Hines Ward, who actually played in the last tie in the NFL, says he didn’t know a game could end in a tie.

“No, I didn’t know,” Ward said. “I thought we were the last team to do it when we played the Falcons. I thought we just played it until you have a winner or something. It’s kind of weird now that you can still tie ballgames.”

Ben Roethlisberger guessed that half the league didn’t know.

“I think people are making too big a deal and are being too hard on Donovan because you’d be surprised, I bet at least 50 percent of the league didn’t know that at the time,” Roethlisberger said. “You’d be real surprised. I think people just assume that the quarterback should know it all and that everyone should know that stuff and it’s not necessarily true because who ever thinks about that stuff?”

I guess everyone is thinking about it now Ben…

I want to go back to something Ward said however. “It’s kind of weird now that you can still tie ballgames.” It really is. I wonder if the NFL will visit this issue after the season? Is there any real reason for a tie to be possible? Obviously it’s so rare that teams go through an overtime period without scoring(twice in the last 6 years), so how rare would it be for them to go two quarters? It would be nearly impossible.

Why not just eliminate the tie and play untl there’s a winner? I can’t see how anyone would have an issue with that.

As for the Giants, Brandon Jacobs, Aaron Ross, Chase Blackburn didn’t practice at all and Gerris Wilkinson was limited. It’s sounding more and more like Jacob is probably going to play on Sunday as he expected to practice tomorrow.

It is never good to lose a divisional game, especially late in the season, but that is exactly what I did in Week 11.  Underdogs beat me to move into a tie for second-place in our division.  Just go away Favre is now 8-3 and appears to be running away with the Charlie Sanders Division, so now the teams behind him (myself, Underdogs, and Maize ‘n’ Blue Jays) are battling it out for a wild card spot.

Maize ‘n’ Blue Jays is 5-6 after a loss to the division leader, and Underdogs’ victory over me made us both 6-5.  Detroit’s Few Good Men is also 6-5, and since the tiebreaker for the wild card is points scored, I believe he and I would make the playoffs if the season ended today.

One of the biggest stories from Week 11 was the controversial finish to the Steelers-Chargers game.  The Chargers were trailing 11-10 with only a few seconds left, and they tried to lateral the ball around in hopes a miracle would happen.  Troy Polamalu broke up one of the laterals and returned the fumble for a touchdown.  Not only did Pittsburgh suddenly cover the spread, but fantasy football players with the Steelers D/ST got somewhere around 8 points (2 for a fumble recovery and 6 for a TD).

The referees took some time to talk about the last play and eventually determined that an illegal forward pass had occurred.  Therefore, no fumble happened and no touchdown happened.  The call turned out to be completely wrong, and the impact the miscue had was huge on both the gambling and fantasy football worlds.  It is estimated that a $64 million swing happened in the gambling world due to the incorrect call, and for fantasy football the call lost or won games in many cases.

In the official POD league, Calvin and the Chipmunks lost by just over 6 points.  He had the Steelers D/ST in his starting lineup, and a correct call would have meant that he had beat Detroit’s Few Good Men, which would have changed the entire playoff picture.

In the Pride of Detroit overflow league, I played somebody that had the Steelers D/ST, and I only won by a score of 76.24-74.32.  When the Steelers scored that touchdown at the end, I was beyond pissed off as I thought I had lost.  Then, as the call was changed, I was ecstatic since I won thanks to the referee’s mistake.  I shouldn’t have let it be that close in the first place, as I had a terrible coach rating of 66%.  I made the mistake of benching Leon Washington, Jerricho Cotchery, and the Packers D/ST.  Had I started even one of them, the Steelers-Chargers finish wouldn’t have made a difference.

There was no controversy in the SBN/AOL league since the owner of the Steelers D/ST had them on the bench in favor of the Panthers.  If the Steelers D/ST had been in the starting lineup, another fantasy football player would have been screwed over since the margin he lost by was around 4 points.  The controversy was moot, though, since the Steelers didn’t start.  Thankfully I wasn’t involved in that game anyways, as I won 101.85-63.05 and had a perfect coach rating to improve to 9-2 on the season.

A full look at all of the results from the official POD league can be found below.

My team was was beating The Wrath of Chest after all of Sundays games but I lost it all on Monday night after Anquan Boldin scored 2 touchdowns for 23 fantasy points and enough for me to lose.

Don’t forget to set your rosters tonight!!

In this league, six of the twelve teams make the playoffs, more like the NHL than the NFL, but we’ll take it. If you click on the “playoffs” tab under the “League” area, you get a snapshot of how the playoffs are shaping up. As you can see, two teams with 8-2 records, the Guru and the Achievers, own sizeable leads, enough that the playoffs are a sure bet. However, they’re not so far in front that someone else can’t catch them for a first round bye. Breakdown is just one game back and has a favorable matchup this week, and with the two 8-2 team battling it out, Breakdown ought to find themselves tied for second best overall record at 8-3.

