Is this the fall of Rome? Perhaps not, but without two-thirds of BVB (Beans, Vigs, Bones) the show must go on. And it did.
Many wondered if Bones and Zook had the “right stuff” to handle business alone. As the Crimson Tide football team says, “Let a naysayer know.” The rest of the league is now on notice.
That being said, this week’s review will be brief since I’m at Auburn and won’t have time to get into the nitty-gritty. It’s also coming a few days late. As a result, I’m giving my review a preemptive 66%🍅.
Bones and Zook got the job done like pros, and in record time — just 52 minutes this week.
Here’s what we know: Brent, Kris and Bones are in a league of their own right now. It would take a miracle for any other team to win the chip and that’s just the way it is.
With my recent bad trade (the jury is still out on whether it’s actually a bad trade) I am 2-5 and beginning to draft a 10-minute standup set.
That being said, this week’s pod was fresh and lively. Plus we got the great news that Zook will not need surgery after all. Put that all together and we have one of the best shows of the season. You bet it’s certified fresh, 90% 🎃.
The future is female and League Talk is finally on board.
For the first time in the history of the show, a female voice was heard on the program. The legendary Arielle Pistiner, a long-time friend and Brent’s first girlfriend, called in to discuss the No. 1 topic in all of football: Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.
Though that relationship has little to no impact on the fantasy season, it was nice to see that the BVB crew (Beans, Vigs, Bones) still has some tricks up their sleeves. Despite some technical issues, the very special guest may be just what the program needs to finally get over that sponsorship hump.
I also hopped on the pod, tough act to follow. My time was short but sweet, explaining the trade that I pray will lead me to the promised land. We’ll check back on that in a few weeks.
But even before the call, there was a moment that most listeners probably questioned. Vigs had something he wanted to say but didn’t. He wrote his thoughts down but we never got to hear them. What did Vigs’ message say? We may never know (please text me, I want to know).
As he has seemed to do every week, Vigs put on another pronunciation clinic. This week’s was a doozy, as he couldn’t get “Acuña” out correctly. First of all, it’s Uh-koon-yuh, not Hakuna Matata. Secondly, how do you not know this? Not only is his brother Ronald the MVP but he’s also been bashing the Mets for years now.
To make matters worse, he also had trouble with the word pronounciate in a variety of different ways I don’t care to write out phonetically.
Now let’s get to the only important part of the show — the picks.
Ryan vs. Jack All on Ryan -Beans: Ryan (103-88) -Vigs: Ryan (N/A) -Bones: Ryan (96-82)
Brad vs. Abie All on Abie -Beans: Abie (112-102) -Vigs: Abie (N/A) -Bones: Abie (117-106)
Kris vs. Vigs Two on Kris, one on Vigs -Beans: Kris (117-101) -Vigs: Vigs (121-114) -Bones: Kris (127-101)
Bones vs. Max All on Bones -Beans: Bones (123-99.9) -Vigs: Bones (N/A) -Bones: Bones (122-110)
Beans vs. Brent All on Brent -Beans: Brent (145-102) -Vigs: Beans and then he hit the uno reverse so Brent (“Fuck Brent” – Vigs) -Bones: Brent (132-98)
The guys also did a brief Dudes vs. Dogs segment but it wasn’t worth breaking down.
At one hour and 26 minutes, this episode felt a bit too long. Somehow, even at that length, we had zero (0) food delivery interruptions. With the first-ever female guest, and no Ryan, the show found a way to cross the finish line but not in a position to place. This episode is still certified fresh: 69% 🍅.
Any episode with a line as powerful as that MUST be a winner.
De’Von Achane is a two-time loser this week. In addition to hitting the IR with a knee injury, Vigs still can’t get his (or Jared Policar’s) name right.
A PSA: After his four touchdown performance Sunday, Dolphins’ rookie RB Devon Achane informed the team that, moving forward, he would like his name to be pronounced De-Von A-Chan.
Not A-Chain, as it currently is listed in the team’s media guide. A-Chan.
We can only hope this tweet will make a difference going forward.
The original duo handled business this week, with Zook (Zuke?) and Tommy Bones off the mic. Tommy still contributed from the sky, sending texts that Beans read for him.
