Season 4 - Week 7

Week 7 has come and gone and we are officially half way through our regular season of fake football.  Everyone has faced off against each of the other teams and the 2^nd round robin is about to begin.  Although each team still has a chance to make a run at the playoffs (except Mitch), it’s becoming increasingly clear that there are 2 tiers of talent in the league this year.  Let’s divide it up between those with talented rosters and those teams whose 2017 1^st round pick is currently held by Mitch.  It is fascinating that Mitch having the first four draft picks is absolutely back in play.  While technically Kyle’s team is 2^nd in the standings, we’re starting to see the universe sort things out, aside from the state of the US political system. 

Holy shit, the season's already half over?!?!

And now, on with the power rankings…

1.      Ah It’s Early – Seth put up a valiant effort posting 2^nd high points in a defeat to R4D mainly due to the complete failure of his WRs scoring 17 points between the 3 of them.   This doesn’t take away from him still being #1 in our rankings and Lansink-family sons.  At 5-2, he’s still the highest scoring team and in pole position for the playoffs.  He’s the only team that’s scored over 150 each week and looks to get Dez back this week.  However, this doesn't preclude him from claiming the Caesar award for the week as substituting Forte or T Williams in would've put him in a truly dominant position, much like Chris's sister over Seth on a nightly basis.  After a 7 week stretch of overachieving, especially without his 2 top WRs, that can only be compared to the 2015 Iowa Hawkeyes, the Power Rankings isn’t going to rule out a Rose Bowl-esque meltdown come playoff time.

Seth's first half of the season in a nutshell.

 

2.      Fuck It Three – Garrett managed to pull off another victory despite having to start a Rams QB and picking the wrong TE to play.  Laundry Jones managed to get his other Steelers the ball enough to put up their usual stat line and Luck overcame his biggest foe this year: the Colts o-line.  That’s the good news for South.  The bad news is that this coming week, the Steelers are on Bye and Ryan FitzpatPick is his only other option at QB.  If Big Ben is out with his knee injury for any extended period of time, it could spell doom for FIT.  Southy will need to use up some of the Pitch luck that he’s been hoarding for the last 18 months if he and Jizz Rodgers hope to pull off the upset over R4D in week 8.

Which one of South's QB will get it this week?

 

3.      Rollin 4 Deep – Finken’s team has been scoring like Seth’s sister at a Titans fund raising event as his whole roster contributed to the defeat of our #1 team.  His man-crush on ARob continues to limit his weekly scores, but his poor team management is nothing new to close observers.   He’s won 4 of the last 5 and scored over 165 in each of those victories.  And now he’s at full strength while half of South’s roster goes on Bye.  Finken looks to improve his overall record while sweeping FIT this season as he’s currently an 18-point favorite.  However, he knows that nothing is a given against Southy Magic.

Dude, can I get a reliable WR?

 

4.      If We’re Using Logic – Chris had a perfectly average day, which is more than we can say for his card-playing but it was more than enough to take down Abel.  Julio and Gronk did their normal thing and the rest of the starters were good enough.  The curious thing is against better competition, Chris would probably be grabbing the Cesaer award since he decided to play the backup Bills RB instead of starters Gore and Murray, who each put up around 20 points.  It’s that sort of roster management that doomed the Waukee Junior High football team to their worst record in recent history.

Gronk could probably pass for an 8th grader.

 

5.      Off Suit 10s – Well, well, well.  Kyle had better stick to RV or knife sales because his fantasy sportsing luck has just dried up.  It was only a matter of time before Kyle’s record started to resemble 2016 Iowa instead of 2015 Iowa.  His scoring average, which is now the lowest in the league, is more embarrassing than Riley’s hat collection.  He scored low points for the 2^nd week in a row and his roster was nearly optimized.  He’s still in decent shape for the rest of the season due to his hot start but he needs to beat Abel this week as a number of teams are coming up faster than Techmo Super Bowl Bo Jackson.  With former All Pro players retiring in real life just to get off of Kyle’s fake team, week 8 doesn’t look promising for the former #1.

