Jinkies, Scoob! Three prime time games in one week that were actually worth watching?? I kid you not! And that Monday night game actually helped a lot of people - either to win their matchup, or just to keep them from being the biggest loser of the week. Both are victories of sorts, I suppose. At any rate - here we go:
Jeremy v. Andrew
Our highest scoring matchup was Jeremy against Andrew. Not a huge shock, right? We've had a good team carry their matchup to highest score despite the weak effort of their opponent before. But wait - JEREMY was the good team this week and ANDREW was the weak effort?! What kind of bizarro world is this we're living in?
Starting his week with 24 points from keeper Tyreek Hill was a pretty decent jumping off point for Jeremy. 18 points from Mark Ingram (in his second consecutive 100+ yard game since Adrian Peterson moved to Arizona) kept things rolling - but wait, the hits just kept on coming! Russell Wilson put up 27 points against the (previously vaunted) Giants defense, Mike Evans put up 14 points (and looked like a first round pick for a change), Tennessee's D put up 14 points (against Cleveland - there's a shock) and, shoot, even Nelson Agholor continued to look like an NFL player with 10 points on MNF. I hate to say it, but this was a complete team victory. And almost none of it was an anomaly. Jeremy looks to be rounding into a legit contender just in time for a playoff push, kids!
Andrew on the other hand... not so much. He's got a lot of good pieces here, but just about nothing worked for him in week 7 - with just 3 double digit score on his starting roster: Kirk Cousins (21 pts), Zach Ertz (14 pts) and Minnesota D (10 pts). What's worse? 0% of this failure can be blamed on bye week woes, because Andrew had all of his remaining tools available. (Of course, when your bench resources including two extra defenses and one guy who's been a healthy scratch almost the entire season... nah. Let's just let it ride.)
Andrew still remains in second place in his division with a 5-2 record, though with plenty of opportunity for downward mobility. He'll face Tim next week in a game that could either vindicate Andrew's squad... or continue their downward spiral. Jeremy checks in at 3-4 despite his "Strong Like Abe" performance. He'll attempt to validate his new found power against another week 7 overachiever, Eric, in week 8.
Earl v. Tim
Our second highest scoring matchup was... a tie? A stinkin' tie?! Yes, there were seven other teams that Tim and/or Earl could've beaten this week... but they didn't play those guys. Of course, that also means there were 3 teams that would've beaten Tim and/or Earl... and they didn't play those guys either. So in that light, maybe a tie isn't the worst thing that could've happened? (No, Tim really could've used a win to give him some distance from the wrong side of the playoff bubble, truth be told.)
Earl, like Jeremy, got off to a great start on Thursday night. He had both QBs in that offensive exhibition and even though he started the lower scoring option (Alex Smith with 32 points instead of Derek Carr with 34), it was kind of a win/win situation. Things certainly were looking good for Earl and grim for Tim at that point. But when came word on Sunday morning that RB Leonard Fournette wouldn't play due to an ankle injury... things got a little murkier. Then the early games happened and Earl got just one double digit score (Allen Hurns - 12pts) out of seven players. Still, Earl had the lead - tenuous though it was.
Of course, as is the theme of his season, Tim's journey was even more tenuous. He didn't have any players on Thursday night. Then he also had just one of five players in the early games break into double digits. (Alvin Kamara with a whopping 10 points!) It looked like Tim's streak of losing on odd numbered weeks was going to just keep on rolling... but oh, those late games. Rookie TE Evan Engram (12pts) was able to find some room against the Seahawks and the Dallas connection of Dez Bryant (12 pts) and Dak Prescott (32 pts!) ran amok against the hapless 49ers, putting Tim in the lead as time wound down!
....
Which brings us back to Earl... and fricking Le'Veon Bell. Pittsburgh was up big against Cincinnati, so all they had to do was run the clock out. Which bumped Bell's already high score up just a few points higher to 20 points total. Spoiler alert: it was enough to also get Earl to 92 points and seal the tie, as neither he nor Tim had any SNF or MNF players.
They say that a fantasy sports tie is like kissing one's sister. But I haven't got a sister, so I'll have to take their word for it. (Or maybe Bill or Andrew can chime in on this? You've gotta have some expertise here, right?)
Tim, who has lost a game by one point in addition to recording this tie, will hope for a little bit more decisive score against Andrew in week 8. And Earl? He'll just hope to sneak through another Fournette-less week (due to a bye this time around, not a wonky ankle) in a close matchup with Jared.
Eric v. James
In our third highest scoring matchup we find... Eric and James? Is this a joke? Okay, so this one was actually all Eric's doing, truth be told. James continues to flounder in near obsolescence.
I know that probably sounds harsh, but seriously. Drew Brees (20 pts) was the only player on James' entire roster with a double digits score. No one else had more than 7 points. And that's with just one player (Marvin Jones) on bye. I think it's fair to say that "What's yours is Meinel" is just a place holder for the 2018 season at this point. At least James already has Samaje Perine and Corey Coleman lined up as mediocre keepers so he really doesn't have to pay attention until next July at the earliest. (PS: James takes home the Catcher and the 90lb weakling for this gem, obviously.)
Let's talk about Eric instead, as he finally showed some signs of life in week 7. And what better way to start off than 38 points (!!!) from Amari Cooper on TNF? Cripes. That's just a few points less than 2.5 times his YTD total going into this game. Talk about improvement! Only time will tell if the light bulb has finally gone on or if this was just a big blip on the radar. 18 was the other magic number for Eric's starting lineup as QB Tyrod Taylor, TE Jordan Reed and that annoying Jacksonville Defense all put up 18 points a piece to carry Eric to the easy win. It was such a decent, Pitcher quality win that I won't even mention how Eric managed to leave a higher scoring QB (Jameis Winston - 25pts) on his bench for the fourth consecutive week. Or how he started Green Bay RB Ty Montgomery (0pts) in favor of other Green Bay RB Aaron Jones (22pts). No, we'll let Pepe Silvia have this moment in the sun!
Eric will need some magic to combat having something like 7 guys on bye week (plus Marshawn Lynch suspended) for his week 8 matchup with Jeremy. Both teams really took it to the next level this week - can they keep it up? And while we're on the topic of over-performing: start from that point and then travel to the farthest point away that you can possibly imagine... and there you'll find James and Kevin pretending to have a football contest. I can't wait.
Bill v. Nick
On the back nine this week, we actually find a hundred point score! If that sounds like another grossly uneven matchup, it's because it sure was. Bill (unfortunately) got back into the win column, after a short hiatus thanks to Earl last week, while Nick came one Carson Wentz away from having the worst score in the history of our fake sports league. Captivating!
I would start by telling you how silly it was that Jarvis Landry scored 16 points for Bill just a couple days after he stole him from Eric... but that's kind of besides the point when (fugitive from justice) Zeke Eliott rushes for 147 yards and 2 TDs on 26 carries and then chips in an additional 72 receiving yards and a TD on his only passing target of the game. (44 points, for those counting at home.) After those two idiotic scores, Bill needed just two more points to top Nick this week - which he easily got, despite another week of jarringly mediocre scores (comparatively) from TB12 (15pts) and K.Hunt (11pts).
Meanwhile, as previously mentioned, Nick has Carson Wentz (30pts). And that's about all. (Okay, so Doug Baldwin chipped in 15 points. Big deal.) But check out this list: WR Torrey Smith, WR Eric Decker, TE Austin Hooper, and the New York Football Giants Defense. What do they have in common, you ask? Well, they all scored exactly zero points in Nick's starting lineup. I shit you not. But he still somehow managed to avoid taking home a single negative trophy in week 7. (He remains the only team in the league to have not recorded a single trophy this season - good or bad. But the needle appears to be pointing straight down on this former champion, so it's probably only a matter of time!)
Looking ahead, Bill will get in one more win before his Zeke-less losing streak (hopefully) starts as he faces Matt. (Full disclosure - Bill could probably start just Elliott and still beat Matt.) Nick, on the other hand, appears to be in a dead heat in his matchup with Dustin... for whatever that's worth.
Dustin v. Kevin
And since we're on the topic - I guess we might as well keep talking about Dustin. If we have to. (Side note - how do the most terrible teams in the league seem to keep playing each other every single week?!) Upside: this one was at least a close game. Which, even when low scoring, still ends up being more interesting than a blowout.
Kevin had yet another lackluster week with just two double digit scores in his starting lineup: TE Jimmy Graham (11pts) and The Rams suddenly formidable looking D (16pts) - though he was slightly buoyed by his game day trade acquisitions of RB Chris Ivory (9pts) and WR Devin Funchess. (Who's 4 points weren't exactly amazing, but still four times as many as the 1 point recorded by Davante Adams, whom he shipped away. Quite a blockbuster "collusion" trade, right Bill? Jerk.)
Dustin had one more double digit score heading into MNF: Big Ben (16pts), Julio (15pts) & the Carolina D (14pts). But he still found himself trailing Kevin by 8 points, owing to the fact that he had two players in the Monday night game. LeGarrette Blount (2pts) looked lifeless - but, thankfully for Dustin, Chris Thompson (12pts) did not. His second quarter TD against the Eagles put Dustin up for good - evening these two bottom dwellers out at 2-5 on the season.
Both teams will continue rolling in the slop with other pigs next week: Dustin with Nick and Kevin with James.
Jared v. Matt
Ahh, which brings us to the sloppiest of the slop - Matt and Jared. It's not often that one gets to "win big" with just 80 points, but Jared he was able to do it this week with a 24 point win over Matt.
Both teams sported a sensational RB1: LeSean McCoy (23pts) for Matt and Todd Gurley (22pts) for Jared. But both teams had less than ideal days at QB: Carson Palmer (1pt) - who looked pretty terrible even before he broke his arm - for Matt and Cam Newton (3pts) - who didn't have a broken bone to blame his terrible play on - for Jared. But at least Jared got to rub another terrible trade in an opponents face as a Rodgers-less Jordy Nelson could only muster one point for Matt while Antonio Brown posted 12 for Jared. That, a few other one point scores for Matt and a few other semi-decent scores for Jared were enough to propel the AutoBots to the win and a well (un)deserved 6-1 record.
