Lil’ Mahi is big fish in Week 12

Saipan’s little big man pulled a fish out of his hat as the Lil’ Mahi topped the local prognosticators last week by correctly picking a dozen teams from last week’s 16-game National Football slate.

Despite rocking the roost, the Mahi (99-77) is still just three games ahead of last place Powder Puff (96-80) and a few behind the leaders as all of the hometown gridiron gurus scored better than average.

John Blanco is still leading the seven-seer standings at 112-64 following his 11-5 mark last week, but the pulse of the Commonwealth Football League is fighting to hold on from a pair of threats—Will Hunter and Jon Cramer.

Hunter finished 10-6 after opting for San Francisco to dump the Rams in St. Louis and sits two games back of his Shell Lightning teammate, while Cramer went 11-5 despite making the same mistake.

The threesome has been jockeying for position all season, and at 110-66, both are well within catching Blanco before the NFL pushes into the playoffs. The Tinian Terror is also looking to make a run at the boys from Saipan as big Keith Nabors is solidly in fourth at 106-70.

After wrongly opting for Denver and Carolina, Nabors finished 10-6, but his consistency could see him though to the Promised Land. He only missed out on the 49ers by a field goal last week and he’s going with them again this week when they face New Orleans in the Super Dome. It’s a tough one, but Nabors is sticking with his Golden Boys for the Bay.

Kelley Butcher is also sticking by her men—all 52 of them—from San Diego as the lovely lawyer is banking on L.T. and the Chargers to beat the Bills in Buffalo. That seems like a safe bet but the Bills, while inconsistent at best, can be tough at home in December.

At 100-76, the beautiful Butcher is holding a slim advantage over the Lil’ Mahi and Powder Puff, but she is already ahead of them by siding with the Bengals over the Ravens in Cincinnati.

While the local rivals are sparring in the paper, a handful of professionals played anything but the top caliber of ball last week amidst a slew of sacks, turnovers, and a catastrophic fourth quarter meltdown.

The Ravens demolished the Pittsburgh Steelers in Baltimore, 27-0, by flashing their defensive brilliance over the defending Super Bowl champions. Ben Roethlisberger was sacked more times than a Garapan street walker as Ray Lewis and company sent him to the turf on nine different occasions.

At one point Big Ben left the game, but he returned for a second helping of hurt as the Ravens proved to be too much for the black and gold on the road. The number nine came into play between the Chicago Bears and the New England Patriots as the teams combined to commit nine turnovers.

I guess it depends whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist, so I guess you could say that the sterling performances turned in by both defenses produced a total of nine takeaways. Ah, Buddy Ryan would be smiling, but Rex Grossman and Tom Brady were not quite as happy about the blunders.

At least Brady came away with the win. The same could not be said for Eli Manning, as the New York quarterback watched the Giants blow a 21-0 fourth quarter lead in the final 10 minutes capped by his late game interception that led to Tennessee’s game-winning field goal.

The Big Apple press has been ruthless with Payton’s little brother, but the road doesn’t get any easier this week when the G-Men host Tony Romo, T.O., and the rest of the Cowboys.