Kyle's D trying to stop the inevitable collapse.

 

6.      Smells Low – In a surprising upset (ok, not really when you really look at his roster), Riley became Mitch’s first victim of the year.  Inside sources are claiming this could’ve been a thrown-game situation by Riley in attempts to get back in the good graces of his former teacher/mentor.  These sources are not divulging whether inappropriate behavior/payment was agreed to but they did indicate that Mitch has been seen wearing a shiny new, albeit ugly, hat this week.  Confirmation is difficult as no member of the CNK has seen Mitch in months.  For the 2^nd week in a row, Riley left Ajayi on the bench while he rushed for 200+ yards.  We’ll see if the roster shenanigans continue against his favorite Titanic-showing teacher this coming week in his match-up with Mr. Lansink. Actually, Chris had better be careful.  Riley is 7 weeks deep in a sustained W-L pattern of LWLWLWL.  Our P values prove that the pattern will continue with >5% confidence. 

We're 97.6395867% sure he'll put up the same stats once Riley puts him in his lineup.

 

7.      I’m Out – Abel’s day closely resembled his favorite team’s QB as Bradford got destroyed all day long against the Iggles.  He knew it was going to be tough with $cam on Bye but 25 combined points from your QBs is less ideal than a dry H-jibber.  Also, we’re not sure it’s smart starting WRs on teams playing awful back-up QBs (cough, cough…Jeffrey and Marshall) over proven RBs like Ingram and Blount (who Abel traded for but has yet to use).  Or maybe it’s just that Jared feels much more comfortable down here near the bottom of the Power Rankings.  Be careful Mitch, Abel’s coming for you.

Starting to resemble Abel's team at this point too.

 

8.      Play It Backwards – Congrats on the first win of the season Mitch.  We considered moving you up in the rankings but we took into account your record in the League Awesome as well…

Season 4 - Week 6

Week 6 has come and gone and the standings are still a jumbled mess, which in some terms is good as pretty much everyone still has a shot at the playoffs (except Mitch).  Kyle may have the record but he’s scored the 2^nd fewest points in the league and could drop faster than Myspace stock if more losses pile up.  We’d like to throw a special shout out to Abel for screwing up the process of making these rankings.  Your humble moderators had most of the broad strokes fleshed out by Monday evening since all Palmer and Marshall had to do was score 24 points to take down Riley.  I think we all saw what happened and we had to go back to the drawing board for a good chunk of the rankings.  Thanks Jared, you wasted a solid chunk of our working day that we were wasting on these rankings.  I hope you’re proud of yourself.

Watching teams in this league try to separate is like watching Lacy try and get air.

And now, on with the rankings…

1.       Ah It’s Early – Our national nightmare is over and the world will not end this week (Nov 8 could be a different story) as Seth has finally handed Kyle his first loss of the season.  AIE tried to make it interesting by whiffing on a few Flex spots and leaving a ton of points on the bench.  But luckily, Kyle’s ineptitude was too much for Seth’s.   AIE has now won 4 in a row, scored the most points and is by far the class of the league right now.  Next week’s clash with R4D is shaping up to be a prime matchup of two teams hotter than Riley’s sister.
 

It's just as awkward watching Seth succeed at something.

2.       Off Suit 10s – Kyle’s free rolling style finally (FINALLY!!!!!) came back to bite him and put up a league-wide season low of 83.1 points.  For some reason, he started Sammie Coates with his hand more damaged than anyone dating Ray Rice instead of Jamal Charles, Michael Thomas, Golden Tate or any other player that didn’t score 0 points.  We wanted nothing more than to give him the Caeser award for making the moves he did but his performance was so bad that there’s no way even Caeser could have slow rolled a team that poorly.  We also wanted to move you further down the rankings but anyone else who could’ve made a move lost.  So congrats Kyle, you remain in the top 2 by default.  Kyle had better be careful over the next few weeks as his playoff position could disappear faster than the 2015 Hawkeyes’ playoff bid and he’ll be hocking his preemptively purchased tickets on StubHub once again, this time to the Chicken Coop title game. 
 

