Da Commish gives a passionate post game interview after defeating HOCKEYPRO69 and clinching his 3rd playoff appearnace in 4 years
I think I got my swagger back. Ohhhhh. Ohhhhhhh. The fantasy playoffs are almost here and I’m as giddy as a little schoolboy. Plus, I also clinched a spot in the postseason. Go me! Anyway, since I enjoy writing these shorter Tier Lists better than the full team Power Rankings, I figured I’m just going to keep doing it. Don’t like it? Fuck you, pay me. I do this shit for the love of The League, fantasy football and your enjoyment. Oh, and the belt. I’m bringing that shit home.
Tier 1: The Worst Shit I’ve Ever Seen
South Jersey 4th & Schlong (Brad Peditto)
Yep, I’m going pretty blunt right out of the gate here. The Bradley’s are thiiiiiis close to cementing themselves as the proud owners of the worst performance in LeagueStory. Jack, pull up the data for me, but has anyone ever settled for a single measley win in The League? Not even Marzy’s inaugural 2018 team suffered this fate. To make matters worse, Keenan Allen is out with Covid this week. At least our man faces Thomas, the one team he has taken down, in a last-ditch attempt to right the ship.
Tier 2: Only Reason They Aren’t in Tier 1 Is Because Brad Exists
Beans Corp (Brendan Cahill)
To say things didn’t go right for Beans Corp in the ’21 season would be an understatement. The highlight of course was winning the Royal Rumble. Since that fateful July night, everything that can go wrong has gone wrong. We call that Murphy’s Law. Fortunately, Justin Herbert, CMC and De’Andre Swift played enough games for Beans to win at least a few games (the latter two he unceremoniously shipped off to Max in the biggest trade The League has ever seen). But at no point in this season was my co-host ever threatening to make a run for the belt. Expect some big changes this offseason.
Tier 3: Barely Breathing… But Alive
Bama Butts (Max Cohan)
HOCKEYPRO69 (Abie Leider)
Norse Horse (Kris Blaine)
The Martians (Ryan O’Connell)
What do these four teams have in common? Well, they got everything to play for this week. A victory on Sunday and they’re likely to land a spot among the “Sexy 6” teams playoff bound. Suffer a loss and its bye-bye, sayonara, thanks for playing. Think of it this way… if you lose on Sunday, you basically wasted the last 12 weeks of a life. Abie and Max currently have the slight upper hand, both at 7 wins compared to Ryan and Kris’s 6. However, Ryan and Kris own tiebreakers over their counterparts, both outscoring the aforementioned on the year. Got all that? If you don’t, it’s ok. Listen to this week’s episode of League Talk where we break it all down.
Tier 4: Good, Solid Teams
Thomas and Friends (Andrew Vignali)
Buffalo Bonez (Thomas Antonello)
This tier is pretty self-explanatory. Thomas and I are both good, solid teams. That’s why we land where we do. Now I’m not saying we’re the best, but we’re definitely far from the worst. We both have rightfully earned our playoff spots (technically Thomas hasn’t clinched but it would take a minor miracle for Bonez to miss the playoffs – he’d have to lose to Brad!!). Thomas and I are both deep at the right positions, RB-WR-QB. And it wouldn’t be particularly shocking if either of us make a deep playoff run. That’s pretty much all I have to say about that. Moving on.
Tier 5: The Defending Champ
The F’landrew’s (Brent Gotkin)
Fresh off a monster cuck job courtesy of Javaonte Williams of all people, the defending champion has clinched his playoff spot and is looking particularly dangerous. The biggest, baddest guy in both the bar and in The League, Brent is looking prime to do the one thing nobody has had the good fortune to ever do… go back-to-back. Stacked with the best WR, 3 top RBs, a solid group of TEs and a one of the top QBs, our man has it all. He’s kicking ass and taking names.
Tier 6: The Vegas Favorite
Jonathan Taylor 2.0 (Jack Staub)
Was he the best player available at the time, or did Jack just want to reuse his fantasy name for the second year in a row? Whatever his reasoning was, Jack ended up taking JT with the fateful 7th overall pick last August and looks like a fucking genius now. That’s right folks. Jack is currently going at -1000 to win his first League championship and take home this year’s prize money and Championship belt. All odds provided by DraftKings. It’s not hard to see why. He’s got like 5 of the top 10 players in fantasy this year when you include Brady, Patterson, Chase, Deebo and Tyreek Hill. Fuck, even George Kittle is rolling now. Honestly, I don’t see how my man loses unless lightning strikes the Colts practice facility and causes Taylor to miss the rest of the season. Man, I hope I didn’t jinx him.
