Don becomes the lowest seed to win a title – Championship Game, 2006
The 2003 season was a major low-light in Don Vozzola’s career. He finished 4-10, averaging only 966ppg. The good thing though about being that bad is, you can only go up from there…and that’s what he did. Don followed up the ’03 disaster, with a respectable 7-7 campaign in ’04. He made it into the playoffs, but lost in round one to Rich Calderon. Don took another solid step up in 2005, when he went 9-4 (the best record in the league), earning the #1 seed. Unfortunately, he became the second #1 seed to lose in the first round, when he was knocked off by David.
Heading into 2006, Don had established himself as a winning team, but it was well known he never really did it with scoring. In fact, in five years in the league, Don only averaged over 1,200ppg once (1,280ppg in ’04). He also had gone over three yearswithout a weekly high score and he had yet to win a single playoff game (0-3). It was natural to never put too much faith in Don, especially when his first round keeper(Dominick Davis) went out for the year, before the season even started. Great things were not predicted with a lineup of McGahee, Bulger and his three wide outs; Owens (Cowboys), Walker (Broncos) and Keyshawn Johnson (Panthers). After a tough 1-1 start though (where he threatened to quit), Don shocked the world by producing the weekly high score in week three. It was his first one in 53 weeks.
He followed that up with two unimpressive wins (never breaking 1,200), followed by another high score. After six weeks, Don was 5-1, with two weekly high scores, but nobody had faith in him and no one was shocked when the wheels fell off. McGahee got hurt and Don suddenly found himself without any running backs. He stopped scoring and with the exception of one impressive win against Masterson in week nine (1,613-1,320), Don failed to find the ‘W’ column. He would lose five of his next six, and heading into the final week he rode a three-game losing streak; failing to break 1,000 in any of them.
During this time, Don had gotten a flurry of offers from other teams for Terrell Owens; usually involving an offer of a RB and another receiver. In the end Don passed up on all the offers. If Don wanted to get into the playoffs, he would have to beat Dave and he would need his (2-10) son, Eric, to beat Calderon. Don beat Dave and Eric shocked Calderon. He was in and thanks to a head-to-head tiebreaker against Rob Masterson, Don actually earned the 7th seed and not the 8th seed…and it made all the difference in the world. As the 7th seed, Don was only the 9th best scoring team in the league, but heading into the playoffs, Don not only had a healthy McGahee back, he was able to pick up a suddenly hot Ron Dayne, who was now starting for the Texans.
In the quarters, Don stayed three-wide and upset #2 seeded Molly. In the semis, he rolled the dice with two backs and took down #5 seeded Bob. Suddenly, Don found himself in the championship game against me, the third seed and second highest scoring team in the league. However, Don had some solid match ups and my team had its worst outing of the year, Don…the 7th seed….9th highest scoring team, who had dropped five of his last seven, beat Robio, 1,617-844. Don became the lowest seeded team to win a title and proved once and for all; all you have to do is get into the playoffs and win three games. Oh and why did it matter that he was the 7th seed? Well, if Don was the 8th seed, he would have lost in the semi-finals.
Comments