Kyle trying to figure out how he can mathematically miss the playoffs.

3.       If We’re Using Logic – Lazer’s studs finally showed up on the same week and he creamed South like he was trying to get him pregnant.  It was the first 200 point effort of the season but could’ve been so much worse as he didn’t maximize his roster at all.  So instead of praising Chris for playing the guys everyone knows he should’ve played anyway; let’s criticize his choices of HOFer Doug Baldwin, Maclin and the Pitt D.  Swap those out with Cobb, Beasley and the KC D (all very reasonable plays), he puts up the highest score in the history of the league.  I don’t think even Seth could score that much at home on a Saturday night.  To be fair to Chris, Melanie didn’t include those roster moves in her list of to-dos for this past weekend when she was gone, so he had no way of knowing what to do. 
 

Good job Chris...psych!

4.       Fuck It Three – In the surprise of the day, the Steelers put up a shit-sandwich against the lowly Dolphins and kicked Southy’s entire season in the gooch.  Big Ben crashed and burned harder than a rapist on a motorcycle and now looks to be out for at least a couple weeks, adversely affecting the other pieces of his BrownBellBerger combo plate.  Unfortunately, his only other option is Ryan Fitzpatrick, who’s got more picks than Mitch’s 2017 draft and has now been benched.  This left Garrett with only one option, turning to a Browns QB, which is the ultimate kind of stinky cologne.  It was fitting that South got beat by Lazer again as a heavy favorite.  The amazing thing was that he didn’t even wait for the postseason this time.  After yet another disappointing upset, it’s obvious that Garrett has more trouble playing as the favorite than Kirk Ferentz.

Garrett after one more stumble to Chris.

 

5.       Rollin’ 4 Deep – Oh Finken, that was so close.  R4D needed 31 points going into SNF to avoid the embarrassment of becoming Mitch’s first victim.  Through the first half, not much had changed and things were looking bleaker than his credit card statement after Rachel returned from ladies weekend.  Then Lamar Miller decided to start earning that huge payday and plunged into the end zone twice (making half of the Colts miss in the process) to give R4D the win.  Reports were coming in late Sunday night that adult male screams, shattering remotes and furniture flying out of the Curtis household could be heard from Norwalk to Indianola.  In typical fashion, Finken managed to leave three flex guys scoring over 24 points on his bench.  He’s won 3 of 4 but faces the svelte, hairless juggernaut in AIE this week.
 

This Elliott guy might actually be fairly decent.

6.       Smells Low – In all the talk this week of leaving points on the bench, only 2 teams benches outscored their starting lineups.  Kyle’s was understandable because he makes terrible decisions and his starters scored less than the Cyclones in Big 12 play.  The other was Riley, who only managed to put up 128 and left 5 guys on the bench who scored over 20 apiece, including Ajayi who put up 34.  This should’ve spelled doom for SL but somehow, the lucky horseshoe crammed up Lehman’s ass for the first 5 weeks must’ve made its way to Saskatchewan (or wherever the hell Riley is currently) as he held on for a 0.5 point victory over Abel.  Continuing the luck, the PIB bye week is up next.

Riley barely trips up Abel...you could say, by a nose.

 

7.       I’m Out – There’s good and bad here.  Let’s start with the good: in an earlier version of these rankings, Abel was much higher on the list but that version’s been 86’d faster than Palmer could hand off to David Johnson.  Now, the bad: Abel was a 16 point favorite and managed to lose by 0.5 points to a guy who had 5 guys put up single digits.  I don’t really think I need to say out loud that IO wins the Caesar award for the week.  Not only were there 5 guys on his bench that would’ve given him the win, he chose to start the Carolina D (who’s been worse than a toothy BJ) against the potent Saints on their home turf.  We guess IO’s recent discovery of the waiver wire doesn’t actually make him any good at fake football.



Abel watching MNF.

