David starts the season 9-0, greatest start to a season, 2007
What can you say about a 1-12 season? In reality, not much. All you can do is get up, clean yourself up, drink a beer and then in the following year’s draft, grab New England quarterback, Tom Brady, the year he has the greatest season ever for a quarterback…did I mention ever?
Grabbing Brady and his, what was it? 145 touchdowns (give or take a couple) that season and Dave would quickly rebound from an awful 2006. Of course, not even I, the master predictor could see what was coming next.
Prior to 2007, the best start to a season had been 5-0. Justin Hanright did it first in 2000 and David matched it in 2003. Ironically though, both of those 5-0 starts were followed up with 3-6 finishes and neither survived the first round of the playoffs.
However, in 2007, not one, but two teams (Eric and David) would start the season 5-0 and the best part about it was, those two teams would face off in week six, meaning that Robioland was guaranteed to have its first 6-0 team.
In the end though, only David’s team had Tom Brady. He passed for 388 yards and five touchdowns in a slight-comeback win against the Cowboys. More importantly, he raked up 658 fantasy points for Hightower, leading him to a 1,424-1,188 victory. For the first time ever, the league had an undefeated team after six weeks of football.
Dave wasn’t just satisfied with breaking the record, he wanted to own this bad boy for a while, so he just kept on winning. He would roll to victories over the other Vozzola (Don), Molly and then Robio. He was 9-0. The playoffs were already guaranteed. The only question was, how great would the season be? Could Dave actually go, dare I say it, undefeated (just like his beloved New England Patriots were that year)?
Maybe he could have, pre-bye week NFL, but this was 2007 and bye-weeks were about to become an issue. Dave had three starters, including Tom Brady on a bye in week ten. The answer was clearly no. In a week that saw five teams not break 1,000, Hightower’s boys had nothing to offer. He lost to Colby 1,474-884.
Dave did manage to bounce back nicely with a 1,900-point game the following week, but he also lost one more game (despite being fully staffed) before the season ended. At 11-2, Dave finished the season with the least amount of loses for a team (until 2010). His 11 wins tied three others for most (remember, the league use to play 14 regular season games).
In the quarterfinals, Dave revenged his second defeat, beating Burrier, but in the semi-finals, Dave feel victim to 7th seeded Rich Calderon. The loss was a disappointment for all of us, since Rich was no match for Matt Neatock in the finals.
However, Dave’s defeat shouldn’t have been too shocking. You see, the team that loses last in Robioland, doesn’t win the championship….ever.
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