2009 shall be known as the Year of the Cruiser.

Before this year, no fantasy team by the name "Moss Bluff Cruisers" ever managed by yours truly had ever won any league of any sort. 0-11 in baseball, 0-5 in football. I was fine with this: someone has to lose these games, and apparently, this was my niche.

2009 met the Moss Bluff Cruisers in much the same way as 2006 and 2007: an 0-3 start behind ineffective play by their star 2nd round and 3rd round running backs: Brandon Jacobs and Clinton Portis. Their 12th round pickup, the Saints D\ST had been making a lot of noise, but it wasn't enough to overcome a lack of production from their quarterback, Kurt Warner.
Then Week 4 happened.
Week 4, when two key starters on the Cruisers roster, Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald, were on bye, going up against a potent Kenner Knights squad, led by Tom Brady, Chris Johnson, and the vaunted Steelers D\ST.

And yet, it would appear that a miracle happened: Shaun Hill has a great day, and the Saints D\ST makes Mark Sanchez look like the rookie he is, scoring 2 defensive touchdowns along the way. Tom Brady has pedestrian numbers, and the only time Chris Johnson breaks the goal line is on a two point conversion. The Cruisers turn their weakest week on paper into a coup of an upset, sinking the Knights (who would go on to win 10 more games) for their first win of the 2009 campaign.

The Cruisers would be the only team in their division to post a winning record outside the division, going 6-2 in weeks 4 through 11, having gone from 2 games behind the rest of the division to a one game lead over the second place Kastrators coming back into the division. A Week 12 falter to the Saucier Shockers would tighten up the entire division to within a single game, leading to much drama over the final two weeks of the fantasy season. The Cruisers (6-6) hosted the Touchdown Titans (5-7) in what was basically an elimination game: with 4 division losses, the Cruisers couldn't afford to let any team catch them in the standings. A controversial defensive touchdown scored for the Cruisers D\ST by one of the Titans active offensive players turned out to be irrelevant, as Alex Smith, Larry Fitzgerald, recent pickups Justin Forsett and Jamaal Charles were just enough, as a late Mason Crosby field goal sealed the Cruisers seventh victory of the campaign.

This set up what would be billed as the game of the week, as the Moss Bluff Cruisers (7-6) would travel to face the Kenner Kastrators (6-7) for the division crown and a playoff berth on the line. The Kastrators had not made the playoffs since Peyton Manning led them to the Super Bowl crown in 2004, whereas the Cruisers had never posted a winning record, let alone contended for the playoffs. As the horn sounded in Cleveland where Ben Roethlisberger would finish with a scant 200 yards passing and no touchdowns, it would have appeared that fortune shined on the Cruisers cause, as they would coast to an 18 point victory, despite poor outputs from Warner and Fitzgerald in San Francisco.

No time to rest on their first winning season, as the Cruisers were thrust into the playoffs against the supremely unbeatable crosstown rival of their division foe, the Kenner Knights (12-2), who had not lost since the Week 4 debacle in Moss Bluff. Tom Brady had an ineffective day in Buffalo, and Chris Johnson failed to break the goal line at home, while Jamaal Charles shined and the Ravens D\ST harassed Jay Cutler's Bears into 6 turnovers, as the Cruisers became the only team to have not lost to the mighty Knights in the 2009 campaign.

And then, a matchup against the top-seeded Metry Mudbugs in the Super Bowl....


Your 2009 Digital Engineering & Imaging, Inc. Fantasy Football Super Bowl Champions, the Moss Bluff Cruisers.

And, for what it's worth, I ended up winning the church league, too....


Let it be fully understood: the draft is so important to doing well in fantasy football. That, and there is an inordinate amount of luck involved in this game.
That said, I am humbled by what God has blessed me with this year.

-KIE