Bills Mafia — #BillsMafia

Well it has been a strange year in football for all of us Bills fans. We didn’t get the results we were looking for and the sad thing is we have become accustomed to this. Let’s hope that the powers that be make the right choices for next year. GO BILLS.

Now, we started The Bills Mafia Fantasy Football League back in August and it was a challenge to try and get 48 people all on the same page and able to find a time that fit everyone for draft day, but with a lot of emails back and forth we were able to pull it off. I want to say that not only are Bills fans the best in the country but you guys are very football savvy. We created 4 leagues, 2 of which I oversaw and the other 2 I had the privilege of being able to look in on and man, were there some exciting games. I want to take this time and acknowledge the league winners and runners up for their outstanding efforts in our inaugural season.

Let’s start with the #Buffalove League that was managed by Jesse Sythe. Jesse did a great job managing. His weekly notes were stellar and I want to thank him for his efforts. I’m sure everyone in that league would agree. His last league notes started off with “Pete Carroll is a steaming pile of crap” and I’m sure we all agree. The championship game came down to Moats and Hoes, owned by Cole Karas as the 1st seed and Team Younes, owned by Jono Younes as the 2nd seed. Both won their respected divisions with Moats and Hoes getting the victory by a 96-84 margin. Younes had Arian Foster who had a zero — which 1 TD and 30 rushing yards would have meant a victory for Younes. Not hard for Foster to do. Congratulations to Cole Karas for being the 1st #Buffalove league champion.

The next league to be recognized is the #ExtraWack FFL, managed by Jon Coker. Once again I would like to thank Jon for a great job, it takes a lot of time to look over results and write notes every week. I’m sure the rest of his league agrees that he did a great job. This one came down to @Billsfan62 owned by Jimbo Fitchy, who came in 1st in his division against the #4 seed in the west division, Dead Buffaloes who came out of nowhere to challenge for the title. Unfortunately for the Dead Buffaloes, Jimbo had Drew Brees and the Bears defense to carry him to league champion. Congratulations to Jimbo Fitchy for being #ExtraWack FFL Champion.

Now to the leagues I managed. Let’s start with #SchefterBreakingNews. This league was so close that there were so many scenarios in the finals weeks I could not even put them down until the last week of the regular season. This one also came down to the #1 going against #2 — the way it should be. Down Goes Brady, owned by Jason Grimm was consistent with his winning as was Beast Light owned by John Schmitz. Both were 10-4 and won there respected divisions; but as was the story in another league, Jason had Arian Foster and lost, 96-80. Congratulations to John Schmitz for being the 1st #SchefterBreakingNews FFL Champion.

To the final Bills Mafia FF league, #FAMbase FFL. This one I had to join to make an even amount of teams. Thinking I would bring my 13 years of fantasy knowledge in and dominate, I came in last with a 4-10 record. Hoosier Daddy owned by JJ Calabrese came in 1st in the east division, went up against TN Bills Mafia who came in 3rd in the west division and beat out our own Breyon Harris (who crushed just about everyone with a 12-2 record) to make it to the championship game. Hoosier Daddy managed to pull out the closest margin of victory, 116-112. Even with Arian Foster on his team, the rest of his players made up for the zero from Arian. Congratulations to JJ for being the 1st #FAMbase FFL champion.

In closing let me make a few comments. I would like to acknowledge that not one #BillsMafia OG made it to the finals although Breyon came close and Del could probably blame me since I helped pick his team, sorry. I think Cole 12-1 and Breyon 12-2 should be congratulated for those records. That is very hard to do in fantasy football. Thanks again to Jesse and Jon for being league managers in leagues that they were not even playing in. All in all I thought it was a huge success and I look forward to next year. We can talk between now and then on changes we want to make but I don’t think we can find any better players than Bills Fans. I am glad to have become friends with all of you, have a great new year.

Vance

Since we started the Bills Mafia Fantasy Football League back in late summer, a lot has happened.

I thought I would take this time to bring everyone up to date as to what is happening in all four leagues. In case you don’t know, there are four different leagues inside the Bills Mafia League. They are: ExtraWack, Buffalove, SchefterBreakingNews and FAMbase.

Each one is occupied by an OG and I will run down each one right now, starting with the ExtraWack FFL. Riding high at 7-0 is @billsfan62. He has gotten to 7-0 by riding the youth movement in A.J. Green, Alfred Morris, and Stevan Ridley. If you told me at the beginning of the season that this roster would be 7-0 at this point I would Have said “you’re crazy.”  The rest of the teams in this league are knotted up between 4-3 and 2-5 with the exception of LukeB5301 who is 1-6 and just lost his fourth in a row, ouch. His roster looks like the walking dead with injuries. @RandomlyRufus and @PigSkinPunx tied in week 4 and are tied for first in the west because of it. If it were not for that tie, 5 of 6 teams would be at 3-3 before this past weekend.

In the Buffalove FFL, we have another undefeated team in @ckaras23. This past weekend, he defeated @jono_younes to go to 7-0 and drop @jono_younes to 5-2 which was the only close team. @CALLYLICOUS is at 4-3 with @JoeyG3113 bringing up the rear at 1-6, and the rest are between 4-3 and 2-5. It’s funny how evenly matched these leagues seem to be. All of these teams are still in it, although 1-6 makes it difficult (but possible).