In the marquee matchup, the two 8-2 teams battle it out. If you buy into the scoring system’s predictions, a razor thin margin of three points barely favors the Achievers.

Week 11 starts tonight with the Jets at New England. Don’t forget to set your lineups. Best of luck.

Jason Hill: Hill seemed to have one heck of a connection with QB Shaun Hill.  Jason finished the game with 7 receptions for 84 yards and also had one nice reception ruled incomplete on replay.  Up until 2 weeks ago, Jason Hill had done next to nothing in his brief 49ers career.  He put together a solid game with a touchdown reception 3 Sundays ago.  An injury to Arnaz Battle left Battle inactive Monday night and Hill got the start as the slot receiver.  He followed quite well in the steps of Battle, becoming Hill’s go-to guy the entire game.

Going forward I strongly recommend buying low on Jason Hill.  Battle is out again, as is Josh Morgan (described below), opening Hill up for even more receptions.  Hopefully he’s working his way towards becoming the impact player the 49ers hoped for when they drafted him.

Josh Morgan: I’ve been high on Josh Morgan since his big training camp.  He got a staph infection which stunted his first few weeks of growth.  Monday night was a nice little coming out with 4 receptions for 54 yards and a great 31 yard touchdown reception.

Unfortunately for Morgan, he strained his groin and will miss this coming Sunday.  If he can get healthy I’d love to see what kind of rapport he develops with Shaun Hill.

Dominique Zeigler: Any non-49ers fan is probably asking themselves who this is.  Zeigler spent all of last season, and the first half of this season on the 49ers practice squad.  Zeigler finished second among NFL receivers in receptions this past preseason and showed some spectacular hands.  Unfortunately the numbers game cut him out of a roster spot.

The injury to Battle got Zeigler brought up from the practice squad and added to the active roster Monday night.  He finished with one reception for 22 yards, but the important point is the upcoming game.  Battle and Morgan are out and so Zeigler has been named the primary backup in the slot and a the split end position behind Bryant Johnson.  He’ll be on the field in all 4-receiver formations and given the use of that formation, I’d expect some decent numbers from him if they lookin his direction at all.

Either way, I expect some decent numbers from all the 49ers young receivers going forward.

I ended up losing this week, and the loss itself was frustrating based on the closeness of the score alone, but it was even worse because of what happened at the end of the 49ers-Cardinals game last night.  The 49ers were on the 2-yard line with around 20 seconds left in the game, and Frank Gore got the ball.  He fell to the ground and quickly crawled into the end zone. Unfortunately, a Cardinals defender barely got a hand on him, meaning Gore was down by contact and no touchdown happened.

Why am I telling you this?  Well, Gore was in my starting lineup, and if he had scored a touchdown I would have won and improved to 7-3 on the season.  Instead, I am 6-4 and am now in second-place because Just go away Favre’s opponent forgot to adjust his lineup and left Adrian Peterson on the bench.  Had Peterson been in the starting lineup, Just go away Favre would have lost and I would at least be tied for first right now.

Things thankfully did go my way in the POD overflow league and in the SBN/AOL league.  In the overflow league I ended up winning 113.82-91.48 even though I had a coach rating of 77%.  My coach rating was so bad because I had Jay Cutler, who scored 39.78 points, and the Packers defense, which racked up 19 points, on the bench.  Thankfully neither of those mistakes mattered, as I still won comfortably.

In the SBN/AOL league, I won 83.2-81.9.  The closeness of the game was thanks to the battle between the 49ers and Cardinals.  Kurt Warner was my opponent’s starting QB and made this very close.  When Warner threw his third TD pass of the game, I thought I had lost.  Thankfully, though, passing TDs are only worth 4 points rather than 6 in the SBN/AOL league.  If this was like the two Pride of Detroit leagues, I would have had a crushing defeat.

The rest of the official POD league scores can be found below.

The worst news for the Cardinals, depending on how you look at it, is that Eric Green is probably the farthest from playing right now. He couldn’t practice on Friday and is officially listed as questionable, but this could have been what led to all the speculation on Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie making his first start. Green was the only guy who couldn’t practice. Leonard Pope went through a full practice for the first time in weeks and is officially listed as questionable. As for the rest of the guys, Ben Patrick, Travis LaBoy and Mike Gandy are questionable while Sean Morey and Jerame Tuman are probable. Larry Fitzgerald was removed from the injury report. Hopefully we’ll get one last update from the Cardinals tommorrow.

As for the Niners, Dashon Goldson, Arnaz Battle and Barry Sims are still being ruled out for the game. Roderick Green is questionable while Jonas Jennings, Ray McDonald and Delanie Walker are probable.