Boom. Tier list done. I’m now in playoff mode. An unprecedented 14th week of the regular season kicks off tomorrow with Steelers-Vikings? This game would’ve been a good one back in the 70’s, but is far from a marquee matchup in in 2021. Still, I’ll be glued to my television screen since I have Mattison going. Fuck I hate when that happens. Anyway, before I wrap this up – I have one last tidbit to conclude this week’s column. Below, I will be summarizing the different playoff/clinching scenarios to be on the lookout for this week. As you’ll see, everyone still has a meaningful game left.
Current Standings*:
Jack – Clinched the first overall seed and bye
Brent – Clinches 2nd seed and bye with a victory
Andrew – Clinches 2nd seed with win and Brent loss
Thomas – Clinches playoff spot with victory, or losses by at least 2 of Abie, Max, Kris and Ryan
Max – Clinches playoff spot with victory, or losses by both Abie and Kris
Abie – Clinches playoff spot with victory, or losses by both Kris and Ryan
Kris – Clinches playoff spot with win and loss by either Max or Abie
Ryan – Clinches playoff spot with win and losses by Abie and Kris
Brendan – Can help me out by beating Brent
Brad – Can do the unthinkable, beat Thomas and maybe keep him out of the playoffs (its possible)
*For simplicity/tiebreaking purposes, all scenarios assume the current tiebreaking order of Total Points. Everything can go out the window if one team leap frogs another in Points Scored*
In the immortal words of Tommy Pickles, “Hold onto your diapies, babies. We’re going in!”
Wow, it’s been quite a while hasn’t it? I forget exactly what kept me from doing Weeks 10 on time, possibly work, but then the obvious Thanksgiving break came up for Week 11 and I suddenly found myself with COVID and nearly three weeks behind on my column. I’m really trying to keep this short as we all ease our way back into the content-sphere and gear up for the final weeks of the regular season. You can see every add and drop that went on for almost a month above, so I’ll just run through the highlights of each week. You can look for your name and see if there’s a green (good job) or a red (bad job) if I don’t mention ya below:
Week 10:
The only notes I took on this week were blunders made by Kris is his battle for relevancy against Abie. In retrospect, this game actually had a pretty big impact, as it keeps Abie in the playoff hunt. If only Kris didn’t drop Hunter Henry (17.7 points) and spend $16 FAAB on OBJ (2.8 points) while dropping the Cowboys Defense (22(!) points), that 13 point win margin would be going the other way, and the Norse Horse’s 165 point performance in Week 12 would have been much scarier for folks like me. I actually just remembered that it was Abie himself who took the Boys D on waivers for one measly FAAB buck and got the 22 points himself, so you really hate to see that if you’re Kris. At least that’s only reopening an emotional wound, and hopefully the physical wound from the surgery has been healing up nicely. Just remember, it’s all a game.
Another huge pick-up happened in this week thanks to New England’s favorite boom-or-bust back, Rhamondre Stevenson (Beans Corp., 25.4 points, I spelled that right on the first try). Upon further inspection of the chart above, you could argue that Beans’ pick-ups of Chris Boswell (12 pts.) and Nyheim Hines (3.9 points) also contributed to part of that 14 point win margin. This is in spite of the dropped Robby Anderson scoring 11.7 to Hines’ almost 4, but I think it was probably for the better that the “Hines Game” prediction didn’t materialize. If he beat Brad by a bigger margin then he might have gone even MORE Hollywood in his celebrations, and the fall from grace in the past week would have been that much harder, which none of us want to see. That being said, not having to worry about the playoffs give you time to crank out some more content 😉
Week 11:
The only game that ended up being remotely close in this week was the Week 1 rematch of Bonez vs. Brad (9.92 margin). Tommy made this game closer by dropping Devonta Freeman (17 points) for Jakobi Meyers (3.5 points), who he then dropped for Bryan Edwards (g00se). In the end, it was the pick-up of good ol’ Tua (17.52) that made the difference for the Bonez on the Night Before Gameday. Brad kept it close with a Rashod Bateman pick-up, but Devonta Freeman was right there. Hindsight is definitely 20-20 and this season should be in Brad’s rearview mirror by now, hope you use that last FAAB dollar on something special buddy.
The next closest game was Vigs vs. Ryan (22.16 margin) and none of the pick-ups made by either team made or braid the match-up, but I want to shout out #DaCommish’s top spender status for this week as a good use of FAAB. He grabbed the 49ers Defense for $8 and they scored 12, which is great day for any defense. Add in some help from Graham Gano and the rest of your team and that’s how you stay in the hunt for the illusive 2 seed.