Fun facts: the 513 total points that Jared's opponents have scored against him this season are second lowest only to the 505 points scored against Earl. However, Jared's 661 points scored are the third highest in the league - outshined by 732 points for Bill (with whom Jared is tied for first place overall) and 701 points for Earl (who finds himself in fourth place overall despite his league best +196 point differential.)
Bonus fun fact, since we're talking about season long scoring: Dustin's -218 point differential is clearly the worst in the league. Even though his points for (493) are only third lowest, his whopping 711 points against are far and away the highest in the league!
Anyways, in the week ahead Jared will be without Todd Gurley due to a bye - so he'll have to come up with some other kind of magic if he hopes to maintain his place in the standings after a tough matchup against Earl. I say that because Earl has a pretty strong team, but also because Matt will obviously lose to Bill and send him to 7-1 this week!
And that, as they say, is a Sports.
Thursday, October 26, 2017
Thursday, October 19, 2017
Week 6
Ding dong, the bitch is dead! (Get it? It's a play off of the Wizard of Oz - except I said "bitch" instead of "witch". Oh, and I'm referring to Bill. Calling him a bitch. But he's not actually dead. He just lost one game. Still, you know, it's the little victories that mean the most. Anyway.)
Earl v. Bill
It was bound to happen sometime, and week 6 was that sometime. Earl did what Jeremy was only able to threaten in week 5 and finally gave Bill his first loss of the season. In fairness, Earl didn't exactly have his work cut out for him as the previously invulnerable looking Bill only managed to put up 75 points for the second straight week. The low score could partially be blamed on what we all hope will happen for six more weeks at SOME point this season - Zeke being out of the starting lineup. (This week it was just a bye, not criminal justice.) But Bill also only had three players post double digit scores: Gronk (20 points), TB12 (16 points) and the artist formerly known as Kareem Hunt (10 points). The rest of his starting scrubs were only able to total up 29 points - exactly two less than the New Orleans D scored for Earl! Ouch. And yet, despite all this terribleness, Bill was somehow able to escape taking home even a single negative trophy. Lame.
As for Earl, getting 31 points from your D is a good way to start your day. But then again ,so is getting a combined 64 points from your starting RBs: LeVeon Bell (26 points), Leonard Fournette (24 points) and Doug Martin (14 points). To make matters even more frightening for the rest of us - Earl also had the corpse of Adrian Peterson on his bench with 27 points! And speaking of corpses, Larry Fitzgerald woke up with 20 points after another two week hiatus from the big boy score sheet. Outside of those notables, Earl didn't have a whole lot else going on. But as it turns out, having a few misfires in your starting lineup doesn't much matter when your 5 good players score 40 more points than your opponent's whole team and Earl STILL takes home the Strong Like Abe with 136 points. If keeps up this high level of play, he'll be back where he belongs (third place) at the end of the season for sure!
Looking ahead: Earl will face the ever mercurial Trash Pandas in week 7 while Bill will hope to score at least 76 points against the Pig Skins - just to prove he's trending in the right direction.
Jared v. Jeremy
Our second highest scoring bought was another close game for Jeremy that he, of course, managed to lose anyway. On the up side: Mike Evans (15 points) scored his third TD of the season. On the down side: Mike Evans apparently only scores TDs on even numbered weeks. On the flip side: Tyreek Hill (6 points) seems to only put up double digit scores on odd numbered weeks. On the... okay, I'm gonna stop that now. Jeremy did benefit from Mark Ingrams 27 point outburst in his first week as the clear early down back for the Saints. But in the end, RBP's week rested on the shoulders of the Titans D who were NOT able to put up the 19 points they would've needed to steal a win from Jared on Monday night.
And speaking of Jared - I'm not gonna lie, I was actually confused how he cobbled together 94 points this week when I looked at his box score. (But I added it up, and the math seems correct.) I mean, 26 points from Antonio Brown is nothing to sneeze at. (PS: Even though Big Ben hasn't quite looked himself - at least he's still on the field. Meanwhile, Jordy Nelson has a guy who's never started an NFL game throwing to him for the rest of the season. Moral of the story: NEVER TRADE WITH JARED.) <clears throat> Sorry about that. Where was I? Oh right, Jared's few good players. Right. His other trade robbery, Todd Gurley, was able to put up 13 points against Jacksonville - though when a guy has been putting up numbers in the 20's and 30's I think it's fair to say he ONLY put up 13 points. And that no good, piece of trash bum that Tim is still mad about (Cam Newton) put up 18 points in a game that was also off his pace of recent weeks but still pretty decent. Other than those three, everyone else in Jared's starting lineup was in the single digits. But apparently high enough single digits to get him the win, so who's counting? (Besides me. I'm always counting.)
Looking forward to week 7. Jeremy faces a top tier team for the third straight week as he matches up with Andrew. Maybe THIS will be the week he pulls of a big upset? (But probably not.) Jared, on the other hand, has an easier matchup against... wait a minute... Jared is projected for less points than Matt? Yikes. Maybe he better hope that math is off too.
Andrew v. Matt
Matchup number three improbably includes the aforementioned Matt. Not because of anything he did, of course. It was all Andrew pumping up this score!
After a pretty disappointing first 2 weeks of the season, Stranger Things QB Kirk Cousins (28 points) looks to be at full speed and not slowing down anytime soon. He can wave to Melvin Gordon (26 points) as they cruise along, because outside of one down week against Philly in week 3 - Gordon has been on fire himself. Shoot, even Carlos Hyde (18 points) went ahead and dispelled those rumors of a time share in San Fran with a big week 6. Maybe he'll keep it up too - until he gets hurt. But EVEN THEN, Andrew had Jerrick McKinnon waiting on the bench with 20 points. (Because doesn't everyone spend $20 FAB on a player and then bench them?) It's almost like Andrew just wanted to say, "Odell who?" with this win. (But we all know he still cries a little bit every time he hears his name.)
As for Matt... oh geez. I don't even know where to begin with this train wreck. I mean, I guess you have to lead off with probably losing QB Aaron Rodgers (Ze-ro points) for the rest of the season with a broken collar bone. And that certainly can't mean good things ahead for recently acquired WR Jordy Nelson (6 points). Then there's TE Ed Dickson, who followed up his 19 point week 5 with... 3 points in week 6? Eww. But hey, at least you can count on Devin Funchess to score a TD! Oh. No? Just three points for him too? Cripes. I don't know what to say. Let's just cling to the one silver lining: Golden Tate (16 points) had his best score of the season and almost had his first 100 yard receiving game. Maybe he's finally breaking out? (Just kidding. He hurt his shoulder and could miss multiple weeks.) Matt takes home the 90 pound weakling AND the catcher this week. So I guess his only real silver lining is that he didn't win more bad things.
According to ESPN's prognosticators: Matt (2-4) is actually a 1.8 point favorite over Jared (5-1) in week 7. Andrew (5-1) is also a favorite over Jeremy (2-4) - but only by 9.6 points. I'll go on record as saying I'll be shocked if either of those predictions is correct - although for vastly different reasons!
James v. Dustin
The participation ribbon for closest matchup of the week goes to the six points margin between these two losers. (No, really, they were both 1-4 coming into the week - so it's okay to call them losers.) But with 86 and 80 points respectively, it was nowhere close to as embarrassing as it could've been!
James had four players with (barely) double digit scores - including Drew Brees (11 points) who put up his worst score of the season, despite the fact that his game's final score was 52-38! At least one member of James' team benefited from that rout, though, as Marvin Jones scored 14 points in his first double digit game of the season. Jordan Howard (17 points) also had a fine return to form against the lackluster Baltimore run defense to buoy James' score to a level just above mediocre, which was all he needed to move out of the league basement... for the time being.
And while we're on the topic of mediocre - there's Dustin! His slightly more mediocre score also boasted four double digit contributors: newly acquired QB DeShaun Watson (15 points), free agent gold Chris Thompson (14 points), the surprisingly decent Michael Crabtree (11 points) and some guy named Kenny Still (10 points). The most notable double digit score for Dustin, however, came from Derrick Henry - who put up 25 points on Monday Night football... from the ASD bench. Womp! (Sure, he did previously put up consecutive goose eggs in weeks 4 and 5, but still.) So while Dustin couldn't take home his second win of the season - he could at least take home his second BBB trophy! (A league leading 9th negative trophy, FYI.)
In week 7 - James would probably gladly settle for mediocre again as he faces a just plain bad Pepe Silvia team. The bad news for James is that he's currently listed as an underdog, even though his opponent is 1-5 on the season. Elsewhere, another 1-5 team (Dustin) is also a favorite in a matchup with a 2-4 team (Kevin). Captivating action, kids!
Tim v. Nick
Just as it wasn't Matt's fault that his match was a top scorer, it wasn't Tim's fault that his match was a low scorer. That blame falls squarely on the formerly first place shoulders of Nick. Outside of the Giants D, who put up a pretty silly 18 points on Sunday Night Football against Denver, Nick had absolutely nothing going this week. Single digits from everyone else except Matt Ryan (10 points), who got a decent score for a TE - but not really for a Super Bowl caliber QB. There was some static from at least one league member (Jared) that Nick was going to rally after his big defensive showing on Sunday night. But Eric Decker (8 points) and T.Y. Hilton (1 point) didn't quite come anywhere close to the 49 points they would've had to score in order for that bold prediction to pan out. <eye roll>
On Tim's side of the tape - Jay Ajayi (15 points) looked like an NFL running back for a change! And Christian McCaffrey (14 points) looked like maybe he won't be a complete waste of a third round pick! And even though his TD streak is bound to end at some point, Will Fuller (15 points) scored a TD for his third week in a row! If everything went wrong for Nick, (almost) everything went right for Tim. You know - except for that 2 point bomb from Terrell Pryor, of course. (But we won't talk about that, because it might make Matt feel bad for trading for him a couple days later.) Tim moves to 3-3 and is well on pace to finish 6-7, since he apparently can't win on odd numbered weeks.
