Today is two years from the first documented use of “Must Be Sunday” according to my Timehop! While the phrase itself may only be two years old, the meaning behind those three simple words has existed among human beings for ages. Or at least since the NFL’s founding in 1920.
To make a short story even shorter – a number of members of The League were watching Sunday football, as we do. I took a snapchat video of the crew watching, bantering and bartering, etc, and and captioned it “Must Be Sunday.” When future students are studying the rise and fall of the American empire they will write a DBQ (document based question, I think?, for you non New York public school educated readers) comparing this moment to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The only difference is I don’t know how to write in script.
The time stamp says 5:03 pm. According to the old google machine – there were two games on during this slate on this historical day – the 7-9 Raiders in Houston to face the 10-6 Texans and the 6-10 Browns facing the 12-4 Patriots. What an old fashion sentence! Things done changed. I imagine we were watching the Texans game because my QB1 that year was the now seemingly bad-guy Deshaun Watson.
What a day for football this was! The 3-5 Chargers visited the 3-4 Bears and, naturally, the Bears, lost 17-16 on a last second missed Eddy Pineiro missed field goal. Total Bears move. We probably laughed a lot. I don’t remember. Sounds fund. The 4-12 Giants lost to the 3-3-1 Lions 31-26. Ooooffff! I must’ve loved this one. Don’t let the score fool you. The G-Men scored a garbage time touchdown to get to 26. Love it. Boring game, but for the sake of New York fandom, the 1-6 Jets lost to the 4-4 Jaguars 29-15. Minshew Mania, baby! Old reliable Adam Vinateri delivered an end-of-game field goal to deliver a 15-13 victory for the 5-2 Colts over the 2-6 Broncos. Although by the time the primetime game was on we probably all crawled out of the Vignali’s house like basement people to go see our families and drink water it was a marquee matchup that I’m sure we were excited about. The 7-1 Packers against the 5-3 Chiefs. Wow! Packers won 31-24. Major fantasy implications in this game!
On that note, lets discuss what happened in The League on the day of our nations founding. Beans Corp faced Country Roads, Take Mahomes AKA Kris. I needed this one but I didn’t get it despite good performances from Watson, Marlon Mack and JuJu. Again, what an old fashioned sentence! Derrick Henry only got me 6.7. 2021 DH would never dog me like that. My sworn enemy / life partner Robby Anderson gave me 6.3 because obviously. Just obviously. What a joke. Despite the hot start for David Johnson that year this was when he was either injured or just stopped playing football as he was on my bench with a goose egg. For some reason Jacoby Brissett was also on my bench. Kris’ team honestly had a mediocre showing but I got Julio’d and Patriots D/ST’d to death as both scored 20 points. Buns! I lost 112.7 – 110.9. BRUTAL! Because it is pre-2020 Kris had Todd Gurley, although he only put up 10 points. Jamison Crowder and Carlos Hyde were out there battling for Kris. He also had Darrel Henderson before it was cool, although he was riding the bench this week. Also on the bench was Miles Sanders who put up 21.3 points. My eyes burned when I read that as I roster the Eagles back this year. Nightmares!
Everybody Hates Kris aka Andrew faced Here’s To You, Mr. Robinson (Jack). I wonder if they knew that two years into the future they would be sharing a bathroom in the big city. The champ before he was the champ that year put up a monster 144.9 to Jack’s 125.1. For some inexplixable reason Andrew started rookie Daniel Jones, but it greatly paid off as he put up a rock solid 28. Andrew also naturally had a huge week from McCaffrey and an awesome 25 points from Edelman. Nice! Some old school names on Andrew’s roster include Philip Lindsay at RB2 and Duke Johnson on the bench. “Duke Johnson? Duke Johnson?” You know the rest. Jack came up short despite 36 points (!) from Tevin Coleman and 18 points from 49ers D/ST against Carolina. A measly 10 points from Kyler. Ugly! Jack started Tarik Cohen and Kerryon Johnson. How was this only two years ago?
Baby Chark Doo Doo Doo aka Lebron beat HockeyPro69 aka Abie 137.2 – 113.1. Lebron enjoyed rock solid performances from Aaron Jones, James Conner and his team’s namesake DJ Chark. Also, Steelers D/ST dropped 15 points against Miami. Seems like a monster week for defenses. Leveon Bell had a horrible week for Lebron. Man, he has been so far from fantasy relevance. Lebron also gave scary Terry the start before he became truly scary. for so long now! I need to list Abie’s roster because it is SO 2019! Aaron Rodgers, Leondard Fournette, Jordan Howard, Michael Thomas, OBJ, DeDe Westbrook, Gerald Everett, Seahawks D/ST & Zane Gonzalez. Oh man, what a trip down memory lane. I genuinely haven’t thought about Jordan Howard or DeDe Westbrook in two years. I remember it was a thing on the pod that only Zane Gonzalez was good on Abie’s team that year. That held true this week as he dropped 11 points. Rodgers and Michael Thomas did well too. However, DeDe dropped a big fat goose egg. Classic!
Now We Cookin’ (Max) v. Baker MaySUCK (Ryan) was a true classic. Max dropped 189.3! What?! Ryan dropped a weak 94. Yikes! Ha – Max had Barkley, Dalvin Cook AND Ekeler. The first two combined for 49.9. Ekeler a meek 9.2. Aside from Robbie Gould who put up 9, Austin E is the only player who was in single digits! Yet another big week from a defense, as the Vikings dropped 13. Kenny G and Cooper Kupp scored 25.3 and 31.5, respectively. That halfway foreshadowed things to come. You know what’s happening with them this year. Ryan got 15.8 from Minseota Viking Stefon Diggs. Nothing else went right. Philip Rivers got the start and put up 10. Devonta Freeman gave Ryan 12. DeSean Jackson was on Ryan’s bench. Throwback!
Finally, The Flandrew’s (Brent) lost to Abraham Leider: Vampire Hunter (Alex). Our former member Alex needed this one. This was the year he kept scoring a lot but just couldn’t find a W. Luckily for him, Brent shit the bed this week and couldn’t crack 100. Alex won 137.8 – 99.9. Brent’s team has some current starters – Hopkins, Carson, Godwin and Waller. He also started Ty Johnson and Goff. Funny! You know what’s even funnier – Alex started MASON RUDOLPH. He also started Frank Gore. Gotta respect that. This was also the days of John Brown getting fantasy starts. Much to the chagrin of his brother, Alex got a nice 37.3 from Mike Evans. David Montgomery also had a nice week.
What a week for fantasy! Rockin’ and rollin’ and whatnot. What happened outside the football world on this historical day you ask? Thanks to Jack for sending me a link to a website that just lists things that happened each day. For some reason they didn’t include the start of Must Be Sunday, so take it with a grain of salt or whatever the phrase is I’m not even totally sure. There seemed to be a lot of news about ISIS, so that probably wasn’t good. Game 5 of the World Series took place that night. The Astros beat the Nationals 7-1 to take a 3-2 series lead. Thankfully, they would go on to lose the series to the Nationals. Soon-to-be Yankee Ace Gerrit Cole went 7 strong striking out 9.
Seriously, what a fun two years it’s been. Alex and Lebron are out, Brad and Thomas are in, but The League itself remains the same. Let’s see how different the NFL and fantasy football is two years from now. One thing I know for sure is Robby Anderson will be on my team and he will have just given me 6.3 points. He is going to turn me into the Joker. “That’s lifeee.”
Must Be Sunday: 2019 – infinity. Go League!
Must Be Sunday 