I don’t know if we need to have Uber Eats or DoorDash start paying the show but the food delivery interruptions found their way into yet another episode. How was Chipotle?
This week also marked the return of the power rankings. Here’s how things stack up in the minds of Beans and Vigs:
Brent
Kris
Thomas
Brad
Beans
Max
Abie
Vigs
Ryan
Jack
“Write about this.” Vigs, Wednesday, the 25th is marked on my calendar. See you in Bama.
If you didn’t stay until the end of the pod, you missed some wild discussion about Taylor Swift being a HUGE League Talk fan and her inviting the show to record live on the European leg of the Eras Tour. Phenomenal content.
Week 6’s entry clocks in at just under an hour and 12 minutes. In my humble opinion, this is one of the season’s best episodes. No doubt, it’s certified fresh. 96% 🍅.
A Tuesday night pod will always make things interesting. Guys on byes, waiver moves not yet made and a whole host of other things.
And yet, none of that could prepare us for one of the wilder opens in League Talk history.
Not normally known for his vocal talents, Brendan “Beans” Cahill flashed the pipes with his own version of the 2006 classic “Hey There Delilah.” This cut took a turn from the original, moving the central theme from love to hate as he sang of Joe Burrow’s struggles. I was truly touched by this moment. It’s even more impressive when you stick around to learn that Beans pulled a Jay Z and wrote the entire joint in five minutes.
Eventually, the regularly scheduled programing resumed as the gang (minus Tommy Bones) attacked the Week 4 action. It was an embarrassing week for many league members, this humble hack included.
Once game talk started, Andrew continued to showcase his command of the English language, adding two new names to his victim list: De’Von Achane and Matt Breida. He also called me Jack. We’ll get ’em next time, bud.
New to the pod this week was a food delivery interruption. Not once, but twice. If listeners weren’t hungry before, they were when the poultry arrived.
I also made a guest appearance on the show this week. Ratings boost anyone???
We also got some important injury updates. Zuke (Zook?) is now listed as “day by day” as he continues to recover from a skateboard assault and Beans is back at full strength.
The Week 5 episode runs just over an hour and 23 minutes. With singing and jokes, this entry is absolutely certified fresh. 87% 🍅.
A broken hip and a mouth injury suffered during a “tumble.” No, this is not the injury report from your local nursing home, it’s a status update on two of your favorite Hoboken residents.
In the history of fantasy football podcasts, rarely, if ever, have two hosts been as disheveled as Ryan and Brendan this week. Honestly, it’s hard to say if two roommates have ever had a week like this in recorded history. Jack, run the numbers.
For years now, loyal “League Talk” listeners have hit play on Spotify, or other streaming platforms if you’re a loser, to enjoy the weekly program on the way to work, while taking a shit, or doing a number of things it’s best not to put in writing. But today only today, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023, had I decided enough was enough.
Puka Nacua and Rachaad White. What do they have in common? Well aside from being on NFL rosters, they have names Andrew Vignali is unable to pronounce. For weeks, Vignali has struggled with White’s name. Despite corrections from other hosts of the pod, the butchering continued this week. To make matters worse, this week the twin added rising star Nacua to his list. Sources tell me this was the final straw for Brent, who was on the verge of driving off the George Washington Bridge when he heard it.
Clocking in at one hour and 17 minutes this week, the pod was 80% killer and 20% filler. With Vigs, Beans, Bones and Zuke (Zook?), there were some great comments and reaction to the week’s slate.
Yoooooo, I missed last week because I was running around getting ready to go away, so here’s a quick two-fer. Lots of transactions Week 7 but not much action on The Wire, probably even less in Week 8. Gotta put together a LeagueStory to run through some of the overarching trends of the season so far, but that’s for another time:
WEEK 7: 1) Real close game here between Beans and Kris, with Kris squeaking out a win by 4.46. Brendan dropped Darnell Mooney for Isiah Pacheco, who scored 6.8 points. If you saw the auction report and noted that Beans also got Michael Gallup on auction for $5 FAAB and started him, you’ll probably want to know that Pacheco’s 6.8 points is exactly 6.8 points more than Gallup’s output that week. A few other gentlemen who rode the bench put up the points needed to keep the Beans Corp. comeback alive, but Kris is in a bit of a comeback era himself, and there can only be one in this situation. Better luck next time Beans, but as you’ll see this is a “next time” in week 9, not week 8… 2) If you turn now in your history books to the Battle of 1017, you’ll see it was a hard fought affair won by Commissioner Andrew I by a margin of 11.44 over Lord Thomas of the House of Bones. The Commissioner made a few very beneficial strategic moves before battle, acquiring a cavalry of Colts (9 pts.) and soliciting the services of a great Hunter named Renfrow (7 pts.), which surely turned the tide of this great battle. Less deft however was the choice made by the Lord of Bones, by keeping his newly acquired Panther, Chuba Hubbard (14.3 pts.), chained in his castle and unable to ravage his opponent with its razor sharp claws and teeth. These medieval/animal puns doing anything for you?