A trend that actually looks pretty spot on to continue as Tim faces the suddenly blazing hot Earl in week 7. Nick on the other hand has lost two of his last three (since Dalvin Cook was injured) and will need some magic (and to start Carson Wentz) against Bill if he wants to stop the bleeding anytime soon.
Kevin v. Eric
Ah, the bottom. How apropos that we find our other couple of losers all the way down here. At least 69 to 51 is truly a terrible score to go along with the records here. We can talk about it for a second, I guess. If we have to.
Eric finally found a trade partner to take DeShaun Watson off his hands in the early part of week 6, so of course Jameis Winston (2 points) had a stinker and also got injured in the ensuing weekend. Michael Thomas (1 points) managed just 3 receptions for 11 yards in a ridiculously high scoring game in the Big Easy. Amari Cooper (2 points) continued to spin his wheels even with Derek Carr back at QB in Oakland. There were some bright spots, but I don't want to talk about them and ruin the feel of this recap.
Kevin did a little better, but not by much. He won because the LA Defense (17 points) played against Blake Bortles. That's pretty much the long and short of it. Davante Adams (11 points) managed a double digit score despite Aaron Rodgers' injury. In fact: he did all of his damage after Rodgers had already left the game. So I guess that's a hopeful sign for the weeks to come? Maybe. But Andre Ellington put up a goose egg, James White could only manage 4 points and alleged RB1 Lamar Miller topped out at 8 points - so RB continues to be an obvious weakness for the artist formerly known as Fenstermacher. Kevin somehow moves to 2-4 anyway and is theoretically still trending in the right direction in the standings, even if not on the stat sheet.
Kevin will hope for another win against Dustin, even though it probably doesn't matter. Dito for Eric vs. James. Look for their names in this same general area of the recap next week.
Sports?
Earl v. Bill
It was bound to happen sometime, and week 6 was that sometime. Earl did what Jeremy was only able to threaten in week 5 and finally gave Bill his first loss of the season. In fairness, Earl didn't exactly have his work cut out for him as the previously invulnerable looking Bill only managed to put up 75 points for the second straight week. The low score could partially be blamed on what we all hope will happen for six more weeks at SOME point this season - Zeke being out of the starting lineup. (This week it was just a bye, not criminal justice.) But Bill also only had three players post double digit scores: Gronk (20 points), TB12 (16 points) and the artist formerly known as Kareem Hunt (10 points). The rest of his starting scrubs were only able to total up 29 points - exactly two less than the New Orleans D scored for Earl! Ouch. And yet, despite all this terribleness, Bill was somehow able to escape taking home even a single negative trophy. Lame.
As for Earl, getting 31 points from your D is a good way to start your day. But then again ,so is getting a combined 64 points from your starting RBs: LeVeon Bell (26 points), Leonard Fournette (24 points) and Doug Martin (14 points). To make matters even more frightening for the rest of us - Earl also had the corpse of Adrian Peterson on his bench with 27 points! And speaking of corpses, Larry Fitzgerald woke up with 20 points after another two week hiatus from the big boy score sheet. Outside of those notables, Earl didn't have a whole lot else going on. But as it turns out, having a few misfires in your starting lineup doesn't much matter when your 5 good players score 40 more points than your opponent's whole team and Earl STILL takes home the Strong Like Abe with 136 points. If keeps up this high level of play, he'll be back where he belongs (third place) at the end of the season for sure!
Looking ahead: Earl will face the ever mercurial Trash Pandas in week 7 while Bill will hope to score at least 76 points against the Pig Skins - just to prove he's trending in the right direction.
Jared v. Jeremy
Our second highest scoring bought was another close game for Jeremy that he, of course, managed to lose anyway. On the up side: Mike Evans (15 points) scored his third TD of the season. On the down side: Mike Evans apparently only scores TDs on even numbered weeks. On the flip side: Tyreek Hill (6 points) seems to only put up double digit scores on odd numbered weeks. On the... okay, I'm gonna stop that now. Jeremy did benefit from Mark Ingrams 27 point outburst in his first week as the clear early down back for the Saints. But in the end, RBP's week rested on the shoulders of the Titans D who were NOT able to put up the 19 points they would've needed to steal a win from Jared on Monday night.
And speaking of Jared - I'm not gonna lie, I was actually confused how he cobbled together 94 points this week when I looked at his box score. (But I added it up, and the math seems correct.) I mean, 26 points from Antonio Brown is nothing to sneeze at. (PS: Even though Big Ben hasn't quite looked himself - at least he's still on the field. Meanwhile, Jordy Nelson has a guy who's never started an NFL game throwing to him for the rest of the season. Moral of the story: NEVER TRADE WITH JARED.) <clears throat> Sorry about that. Where was I? Oh right, Jared's few good players. Right. His other trade robbery, Todd Gurley, was able to put up 13 points against Jacksonville - though when a guy has been putting up numbers in the 20's and 30's I think it's fair to say he ONLY put up 13 points. And that no good, piece of trash bum that Tim is still mad about (Cam Newton) put up 18 points in a game that was also off his pace of recent weeks but still pretty decent. Other than those three, everyone else in Jared's starting lineup was in the single digits. But apparently high enough single digits to get him the win, so who's counting? (Besides me. I'm always counting.)
Looking forward to week 7. Jeremy faces a top tier team for the third straight week as he matches up with Andrew. Maybe THIS will be the week he pulls of a big upset? (But probably not.) Jared, on the other hand, has an easier matchup against... wait a minute... Jared is projected for less points than Matt? Yikes. Maybe he better hope that math is off too.
Andrew v. Matt
Matchup number three improbably includes the aforementioned Matt. Not because of anything he did, of course. It was all Andrew pumping up this score!
After a pretty disappointing first 2 weeks of the season, Stranger Things QB Kirk Cousins (28 points) looks to be at full speed and not slowing down anytime soon. He can wave to Melvin Gordon (26 points) as they cruise along, because outside of one down week against Philly in week 3 - Gordon has been on fire himself. Shoot, even Carlos Hyde (18 points) went ahead and dispelled those rumors of a time share in San Fran with a big week 6. Maybe he'll keep it up too - until he gets hurt. But EVEN THEN, Andrew had Jerrick McKinnon waiting on the bench with 20 points. (Because doesn't everyone spend $20 FAB on a player and then bench them?) It's almost like Andrew just wanted to say, "Odell who?" with this win. (But we all know he still cries a little bit every time he hears his name.)
As for Matt... oh geez. I don't even know where to begin with this train wreck. I mean, I guess you have to lead off with probably losing QB Aaron Rodgers (Ze-ro points) for the rest of the season with a broken collar bone. And that certainly can't mean good things ahead for recently acquired WR Jordy Nelson (6 points). Then there's TE Ed Dickson, who followed up his 19 point week 5 with... 3 points in week 6? Eww. But hey, at least you can count on Devin Funchess to score a TD! Oh. No? Just three points for him too? Cripes. I don't know what to say. Let's just cling to the one silver lining: Golden Tate (16 points) had his best score of the season and almost had his first 100 yard receiving game. Maybe he's finally breaking out? (Just kidding. He hurt his shoulder and could miss multiple weeks.) Matt takes home the 90 pound weakling AND the catcher this week. So I guess his only real silver lining is that he didn't win more bad things.
According to ESPN's prognosticators: Matt (2-4) is actually a 1.8 point favorite over Jared (5-1) in week 7. Andrew (5-1) is also a favorite over Jeremy (2-4) - but only by 9.6 points. I'll go on record as saying I'll be shocked if either of those predictions is correct - although for vastly different reasons!
James v. Dustin
The participation ribbon for closest matchup of the week goes to the six points margin between these two losers. (No, really, they were both 1-4 coming into the week - so it's okay to call them losers.) But with 86 and 80 points respectively, it was nowhere close to as embarrassing as it could've been!
James had four players with (barely) double digit scores - including Drew Brees (11 points) who put up his worst score of the season, despite the fact that his game's final score was 52-38! At least one member of James' team benefited from that rout, though, as Marvin Jones scored 14 points in his first double digit game of the season. Jordan Howard (17 points) also had a fine return to form against the lackluster Baltimore run defense to buoy James' score to a level just above mediocre, which was all he needed to move out of the league basement... for the time being.
And while we're on the topic of mediocre - there's Dustin! His slightly more mediocre score also boasted four double digit contributors: newly acquired QB DeShaun Watson (15 points), free agent gold Chris Thompson (14 points), the surprisingly decent Michael Crabtree (11 points) and some guy named Kenny Still (10 points). The most notable double digit score for Dustin, however, came from Derrick Henry - who put up 25 points on Monday Night football... from the ASD bench. Womp! (Sure, he did previously put up consecutive goose eggs in weeks 4 and 5, but still.) So while Dustin couldn't take home his second win of the season - he could at least take home his second BBB trophy! (A league leading 9th negative trophy, FYI.)
In week 7 - James would probably gladly settle for mediocre again as he faces a just plain bad Pepe Silvia team. The bad news for James is that he's currently listed as an underdog, even though his opponent is 1-5 on the season. Elsewhere, another 1-5 team (Dustin) is also a favorite in a matchup with a 2-4 team (Kevin). Captivating action, kids!
