league finished 2011-2012.

Team Name Here, our overall runner up, posted a 35-point week, starting point-scorers Tom Brady and Aaron Hernandez. The score was the sixth-best performance of the season.

Cartisimo scored one correct pick (Hakeem Nicks) and one tough-luck point-giver (Eli Manning) to finish fifth in the playoff race and takeover fourth in the overall race.

Earning points from one correct pick and a pair of tough-lucks, Schizo Smurfs scored 19 points to become one of six teams to surpass 100 total points this season.

Oops Machine scored the second highest total of Super Bowl week with 37 points The performance helped Oops finish second in the February and playoff races and third in the overall title fight.

A nod to Schizo Smurfs, who was the only player to really cut against the grain this week by starting Stevan Ridley at running back. SS made the right move but but picked the other Patriots oddball option. Danny Woodhead was the second-leading scorer among running backs.

Congratulations to everyone and thanks again for playing.

Looking ahead to next year, I’m going to change up the posting format a bit to avoid some of the problems I created this year. Thank you for being so understanding and for sticking around until the final week.

Next year our weekly roundup and lineup posts will be separate. That way readers don’t have to wait for me to compile stats before posting a lineup. Also, if Yahoo again offers its free Salary Cap league next year we’ll start up a Chinstrap Ninjas group. I regret not forming one this year.

We’re going to post some early 2012 football rankings mixed in with our preseason baseball content, so check back and let us know what you think.

Top performers for Super Bowl week:

Quarterbacks

It’s not surprising that so many teams in the contest picked Tom Brady this week. It’s even less surprising that Brady took top overall scoring honors. Brady scored 17.04 fantasy points, throwing for 276 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Eli Manning threw for 296 yards but threw just one touchdown and no interceptions to finish with 15.74 points based on ESPN standard scoring.

Running backs

I considered starting Ahmad Bradshaw, but Dante Bruno was the only team willing to pull the trigger and start the Giants back. Bradshaw’s teetering-at-the-goal-line fourth-quarter touchdown will likely be replayed many times over. It was also the deciding factor in the fantasy points race at running back. Bradshaw finished with 72 yards rushing, 19 receiving and the score. Danny Woodhead got into the end zone on a touchdown catch. He rushed for only 18 yards but caught four passes for 42 yards to finish with 12 fantasy points. BenJarvus Green-Ellis, started by three of the five teams that participated this week, finished with 5.9 fantasy points.

Wide receivers

Mario Manningham‘s late catch helped set up the Giants game-winner, but Hakeem Nicks was doing work underneath all game. He caught all nine of his targets of less than 15 yards, only the fourth time a player has done that in 2011-2012. Nicks finished with 10 catches, 109 yards and no touchdowns. He scored 10.9 points to edge his teammate, Victor Cruz. Cruz, who salsa danced in the first quarter to decide one of the answers on my prop bet-based contribution to a Super Bowl party, was the No. 2 scorer with four catches, 25 yards and a touchdown. He finished with 8.5 fantasy points. It didn’t factor into our scoring, but Wes Welker took the third-place spot thanks to a two-carry, 21-yard rushing performance. Welker also had 60 yards receiving on seven catches to finish with 8.1 fantasy points. Manningham was fourth with 7.3 fantasy points.

Tight ends

Three teams in our contest started this week’s top tight end, Aaron Hernandez. The Patriots tight end/H-Back had a costly drop in the game but was Brady’s most targeted and productive receiver. He caught eight of 14 targets for 67 yards and a touchdown. The injury to Jake Ballard‘s knee opened an opportunity for Giants fullback Henry Hynoski and tight end Bear Pascoe. Pascoe was our Super Bowl runner-up at tight end, catching four passes for 33 yards and scoring 3.3 fantasy points to edge Rob Gronkowski (2.6 points).

2011-2012 Fantasy Football Contest: Super Bowl week and February final results

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2011-2012 Playoffs final standings

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Final 2011-2012 Overall standings

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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

Week 16 results, Week 17 lineups (with December’s champion)

Week 17 results, 2011-2012 NFL Playoffs Week 1 lineups (with Regular Season Champion)

NFL Playoffs Week 1 results, Playoffs Week 2 lineups

NFL Playoffs Week 2 results, Playoffs Week 3 lineups

NFL Playoffs Week 3 results, Playoffs Week 4 lineups

NFL Playoffs Week4 results, Super Bowl lineups (with January’s champion)