SEEING THROUGH THE CHAOS
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Articles

A collection of currently published articles here on Signal Focused.

The Battle Rages On

Never give up.

Never give up.

With record breaking fires still raging in both northern and southern California, we cannot help but put our selfish desires into proper perspective.

A family member sent me a photo of the old cabin in Paradise he rented while going to college in Chico, CA which was destroyed in the path of the Butte County “Camp Fire.”

So many have had their lives displaced. So many have been trapped and died.

So many are out there fighting the flames right now as I type, have been for the past week, and will continue to do so while we sleep until it is contained.

I thank them sincerely.

The power of Mother Nature leaves me in awe.

The power of Mother Nature leaves me in awe.

An almost volcanic eruption look to the sky.

An almost volcanic eruption look to the sky.

Tragedy, survival, and continuing onward to rebuild, remember and triumph is a cycle of nature that is reflected in our lives and even in our games.

I recall being saddened while making the trek to Lake Tahoe years back, seeing mile after mile (after mile) of scorched earth where a great forest once stood.

Here and there you could spot a “lucky” green tree that somehow survived the blaze, but when you fast forward a few years, you notice how Nature had been very busy rebuilding itself once again into a lush forest.

The circle of life is beautiful.

An owl taking refuge from the fires on a sandy beach.

An owl taking refuge from the fires on a sandy beach.

Transitioning now to our game of Fantasy Football.


Here we are. Ten weeks of battle now complete.

Where did the time go?

Gone are the full-to-capacity swimming pools, slushy drinks and shades.

Now we have blasting furnaces, flannel PJ’s, wool socks inside of slippers, and a Hefner Robe.

Our Halloween decor made its yearly appearance and has already been returned to garage storage.

Some Pumpkin or “Fall Leaves” themed crossover items have survived the purge, but the real home transformation must wait until the Thanksgiving triple header is complete.

Can’t beat the smell of a real Christmas Tree while toasting near the heater on cold December mornings.

If you play in many leagues, odds are you have a mixed bag of results.

Some teams may be looking dominant, some have been dead for weeks, and a large portion are in what I call Fantasy Limbo.

In leagues where four or more teams make the playoffs, you can hold on to the dream of a blow-up week of scoring to get you back into the points race for breaking ties.

There may be one or two teams sitting alone atop the standings record-wise, but odds are if you’ve scratched your way to .500 so far (5 wins) you still have a shot at sneaking into the final playoff spot with a hot-streak.

In leagues like the FFPC, we are one week away from knowing our playoff fate.

In Dynasty and other similar formats, we’re down to three weeks of war before the cut.

In Yahoo type home leagues, we have a full month to go before knowing our fates.

Never give up!

I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see teams I had little to root for start making a climb up the standings.

The top teams can go cold or the Scheduling Gods may serve you a full platter of matchups versus the weaker teams in your league to close out the year.

Fight on.

Our effort (and attitude) we can control until it is over.

This applies universally.

Updating the standings in the SuperContest event, I’m humbled to say (no whammies!) that I’ve not had a losing week.

That isn’t saying much, as for the first seven weeks of competition, I was relatively treading water with my worst week going two wins, two losses and one tie (5 bets per week) and my best week going three wins, one loss and one tie. Many three win, two loss type weeks.

I’ve managed to heat up over the past three weeks, finally hitting a five win, zero loss week eight, followed by back-to-back four win, one loss records in weeks nine and ten.

That moved my record into the top 56 overall (tied in record for 34th with many teams) out of 3103 entrants.

Exciting!

The overall leaders are currently smoking the field, so it will be a grind to reel them in, but we still have seven full weeks to compete!

Clicking on the SuperContest image above links to the leaderboard for those interested.

Had to “Throw up the X” for “Week X” in honor of the short-lived dream of Dez Bryant receiving well placed spirals from Drew Brees.

Ahh, what could have been.

With the way Richard Sherman has returned to his high level of play post-Achilles tear, all hope is not lost for Dez.

Week Ten was insane.

For me personally, I had five FootballGuys Players Championship teams score 200 or more fantasy points. I also had four Best Ball teams crack 200 plus. Many teams scored in the 170’s, 180’s and 190’s as well. Just a great week of scoring.

My best scoring team (FFPC $500 Dynasty) put up a crazy 263.45 fantasy points and had Aaron Jones’ 32.20 score on the bench! Awesome week!

Despite only one week remaining in the regular season, updating my Fantasy Football Players Championship Main Event team is more of that dreaded Fantasy Limbo.

I’ve managed to claw my way to the third best record, and third best point total, yet still feel very uneasy.

Top Record (9-1) and Top Point Total (1736) are out of reach with only one week to go. My 7-3 record and 1515 points are not nearly enough to secure an automatic birth in the Playoff Round for the $250,000.00 Grand Prize.

Rumor has it the 2019 FFPC Main Event Grand Prize will be DOUBLED to Half a Million!!!

$500,000.00!!!

Anyway, despite a fun season of competition, the fact remains that I did not secure an auto-pass to the big dance, and therefore will not only need to defeat my opponent in week 11 to advance to the league playoff, but will need to win in the first round of the playoffs (should I make it) with most of my team on BYE week 12.

Not good.

I then will need to win my H2H matchup the following week in order to make it to The Dance!

So I must run the table and win Weeks 11, 12 and 13.

Let’s do it!

Swag King Kamara.

Swag King Kamara.

So much to look forward to in Week 11.

Never Give Up!

I’ve been around long enough to have seen many unbelievable finishes to fantasy seasons.

No lead is safe until the clock strikes triple zero’s and there are no yellow flags to be found.

Fight on!

Keep your Swag Level on 10!

Good Luck and thanks for reading.