Tim v. Nick
Just as it wasn't Matt's fault that his match was a top scorer, it wasn't Tim's fault that his match was a low scorer. That blame falls squarely on the formerly first place shoulders of Nick. Outside of the Giants D, who put up a pretty silly 18 points on Sunday Night Football against Denver, Nick had absolutely nothing going this week. Single digits from everyone else except Matt Ryan (10 points), who got a decent score for a TE - but not really for a Super Bowl caliber QB. There was some static from at least one league member (Jared) that Nick was going to rally after his big defensive showing on Sunday night. But Eric Decker (8 points) and T.Y. Hilton (1 point) didn't quite come anywhere close to the 49 points they would've had to score in order for that bold prediction to pan out. <eye roll>
On Tim's side of the tape - Jay Ajayi (15 points) looked like an NFL running back for a change! And Christian McCaffrey (14 points) looked like maybe he won't be a complete waste of a third round pick! And even though his TD streak is bound to end at some point, Will Fuller (15 points) scored a TD for his third week in a row! If everything went wrong for Nick, (almost) everything went right for Tim. You know - except for that 2 point bomb from Terrell Pryor, of course. (But we won't talk about that, because it might make Matt feel bad for trading for him a couple days later.) Tim moves to 3-3 and is well on pace to finish 6-7, since he apparently can't win on odd numbered weeks.
A trend that actually looks pretty spot on to continue as Tim faces the suddenly blazing hot Earl in week 7. Nick on the other hand has lost two of his last three (since Dalvin Cook was injured) and will need some magic (and to start Carson Wentz) against Bill if he wants to stop the bleeding anytime soon.
Kevin v. Eric
Ah, the bottom. How apropos that we find our other couple of losers all the way down here. At least 69 to 51 is truly a terrible score to go along with the records here. We can talk about it for a second, I guess. If we have to.
Eric finally found a trade partner to take DeShaun Watson off his hands in the early part of week 6, so of course Jameis Winston (2 points) had a stinker and also got injured in the ensuing weekend. Michael Thomas (1 points) managed just 3 receptions for 11 yards in a ridiculously high scoring game in the Big Easy. Amari Cooper (2 points) continued to spin his wheels even with Derek Carr back at QB in Oakland. There were some bright spots, but I don't want to talk about them and ruin the feel of this recap.
Kevin did a little better, but not by much. He won because the LA Defense (17 points) played against Blake Bortles. That's pretty much the long and short of it. Davante Adams (11 points) managed a double digit score despite Aaron Rodgers' injury. In fact: he did all of his damage after Rodgers had already left the game. So I guess that's a hopeful sign for the weeks to come? Maybe. But Andre Ellington put up a goose egg, James White could only manage 4 points and alleged RB1 Lamar Miller topped out at 8 points - so RB continues to be an obvious weakness for the artist formerly known as Fenstermacher. Kevin somehow moves to 2-4 anyway and is theoretically still trending in the right direction in the standings, even if not on the stat sheet.
Kevin will hope for another win against Dustin, even though it probably doesn't matter. Dito for Eric vs. James. Look for their names in this same general area of the recap next week.
Sports?
Thursday, October 12, 2017
Week 5
Wow. The week of the QB! So many high scoring passers in week 5 - it's a shame ESPN doesn't let us have a 2 QB league. Maybe then more than two teams would've broken 100 this week. Let's wade through the crap.
"Kevin" v. Tim
Once again, the two highest scoring teams in a given week ended up playing each other. Timing is everything. Tim wishes he had some.
Truth be told, Tim probably shouldn't have been at the point where Monday night mattered so much. After the 4 o'clock games ended, things were looking pretty grim. Sure, Dak (28 points) and Dez (11 points) had good a day. But Evan Engram (0 points) and Jay Ajayi (6 points) left much to be desired. All tolled - Tim needed 51 points to beat "Kevin" with just three players left to play. Fat chance, right? Oh wait, no, the Houston Texans are still ridiculous. DeAndre Hopkins (23 points) and Will Fuller (22 points) made the most of their wunderkind rookie QB (and a bunch of garbage time) and suddenly - Tim was just 5 points away from a tie; 6 points away from a win. 27, 4, 0, 28. Those numbers are, in order: How many dollars Tim paid for Latavius Murray, how many points Murray scored, he many dollars Tim would've had to pay for Jerrick McKinnon and how many points that jerk scored. Yup. Tim fell just one point short of beating the one team who scored more than him.
"Kevin", on the other hand, didn't wait until the last minute to put his points up. He started off on Thursday night with a big 13 point showing from Chris Hogan (whom he, rather ironically, obtained from Tim earlier in the season). Then AJ Green (28 points!) scored a 77 yard TD not ten minutes into his early game. (He'd finish the day with 189 total yards.) And, finally, Davante Adams (18 points) showed he was none the worse for wear from his concussion when he dropped two TDs on the Cowboys in the 4pm game. Thus answering the question, yes, you can win with just stud WR's and not really any remarkable RBs. (And also: yes, "Kevin" can win a game. At all.)
"Kevin" has posted two strong weeks in a row now and will look to keep it rolling against sitting duck Eric in week 6. Tim will also look to continue his high scoring ways against a (potentially) tougher opponent in (almost undefeated) Nick. Odds of either/both of those happening are slim.
Jared v. Eric
Our second highest scoring matchup was another close one, with Eric losing by just seven points. Unfortunately, thanks to injuries and bye weeks - there just weren't many points to be found - even on his bench. Oh, wait - there was DeShaun Watson (33 points) who broke 30 points for the second consecutive week! I mean, sure, Jameis Winston (18 points) also scored 30 points last week... and he was matched up against the hapless Pats secondary! Nah, who cares. Hindsight is always 20/20 in this league and this was the move that cost Eric the game. But I will give him a big up for picking up (Ty Montgomery replacement) Aaron Jones (20 points) - who left Jamaal Williams in the dust for the lead/backup RB role in Green Bay. And that Jacksonville Defense, brah! 27 points?! That brings them up to 83 points on the season and makes them the second highest scoring player on Eric's team... behind DeShaun Watson. (Couldn't resist.) I'm sure everyone who rejected a terrible trade offer from Eric this week that included DeShaun Watson feels sorta bad now anyway, right? Sorta.
Jared actually has a similar week as far as where his points came from. Waiver add QB Cam Newton (25 points) posted his second straight big score and the Baltimore D (16 points) did exactly what everyone thought they would against EJ Manuel. Jared also got 17 points from recently acquired WR Antonio Brown, but the guy who put him over the top was... Mike Wallace? Yup. That Mike Wallace. His 15 points were enough to get Jared over the top. (Which was a lucky turn, because RB Todd Gurley (3 points) shat the bed against a legit defense just like everyone named Tim said he would.)
Jared will take the win and run, though, as it puts him at 4-1 on the season and tied for first in the Athletic Supporters division. He'll most likely keep heading in the right direction against Jeremy in week 6. Eric, on the other hand, falls to 1-4 on the season - tying him for LAST place in the same division. He'll face his terrible record twin "Kevin" - so at least one of the two will end up being a little less terrible by this time next week.
Nick v. Matt
Okay, let's address the elephant in the room: Nick scored 96 and Matt scored 69. <snicker>
Now that we have that out of the way. Matt left 19 points on his bench from a Carolina player for the second week in a row. Last week it was Devin Funchess (11 points this week). This week - TE Ed Dickson racked up a just plain stupid 175 yards against a generally solid Detroit D. Matt could've used those points on his starting lineup - although it still wouldn't have gotten him to the win. So I guess it's a moot point. Other than Funchess, Matt's only other starting player to score double digit points was QB Aaron Rodgers with 19. But on the up side - it looks like his man-crush Jordy Nelson (8 points) might not be too seriously banged up, even though he sat out for most of the 4th quarter against the Cowboys on Sunday. Silver linings or something?
Nick was flirting with a 100+ point score before Stefon Diggs (0 points) failed to show up on Monday night. He got close thanks to the brilliant tactical move (ie: all of his other players were on bye weeks) of starting Carson Wentz (34 points!) and Torrey Smith (16 points) against the generally well regarded Arizona Defense. (Hey, even a blind squirrel finds a nut some days!) Another big day (177 yards) from TY Hilton also helped out, as did 15 points from free agent find RB/WR Duke Johnson. And, luckily for Nick, that's all the help he would need to down Matt and move to 4-1 on the season.
Nick will hope for a little more full team involvement in week 6 as he meets up with (allegedly) high scoring Tim, while Matt will hope to get an okay RB to fill in for LeSean McCoy's bye week if he wants to beat Andrew. Or win another game. Ever.
Andrew v. James
Hey, here's a shocker for you: James lost another one! Okay. Not so shocking. Not especially when you consider (marginal starter) Brandon Marshall put up just one point before leaving his game with a season ending ankle injury. Eli Manning (10 points) had to play the whole game but probably wishes he had a season ending ankle injury! (Which is really weird - because James' awesome draft app told us all we should draft Manning because he's really good...) Besides Eli the terrible, James had just two other players who (barely) put up double digits scores - WR DeSean Jackson (12 points) and TE Hunter Henry (10 points). There isn't much else to say here, I guess. About the best thing that James could do with his season at this point is trade for a couple decent keepers and give Drew Brees to a team that actually has a chance to contend. (Is that too harsh?)
Andrew got the win, but in doing do was faced with quite an inglorious ending to Odell Beckham's (18 points) four year tenure with his team as he ALSO suffered a season ending ankle injury against the Chargers. (Friendly reminder: OBJ is not eligible to be kept for next year's draft - that's why Andrew dropped him!) Andrew also got a huge week from Melvin Gordon (29 points) and he didn't get hurt (yet) - but it looks like Carlos Hyde (1 point) and Matt Breida (6 point) might be headed toward the dreaded "committee" approach, so they may not be able to be counted upon for consistent point production anymore. Will Andrew still have enough "depth" to keep up his winning ways going forward? I'd be kinda surprised... but stranger things have happened. (See what I did there?)