WEEK 8: Before I get into match-ups I do want to mention this. I noticed Abie dropped Russell Wilson on Tuesday before the waiver transactions went through. This does happen every now and again and I don’t usually pay much attention to it, but this week I thought it was funny that he didn’t get either of the auctioned players he bid on and basically dropped the guy anticipating an add that never happened. Anyway, let’s keep going. 1) Beans, Beans, Beans. Guy can’t catch a break on The Wire. This week he drops TWO players who would have erased his -5.4 point loss margin, in Romeo Doubs (14.2) and Rondale Moore (19.9), while purchasing Wan’Dale Robinson for $5 FAAB and only getting 2.5 points in return. This was a bad game for the New York Football Giants, but still don’t be surprised if you see Wan’Dale in the Dropped column next week. That’s what you get for trusting your rivals (Giants) to beat your other rival (Brent). 2) Tommy Bones redeemed himself this week in the eyes of The Wire by grabbing Jason Meyers for 11 points and defeating Max by a 6.68 point margin. However, Max would like me to inform you all that he slept through the start of the 1pm games and was therefore unable to swap Darren Waller out for Mike Gesicki after Waller was ruled out. I haven’t listened to this week’s Pod yet so I’m not sure if he called in and mentioned that already.
And those are all the games that had stakes related to add/drops and auctions. It’s a skimpy article, but it’s here and that’s what matters. Now, here’s BenchBooms:
A nice variety of Boomers! Max has still not cracked the Top 5 benched players which is probably good but he better keep it up if he wants to stay out of last place where it really counts. Kris has 2, pretty impressive.
That’s pretty much it, LeagueStory coming soon maybe, keep an eye out for fun charts and graphs there 🙂
“I’mmmmmm going throughhhh chaaaanngeeessss.” – Christian McCaffrey and me.
Wow! The former first overall fantasy pick and I are really going through earth shattering life transitions at the same time. Mr. McCaffrey is moving to San Francisco and I’m growing a mustache.
Christian McCaffrey has only ever played on the Carolina Panthers and I’ve never grown a mustache before. The talented back has played in San Francisco a couple of times, and I’ve had above the lip hair before as I’ve been bearded up the last couple of years, but I’ve never gone for the full, solo mustache. We are truly both embarking on uncharted territory. I take comfort in knowing that I’m going through my period of massive transition at the same time as someone else. I’m sure Christian, I feel like I can call him that, feels the same.
So, I know what you’re thinking. “Beans, growing a mustache is a big change for you. Are you sure you’re okay?” Yeah, man. I’m okay. Some of you have very nicely reached out to express your support for me while I go through this mustache growing period. I appreciate it. I truly do. I just hope you reach out to Christian as well. We are both going through changes.
You see, while I’ve never grown a mustache before, and I’m a bit worried about what a mustache future looks like, at least I’m not packing up and moving across the country! Our man CMC better call his boys to help get him moved quick because he has a game in San Francisco in two days!
As I mentioned before, he’s played in San Francisco before. Two times according to the worldwide web. The first time was on 9/10/2017, although the Panthers website incorrectly lists the date is 12/10/2017 which threw my research off for a few seconds. In this 23-3 Panthers victory CMC had 18 attempts and rushed for 47 yards. A 3.3 yard average. He also had five receptions on seven attempts for 38 receiving yards. Zero touchdowns. If my math is incorrect, and it may not be because I get donkey brains after midnight, he served up a mid eleven fantasy points.