Week 12:
Thank the gods that barely anything happened this week. The closest game was me vs. Andrew, but it wasn’t thanks to anyone from the waiver wire. My second Cordarrelle-related mistake in a row and my negligence in leaving Jamaal Williams in my IR spot and Dalton Schultz in my starting line-up had me singing “this’ll be the day that I die” like a regular Don McLean, but thankfully my roommate’s team pulled just as bad of a stinker. After DK dropped a gooser to T-Lock’s healthy 11, I decided to pretend I got COVID in order to give Andrew a few days to cool down by himself at the apartment. Let me know when I can come back, I’m starting to miss the city.
Two of the guys I discuss above eeking out a win over someone in Week 10 and 11 ended up playing each other in Week 12, and this was our next closest game with some actual Wire consequences. This was of course Abie vs. Tommy. The battle between two guys with an “ee” sound at the end of their names was won by our Rookie of the Year thanks to two deftly made pick-ups: Dontrell Hilliard (17.8, guess he emulated Derrick Henry by having the same initials, that’s gotta sting extra for Abie now that I think about it) and Evan “Money Mac” McPherson (13). Even though this wasn’t the highest scoring match-up, it seems like it was a battle between two chess masters who I often praise in this column. Be prepared for more fantasy genius out of whichever of these two make it far in the post-season, which could be both of them.
Alright, I’d say that was mostly painless. I’m including some analytics treats below to make up for my lack of depth. These are the follow-ups to my charts from back in Week 6 that show i) how many points each position gets you on average per FAAB buck spent and ii) how your share of the total FAAB dollar pie has changed over the course of the season along with your current % share. You’ll have to zoom in on that second one but be sure that this could possibly help you to figure out how to outwit and outbid your opponents in these next few very crucial weeks. I’m not gonna hold your hand, but all of the strategy you could want is there for the taking if you know where to look.
I’m also including a follow-up/improvement on the chart I posted the other week that showed how many of your auction and add/drop players’ points were started or sat in the past 3 weeks. You oughta know by now, but you want to see more green than yellow under your name. I still can’t believe I started -6 points in the Browns defense in Week 10 and still managed to win. If your name isn’t there, then you haven’t made moves of that type in the past 3 weeks.
This has been The Wire. Thanks for being patient, hope you get some insight out of this crap, and don’t spend it all in one place.
(as of Week 12, but who cares)
Looks like Max’s frantic move-making is finally paying off? Kris still almost definitely has the better ratio, with Brad’s and Vigs’ lookin’ pretty swell too.
A #dead Commish weeps silently at the memory of his once proud winning streak. Wins are now hard to come by.
What up folks? Hope everyone’s Thanksgiving went better than mine. Considering I was the lowest scoring team for the 3rd time in 4 weeks, its not hard to believe that yours wasn’t. I am sad. But, I wanted to keep things fresh and interesting on the blog (coupled with the fact that I don’t want to dive too deep into my team’s pathetic performance), so I figured I’d do this week’s Power Rankings a little differently. Introducing, Da Commish’s Official Tier List. Similarly, to the Official Power Rankings, this tier list will highlight each team’s strengths and flaws, while allowing for a quick comparison and grouping of teams into similarly ranked tiers. Honestly, I’m just doing things differently this week to prevent me from jumping off the deep end. I know, it’s sad that fantasy football has ruined my life. But this is the life we’ve chosen.
Tier 1: The Stand-Up Comedian
South Jersey 4th & Schlong (Brad Pedditto)
Kicking us off to nobody’s surprise, Brad has officially clinched last place in The League and is now preparing for his big night behind the mic. By now, he must own every record of League futility, including a record 11 game losing streak. The most fucked up thing is Brad has actually been one of the better performing teams the past month or so, yet he still manages to go against the wrong guy every week. I mean compare his team to mine over the last 4 weeks. It’s a true perfect storm of bad injury luck, bad scheduling breaks, and just being plan bad. For this, he deserves a tier of his own.
Tier 2: Teams That Are Declared Dead
Thomas and Friends (Andrew Vignali)
Beans Corp (Brendan Cahill)
HOCKEYPRO69 (Abie Leider)
Yep, I’m good with calling this group officially dead. Well, Beans is literally dead, as he’s assured himself of missing the playoffs with his 4-8 record. Having CMC go down early, then trading for an injured Alvin Kamara, he has gotten a game out of his first-round pick since like late September. Sad. With even worse injury luck is my man Abie. You know already how bad it’s been (Derrick Henry, Michael Thomas, Raheem Mostert, Julio Jones). I can go on and on. Abie has lost like 4 out of 5 and his team has been performing worse and worse each week. Then there’s Da Commish. Everyone on my team has performed awfully for an extended period of time. Jalen, DK, Godwin, Dalvin, Jacobs… they all suck. I also pick the wrong TE to play each week. Anyway, I’ve scored under 100 in 3 out of the last 4. Fuck.
