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San Francisco Doesn't Wait Too Long For Their 3rd Title The 27th edition of the Fantasy Bowl was a blast to the past where the first two teams met in the 1997 championship game. The 2023 Fantasy Bowl showcased the #5 San Francisco Rattlesnakes taking on the #3 Chicago Triumph. This was the only the second time featuring a finals rematch. In the previous occurrence, Chicago knocked off Huntsville (before they were Sterling Heights) in 2001 only for Indianapolis (again, before they were Sterling Heights) to return the favor to Chicago in 2011. This game also marked the first time that a #5 seed was competing in a final. These two divisional rivals were facing off for the third time with San Fran winning in Week 1 by 10 points and Chicago winning in Week 11 by 44 points. Through the first two games of the playoffs, the Triumph were a scoring machine with a 300 point total. The Rattlesnakes went for 140 points in the opening round and did enough with a 116 point performance to make the final. However they did have a 201 point week in the penultimate week of the regular season, so they were capable up putting up a gaudy score. The outlook of the Fantasy Bowl was going to be made clear during the Saturday night game between the Cowboys and Lions. The Rattlesnakes had 3 players (Dak, Ceedee, and Laporta) that could make or break them. After the first series of the game, it looked as if this was going to be problematic for the Snakes with Dak throwing an INT. But the next series changed everything. Prescott connected with Lamb for a 92 yard touchdown and that would mark the beginning to their success. Prescott, Lamb, and Laporta would end the night with 106 points. Lamb had a historic stat line of 13 catches for 227 yards and 1 TD. Chicago was demoralized before any of their players took the field. San Fran kept up their offensive onslaught to finish with 173 points. Chicago never found their way and didn’t even crack 100 points. So their premonition came true after the Saturday game. The Triumph looked flat and only had 1 bonus of any kind with 2 touchdowns. McCaffery didn’t finish the game and exited in the 3rd quarter with a strained calf muscle. Chicago seems cursed of winning a third championship after losing their 5th straight final and 7th overall. On the other hand, San Francisco celebrates their 3rd championship in 8 tries. After waiting 21 years between their first and second title, they only waited 5 years this time. It was a popular choice for these two teams to face off in the final week, but for the Fantasy Bowl instead of the Bronze Bowl. It would have featured the league’s longest championship drought versus a team without a championship. Unfortunately, that never came to fruition as both Los Angeles and Tampa Bay stumbled in the semi-finals. The Crayola Bowl was a high scoring affair where 301 points were scored, the most for this bowl game all-time. The Bombers’ Lamar Jackson cemented his NFL MVP campaign with a 54-point day which included 5 passing touchdowns. Kyree Williams had an equally impressive day with 34 points and 3 rushing touchdowns. Tampa Bay did their best to counter those impressive efforts with half of their team scoring at least 22 points. Justin Jefferson, the first overall pick, finished with a dismal 10-point day and needed a big day to flip the outcome of this one. This is LA’s first Bronze Bowl victory after losing in their first two tries. Tampa Bay’s loss drops them to a 2-2 record in this game and they now have a 3-bowl game losing streak. The Root Beer Bowl was the perfect matchup meet between two foes, Sterling Heights and Denver. Both teams could make the claim, if only they would of won in the opening round, then they would have met up in the finals. Both the Hooligans and Diamonds struggled to amass points in this one. There were 4 total touchdowns in this contest with Ezekiel Elliott scoring the only touchdown that wasn’t a quarterback. This game was ultimately decided by the greatness of Harrison Butker who scored 25 points in the second highest point total for a kicker. Matt Gay was no slouch either for the Diamonds as he had a 13 point outing. The kicker position tied the quarterback position accounting for 38 points in the matchup. In the end, Sterling Heights won 103 to 89. The Hooligans won their 4th straight bowl game while Denver lost their 3rd straight. The Overrated Bowl was the perfect setting for the Fort Wayne Pistons and San Diego Surge to square off. Both teams were still searching for their first post season win and were guaranteed to have an overall losing record. However, the winner of this matchup would avoid having a 10 loss season. Of all the bowl games, this was the closest contest with the Pistons winning 116-106. Fort Wayne rode their wide receivers to the promised land with DJ and Puka combining for 57 points. San Diego's 1-2 punch of Hurts and Pacheco combined for 65 points, but their supporting cast was a non-factor with only the New York Jets D managing to score more than 10 points. The Pistons' Travis Kelce was still caught up in Taylor Swift mania and finished with 4 points for a post season total of 20 points. Not exactly the kind of production expected from the 8th overall pick. The Pistons won the Overrated Bowl for their first time in 4 tries. They've won their last 3 bowl games tying their career best for the third time. The Surge on the other hand, have lost 2 of the last 3 Overrated Bowls and 6 straight bowl games. The Garbage Bowl had two teams you would expect to be battling for a championship not for pride. But that's what we had here, the Nimrods who saw their consecutive playoff streak end at 8 years vs. the Jesters who had their worst regular season ever at 3-11. But as bad as this season has gone for Atlanta, they did have some momentum with a chance to finish with an undefeated post season. That momentum prevailed as Atlanta took down North Dakota 132-97. Gino, De-Von and Amon-Ra each had 20+ point days. Throw in Bijan, Dallas G, and Cleveland D with double digit efforts and it was a complete team performance. North Dakota was a one man show with Davante Adams breaking through for 42 points earning his Taco Bell endorsements. Tee Higgins and Cole Kmet were awful accounting for 2 total points. The Dolphins D were just as bad letting up 56 points to the Ravens. Atlanta won their first Garbage Bowl (on their 3rd try) after its renaming and have a 3-2 record in the 9/10 matchup. North Dakota missed out on their opportunity to complete the bowl game sextet. A victory in the Garbage Bowl still eludes them. The Toilet Bowl didn't disappoint pitting the two lowest scoring teams against each other, Detroit vs. Anaheim. But who is Anaheim? After taking an 18 year hiatus, the Tim Marklevitz era was renewed. It was going to be a struggle getting re-acclimated to the league, but there was one point of business that they needed to accomplish: win a bowl game. Detroit stood in their way riding a 5 game bowl streak. It seemed like a tall order but the Commando Cats finally did it, Anaheim defeated Detroit 101 to 86. Patrick Mahomes continued his disappointing season on a 16 point day. Travis Etienne was a juggernaut going for 35 points who essentially led them to victory. Detroit only had one answer with Brandon Aiyuk who went for 29 points and a TD. The rest of the cast did little to help the cause combining for 1 other TD and a rushing attempts bonus. Anaheim won their first bowl in 7 tries and now sport a 1-2 record in the Toilet Bowl. Detroit on the other hand, finishes last in the league for a 3rd time going 0-3 in the Toilet Bowl.
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