8.       Play It Backwards – Slowly improving each week but still....0-6.

 

Season 4 - Week 5

Week 5 has come and gone and we’re now nearing the halfway point of the season.  There are definitely three different tiers dividing the league at this point: the top tier, the bottom tier, and the Mitch tier. The top 3 teams are clearly playoff bound but that last spot could really go to any of the next 4 teams.  At 2-3 and very little point differential, it wouldn’t surprise your moderators if any of these teams emerged to grab the final playoff spot (except Abel, come on).  This week has some interesting matchups with the top 2 teams going head-to-head, a rematch of the past 2 title games, a grudge match between Mitch and Finken and last but not least, the most heated, spiteful, nasty game of the day: Riley vs. Abel. 

Hot Take Trade Analysis – Kyle gets Golden Tate, South gets Kyle’s 4^th round pick – South gives up quickly on the trade asset in a potent offense that he acquired in order to unload TJ Yeldon’s corpse.  All for a draft pick that probably won’t make his opening roster in 2017.  That sound is Garrett sobbing because Mitch tried to give him Marvin Jones instead of Tate at last year’s draft.  Also because earlier, Garrett gave OF10s Diggs for a draft pick and Jimmy Graham, which he then dropped and Kyle picked right back up.  South, I think your 37 spreadsheets and algorithms are broken. 

Garrett really needs to draw up a new trading strategy.

 

And now, on with the rankings…

1.         Off Suit 10s – Kyle’s 2015-Iowa-like-luck continued this week as he was an underdog to the hapless PIB while half his roster was either on bye or injured.  Really the only decision Kyle had to make was to start Sammie Coates over Nelson Agholor, and fortunately for him, he chose wisely.  While our viewpoints of Kyle’s team are well known, it is too difficult to keep OS10s out of the top spot at 5-0.  This will either be remedied or validated over the next 2 weeks when he faces the 2 actual best teams in Seth and South.  Kyle enters this rough stretch in his schedule preparing for a Browns-level QB disaster, sporting 6 QBs on his roster.  Hey, at least he still has a kicker at this point.

Kyle's record, the 8th wonder of the world.

 

2.         Ah It’s Early – Seth put another notch on his Lansink family tree by really giving it to IWUL.  Derek Carr is quietly putting together a solid year and David Johnson is the real deal.  If Melvin Gordon can continue to make up for last year’s TD-less season, AIE will continue to dominate.  It’s a battle for the top spot in the rankings this week as AIE faces the undefeated OS10s.  Seth is currently favored by a whole bunch of the fake points and hopes to outscore Kyle for the fifth week in a row.  It won’t be a big surprise if Seth “upsets” the #1 ranked team as Kyle’s other team has recently been susceptible to upsets…

 



3.         Fuck It Three – The Steelers played again this week, so South ended up winning and posting high points.  BellBrownBerger netted just over 80 points and made it look easy.  Kelvin has slowed his pace tremendously, but netted a dozen while Crabtree did what Crabtree does and caught a TD pass.  Additionally, the Vikings D appears to be one of the top waiver wire additions of 2017.  In the rematch of the past two championship games, Garrett looks to close the door a bit more on Lazer’s 3peat dreams and move closer to losing in the title game to someone else this year.

 

South methodically marches on.

4.         I’m Out – Not sure anyone really deserves 4^th place this week but Abel gets it by default.  He was in a tough situation with both top QBs concussed and a few key skill guys on bye.  But really, it was his beloved Vikings that crushed his hopes this week.  Their D held Osweiler and Fuller to minimal points and their O didn’t do much for Bradford, Rudolph and Walsh.  Just like in real life, the Vikings will always eventually let you down.  But wait, Brock Osweiler isn’t on Abel’s team you say?  Actually he is!  But did he trade Riley for him you ask?  No, Abel picked him up off the waiver wire!  But surely it was a normal transaction late in the week, right?  No, Abel used $40 in fake money to claim one of the worst QBs in the league!  But let’s not dwell on that and focus on Abel learning to use the FAAB system.  Babysteps! 

 

Four years in a Abel's starting to get it...almost.