Tier 3: It Might Not Be Too Late To Turn Things Around
The Martian (Ryan O’Connell)
Norse Horse (Kris Blaine)
Both teams are still alive in the playoff race… barely. But at least they are trending in the right direction. Kris got bailed out by trading Chris Carson for CeeDee Lamb and Davante Adams. Ryan, had you only held on to the two, your team might be in a playoff spot right now. Ryan’s team is decent enough with Scary Terry, Gibson, Stefon Diggs and Mark Andrews, that he can do some damage should he squeak into a playoff spot. He just needs to pray to God he can win each of these last two weeks, while someone ahead of him drops 2 each. It’ll help if Russell Wilson remembers how to QB in the meantime.
Tier 4: I Don’t Know If They Are Good But They Are Certainly Better Than Me
Bama Butts (Max Cohan)
Buffalo Bonez (Thomas Antonello)
This tier is pretty self-explanatory. As of right now, Max and Thomas are the 3rd and 4th best teams in The League. They each possess solid, deep teams. Neither has many holes and it would not be overly shocking for either team to go on deep playoff runs. They can beat just about anybody any given week. It’ll be interesting to see how things shake out with CMC going down for the year for Max, and Calvin Ridley seemingly quitting on the Falcons and Tommy Bonez. But for now, this grouping feels just right.
Tier 5: Very Good Team But Not as Good As Jack
The Flandrew’s (Brent Gotkin)
There’s only one Jack, so Brent will have to do with being in a tier of his own. He’s had a pretty tumultuous season. The top guys on his team are all having outstanding seasons – Cooper Kupp, Joe Mixon and James Conner (you’re welcome). On the other hand, Zeke, Amari Cooper and AJ Brown have been very hit or miss. I’d say, Brent’s team probably possesses the most depth, and its only gotten stronger with Kareem Hunt back and Antonio Brown coming back soon. He’s been fucked with a lot of points against him, accounting for his poor record. But its clear that Brent will be a force in the playoffs.
Tier 6: Godly
Jonathan Taylor Thomas 2.0 (Jack Staub)
Simply put, Jack’s team is about as perfectly assembled as one can be. He absolutely nailed the draft by finding the QB4, RB1 and WRs 2,3 and 6. He added the best waiver pickup of the year early in the season (Cordarrelle Patterson) and has for the most part has skated by without many injuries to deal with – which we all now is just as important .as anything It didn’t even matter that George Kittle missed most of the season. He’s on like a 10 game winning streak and has all but locked up the #1 seed throughout the playoffs. Rightfully, he deserves the top tier all to himself.
Well, I hoped you enjoyed reading that as much as I enjoyed writing it (which is to say not at all). Another week kicks off in 24 hours with the Boys v the Saints from the SuperDome. Yeah, I know I already declared myself #dead… but I really need to win this week or I’m in huge trouble. Best of luck to everyone in the weeks to come and as always…
Gobble-gobble, motherf*ckers. Turkey day is finally here, my 2nd favorite holiday after Draft Day of course! Back in 1492 or whatever when God created Thanksgiving, he did so to celebrate the 3 F’s: family, food, and football. However, I don’t think even God could’ve predicated that a fourth F would quickly come along and trump the importance of the other 3 combined. I’m speaking of course about fantasy. This Thanksgiving, I’d like to quickly reflect on why I’m so thankful for fantasy. It has given me so many great memories of random NFL games over the years I would otherwise have no interest in. It has taught me the importance of personal finances and budgeting, particularly as it relates to FAAB. It has bought me my single most prized possession, the belt, which I rightfully earned as your 2019 Fantasy Champion, only to relinquish to Brent last year. I’ve been on a quest to get it back ever since. Most importantly, however, is that this “game” has kept me connected as a part of all your lives, for better or worse, for the better part of a decade now. Sure, we may now all live scattered across the tri-state area and no longer see each other with the frequency I would like, but I know where to find y’all come Sunday’s at 1:00 in the fall. I’ve got a lot of shit to do and not a lot of time to do it so I’m going to keep this one rather short….
#10. South Jersey 4th & Schlong – Brad Peditto (Previous Ranking: 9) Yeah, this one is easy. Brad has pretty much assured himself of the standup stage. Poor guy was victimized by this Sunday Night’s Cucking of the Week. Just add it to the long list of misery that has been the 2021 Bradley’s Fantasy season. Hopefully 2022 goes better.
