Season 7 - Week 3

Week 3 is in the books and your humble moderators didn’t have a lot of time this week so we’re just going to bounce around with a few notes and observations.  We’ll try and get to a few for every team which should be easier now that we can use the two IR spots for them as well. 

Mitch stands alone as the last remaining unbeaten team but he’s been real close to losing 2 of his 3 games already.  He’s looking to make only his 3^rd playoff run in the last 7 years but Duke Johnson is not who Houston thought he was, Miles Sanders is fumbling his chance away and now he’s losing AB (possibly forever).  The lucky thing is he gets an absolute cakewalk this week against by far the worst team in the league missing its best player.  Basically just pencil him in at 4-0. J

Mitch may be 3-0 but Kyle’s only 1.6 points in Week 2 away from holding that title.  It helps when you’ve faced by far the fewest points in the league so far.  The trade with Riley, giving up 2 high-potential young WRs, puts him even further into win-now mode by adding 2 high potential but injury-prone RBs to his roster.  We’re positive that trade will age well. 

Seth has been the true powerhouse so far this year with a significant points lead on the rest of us.  Now he’s poised to get Melvin Gordon back next week which means he might regret dropping most of his FAAB budget on the future HOFer Wayne Gallman.  He’s looking like the #1 title contender right now as long as his starters stay healthy and his QBs keep doing what they’re doing. 

And Seth’s gain is Lazer’s loss as the main bright spot in his lineup, Ekeler, now only has 1 more week of usefulness.  Amazingly, Chris has scored between 175-178 each week and it’s tough to be that regular at his age.  His trades for Hunt and Williams continue to haunt him as Henry and Ingram are about to be his only useable RBs.  He’s just trying to hold on as the bye’s start. 

Riley and Abel are about where we figured they’d be, rebuilding but improving.  Abel’s already crushed his win total from last year and Riley’s now got more young wide receivers than a college bar after a sorority party.  Both should miss the playoffs but pick off a few people here and there. 

And finally, as it turns out, the stat-correction karma is catching up with Finken and Abel’s Week 1 victory over the defending champ wasn’t so impressive after all.  The blame falls on many places but 2 months without Saquon might turn Finken into a Lehman-style used car fire sale.  Reached for comment on his horrific start to the year, Finken simply stated “don’t care, still the Champ…”

Season 7 - Week 1

Season 7 is now underway.  Let’s recap some changes.  A dramatic change removing K and Ds along with adding another WR and RB spot was ratified and implemented.  This made it more important to have a deeper roster at each of these positions, especially once byes and injuries start to take their toll.  It should make for make for more scoring as there’s a higher chance of big games from those position rather than K or D.  Additionally, it will help alleviate the burden of Riley having to decide among his WRs which are going to reach double digits each week.  Seth posted the highest point total ever in this first week with 245.92, beating South’s old record of 240.3.  However, the average scoring this week (157.70) was right on par with last year’s scoring average (158.36).  Now we’ll see how this changes throughout the year, but Riley said his math education taught him that this is a relevant statistical sample and should be taken a gospel. 

Finken is our reigning champ after defeating Lansink using an unorthodox move, the stat-correction (remember that?) making sure Chris didn’t win his 9^th title in the 8 years of this league.  He then moved on to hand South another silver medal finish and fueling the Tonya Harding rage burning deep in his candy-filled stomach.  Let’s take a moment to recognize Finken’s brilliance and show that all that hard work of falling into 2 of the best RBs of the past decade can make dreams come true.  (Stop reading and take a moment)  We’ve now had 5 different leagues champions with South, Abel and Riley still looking to add their name to the trophy.  Let’s see how Week 1 went and get on with the rankings…

 

Football's back baby!

1.       I’m Out – Well, they say that to be the best, you have to beat the best…and that’s exactly what Abel did.  Taking down our reigning champ in Week 1 is enough to put Jared in the top spot in our very scientific ranking formula.  He might not be projected to win it all this year, or make the playoffs, or be in the top half of scoring, or even be favored often/ever, but he’s got enough guys to be dangerous especially if Andrews, Jeffrey, DK and Ross can continue a hot start...and if his opponent misses his projection by 60+ points.   He’s wisely resisted the urge from everyone else to snipe his best players for future picks and hopes to make some noise this season.  Unfortunately his loud cheer to start might turn into a whoopee-cushion sound real quick.