What would NOT be strange, actually, is expecting Andrew to beat Matt - even if he only starts 7 players in week 6. What WOULD be strange, on the other hand, is expecting James to get another win - even though he only has to play Dustin.
Earl v. Dustin
Which leads me directly to: another week, another loss for Dustin. And, once again, he would've lost even if his opponent had only started 2 RBs. Last week it was Bilal Powell and Todd Gurley. This week it was Leonard Fournette (35 points!) and Doug Martin (13 points).
On the up side for Dustin: WR Michael Crabtree (15 points) showed back up on the scoring sheet (even with EJ Manuel at QB) and WR Jarvis Landy (12 points) put up his first double digit score of the season. On the down side: everything else. Literally. I'm not even gonna waste time talking about it.
As for Earl, other than the two players already referenced... well, he didn't have much else going for him either. I mean, he did drop Philip Rivers (20 points) and Andy Dalton (17 points) to waivers and picked up Carson Palmer (13 points) for a starting QB instead. That's good, right? Okay. Not really. (But it was better than the 2 points Dustin got out of Big Ben!)
Earl had better hope that QB Derek Carr is able to come back from his broken back in time for his week 6 matchup against Bill if he wants to have any chance of maintaining this year's renaissance. Dustin, meanwhile, only has to play James - which means he'll probably only have to score like 60 points to win. Although that may not be as easy as it sounds if Julio Jones' hip keeps him on the bench this weekend. Good times.
Bill v. Jeremy
And that brings us to the bottom of the barrel, where we find (not surprisingly) Jeremy and... Bill?!! What the what?! Is this a misprint? I mean - Bill has scored 100+ points in every week of the season up until now! Are you legitimately telling me he could only manage 75 points in week 5?? Yes. Gloriously, yes.
For those curious how to best almost sabotage yourself, here's a brief primer:
Step 1) Don't start a full lineup.
No matter how awesome your team is, intentionally putting a zero on your score sheet is never a good idea, kids. Rob Gronkowski was a late scratch on Thursday night, but instead of trading or dropping some of his bench "assets" to pick up a replacement - Bill decided to just do without a TE. And even though Danny Amendola (12 points) saw an uptick in targets with Gronk out, the mighty TB12 saw a downtick in his production - throwing just one TD whilst also throwing an INT and fumbling once. Glorious.
Step 2) View your RB game as infallible.
Part of the reason why Bill probably felt good about taking a goose egg in the TE column is that he has the #1 and #4 RBs in the league. Unfortunately, since he's started playing legit defenses - Kareem Hunt (12 points) has kinda fallen back to earth a little bit. And, though many of us would give our left arm to have a RB who scores 14 points on an "off day", Ezekiel Elliott (14 points) has also looked relatively just "pretty good" in all but one of his games this season. (Karma?) Oh, and also - Bill started Ameer Abdullah (3 points) instead of Marshawn Lynch (11 points). Don't trust Ameer Abdullah. Ever. He'll let you down.
Step 3) Believe that your inconsistent WR corps is suddenly gonna become consistent.
Bill knew that his group of WRs would probably be an Achilles heel this season. I mean, waiting until the 4th round of the draft to take your first one is a bad place to start. Especially when you lose two of those shallow pool members (Allen Robinson and Cameron Meredith) before the first week is even over. But then sitting on seven startable RBs instead trading one or two of them for a decent WR (or two)? Well, it may not be a new strategy for Bill, but that doesn't make it a good one.
Step 4) Play someone other than Jeremy.
Fortunately for Bill - he did not do step 4!
Jeremy had actually showed signs of rising to the occasion during the early games, but in the end he fell flat (like usual). QB Russell Wilson (7 points) ended a two week streak of strong games with a stinker against an LA Rams team that had just allowed three passing TDs to a similar QB (Dak Prescott) the week before. RB Mike Gillislee (5 points) failed to find the endzone for a third consecutive week. (Which is a bad thing for a TD dependent RB, incase you didn't know.) And Sammy Watkins... wait... anyone seen Sammy Watkins? (Maybe he's hanging out with Dustin?) Well, Jared Goff didn't - that's for sure! Watkins was targeted just four times and didn't catch a single one of those balls - good for a big fat zero, which basically erased Bill's mistake of not starting a TE.
On the upside, Jeremy did had the Miami defense (23 points) - who were set to face Tennessee backup Matt Cassel in a surefire... just kidding, he didn't start them. He started the Tennessee D (12 points) who, although facing the dreadful Jay Cutler, had previously posted two straight weeks of negative point totals. Strong move. Had he made a different choice, Jeremy would've given Bill his first loss of the season. Sigh.
Looking forward to week 6 - hopefully both of these guys will make some better decisions. Well, hopefully Jeremy does at least. If he could beat Jared - that'd be pretty great. But I'd actually be totally okay if Bill wanted to not start a full lineup again and let Earl beat him. Not that I'm biased and want to see him fail. I'm an impartial commissioner, after all. <snicker>
Sports.
"Kevin" v. Tim
Once again, the two highest scoring teams in a given week ended up playing each other. Timing is everything. Tim wishes he had some.
Truth be told, Tim probably shouldn't have been at the point where Monday night mattered so much. After the 4 o'clock games ended, things were looking pretty grim. Sure, Dak (28 points) and Dez (11 points) had good a day. But Evan Engram (0 points) and Jay Ajayi (6 points) left much to be desired. All tolled - Tim needed 51 points to beat "Kevin" with just three players left to play. Fat chance, right? Oh wait, no, the Houston Texans are still ridiculous. DeAndre Hopkins (23 points) and Will Fuller (22 points) made the most of their wunderkind rookie QB (and a bunch of garbage time) and suddenly - Tim was just 5 points away from a tie; 6 points away from a win. 27, 4, 0, 28. Those numbers are, in order: How many dollars Tim paid for Latavius Murray, how many points Murray scored, he many dollars Tim would've had to pay for Jerrick McKinnon and how many points that jerk scored. Yup. Tim fell just one point short of beating the one team who scored more than him.
"Kevin", on the other hand, didn't wait until the last minute to put his points up. He started off on Thursday night with a big 13 point showing from Chris Hogan (whom he, rather ironically, obtained from Tim earlier in the season). Then AJ Green (28 points!) scored a 77 yard TD not ten minutes into his early game. (He'd finish the day with 189 total yards.) And, finally, Davante Adams (18 points) showed he was none the worse for wear from his concussion when he dropped two TDs on the Cowboys in the 4pm game. Thus answering the question, yes, you can win with just stud WR's and not really any remarkable RBs. (And also: yes, "Kevin" can win a game. At all.)
"Kevin" has posted two strong weeks in a row now and will look to keep it rolling against sitting duck Eric in week 6. Tim will also look to continue his high scoring ways against a (potentially) tougher opponent in (almost undefeated) Nick. Odds of either/both of those happening are slim.
Jared v. Eric
Our second highest scoring matchup was another close one, with Eric losing by just seven points. Unfortunately, thanks to injuries and bye weeks - there just weren't many points to be found - even on his bench. Oh, wait - there was DeShaun Watson (33 points) who broke 30 points for the second consecutive week! I mean, sure, Jameis Winston (18 points) also scored 30 points last week... and he was matched up against the hapless Pats secondary! Nah, who cares. Hindsight is always 20/20 in this league and this was the move that cost Eric the game. But I will give him a big up for picking up (Ty Montgomery replacement) Aaron Jones (20 points) - who left Jamaal Williams in the dust for the lead/backup RB role in Green Bay. And that Jacksonville Defense, brah! 27 points?! That brings them up to 83 points on the season and makes them the second highest scoring player on Eric's team... behind DeShaun Watson. (Couldn't resist.) I'm sure everyone who rejected a terrible trade offer from Eric this week that included DeShaun Watson feels sorta bad now anyway, right? Sorta.
Jared actually has a similar week as far as where his points came from. Waiver add QB Cam Newton (25 points) posted his second straight big score and the Baltimore D (16 points) did exactly what everyone thought they would against EJ Manuel. Jared also got 17 points from recently acquired WR Antonio Brown, but the guy who put him over the top was... Mike Wallace? Yup. That Mike Wallace. His 15 points were enough to get Jared over the top. (Which was a lucky turn, because RB Todd Gurley (3 points) shat the bed against a legit defense just like everyone named Tim said he would.)
Jared will take the win and run, though, as it puts him at 4-1 on the season and tied for first in the Athletic Supporters division. He'll most likely keep heading in the right direction against Jeremy in week 6. Eric, on the other hand, falls to 1-4 on the season - tying him for LAST place in the same division. He'll face his terrible record twin "Kevin" - so at least one of the two will end up being a little less terrible by this time next week.
Nick v. Matt
Okay, let's address the elephant in the room: Nick scored 96 and Matt scored 69. <snicker>
Now that we have that out of the way. Matt left 19 points on his bench from a Carolina player for the second week in a row. Last week it was Devin Funchess (11 points this week). This week - TE Ed Dickson racked up a just plain stupid 175 yards against a generally solid Detroit D. Matt could've used those points on his starting lineup - although it still wouldn't have gotten him to the win. So I guess it's a moot point. Other than Funchess, Matt's only other starting player to score double digit points was QB Aaron Rodgers with 19. But on the up side - it looks like his man-crush Jordy Nelson (8 points) might not be too seriously banged up, even though he sat out for most of the 4th quarter against the Cowboys on Sunday. Silver linings or something?
Nick was flirting with a 100+ point score before Stefon Diggs (0 points) failed to show up on Monday night. He got close thanks to the brilliant tactical move (ie: all of his other players were on bye weeks) of starting Carson Wentz (34 points!) and Torrey Smith (16 points) against the generally well regarded Arizona Defense. (Hey, even a blind squirrel finds a nut some days!) Another big day (177 yards) from TY Hilton also helped out, as did 15 points from free agent find RB/WR Duke Johnson. And, luckily for Nick, that's all the help he would need to down Matt and move to 4-1 on the season.
