Season 9 - Week 3

Week 3 is in the books and we’re back to check in on the Card Night Kangs.  After an odd Week 1, the next two weeks have provided a little more clarity on our league this year.  It’s still wide open as it seems like there’s 6 teams that could beat about anyone on any given weekend.  However, the race for #1 pick is also taking shape.  Not to spoil the rankings below but it seems like Kyle and Riley might as well start researching for the draft and saving up for our dinner.  

But we’re getting way ahead of ourselves.  There’s so much season left to enjoy.  So without further ado, let’s get on with the Power Rankings…

1. Ah It’s Early – After posting 200+ in each of the first two games, Seth pulled out a lower scoring game against Abel in order to stay undefeated and at the top of our rankings.  His QBs came thru as usual but this week it was the #1 rookie pick catching more balls than Riley at an orgy saving his bacon after Gronk and his WRs decided to not score TDs in bunches.  His perfect record is projected to extend past this weekend as he faces his wife’s brother.  And we all know Seth has a proven record of slaying Lansink’s over the weekends. 

2. Play It backwards – Mitch also sits with a perfect record and has actually been the most consistent team so far posting around 200 each week.  He hasn’t really needed that so far as he’s faced the dregs of the league but the competition gets stepped up this week against Finken and then South and Seth.  Kyler and Brady have been great each week and Kupp is the fantasy MVP so far.  That’s good for Mitch because tied for Fantasy LeastVP is between his other two QBs, Tua and Fields.  Yikes…

3. Rollin’ 4 Deep – Like his Eagles QB said after the Dallas game, Finken flushed the Week 1 turd by winning the last two over Lazer and Kyle.  And while the wins count the same, he has yet to hit his projected point total for any week.  It’s almost the opposite of his Huskers.  Nebraska is probably a better team than they’ve shown but they’ve pissed 3 games down their legs with stupid mistakes.  On the contrary, his R4D roster can’t put a solid week together but has fallen into winning the past few weeks.  We’re not worried, though, as we’re sure Hines or Patterson will fill in admirably when called upon. 

4. I’m Out – After beating the defending champ in Week 1, Abel got unlucky last week losing by a fraction to South.  And then he gets beat by Seth in Week 3 mainly because CMC and Shepard both went out early with injuries.  He’ll be praying that McCaffrey won’t be out for too long but if there’s a 3 week stretch to be without him, having Riley-Lazer-Kyle coming up isn’t the worst time for it to happen.  Luckily he had the foresight to grab Hubbard in the draft and got ODBag back from injury.  That’s the best foresight Abel has had since grabbing 2 extra cases of Busch Light for that dirt road party next to the Jensen 40 back in high school….knew that keg was going to run dry. 

5. If We’re Using Logic – Chris finally got one in the win column against South after a rough start to the season.  Josh Allen finally broke out but the victory was mainly due to the “Devonte Parker Memorial 5^th Year Breakout Player” award winner for 2021…Mike Williams.  He’s finally healthy and seeing a ridiculous stream of targets.  Unfortunately for Chris, it came at the expense of his Chiefs this weekend.  Much like Andy Reid, Chris almost had a heart attack when he saw that the Bills put up 43 points.  Fortunately for Chris, Allen’s 41 points weren’t heavily shared with Diggs.  And while Mahomes will get their ship righted and probably make the Super Bowl again, Lazer still has some work to do if he’s going to make a run.  That work mostly involves playing his players that score lots of points and not playing his players that do not score lots of points. 

Chris trying to set his lineup each week.

6. Fuck It Three – In all reality, South should be 0-3, which would’ve been a shock to everyone.  Abel would’ve given at least 5-to-1 odds on that happening.  If the super mediocre CEH doesn’t get the ball knocked out, (which meant Lamar got to pad his stats a bit in sealing that victory) that’s where South is sitting right now.  But he’s Garrett and the universe had other plans.  However, that doesn’t mean the Power Rankings have to abide.  We call them like we see them.  So South must be ranked behind the teams he just lost to (or should’ve).  Now if he loses this week to Kyle…oh man, there’s not enough Skittles or Mtn Dew in MN to drown his sorrows. 

Come on South, just eat it for a year.

