It's almost eerie how the 2003 LEAF season is resembling the 2002 season. But more about that later.

In what was one of the lowest scoring weeks in recent LEAF ball history, a ray of light emerged for this week's top scoring squad, Keith's Weapons of Mass Destruction. His 89-point week put him in seventh place overall, while Eric's Rough Housers, led by a rejuvenated Jake Plummer, earned an almost-as-good 88 points.

But the week's biggest winners were Rick's Cloning Scott Baio and Todd's Turd Burglars - thanks in part to Tom's Week 3 collapse. As a result, their scores of 87 and 86 points put them first and second plce overall, respectively, more than 30 points ahead of the third place team.

Of course, 30 points is easy to recoup - and easy to lose, as Steve and Tom learned this week. Their no-show running games cost them both dearly in the standings. Tom dropped from first to fifth place, while Steve - who remained in fourth place despite his poor showing - lost some ground on the leaders. Keep the faith, fellas!

And here comes good ol' Nick, who shocked everyone last season as a top contender as a rookie. So far, he's showing no signs of a sophomore slump, and his 80-point week thrust him from fifth to third place this week.

Bruce's Pez are also clinging to hope and seventh place, though there are some Weapons of Mass Destruction right on his ass. Of course, for anyone who's ever worked with Bruce, or sat near him at a fantasy draft, they know that this is usually the case.

As for Andy, Dave, Brendan and Troy, their latest struggles are ensuring that their teams receive about as much respect as the Professor and Mary Ann got in the opening credits of the first season of Gilligan's Island, when they were lumped in as "And the Rest."

So should the bottom of the pack give up after Week 3? Should they pack up and cease to invest any more of their hard-earned dough in their beloved teams?

Well, let's see what history teaches us.

***Week 3 vs. Week 17***

I took the liberty of comparing Week 3 standings to final standings during the 1999-2002 LEAF seasons. Here are a few of the trends I discovered:

1. The top four teams in Week 3 are never the top four teams at the end of the season. Someone from the middle of the pack always sneaks in.

2. However, at least two teams in the top four after Week 3 go on to win money.

3. No team lower than 8th place after Week 3 has ever finished in the money. (Only two in 8th place at this stage have recovered: Nick did it in 2002, Eric in 1999)

4. When Steve is among the top four teams after Week 3, he always finishes in the money. (Note: He's always been among the top four teams after Week 3.)

5. When Mike Ruth is among the top four teams after Week 3, he never finishes in the money. (Of course, he's gone now.)

6. The team in first place after Week 3 has always finished in the money.

The biggest drop after Week 3? Mike Ruth in 2002, when he went from third place to dead last.

The pre-2002 scoring system made it more difficult for teams lower in the standings to recover, which was one of the reasons it was changed. So we may see a change in some of these trends before long.

So what does all of this mean? Here's my take on it.

1. If you are one of the leaders, take nothing for granted. The top teams that eventually fell out of contention either made hasty, unwise moves to fix their team, or did absolutely nothing to keep improving. Invest, but do it carefully.

2. If you are in the top eight but on the outside of the money looking in, you are still very much alive, and history has shown that at least one of you will get some payback. But you'd better be ready to take a few chances. That can mean offering high risk trades that could either reap big dividends, or blow up in your face. So you must ask yourself, if the deal doesn't work out, how much worse is it to finish in 8th place than dead last? So what does this mean? For example: Perhaps you come up with a package of healthy players for Tom to acquire Michael Vick and/or Michael Bennett.

3. If you are in the bottom quarter, you're not out of it yet! But you must take stock and really get a feel for how close you are to having a contending team, because it might take a considerable investment to get things done. Since we have a highly competitive league, there are seveal owners who are willing to spend some cash to put together the best team possible, even if it's unlikely to turn a profit. There's pride at stake, and you may want to be the one to prove that they have the savvy to make the biggest standings leap in LEAF history. I think we should all respect and thank owners willing to do that. Especially those of us that will eventually take their money from them.

4. No matter how bad you think Steve's draft was, he'll finish in the money.

Here was another interesting observation: The top of the current standings looks similar to last year's standings. Todd and Rick were neck and neck at 1 and 2 (though Todd was in first, Rick second), and Steve was in fourth place (same as he is now.) It was Mike Ruth who secured the 3rd spot after week 3, eventually plummetting to 12th place, while rookie owner Nick Bradley sat buried in a "non-threatening" 8th place before beginning his rise to 3rd place.

This season? Well, Mr. Bradley is now in 3rd place, while rookie owner Brendan McAnally is buried in a "non-threatening" 8th place.

Will history repeat? We've got 14 more weeks to find out!

***Surprises of the Week***

Here are what I consider to be the top 10 shocking moments of Week 3.

10. Marvin Harrison fails to show up again. After a 3-point week, Bruce must be wondering what happened to this fantasy stud.

9. Travis Henry's goose egg. Sure, he was hurt early on. But Steve took pleasure last week in the zeroes that other quality players posted. This one was much more painful, no doubt.

8. Steve's receivers score 4 points, total. That's including his tight end. Who says that good receivers aren't important? Oh that's right, Steve does. Shame he can't plug Drew Bledsoe in at WR.

7. Michael Pittman gets 22 points... on Cloning Scott Baio's bench. The "curse" of Stacey Mack continues.

6. Marshall Faulk gets hurt. This could really hurt Dave's chances, but at least he got 3 points for him before he went down. What impact will this have on Marc Bulger, one must wonder. Hmmm...

5. Keith's aggressive bench moves. He plays Ike Hilliard (good move) and Moe Williams (good move), but benches Tony Gonzalez (not so good move), Patrick Ramsey (bad move) and Reggie Wayne (very bad move, but certainly understandable). In the end, he was still near the top for the week, but oh, what coulda been.

4. Eric scores 100% efficiency. That's hard to do, unless you have a really bad bench and your choices are obvious. But Eric made some very good choices this week and it shows. Ask Rick (77.68%) and Keith (70.63%) how frustrating it can be to have all those points wasted on your bench.

3. Dave plays David Akers on a bye week. He proclaimed that he didn't need to waste his "no charge" free agent pick on a kicker in order to take care of business with Andy. He right. It's unlikely any kicker would've given him the 15 points needed to beat Andy. Of course one field goal and two extra points would've put him in 7th place instead of 11th place overall. Hey, at least he saved... zero dollars??? Surprisingly, Akers scored as well for Dave's team as he did in Week 1.

2. Eric picks up the Chiefs defense, and kicks butt with them. Will their dominance continue and lead a Rough Houser resurgence?

1. Charlie Garner and Clinton Portis combine for a total of 4 fantasy points, sealing Tom's Week 3 fate. Tom had to be expecting at least 5 or 6 times that amount. Instead, he just got slightly more than half of what Stacey Mack scored alone.

Until Week 6, I'll see ya later!

*****

Rick Reitz is the mastermind behind Cloning Scott Baio. His "Mop Up" column will appear every three weeks.

Next week: Keith Schweigert provides his analysis of Week 4 in this space.

In two weeks: Steve Seeber chimes in with his thoughts on the league in Week 5.

This column will be written on alternating weeks by Keith, Steve and Rick.

Loose LEAF Notebook Home