Ah, the Vox Populi. She's a cruel and demanding little vixen. It's easy to write that first update: you can claim any team is going to win and who's going to remember in late August anyway? And then the voice of the people rises up and starts clamoring for more. MORE unsubstantiated rumors, MORE scurrilous innuendo, MORE hollow predictions, and MORE half-baked scouting reports based upon nothing other than wild guesses and some beer-addled Roshambo against myself. Sure, some of those teams from the first update came through for me. Meanwhile, a few under-achievers are making me look less like Nostradamas and more like Miss Cleo. And y'all know who you are.

As of tonight, there are only three undefeated teams remaining out of a sweet 64. You have to give Steve, Brian and their minions some mad props for creating a league with tremendous parity. One of the great equalizers this year has been the smaller rosters, creating a situation when even a great team can be caught shorthanded and lose to a team that they probably shouldn't. One team that has avoided this pitfall so far comes as no surprise to veteran PADA players: Brendan & Nancy's team at 7-0 and the Kings (yes, Nancy, and Queens) of Kazahkstan. As mentioned briefly in the preview, this team was auto-drafted, which means that neither captain was at the draft to pick their own players. Well, karma paid them back in a big way because they have won all 7 of their games by the scores of 15-10, 15-11 or 15-12. No blowouts and no squeakers, it would seem--just the Smith clan coming through in the clutch as usual.

The other two undefeated teams that are left come as more of a surprise: Mike & Liz's Orange Crush and our team, Team Funnel. I had the opportunity to watch Mike's team for a few minutes one weekend afternoon as they dismantled Clayton & Heather's solid squad, 15-7. As Brian Canniff said on the PADA message board, they are "the real deal". On another night when thunderstorms cut short every game, and no other team scored more than 11 points before the rain ended the scoring, Orange Crush took their game 15-5. Unless this one was a re-scheduled game, that's a bit scary (unsubstantiated rumor, as promised.) Their biggest win so far came in a 15-13 battle against Dr. Pull & Kimberly's previously undefeated team. There's no doubt that they relied heavily on legendary handler Jon Epstein (one summer when we were on the same team, Jon threw a behind-the-back pass to me for a goal) and UPenn speedster Matt Schmucker.

As an aside, a draft guru who sat next to me on draft night had the top 150 men available ranked in order. He had Matt Schmucker, if I remember correctly, listed in the top five or six. (For comparison's sake, he didn't know I was going to captain & had me ranked at #111. Bastard!) Mike & Liz, rookie drafters and ridiculously nice people, were helped by good spirit (read: Clayton) and got him at pick #32. Since we mentioned Dr. Pull & Kimberly, their team also had another incredible game two days before that when they handed the Joe Ford Experiment their only loss in a 17-16 friendly feud. As for Team Funnel, standing atop Thailand at 6-0, journalistic integrity prevents me from blathering on about how lucky we got with our roster. The aforementioned draft guru did me an incredible favor when he told me to pick Pike's Chris K in the first round. The team's big wins so far came against Just Head (Cutts/Plummer) and the spirited Wawa Unblowupables (TC & Liz.)