7. Off Suit 10s – This is more of what we expected from Kyle this year.  After a surprising Week 1 victory, Lehman’s team has come back to Earth like a North Korea missile test.  He only managed 118 in Week 2 and barely broke 90 last week.  More than half of that was just from his QBs.  He did leave a bunch of points on the bench though and it’s being speculated that obviously tanking is involved.  But with the roster he’s got, it’d be tough to accuse him of anything but tanking. 

Kyle trying to rebuild his team next year with 2nd round picks.

8. Smells Low – Our only winless team has already waived the white flag and offered to trade away for younger pieces or draft capital.  But he doesn’t want to give up any good players or his own capital so…

Which brings us to….

Hot Take Trade Analysis

South gets David Montgomery, Jared Goff, a 2022 5^th and 6^th and a 2023 4^th

Riley gets Mac Jones, Kenneth Gainwell, and a 2022 3^rd (Kyle) and a 2023 1^st

Garrett bolsters his surprisingly shallow roster with another solid RB in his quest for another 2^nd place finish.  Montgomery isn’t sexy but he’s the workhorse of the team and won’t do Riley any good in a year or two.  And Goff could win the “Bortles Garbage Time QB of the Year” award this season.  Riley gets two young pieces and a few decent draft picks.  Mac Jones could be decent but has a ceiling of QB 15 most likely.  Gainewell could be a usable PPR RB but probably won’t ever have true RB1 potential.  The real value here is the draft picks which the 3^rd should be either Pick 17 or 18 next year and nabbing his third 1^st rounder in 2023.  Riley is setting himself up to take on Lazer’s best draft ever™ in a few years. 

We say South probably wins the trade but Riley gets what he wants after throwing in the towel after 3 weeks.  Good job gents...

Season 9 - Week 1

Gentlemen, football is back!  Which also means our beloved Card Night Kangs are back for our 9^th season to fill that empty space in our lives that should be filled with family, joy and all things wholesome.  Those things can wait until next March.  With COVID 100% eradicated and behind us (if it ever existed in the first place), we move on with our lives and just enjoy a bunch of barbarians smashing into each other for our entertainment. 

There are so many storylines going into the season so let’s take a look at just a couple.  Finken is our reigning champion for the second time after a miraculous playoff run with Tony Pollard, JD McKissic and Jeff Wilson.  South dominated last year’s regular season and is the heavy favorite to be let down by his team in the playoffs as usual.  Abel and Seth both reshaped their rosters in the offseason adding some big name talent that they hope to propel them into contention.  Mitch sneakily filled a few of his roster holes and Chris had the self-proclaimed 2^nd greatest draft of all time in his quest to rebuild.  Nobody really knows what Riley is up to, and finally Kyle not only sold off most of his key players to start his own rebuild project, he demolished the structure and lit the rubble on fire and pissed on the ashes. 

With all that, it lines up to be quite an entertaining year.  So let us rejoice and cherish these 17 weeks ahead of us because before too long, it will be over and we be left with only sparsely attended card nights in the dead of winter.  But before that, let’s take a look at the return of the power rankings…

 

1. Off Suit 10s – Everyone who set the over/under on wins for Kyle on the season at 1.5 (ourselves included) is eating crow this week.  After completely demoing his team and punting on the 2021 draft for 2022, Kyle was expected to struggle mightily and barely be competitive.  However, he showed all of us by storming out of the gate and upsetting Riley in Week 1.  Now, is 160 about his ceiling every week?  Probably, but will he average around 125 for the season?  Most likely.  Hurts and Cory Davis look solid, but after that, it’s hard to envision Kyle winning more than a few more games with less potential for scoring than Abel in a strip club.  So here you go Kyle, enjoy being in the top spot while it lasts.  Because it’s #1 pick or bust. 

Kyle sucks us all in, and then he just sucks the rest of the year.

