It's been two weeks since our last loser's letter since JAKE was too BUSY to write one last week, so let me start by saying that Jake was indeed just as much of a LOSER two weeks ago as I was this week. Going back just two weeks, however, is a tiny blip to the timeline that I will be taking you back to in this week's installment of the Loser's Letter / Commissioner's Notepad. It is with great shame and embarrassment that I reveal this uncanny stat that will haunt me for the rest of my life. I have moved through the stages of Denial, Anger & Bargaining and am stuck somewhere between Depression & Acceptance.
The date is Sunday, December 14, 2014. Barack Obama was halfway through his 2nd term as president. The first + model of the iPhone was just recently released with the iPhone 6+. My wife, Samantha, and I had been married not even four months and still had one year left on our apartment lease. I was still driving my 2005 Pontiac Vibe which had just flipped past 185,000 miles. No SpaceX rockets had yet departed from the Earth. The Doug & Willy Podcast was just finishing up their 2nd season. Aaron Hernandez was still alive. The TPDFFL had crowned just three young champions: Jake, Sean and the dominant Two-Dollar Pistols run by Aaron which rolled off 14 straight wins. Terrance had ZERO championships, was sitting at 8-5 and needed a WIN to make the playoffs.
This was the state of the times on that Sunday, December 14, 2014, but the list goes on...
The actual The Poets Dance was still rocking out annual "Chili Cook-Off" shows and charity events. Kryptonite was still open, but we didn't take advantage of that. The album "We Are" which took almost three years to produce had finally been released. The league offspring count was only at 4, and has since increased to 11. Only three owners were married, now we have 6 and soon to be 7! The first round of the draft was full of forgotten players: LeSean McCoy, Adrian Peterson, Jamaal Charles, Eddie Lacy, Matt Forte, Calvin Johnson, Jimmy Graham, Marshawn Lynch, Peyton Manning & Aaron Rodgers. Andrew Luck was the highest scoring player in the league.
I tell all of you this to take you back to the day that I last defeated Jake "the Snake" Robert G. Wilson. The once fiery and passionate rivalry between commissioner and vice commissioner (whatever that means) has since been dissolved into a fresh, hot, stinky pile of snake shit. Let the record show that Jake Wilson has now defeated me 11 consecutive times, breaking the all-time record for most consecutive wins against one other person. Aside from winning it all, consistently beating someone to the point of "historic" might be the best feeling in our fantasy football league. So now that the fanfare is complete, we can table this "rivalry" until I meet Jake again in Week 14.
I suppose it's fitting that I am the LOSER that writes the letter in the days following this historic moment. A record has been set which may be tough to match, as no other person has won more than 5 consecutive games against another, which means this record will sadly stand for years. But perhaps this is another chapter in my story of RESILIENCE as the fantasy commissioner who never lost hope when that day comes when I hoist the Robbie above my head...and pass it off to another champion. No but seriously, if I lowball it and say that I'll live for just 40 more years, and I have a 10% chance of winning it each year, the law of averages says that I'll get one eventually. But if I don't, Robbie gets buried with me.
You have 24 hours.