Jared's rocking out to a winning record this year.

2.       Ah It’s Early – As he is at home, Seth was the true stud of the weekend.  Posting a new benchmark for high points, Seth proved he didn’t even need to know when waivers ran.  Not having Melvin Gordon was an afterthought as 8 of his starters topped 22 points.  It could’ve been significantly better too if he would’ve started his day-late waiver claim of DeSean Jackson posting 35.4 on his bench.  That sort of asset mismanagement is likely what caused the great air conditioning debacle of 2014.

All time points record!!!

3.       Play It Backwards – Mitch managed to steer his team to victory but it was a little dicey (as usual with him at the wheel).  He was missing AB for Week 1 but we’re guessing that he’d rather sit him one week and get him on the Pats rather than have Derek Carr throwing him ducks all season.  Watkins was the key to victory posting 46.8 points, who he replaced Brown with when the craziness began.  I’m sure Lansink took it real well watching his Chiefs destroy the Jags by tossing every TD Sammy’s way.  With Hill out, Watkins becomes a top 8 WR and the Brady-Brown stack is quickly making Mitch a top contender for his first playoff run in a few years.  We’ll see if the rumble strips can keep Mitch on the road to the title. 

Whew, made it to 1-0 in one piece.

4.       Off Suit 10s – Kyle got off to a solid start against Riley thanks to McCaffrey slicing thru the Rams D like they were the Hawkeyes in the Rose Bowl.  He should be a bit concerned though after seeing Gurley is apparently in a 3-way in the Rams backfield, and not the kind that involves a blindfold and drunk college girls.   Trading for Sony might backfire with all the scoring going to the Pats new WR toys.  The good news is that it appears he’s got decent WRs now, especially on the bench since most each of them outscored all of his starting WRs, and that probably would’ve held full PPR or not.   He’ll need to make better coaching decisions going forward as he won’t be pitted against the Special Olympian of fantasy football every week.

Man, I could've been in Kyle starting lineup rather than Mitch's bench.

5.       If We’re Using Logic – Lansink put up a valiant effort by putting up a total that would’ve beat anyone outside of his opponent or his far-superior brother-in-law.  This seems fitting since last year he kept emerging victorious in low scoring games he had no business winning.  Lansink does get some hardware this weekend though, which comes in the form of the Ceasar Award for poor manager of the week.  All offseason, he’s been talking up Derrick Henry as his almost-league-winner last year (but not really, #StatCorrection).  However come Week 1, he benches him in favor of a low-volume WR who he thinks will become the next Julio (spoiler alert, he won’t).  This move would’ve helped him post almost 200 and beat Mitch handily.  In more not-so-great news, no other non-QB bench players scored double digits.  That sort of depth doesn’t bode well in the event of the aforementioned injury bug hitting.

Not exactly Belichick-level of roster management here folks.

6.       Fuck It Three – The season could’ve started much better for the presumptive favorite going into the season.  First Luck retires out of the blue and leaves him with no QB depth.  His Flash Gordon stock seemed at an all-time high until the Pats sign one of the few WRs more talented (and insane) than he is.  Then he trades for Foles who promptly gets injured in the 1^st quarter of the opening game.  A short while later in the same game, Tyreeeeeek gets a karma-suspension from the injury gods for the foreseeable future.   And then the rest of his roster craps the bed and leaves him 0-1 after Seth takes his scoring record.  At least he’s got FAAB left to fill the holes on his roster…

No Luck, Foles or Tyreek...Southy luck will kick in regardless.

7.       Rollin’ 4 Deep – Like his finals opponent, the Stat-Correction Champ is not off to a great title defense.  Zeke is signed so that is good but if Baker isn’t his heir-apparent to Brees and Winston can’t get the ball to Evans and the Juice, he could be in season-long trouble.  Finken will tell himself that it was just a week of bad matchups and everything will turn around next time, just the way it did with Solich….and  Callahan….and Pelini….and Riley….and Frost….

Keep punting Finken.

8. Smells Low – Riley, take solace in the fact that you’re out having experiences and banging chicks in which we could only dream about….because your fantasy team is garbage.