5.         Rollin’ 4 Deep – Finken survived a challenge by Riley and saved some glimmer of hope for his season that seemed to be more doomed than Billy Bush’s career.  R4D withstood a number of byes this week and another TD-less effort from Lamar Miller, who so far this year has scored less than Finken at South’s wedding.  The byes may have been a good thing as it didn’t allow him many choices that would’ve let him screw up the decision making of his Flex options.  With Mitch up next on the schedule, getting back to .500 is about as sure a thing as a Finken 3 bid.

Just try it Finken, just take a top RB out of your lineup.

6.         Smells Low – Brady came back with a vengeance and Greg Olsen did everything possible Monday night to try to nose by Finken.  But similar to his rural Montana love life, he ended up a bit short and disappointed.  Riley has a chance to build some momentum in the next few weeks going against Abel, Mitch and Lazer.  But with most of his skill talent being more average than the Indianola football team, it could prove to be more easily said than done.  But for a guy donning hats like Riley does, skill and talent are not something he needs to worry about.

Actually looking at the rest of his roster, probably not.

 

7.         If We’re Using Logic – After the Thursday night game, Chris knew he was in more trouble than Trump with a microphone.  David Johnson and the AZ D hung a fifty cent piece while John Brown managed 1 measly catch.  A barrage of injuries have really taken a toll on the defending champ.…wait a minute…our analysts have just informed us that IWUL is not suffering from the injury bug.  They’re just terrible.  If not for a garbage-time from Eli to ODBag, Chris would be headed for the trifecta of poor manager fees with low score of the year.  It was probably not having HOFer Doug Baldwin in there that left IWUL 68.68 points short this week.  Since there wasn’t a Cesaer of the Week move that would’ve allowed anyone to overtake their opponent, let’s award it in spirit to IWUL this week for having Bennett on the bench with his 3 TDs.  Everyone knows that if there’s one thing that Brady loves more than a good tight end, it’s two good tight ends.

 


Don't we all...

8.         Play It Backwards - 0-5...

Season 4 - Week 4

Week 4 is in the books with a very competitive week (except Mitch) but left little clarity about who is actually good.   Kyle is undefeated but obviously terrible.  South may have the best roster overall but has already pissed 2 games away.  Lansink is the 2-time champ but is a long way from 3peating at this point.  Abel should under investigation for his sudden competence.  And then there is the sexual stallion himself, Seth the Half-beard who has taken control of the Card Night Kangs.  As his name suggests, it’s still early for everyone to make a move but with almost 35% of the season gone after this coming week, they’d better step on it.  And now, on with the Power Rankings…

This is where we're at folks...

1.         Ah It’s Early – Maintaining the points lead this week, Seth avoided a monster night from Kyle Rudolph and the MN kicker when the Vikings went into kill-the-clock mode.  The win pushes him to 3 and 1…which he celebrated by giving Chris’s sister the ol’ 3 and 1 Tuesday morning.  The Melvin Gordon draft choice, once the butt of several draft jokes, is beginning to pan out in a big way, especially with the Chargers’ loss of Woodhead for the season.  With the best 1-2 running back duo of the league, AIE is positioning to be the 2016 version of the 2014 Fuck It Three.  He need not worry.  His stars will inevitably lay an egg in the finals while Chris wins with some 8^th string RB, picked up from the Edmonton Eskimos.

Yeah Seth, we're all so happy for you.

 

2.         Fuck It Three – Garrett now has the full complement of Steelers at his disposal.  But not even a healthy Le’Veon Bell could make up for the shit show put on by DeAndre Hopkins and Charles Sims.  Bell showed why he’s the best back in the league this weekend and Antonio Brown continues to impress.  If FIT is going to make another serious run at the title, he’s going to need his mid-tier WRs to be more reliable and Luck to stay upright.  As of now, they’ve been about as inconsistent as Abel’s card night attendance.

South has got us all right where he wants us.