Nick will hope for a little more full team involvement in week 6 as he meets up with (allegedly) high scoring Tim, while Matt will hope to get an okay RB to fill in for LeSean McCoy's bye week if he wants to beat Andrew. Or win another game. Ever.
Andrew v. James
Hey, here's a shocker for you: James lost another one! Okay. Not so shocking. Not especially when you consider (marginal starter) Brandon Marshall put up just one point before leaving his game with a season ending ankle injury. Eli Manning (10 points) had to play the whole game but probably wishes he had a season ending ankle injury! (Which is really weird - because James' awesome draft app told us all we should draft Manning because he's really good...) Besides Eli the terrible, James had just two other players who (barely) put up double digits scores - WR DeSean Jackson (12 points) and TE Hunter Henry (10 points). There isn't much else to say here, I guess. About the best thing that James could do with his season at this point is trade for a couple decent keepers and give Drew Brees to a team that actually has a chance to contend. (Is that too harsh?)
Andrew got the win, but in doing do was faced with quite an inglorious ending to Odell Beckham's (18 points) four year tenure with his team as he ALSO suffered a season ending ankle injury against the Chargers. (Friendly reminder: OBJ is not eligible to be kept for next year's draft - that's why Andrew dropped him!) Andrew also got a huge week from Melvin Gordon (29 points) and he didn't get hurt (yet) - but it looks like Carlos Hyde (1 point) and Matt Breida (6 point) might be headed toward the dreaded "committee" approach, so they may not be able to be counted upon for consistent point production anymore. Will Andrew still have enough "depth" to keep up his winning ways going forward? I'd be kinda surprised... but stranger things have happened. (See what I did there?)
What would NOT be strange, actually, is expecting Andrew to beat Matt - even if he only starts 7 players in week 6. What WOULD be strange, on the other hand, is expecting James to get another win - even though he only has to play Dustin.
Earl v. Dustin
Which leads me directly to: another week, another loss for Dustin. And, once again, he would've lost even if his opponent had only started 2 RBs. Last week it was Bilal Powell and Todd Gurley. This week it was Leonard Fournette (35 points!) and Doug Martin (13 points).
On the up side for Dustin: WR Michael Crabtree (15 points) showed back up on the scoring sheet (even with EJ Manuel at QB) and WR Jarvis Landy (12 points) put up his first double digit score of the season. On the down side: everything else. Literally. I'm not even gonna waste time talking about it.
As for Earl, other than the two players already referenced... well, he didn't have much else going for him either. I mean, he did drop Philip Rivers (20 points) and Andy Dalton (17 points) to waivers and picked up Carson Palmer (13 points) for a starting QB instead. That's good, right? Okay. Not really. (But it was better than the 2 points Dustin got out of Big Ben!)
Earl had better hope that QB Derek Carr is able to come back from his broken back in time for his week 6 matchup against Bill if he wants to have any chance of maintaining this year's renaissance. Dustin, meanwhile, only has to play James - which means he'll probably only have to score like 60 points to win. Although that may not be as easy as it sounds if Julio Jones' hip keeps him on the bench this weekend. Good times.
Bill v. Jeremy
And that brings us to the bottom of the barrel, where we find (not surprisingly) Jeremy and... Bill?!! What the what?! Is this a misprint? I mean - Bill has scored 100+ points in every week of the season up until now! Are you legitimately telling me he could only manage 75 points in week 5?? Yes. Gloriously, yes.
For those curious how to best almost sabotage yourself, here's a brief primer:
Step 1) Don't start a full lineup.
No matter how awesome your team is, intentionally putting a zero on your score sheet is never a good idea, kids. Rob Gronkowski was a late scratch on Thursday night, but instead of trading or dropping some of his bench "assets" to pick up a replacement - Bill decided to just do without a TE. And even though Danny Amendola (12 points) saw an uptick in targets with Gronk out, the mighty TB12 saw a downtick in his production - throwing just one TD whilst also throwing an INT and fumbling once. Glorious.
Step 2) View your RB game as infallible.
Part of the reason why Bill probably felt good about taking a goose egg in the TE column is that he has the #1 and #4 RBs in the league. Unfortunately, since he's started playing legit defenses - Kareem Hunt (12 points) has kinda fallen back to earth a little bit. And, though many of us would give our left arm to have a RB who scores 14 points on an "off day", Ezekiel Elliott (14 points) has also looked relatively just "pretty good" in all but one of his games this season. (Karma?) Oh, and also - Bill started Ameer Abdullah (3 points) instead of Marshawn Lynch (11 points). Don't trust Ameer Abdullah. Ever. He'll let you down.
Step 3) Believe that your inconsistent WR corps is suddenly gonna become consistent.
Bill knew that his group of WRs would probably be an Achilles heel this season. I mean, waiting until the 4th round of the draft to take your first one is a bad place to start. Especially when you lose two of those shallow pool members (Allen Robinson and Cameron Meredith) before the first week is even over. But then sitting on seven startable RBs instead trading one or two of them for a decent WR (or two)? Well, it may not be a new strategy for Bill, but that doesn't make it a good one.
Step 4) Play someone other than Jeremy.
Fortunately for Bill - he did not do step 4!
Jeremy had actually showed signs of rising to the occasion during the early games, but in the end he fell flat (like usual). QB Russell Wilson (7 points) ended a two week streak of strong games with a stinker against an LA Rams team that had just allowed three passing TDs to a similar QB (Dak Prescott) the week before. RB Mike Gillislee (5 points) failed to find the endzone for a third consecutive week. (Which is a bad thing for a TD dependent RB, incase you didn't know.) And Sammy Watkins... wait... anyone seen Sammy Watkins? (Maybe he's hanging out with Dustin?) Well, Jared Goff didn't - that's for sure! Watkins was targeted just four times and didn't catch a single one of those balls - good for a big fat zero, which basically erased Bill's mistake of not starting a TE.
On the upside, Jeremy did had the Miami defense (23 points) - who were set to face Tennessee backup Matt Cassel in a surefire... just kidding, he didn't start them. He started the Tennessee D (12 points) who, although facing the dreadful Jay Cutler, had previously posted two straight weeks of negative point totals. Strong move. Had he made a different choice, Jeremy would've given Bill his first loss of the season. Sigh.
Looking forward to week 6 - hopefully both of these guys will make some better decisions. Well, hopefully Jeremy does at least. If he could beat Jared - that'd be pretty great. But I'd actually be totally okay if Bill wanted to not start a full lineup again and let Earl beat him. Not that I'm biased and want to see him fail. I'm an impartial commissioner, after all. <snicker>
Sports.
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Week 4
Another week, another limited showing of 100+ point scores. Turns out the whole return yardage and other yardage bonuses thing didn't pump up our scores as much as I'd hoped. We might as well start talking about the whole PPR option for next season now! Okay, so I guess that would be a bit premature. This year is gonna be what it is - and that doesn't mean it'll be without some excitement, as we saw in this 4th week. Let's run it down:
Jared v. Dustin
I know, I know. From the outside - it looks like a pretty amazing week for Jared and a crappy week for Dustin. But consider this: Dustin was without week 2 stud WR Michael Crabtree - plus perennial points machine Julio Jones left his game prematurely with a hip injury. And Jared - well, he didn't even draft his own team! I mean that in itself is... uh... well, you know...
Yeah, you're right. I'm not buying it either. This was legitimately an amazing week for Jared... and a terrible week for Dustin. Just a couple weeks removed from a high scoring matchup where he (almost) kept pace with Billy - Dustin was virtually a non-starter in week 4. He only had two double digit scores on his entire roster, for crying out loud! If you added his bench points to his starting lineup's points - and then multiplied it by two - he STILL would've lost to Jared. That's just... sad.
And, yes, Jared did auto draft. (Again.) But that highway robbery of Nick for Todd Gurley was all him. (Well, okay, maybe I was the instigator of that one. Sorry Nick.) Gurley put up another 100+ yard day and recorded a whopping 32 points and Bilal Powell made the most of Matt Forte's absence with an idiotic 163 rushing yards and a TD for 29 points of his own! Those two guys beat Dustin - but Jared wasn't done yet. Jordy Nelson added 19 points to the pile, the Houston D feasted on the Tennessee Titans with 24 points and then Terrelle Pryor and Travis Kelce made it even worse on MNF with 14 and 19 points, respectively. By the time the dust settled, Jared had racked up 156 points all together. (That's 2nd highest point total in Sports history, for those keeping track at home. The only person to score higher was some guy called "Tim" who put up 159 points in December of 2013.) That means Jared takes home the Strong Like Abe award for most points this week, the Mark Henry Award for highest weekly total of the whole season, the Pitcher award for his 98 point win over Dustin AND the Boot award because that margin is (obviously) the biggest win of the whole season. That kind of accomplishment warrants a trophy of it's own - so I made one: The Ultimate Warrior. (Note: Dustin took home the Catcher and the mudhole, but did not have the most pathetic score in our league this week - so he avoided any more negative hardware.)
Looking ahead to week 5 - Jared draws another seemingly easy win versus Eric while Dustin will just hope to compete against Earl. Good luck with that one!
Bill v. Kevin
Our second highest scoring matchup was only one point shy of Jared & Dustin's total - but the teams involved carried a much more even share of the load.
Poor Kevin had his highest score of the season but, unfortunately, was up against one of the three teams that scored more than him. (Bill seems to be making a habit of dashing people's hopes like that.) Finally getting an RB1 worthy week out of Lamar Miller (24 points) certainly helped, as did continued solid play from WRs Chris Hogan and AJ Green (12 points each). But a premature end to QB Marcus Mariota's day (14 points) and another disappointing showing from WR Jamison Crowder (0 points) stalled Kevin's engine and made him fall short of getting his first win of the season.