In the SchefterBreakingNews FFL, there are no undefeated teams. Prior to this weekend five teams were at 4-2 and the @mseymour69 finally got his 2nd win to move to 2-5. When your QBs are Romo and Palmer your expectations can’t be high. The OG in this league started off hot at 3-0 but then lost 2 in a row. Del was in a nail biter Monday night, but Forte did enough against Robbie Gould and the Lions D to preserve a win. This league will be interesting down the stretch as all teams seem evenly matched.

Finally we have the FAMbase, which yours truly had to join to make it an even number of teams. Before this weekend, I was at the bottom of the East division, but now we are all half a game out of 1st behind @chunkylover80m who has 1st place due to a tie. OG @bre_88 would have loved me to write this last week, as he was undefeated. Seems @adlussier was getting tired of hearing Breyon boast about his team and dropped him from the undefeated ranks. Aaron was up by 1 playing Mathew Stafford against Breyon’s Brandon Marshall. The points remained close until the end but Stafford outscored Marshall by 2. Aaron is coming back with a vengeance, winning 3 in a row. 

The status of the OG’s is like this. Breyon had a close call in week 5 and lost it in week 7 to be at 6-1. Del has made some good waiver wire pick ups and remains competitive every week hovering at 5-2 and tied for 1st place. @SAINTRHYAN just lost his 4th to put him at 3-4 and @billsfan99 just won his 3rd to go 3-4. I will keep you posted each week from here on out as the winners start to separate themselves from the losers.

As I close out this article, I thought I would throw out some of the team names that I thought were very creative. Hoosier Daddy, Moats and Hoes, Truth or Dareus and Hippie Chicks with Picks I thought were quite funny. Of course no ones team picture was as good as mine, The Reapers.

If you want to follow all the leagues, their links are here for you to do so. GO BILLS!

Your Commish,
Vance Miller.

ExtraWack
Buffalove
FAMBase
SchefterBreakingNews

Every year at this time we all tend to take some time and reflect on the season thus far. I wanted to take a look at some quarterbacks at this time and comment on the direction they may be going.

Even Brandon Weeden has done pretty well, as a rookie QB, with what he has to work with.

It’s amazing the amount of quarterbacks that have come out of college and have enjoyed instant success. Last year it was Cam Newton and Andy Dalton, which both have had solid seasons so far and look to be good for many years to come. This year we were blessed with RG3, Andrew Luck and Ryan Tannehill. You could maybe even throw Weeden in there as he has done pretty well with what he has to work with. All of these QBs are putting up solid numbers consistently.

Then we have the QBs who are struggling. I know I don’t have to state the obvious in Ryan Fitzpatrick, decent fantasy numbers but he can be very bad at different times throughout a game. Another QB with similar stats and problems would be Tony Romo and in Philadelphia you have Michael Vick, drafted high in most Fantasy drafts only to be playing rather poorly.

Next we come to the guys who are not big names but are quietly getting it done. Alex Smith, Christian Ponder, Kevin Kolb and Joe Flacco. With the exception of Flacco putting up fairly large numbers, these guys have been quietly winning football games every week. Nothing flashy just playing consistent football and winning games.

Finally, I’ll finish up with the ones that are on the brink of being replaced. There have been rumblings this week about replacing Matt Cassel with Brady Quinn, Sanchez for Tebow and Russell Wilson with Matt Flynn. The last one will not happen too soon as Flynn is still unable to practice and I doubt Rex Ryan will throw Tebow in there, but Cassel may be one bad game away from seeing the bench.

As we go on, I wonder if there will be any RG3s in next year’s draft and how long will this trend go on of quarterbacks coming out of college and contributing in their rookie season? Who will be the next superstar rookie QB?

Note from Del: After realizing I bit off a little more than I could chew with this specific idea, Vance Miller has graciously accepted to head up the task of coordinating our “official” Bills Mafia fantasy football endeavor. We’ve put a lot of thought into this and worked together over the past few weeks on how this is going to play out, but I’ll let him speak to all that.

(Photo courtesy Associated Press)

Its finally here. With football season around the corner it’s time to set up our Fantasy Football Leagues. I know a lot of you have been waiting for this so let me get right to it.

First of all, we had a huge response to the idea of official Bills Mafia Fantasy Leagues, and that shows tons of support for our beloved Bills.

Unfortunately, we will only be able to have 4 leagues comprised of 12 teams. Maybe next year we can open it up a little more.

The teams will be made up of one OG in each league followed by 11 Bills Mafia members. Those 11 members will be randomly picked by @mrdeadlier on Monday afternoon from the list of those who have expressed interest. If you’re interested, and not on that list, make sure you contact him asap.

We will then fill in the rosters based on the draft day and time that the 12 teams can meet online to draft. It will be tough to coordinate these times and dates, I ask that you try to cooperate as much as possible since there are 12 teams to organize for each league.

Once we know the teams we will can then start to schedule draft dates. The league names are:

FredEx FFL [Fantasy Football League]
FitzMagic FFL
Why So Serious FFL
Schefter Breaking News FFL

We’ve had three others volunteer to commish the individual leagues, who we’ll name soonalong with me: @RQUINN619, @jonbcoker, and @polarpeace.

A scoring sheet is being made up as we speak. It will be basic, as will the rosters. The draft will be a 16 round snake style draft. I will be posting all of this information along with the 44 Bills Mafia members who will comprise this league in the near future on BillsMafia.com. Good luck to all, can’t wait to see how this plays out.

Background: I am Vance Miller and I have been playing Fantasy Football for 12 years 5 of which I have been a commissioner. This will be a learning experience for all, please be patient and understanding.