Since the original League was scraped and deleted from ESPN when Andrew’s Napoleonic coup d’état came to be in 2018, I can’t tell you who had the rookie back, but he certainly didn’t win them their week. It’s a different story the second time he played in San Francisco. This came during his run of fantasy dominance in the 2019 season. What a time. That was before I ever even had a beard, much less thought of growing a whole ass mustache. The niners blew the Panthers out of the San Francisco Bay winning 51-13! Despite the real-life football debacle, CMC did prime 2019 CMC things. He had 14 carries for 117 yards, an 8.4 yard average rush! The man also scored a touchdown. Oh, and he also casually had 4 receptions for 46 yards (on 11 targets though, weird). Since this was post military takeover, I can tell you exactly how this stellar performance impacted The League. As we all remember, Francisco Franco himself, Andrew Vignali, was lucky enough to roster CMC in 2019 (the year he won the championship). In this week 8 matchup against our very own Jack Staub, Andrew coasted to a solid 144-125 victory in large part due to CMC’s remarkable 25 points. Remember when scores used to be like that back when football players were good at playing football?
CMC is heading to his new home with some positive feelings from the last time he was there. Good for him. Good for Kris, who currently rosters him. Bad for me, who is playing Kris this week.
Saying that, I do wonder how I can focus on fantasy football when I’m mid mustache growth! I guess I just need to balance all that life is throwing at me the best I can. I can do this. I can handle growing this mustache and getting my fantasy team back on track. If CMC can handle his massive transition, then I can handle mine. Mustached Beans by a billion this week. I just need to find a way to overcome my fellow challenge tackler.
Now THIS, this is the Wire I like to see folks. Three of five games were close enough that these roster moves could be said to have made (almost) all of the difference between a sweet dub and a lowly L.
Before we get into it, I wanted to use my platform to say my piece on the Taysom Hill debate: The fact of the matter is that half of The League bid on this player, and because of this it’s hard for any of them to deny that whoever won the auction would not have played him in the TE spot. After all, that’s the only spot ESPN is allowing him to be played in. It’s also worth repeating that there was no talk of him being “ineligible” until after Ryan had already spent the money, which is unfair to him and anyone else who might have won the auction had different offers been made. I don’t know if it’s easy to manually adjust FAAB, but if Andrew as the Commish is using executive power to disallow Ryan from slotting Hill in the TE spot then he should definitely be compensated the amount he spent. I personally think he should be allowed to play him, the Saints are kind of a mess so if you want to take that risk then go for it. That’s why I didn’t bid. I applaud Ryan for making a smart move with his FAAB in a season where he’s already a favorite for the belt, hope we can all level up like that.
Anyway, with that meaningless opinion out of the way, here are the games we’re breaking down on The Wire:
Kris vs. Ryan: 3.4 point win by Kris While the big debate among us (lol) was over a guy Ryan picked up, we should have been paying attention to Kris and his game of Musical Kickers. From Matt Gay to Greg Josephs, finally landing on Jason Meyers got him a very solid 13 points. Ryan was hoping for some defensive action Monday night, but Kris hung on for the 3.4 point victory thanks to the Seattle leg man. Guys, I said this last week but Kris is coming for blood. We’re getting to that point in the season and I for one am kind of scared. Spooky season.