And what more can we say about Bill that hasn't been said already? His 118 points in week four made him not only the last remaining undefeated team in the league but also the only team in the league to break the 100 points threshold in every week of this young 2017 season. Even though Kareem Hunt (14 points) was held out of the endzone on MNF (his lowest score of the season) and Gronk put up a relatively pedestrian (for him) 8 points, Bill was able to get a huge bump from the Seattle D (24 points) who scored 2 TDs against Indianapolis on SNF (Big up to Matt for dropping the defense he wasted a 9th round pick on!) and a much more Zeke-like 25 points from Ezekiel "Please Suspend Me" Elliott. The only silver lining for those of us who hope to maybe beat Bill at some point this season is that the first of his injury prone players, Jordan Matthews, is now out of the lineup indefinitely with a thumb injury/surgery. Otherwise Bill's first championship is looking more and more like an inevitability.
The road doesn't get any tougher for Bill in week 5 as he faces a suddenly sputtering Jeremy. Kevin also matches up with a very beatable opponent - as Tim has yet to win a game on odd numbered weeks.
Earl v. Eric
Our third matchup was a showdown between a couple of teams that started off strong in week one before hitting the skids with consecutive losses in weeks two and three. Earl righted the ship while Eric... didn't.
To be fair - Eric just can't win in the injury department. After losing WR Julian Edelman before the season even started, Eric lost another decent WR (Kevin White) in week one. He made a shrewd pickup in RB Chris Carson a short time later, and it looked like he may have righted the ship... until Sunday night when Carson got a high ankle sprain and broke his leg on the same play. (He's done for at least the next eight weeks.) Add to that list RB Ty Montgomery, who fractured several ribs early on in Thursday night's game against the Bears, and there's definitely a theme forming. (I won't even mention Jordan Reed - because OF COURSE he's hurt.) I guess it also doesn't help to have second round WR Amari Cooper put up a big fat goose egg. All of this makes getting 30 points from QB1 Jameis Winston and 32 points from bench QB DeShaun Watson seem trivial at this point, to tell you the truth.
Earl actually experienced a small taste of the Eric treatment himself as he got a strong 24 points out of Philip Rivers but also lost Derek Carr for several weeks with a fractured vertebrae. (Ouch.) Luckily for Earl, though, LeVeon Bell is back in the building! Bell put up a very LeVeon-ly 32 points to compliment yet another impressive (19 point) showing from rookie RB Leonard Fournette, propelling The Upper Deckers on to the victory. (Not mentioning any other names here because there literally weren't any other high points on Earl's roster.)
In the end, Earl breaks even on the season @ 2-2 and starts what now amounts to an eight game push to stay in the win column, if he wants to make the playoffs. He'll start that push with a pretty soft matchup against Dustin in week 5 while Eric takes his losing record into what is shaping up to be another tough test against Jared. At this point, Eric's just hoping to not lose any more players... and maybe that Jared's boy Todd Gurley is exposed as a fraud when he has to play against an actual NFL quality defense? Time will tell.
Tim v. Jeremy
As we hit the bottom half of the order, we (not surprisingly) find Tim and Jeremy - the second and third lowest scoring teams in the league, respectively. Going into week four - Tim had pretty much admitted defeat before the first game had even started (he did get the Butthurt Monday for a reason in a week 3, you know.) But thanks to actual solid play from some of his speculative adds, he managed to steal a win against Jeremy - who looked much more like himself than he did in his week 3 victory over Earl.
Jeremy's season has sort of mirrored that of keeper Tyreek Hill. For every 24 point outing (week 1), there's a 5 point outing (week 2). For every 15 point outing (week 3), there's a 3 point outing (this week.) On the hopeful front - QB Russell Wilson (22 points) had a second consecutive strong fantasy outing, despite his continued lack of pass protection. And TE Charles Clay (13 points) looks like he might finally be hitting his stride as the kind of player people have said he "should be" for the past few years. Unfortunately, it looks like the same can also be said of his former Buffalo teammate Sammy Watkins - though not in a positive way - as he followed up a "break out" 24 points in week 3 with a 1 point stinker in week 4. Jeremy has a lot of potential, but it just wasn't firing consistently in week 4 and Tim took advantage of it.
Not to say that Tim is a picture of consistency by any means, of course. He just had a couple of extra cylinders firing. One misfire was that Tim cut ties with disappointing QB Cam Newton - who then proceeded to score more than his first three weeks combined against the formerly vaunted New England D. But at least Tim got a respectable 20 points out of new de facto starting QB Dak Prescott? WR DeAndre Hopkins (18 points) also didn't disappoint, for a change, thanks to strong play from the previously mentioned DeShaun Watson along and possibly a few more open looks thanks to the return of Houston teammate Will Fuller - who put up 14 points of his own on the CTP bench. Tim's only other double digit score from a starter was the thus far underwhelming RB Christian McCaffrey - who only put up his second straight double digit score thanks to punt return yardage. But, hey, it was good enough to lift him over Jeremy and even both teams out with 2-2 records.
Looking forward to week 5, I want to say that Tim should be able to beat Kevin... but I'm not gonna say it. And Jeremy - I don't want to say he could potentially beat Bill... because I'm almost positive that's just not true. But we can all hope - right?
Andrew v. Nick
Ahh. Remember the good old days? You know, back in week one when Andrew only scored 42 points and Nick had 3 decent running backs? Sadly, times change.
Nick was probably already kicking himself for trading away Todd Gurley... even before he lost rookie sensation Dalvin Cook to a torn ACL in week 4. Now? He definitely is. At least he was able to secure Duke Johnson as a free agent this morning, even if he isn't exactly ideal for a non-PPR league. Still, Johnson had a double digit score (11 points) on the waiver wire in week 4, and that's more than anyone not named Devonta Freeman (13 points), Dalvin Cook (11 points) or Denver D/ST (11 points) on Nick's roster could say. Pretty much everyone else on the Pig Skins was a complete miss and, after going 3-0 to start the season, now Nick's season looks in danger of fizzling.
Speaking of danger, Andrew also likes to live... dangerously. (That was an Austin Powers reference, for those of you who are too young to recognize it... or have good taste in movies.) After his miserable week one, Andrew had actually won two straight coming into this matchup with Nick. He started week four off with a decent 10 point score from Randall Cobb but then spent his day on Sunday getting sub-par single digit totals from everyone except the Cincinnati defense (whom he spent 11 dollars on). It all came down to Monday night football. Would Kirk Cousins be the single digit wonder of his first two weeks, or would he be the thirty point beast we saw in week three? Luckily for Andrew - it was closer to the latter as Cousins posted 20 points and Andrew handed Nick his first (but probably not last) loss of the season.
Moving forward, Andrew will look to extend his winning streak to four with a bye week... I mean matchup against James in week 5 while Nick will hope to stop the bleeding with a similarly "challenging" matchup against Matt.
James v. Matt
"I'm glad to be here with you, Samwise Gamgee. Here at the end of all things." That's right, my nerds. Mordor has nothing on week 4 of Sports league: James actually won a game! (Albeit with just 68 points to his name - a pathetic winning score the likes of which hasn't been surpassed since... week two when Jeremy beat James with a score of 63.) But a win is a win! Let's look at the two or three highlights!
Matt has Aaron Rodgers (21 points.) Other than that, LeSean McCoy and Jacquizz Rodgers barely had double digit scores @ 10 points a piece. And that's about it. Well, I mean, he did trade for Devin Funchess (19 points) earlier in the week - but opted to go with Robert Woods (1 point) as his 3rd WR instead. Good move. On the bright side, at least he had TWO defenses on his roster that each recorded a negative score! Gross.
On James' side: Drew Brees (17 points) continued to be (sort of) Drew Brees-ish, despite his advancing years. Jordan Howard (12 points) looked none the worse for wear from his recent shoulder injury. And, oh yeah, Tyrell Williams (22 points) put up his first double digit score of the year with 115 yards and a TD against the Eagles. Can he keep it up? Not sure, but he does play for an NFL team at least! (Jonathan Williams put up another zero from his living room couch.) I don't know if we can really say this win will turn things around for James - but every revolution has to start somewhere. And Stranger Things Have Happened, right? (Like Andrew winning a championship... even though he sucks. Get it?)
Seems like the best way to continue the revolution for James is taking out Andrew in week 5. (Yup. Hold your breath for that one.) But Matt could find easier sledding against Nick and his suddenly flaccid pig skin... or not.
Whew. Sports.
Jared v. Dustin
I know, I know. From the outside - it looks like a pretty amazing week for Jared and a crappy week for Dustin. But consider this: Dustin was without week 2 stud WR Michael Crabtree - plus perennial points machine Julio Jones left his game prematurely with a hip injury. And Jared - well, he didn't even draft his own team! I mean that in itself is... uh... well, you know...
Yeah, you're right. I'm not buying it either. This was legitimately an amazing week for Jared... and a terrible week for Dustin. Just a couple weeks removed from a high scoring matchup where he (almost) kept pace with Billy - Dustin was virtually a non-starter in week 4. He only had two double digit scores on his entire roster, for crying out loud! If you added his bench points to his starting lineup's points - and then multiplied it by two - he STILL would've lost to Jared. That's just... sad.
And, yes, Jared did auto draft. (Again.) But that highway robbery of Nick for Todd Gurley was all him. (Well, okay, maybe I was the instigator of that one. Sorry Nick.) Gurley put up another 100+ yard day and recorded a whopping 32 points and Bilal Powell made the most of Matt Forte's absence with an idiotic 163 rushing yards and a TD for 29 points of his own! Those two guys beat Dustin - but Jared wasn't done yet. Jordy Nelson added 19 points to the pile, the Houston D feasted on the Tennessee Titans with 24 points and then Terrelle Pryor and Travis Kelce made it even worse on MNF with 14 and 19 points, respectively. By the time the dust settled, Jared had racked up 156 points all together. (That's 2nd highest point total in Sports history, for those keeping track at home. The only person to score higher was some guy called "Tim" who put up 159 points in December of 2013.) That means Jared takes home the Strong Like Abe award for most points this week, the Mark Henry Award for highest weekly total of the whole season, the Pitcher award for his 98 point win over Dustin AND the Boot award because that margin is (obviously) the biggest win of the whole season. That kind of accomplishment warrants a trophy of it's own - so I made one: The Ultimate Warrior. (Note: Dustin took home the Catcher and the mudhole, but did not have the most pathetic score in our league this week - so he avoided any more negative hardware.)