2. Ah It’s Early – Seth must’ve been revisiting the pic of Garrett draped in Cyclone silk on his bed because he blew his load all over the scarfed bandit in Week 1, posting the 6^th highest score of all time.  Revenge was finally his.  Seth got off to a huge start on Thursday with the Amari-Dak stack and TB12 was able to find Gronk and Godwin like they were the last two picked at the county hide-and-seek tournament. However, no lead is safe with South on your ass.  Seth had to sweat out Lamar (like South sweats out mild wing night) on MNF after his new acquisitions of Harris and Jones failed to live up to the hype.  Winning Week 1 with high points no doubt meant Seth was celebrating into Tuesday morning on those Cyclone sheets with Chris’s sister. 

Seth is coming for all of us this year.

3. Play It Backwards – Mitch hoped to open the season being able to translate his recent success on the high school football field (now that he’s playing a bunch of pee-wee programs in Class 4) to the CNK gridiron.  Luckily, he was going against another coach who barely keeps his head above water in pee-wee football.  Old Balls Brady came out firing to AB on Thursday while Kyler might have taken the next leap into Mahomes territory, which allowed Mitch to coast to an easy victory over Lansink.  He was nervous coming into the season after losing Irv and Dobbins for the season and MT for the first stretch.  Fortunately he rigged the waiver wire to grab both sought after RBs at $33 apiece. #NeverForget$32

We call BS, this shit is rigged.

4. I’m Out – Abel’s rebuilt roster had a date with the champ in Week 1 and he left no doubt in anyone’s mind that he’s a contender.  They say to be the best, you’ve got the beat the best.  Well we’re not sure if that really applies here after the sorry effort Finken trotted out there but Abel’s here to compete in 2021.  CMC was back to his normal self, Thielen caught a few TDs, TLaw lived up to the hype (if you don’t count the terrible picks or horrendous coaching) and Jameis was out there eating Ws.  No matter what happens, between his performance in Vegas (which let exactly zero people down) and Week 1, this season’s already been a success for Jared.

Abel waking up every morning this week.

5. Fuck it Three – Well Garrett picked right back up where he left off last season (well, before the title game at least…) and that should terrify the rest of the league.  As a reminder, he posted high points 8 straight weeks to close the regular season.  In the offseason, he bolstered his QB issue by grabbing Stafford and two rookies after Watson was, let’s say, massaged out of the equation.  He’s got a replacement for Kelce in Hockenson and can still roll out a deep stable of RBs.  However, the one chink in his armor may be WR if Aiyuk doesn’t live up to the hype and Samuel and Jeudy stay sidelined.  The only thing that could stand in his way for a 8^th straight playoff run is going on a Skittles bender on his 7^th trip to Vegas this fall and forgetting to set his lineup.

Sadly, this is probably a normal dinner for South so his tolerance is unbeatable.

6. If We’re Using Logic – Chris had another draft that he wouldn’t shut up about as he grabbed Pitts, Chase and Lance to go with his stable of horses from last year.  And let’s check on how it went for him in Week 1….  

            To be fair (to be fair…), we’re all sure that he’s currently got no less than 12 HOFers (i.e. Doug Baldwin) on his roster but it might take another year or two before he can rattle off another 5 titles in 3 years.  Plus, he’s got to actually start the good players instead of the not good ones.  There were about 9 guys who could’ve boosted his score this week riding the pine, including all 3 of his 4^th round TEs.  With Pittman in his Week 1 lineup, we can only assume that he’s tanking one more year to assure that his first pick in the draft is in the top half of round 3.  There’s a couple guys he’s already got his eye on that probably won’t be there by pick 20. 

Chris usually is 4 steps ahead.

7. Smells Low – Speaking of Lansink’s TEs, we come to Riley, who’s lucky this week not to be in the bottom slot after dropping the opening game to the FCS team you’re supposed to get your backups reps to.  Riley was happy enough with his RB depth to trade away Aaron Jones to Seth.  But now all the sudden, Mostert is hurt (as usual), RoJo fumbled on his 3^rd carry and got benched and Zach Moss wasn’t even active on gameday.  Javonte had better live up to the hype or his flex positions are only going to be relevant in his truck bed/camper/house/condo/apartment.  

Riley trying to get a girl to come home with him.

8. Rollin’ 4 Deep – Finken had 6 big-name guys score in the single digits and only Waller on MNF kept him from posting an all-time low score in the no D/K era.  So much for defending the title.  This must be what Scott Frost feels like on a weekly basis.  Pathetic.