Tom vs. Brendan: 11.9 point win by Brendan This one was a matter of defenses, as many of these are, but there’s a bit more to it than just picking up the right guy. Bonez bid $4 on the Rams defense, but woke up to an empty bench on Wednesday of last week when he found out that his roommate had stolen Aaron Donald from right under his nose for just a dollar more. Tommy eventually landed on the Bengals, who unfortunately hit him with a goose egg while the Buffalo Bonez lost one to Beans Corp. (a company whose stock was recently upgraded by Jim Cramer from a “Sell” to a “Don’t Buy”) by 11.9. While those 10 points wouldn’t have put Tommy in the win column, it certainly would have made things much closer. Last piece of the puzzle is surprisingly Brent, who picked up the Patriots defense (13 points) but didn’t start them? Did Brent know something and, wanting to throw Beans a bone, stash this defense on purpose? I just asking questions here, folks. Beanso also spent $25 on Geno Smith and $4 on Rondale Moore who contributed to his win, hopefully that FAAB was worth spending because you now have the lease amount in The League
Brad vs. Andrew: 3.4 point win by Brad After keeping Thomas from having the Rams defense and a 1.9 point loss margin instead of an 11.9 point one, Vigs hit the free agency pool and grabbed Kirk Cousins for free, who scored 16.5 on Sunday. He opted instead to keep in the slowly disintegrating Tom Brady, who got himself a 13.72 between berating his linemen and bloodletting so he can look his very best. At the end of the week, buddy ended up losing to Brad by a slim 3.92. Cousins would have needed to start and get at least 1.15 more points somehow to make it a win, so it wasn’t a game-losing mistake by any means. You can’t blame the guy for not going for Cousins, he’s not a Targaryen for Seven’s sake! Nah but really, when Barstool has a tier in their power rankings called “Kirk Cousins” that’s between D & F tier, you’re probably not going to start him over the guy with the rings. That’s all good and fine, but the REAL mistake is on all of us letting Brad get hot! We all knew he had the power inside him, and quite soon last season will be a distant memory because the hits keep on coming. Juuuust before kickoff on Sunday, the South Jersey Devil scooped up Deon Jackson who went off for a 23.1 point payday. That’s a very nice look and something we love to see on The Wire.
I almost forgot, BenchBooms!
As you can see, Buffalo Bonez still has a commanding lead which only got bigger thanks to Brandon Aiyuk (24.3). There was a tie for second place this week due to Andrew having the third most (Cousins, see above) and fifth most (Allen Robinson II, 14.8) bench points. Tying with fellow Hoboken resident and local silly boy Brendan Cahill, who benched Juju with 19.8. I think I’m starting to see a bit of a pattern of who’s doing this more than others… We’ll see how it pans out at the end, but only one person can receive The Golden Bench.
I’ll hopefully be joining League Talk tomorrow, so I might throw in a few other tidbits I’ve collected in my research. Be sure to listen in, and start leaving the show some reviews huh? We’ll generate some more engagements for the algorithm, and that’s good for all of us. Go Yanks.
At this point, I don’t know if I have to vocabulary to describe the way things are going. Losing is nothing new for me. In fact, I’ve been talking Ls since Day One (I have three in my name).
But there’s a difference between losing and being lost. It’s a fine line, but the season of the Owen squad may just have been lost.
Not to rehash old talking points, but let’s. The fourth-highest-scoring team in the league is in last place. Normally, that would be good enough for, say, at least one win. But this is no normal season. Only one team has had 800+ points scored against them. No need to look it up, it’s me. 820.44 points in fact. The next most points against is 751.02, coming against Brent’s squad. He’s 3-3 by the way.
The worst part is that there’s no way up. After having to sit half my team during their bye week, I now return to almost full strength against Brad — minus the goat Josh Allen.
Here’s the part where I tell you “I stand corrected”. I woke up this morning to a GroupMe message from our Commish stating that he though this was the worst season ever for The League through six weeks. I’m thinking to myself, “I’m doing pretty well so far, Herbert didn’t get me as much as I would have liked this week but I still beat Brent. What’s this guy talking about?” I went on to reply with a hilarious GIF from the movie Billy Madison, oh my God that is funny, implying I thought my former roommate was wrong. I crunched the numbers, and it turns out that I’M the one who was wrong. Take a look:
As you can see, we are in fact in the worst season so far, not even cracking 7,000 total points through 6 weeks. What makes it worse is that 2021 was the highest scoring first 6 weeks, so we’re seeing a huge year-to-year drop off. Hopefully this is fixed soon. I wonder how this compares to the NFL total points, will I dive back in for some more research? Stay tuned to find out. If not, the Wire soon come…
EDIT: I crunched the numbers again, thanks to pro-football-reference.com and found that there does happen to be a bit of a correlation here:
The only season out of place is 2020 with the most points through Week 6 and the third-most fantasy points for The League. How fitting, perhaps nearly a year in lockdown made the boys’ brains a little mushy and we weren’t scoring like we should have been, perhaps the points scored were across a wider range of NFL players due to last-minute COVID list substitutions, perhaps more of these points were scored by kickers with less fantasy value. Regardless, I think it’s safe to say that it’s not The League’s owners’ fault that our scores have been so low. It’s the fault of the National Football League, as is most things. Thanks for reading, Go League!
Must Be Sunday 