Looking ahead to week 5 - Jared draws another seemingly easy win versus Eric while Dustin will just hope to compete against Earl. Good luck with that one!
Bill v. Kevin
Our second highest scoring matchup was only one point shy of Jared & Dustin's total - but the teams involved carried a much more even share of the load.
Poor Kevin had his highest score of the season but, unfortunately, was up against one of the three teams that scored more than him. (Bill seems to be making a habit of dashing people's hopes like that.) Finally getting an RB1 worthy week out of Lamar Miller (24 points) certainly helped, as did continued solid play from WRs Chris Hogan and AJ Green (12 points each). But a premature end to QB Marcus Mariota's day (14 points) and another disappointing showing from WR Jamison Crowder (0 points) stalled Kevin's engine and made him fall short of getting his first win of the season.
And what more can we say about Bill that hasn't been said already? His 118 points in week four made him not only the last remaining undefeated team in the league but also the only team in the league to break the 100 points threshold in every week of this young 2017 season. Even though Kareem Hunt (14 points) was held out of the endzone on MNF (his lowest score of the season) and Gronk put up a relatively pedestrian (for him) 8 points, Bill was able to get a huge bump from the Seattle D (24 points) who scored 2 TDs against Indianapolis on SNF (Big up to Matt for dropping the defense he wasted a 9th round pick on!) and a much more Zeke-like 25 points from Ezekiel "Please Suspend Me" Elliott. The only silver lining for those of us who hope to maybe beat Bill at some point this season is that the first of his injury prone players, Jordan Matthews, is now out of the lineup indefinitely with a thumb injury/surgery. Otherwise Bill's first championship is looking more and more like an inevitability.
The road doesn't get any tougher for Bill in week 5 as he faces a suddenly sputtering Jeremy. Kevin also matches up with a very beatable opponent - as Tim has yet to win a game on odd numbered weeks.
Earl v. Eric
Our third matchup was a showdown between a couple of teams that started off strong in week one before hitting the skids with consecutive losses in weeks two and three. Earl righted the ship while Eric... didn't.
To be fair - Eric just can't win in the injury department. After losing WR Julian Edelman before the season even started, Eric lost another decent WR (Kevin White) in week one. He made a shrewd pickup in RB Chris Carson a short time later, and it looked like he may have righted the ship... until Sunday night when Carson got a high ankle sprain and broke his leg on the same play. (He's done for at least the next eight weeks.) Add to that list RB Ty Montgomery, who fractured several ribs early on in Thursday night's game against the Bears, and there's definitely a theme forming. (I won't even mention Jordan Reed - because OF COURSE he's hurt.) I guess it also doesn't help to have second round WR Amari Cooper put up a big fat goose egg. All of this makes getting 30 points from QB1 Jameis Winston and 32 points from bench QB DeShaun Watson seem trivial at this point, to tell you the truth.
Earl actually experienced a small taste of the Eric treatment himself as he got a strong 24 points out of Philip Rivers but also lost Derek Carr for several weeks with a fractured vertebrae. (Ouch.) Luckily for Earl, though, LeVeon Bell is back in the building! Bell put up a very LeVeon-ly 32 points to compliment yet another impressive (19 point) showing from rookie RB Leonard Fournette, propelling The Upper Deckers on to the victory. (Not mentioning any other names here because there literally weren't any other high points on Earl's roster.)
In the end, Earl breaks even on the season @ 2-2 and starts what now amounts to an eight game push to stay in the win column, if he wants to make the playoffs. He'll start that push with a pretty soft matchup against Dustin in week 5 while Eric takes his losing record into what is shaping up to be another tough test against Jared. At this point, Eric's just hoping to not lose any more players... and maybe that Jared's boy Todd Gurley is exposed as a fraud when he has to play against an actual NFL quality defense? Time will tell.
Tim v. Jeremy
As we hit the bottom half of the order, we (not surprisingly) find Tim and Jeremy - the second and third lowest scoring teams in the league, respectively. Going into week four - Tim had pretty much admitted defeat before the first game had even started (he did get the Butthurt Monday for a reason in a week 3, you know.) But thanks to actual solid play from some of his speculative adds, he managed to steal a win against Jeremy - who looked much more like himself than he did in his week 3 victory over Earl.
Jeremy's season has sort of mirrored that of keeper Tyreek Hill. For every 24 point outing (week 1), there's a 5 point outing (week 2). For every 15 point outing (week 3), there's a 3 point outing (this week.) On the hopeful front - QB Russell Wilson (22 points) had a second consecutive strong fantasy outing, despite his continued lack of pass protection. And TE Charles Clay (13 points) looks like he might finally be hitting his stride as the kind of player people have said he "should be" for the past few years. Unfortunately, it looks like the same can also be said of his former Buffalo teammate Sammy Watkins - though not in a positive way - as he followed up a "break out" 24 points in week 3 with a 1 point stinker in week 4. Jeremy has a lot of potential, but it just wasn't firing consistently in week 4 and Tim took advantage of it.
Not to say that Tim is a picture of consistency by any means, of course. He just had a couple of extra cylinders firing. One misfire was that Tim cut ties with disappointing QB Cam Newton - who then proceeded to score more than his first three weeks combined against the formerly vaunted New England D. But at least Tim got a respectable 20 points out of new de facto starting QB Dak Prescott? WR DeAndre Hopkins (18 points) also didn't disappoint, for a change, thanks to strong play from the previously mentioned DeShaun Watson along and possibly a few more open looks thanks to the return of Houston teammate Will Fuller - who put up 14 points of his own on the CTP bench. Tim's only other double digit score from a starter was the thus far underwhelming RB Christian McCaffrey - who only put up his second straight double digit score thanks to punt return yardage. But, hey, it was good enough to lift him over Jeremy and even both teams out with 2-2 records.
Looking forward to week 5, I want to say that Tim should be able to beat Kevin... but I'm not gonna say it. And Jeremy - I don't want to say he could potentially beat Bill... because I'm almost positive that's just not true. But we can all hope - right?
Andrew v. Nick
Ahh. Remember the good old days? You know, back in week one when Andrew only scored 42 points and Nick had 3 decent running backs? Sadly, times change.
Nick was probably already kicking himself for trading away Todd Gurley... even before he lost rookie sensation Dalvin Cook to a torn ACL in week 4. Now? He definitely is. At least he was able to secure Duke Johnson as a free agent this morning, even if he isn't exactly ideal for a non-PPR league. Still, Johnson had a double digit score (11 points) on the waiver wire in week 4, and that's more than anyone not named Devonta Freeman (13 points), Dalvin Cook (11 points) or Denver D/ST (11 points) on Nick's roster could say. Pretty much everyone else on the Pig Skins was a complete miss and, after going 3-0 to start the season, now Nick's season looks in danger of fizzling.
Speaking of danger, Andrew also likes to live... dangerously. (That was an Austin Powers reference, for those of you who are too young to recognize it... or have good taste in movies.) After his miserable week one, Andrew had actually won two straight coming into this matchup with Nick. He started week four off with a decent 10 point score from Randall Cobb but then spent his day on Sunday getting sub-par single digit totals from everyone except the Cincinnati defense (whom he spent 11 dollars on). It all came down to Monday night football. Would Kirk Cousins be the single digit wonder of his first two weeks, or would he be the thirty point beast we saw in week three? Luckily for Andrew - it was closer to the latter as Cousins posted 20 points and Andrew handed Nick his first (but probably not last) loss of the season.
Moving forward, Andrew will look to extend his winning streak to four with a bye week... I mean matchup against James in week 5 while Nick will hope to stop the bleeding with a similarly "challenging" matchup against Matt.
James v. Matt
"I'm glad to be here with you, Samwise Gamgee. Here at the end of all things." That's right, my nerds. Mordor has nothing on week 4 of Sports league: James actually won a game! (Albeit with just 68 points to his name - a pathetic winning score the likes of which hasn't been surpassed since... week two when Jeremy beat James with a score of 63.) But a win is a win! Let's look at the two or three highlights!
Matt has Aaron Rodgers (21 points.) Other than that, LeSean McCoy and Jacquizz Rodgers barely had double digit scores @ 10 points a piece. And that's about it. Well, I mean, he did trade for Devin Funchess (19 points) earlier in the week - but opted to go with Robert Woods (1 point) as his 3rd WR instead. Good move. On the bright side, at least he had TWO defenses on his roster that each recorded a negative score! Gross.
On James' side: Drew Brees (17 points) continued to be (sort of) Drew Brees-ish, despite his advancing years. Jordan Howard (12 points) looked none the worse for wear from his recent shoulder injury. And, oh yeah, Tyrell Williams (22 points) put up his first double digit score of the year with 115 yards and a TD against the Eagles. Can he keep it up? Not sure, but he does play for an NFL team at least! (Jonathan Williams put up another zero from his living room couch.) I don't know if we can really say this win will turn things around for James - but every revolution has to start somewhere. And Stranger Things Have Happened, right? (Like Andrew winning a championship... even though he sucks. Get it?)
Seems like the best way to continue the revolution for James is taking out Andrew in week 5. (Yup. Hold your breath for that one.) But Matt could find easier sledding against Nick and his suddenly flaccid pig skin... or not.
Whew. Sports.
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