3.         Off Suit 10s – Kyle is only 5 points above 7^th place in scoring yet still stands atop the leaderboard. It doesn’t hurt that he has gone up against by far the fewest points by his opponents.  For the second week in a row, he played the only team in the league that he could have beaten.  He only needed 4 points from Diggs on MNF to hand deliver the Caesar Bad Manager of the Week award to Finken.  At 4-0, we’re surprised it took this long for Kyle to buy his tickets to the championship game.  Maybe he’s worried it’ll work out like it has for Iowa’s run to the NCAA tourney in Des Moines….or the football team’s run to Indy this year.  He was trying to get cute holding off on grabbing a kicker as long as he could to make sure no one would grab Wheaton.  We have a secret for you Kyle, no one cares about Marcus Wheaton.  5-0 is basically assured at this point going against Mitch.  Maybe there is a secret on how Kyle got this far…

Kyle, if you need help with that decision, you should probably be lower on this list.

4.         If We’re Using Logic – Much like cards, Chris is obviously not as good as Kyle and lands at #4 this week.  After stumbling for a few weeks and us wondering if Alzheimer’s was starting to infest Chris’s mind, he comes out and puts up high points and gets right back on track.  Matt Ryan and Julio alone pretty much guaranteed the victory as the remainder of his team was as good as his Waukee JV squad.  An average manager (and even most below average managers) would have easily topped 200 points in a week where two players netted a combined 88 points.  ODBag and Gronk have been struggling this year but will look to get on track next week as ODBag faces a soft Packer pass D and Gronk gets some less-inflated, easier-to-catch balls.

 

Obviously superior coaching at Waukee Middle School these days.

5.         I’m Out – I’m Out has made it through the first Bye week without playing a single inactive player.  The statisticians at the Power Rankings have crunched the numbers and determined that it’s the longest such streak in his career.  Unfortunately for Jared, it still resulted in a loss as Alshon Jeffery had a very pedestrian performance against a weak Detroit defense.  On the bright side, he has the Rookie of the Year through four games as Will Fuller is sitting at 11^th in WR scoring on the year.  Additionally, DeMarco Murray appears to be as young and spry as Riley…or Chris in 1983.  I’m Out looks to add to FIT’s two-week slide with two QBs that look more concussed than Bill Cosby’s dinner date. 

Abel had better grab $cam's backup.

 

6.         Smells Low – Even as a 30 point underdog, Riley had a solid week topping South by 1.82 points.  Bench depth could become an issue as we get into Bye Week season, but if his high school playing days are any indication, he knows his way around managing the bench.  Brady’s return should give his team a boost as Edelman’s stock will likely rise as well.  However, trading the farm for Devonta Freeman has panned out about as well as Chris’s last weight loss challenge. Early odds put SL as an underdog in his Week 5 matchup with R4D but we have a sneaking suspicion he’ll sniff out a victory. 

Not even Caitlyn Brady could save Riley's season now.

 

7.         Rollin 4 Deep – Finken still cannot get out of his own way.  His team is as deep or deeper with quality players than any in the league.  But sadly, there aren’t 7 starting flex spots which would allow him to win almost every week.  A more George Costanza-esque approach may be needed.  A tip for him may be to set his lineup and then have Rachel secretly log in and do the opposite of what he planned.  At this point, it may be worth a try because if he doesn’t pull off the win against Riley this weekend, he’ll be rollin 4 deep in the loss column. 

What the fuck are you doing Finken?!?!

 

8.         Play It Backwards – Mitch’s 3 big names put up a valiant effort against Lazer this week but unfortunately everyone else on his roster was stuck at the singles bar.  We were all rooting for you too as watching Chris lose a 3^rd game in a row to the worst team in the league would have been more satisfying than watching Patrek piss away 5 of Chris’s dollars at card night.  Had Julio and Ryan only scored their 2016 averages, Mitch would have won by 20 points.  Oddly enough, Mitch is favored to take down the undefeated pillow fight king, Kyle, this week.  However, PIB’s luck will likely be about as good as the Browns’. 

 

I award Mitch the loss, don't mind what the scoreboard says.