#9. The Martians – Ryan O’Connell (Previous Ranking: 6) Ryan’s team is currently in free-fall. Only cracking 120 points once in the past 5 games and has lost 4 of those, it’s getting late early for our boy. Absolutely, absolutely has to win this week against Beans to have a shot, but even that might not be enough.
#8. Beans Corp – Brendan Cahill (Previous Ranking: 8) Honestly, they are close on paper with Ryan’s team but seeing as these are two teams trending in opposite directions, I’ll give Beans the slight edge here. Winner of 2 in a row, Beans Corp suddenly is seeing the board clearly again and feels dangerous. A massive, massive game awaits v Ryan in week 12.
#7. Norse Horse – Kris Blaine (Previous Ranking: 7) The last of the 4-7 teams, non-playoff teams but has the most point scored on the year, so I guess 7th is the right spot for the Nordics?? I honestly don’t know what to make of Kris’s team this year. Are they good, are they bad? They are in the League so I have to write about them, I just don’t really care to be frank. He’s playing Max this week so he’ll probably lose.
#6. HOCKEYPRO69 – Abie Leider (Previous Ranking: 3) Abie man, I’m sorry. What looked destined to be an all time great fantasy season for the 69ers was quickly derailed by some of the worst injury league (outside Brad) that we’ve ever seen. Derrick Henry, Raheem Mostert, Julio, D Hop, etc. etc. have all missed extended time, at Pat Mahomes has had a slump. He started fast but has now faded fast and I’m real quick from officially declaring Abie #dead. Sad.
#5. Buffalo Bonez – Thomas Antonello (Previous Ranking: 5) I think Thomas has been ranked 5th for like 6 week in a row now. Anyway, his team is pretty decent at the top with Najee, Ekeler and Justin Jefferson and Lamar. I do have some concerns about that depth though, because after that top 4, you have an ok Marquise Brown and then not much else. Still, 4th most points at this stage of the season means for sure your team is for real.
#4. Thomas and Friends – Andrew Vignali (Previous Ranking: 10) Finally, after 2 poor weeks in a row, the boys finally got on track, and I enjoyed an easy one against Ryan. It appears my Jalen Hurts fears may have been overexaggerated. Dalvin Cook is starting to find the endzone again. Just need DK to get going and my team will be all the way back and one of the favorites come playoff time. I have a huge game against Jack this week.
#3. Abie Baby – Max Cohan (Previous Ranking: 4) I think Max might have pulled the trade of the Century with Beans to take his otherwise average team to one of the best on paper. I mean, Beans kept CMC stashed away on his bench for like 6 weeks, only to trade him to Max the day before he gets cleared to come back? Makes no sense. Add a fleece job of Thomas for Calvin Ridley and Max might be executive of the year.
#2. The Flandrew’s – Brent Gotkin (Previous Ranking: 2) Brent’s team is good. Sadly, they can’t break into the top spot because Jack’s team exists. So, it’s #2 for like the billionth straight week.
#1. Jonathan Taylor Thomas 2.0 – Jack Staub (Previous Ranking: 1) He has Jonathan Taylor, Deebo Samuel, Tyreek Hill, Ja’Marr Chase, Tom Brady. Enough said.
Biggest Rise: Thomas and Friends Biggest Fall: HOCKEYPRO69/The Martians
A huge Thursday of NFL action awaits us in week 12. Bears-Lions might be the worst Thanksgiving game of all time, but its still NFL football played on Thanksgiving, so I’ll be tuned in. I hope everyone has a safe, healthy, and Happy Thanksgiving. As always…
This is Mike Geisicki. In case you didn’t know, he scored 0 points on Thurday. I am sad.
AHHHHHHHHHHHH. The Sunday Scaries turned ever scarier for several League members in Week 10. It seems that myself, Brent and Abie are falling apart at the most inopportune time, while League bottom feeders Max, Ryan, Kris and Brendan are peaking simultaneously. Suddenly, everyone’s in the mix (except Brad but we’ll discuss him more later) and the waning weeks of the regular season are more important than ever. This is honestly when The League is at its best, when everyone has shit to play for and we all live and die with every point, every yard and every score change. Anyway, we’re all gearing up for what should be the greatest stretch run in LeagueStory with seemingly 9 teams in the mix for 6 playoff spots. Let’s do this…
#10. Thomas and Friends – Andrew Vignali (Previous Ranking: 10) Two weeks in a row in the shitter and I couldn’t be more upset. This one hurt as I was largely at full strength and still dropped a very winnable game to Max. My week got off to a shit start with the infamous Mike Geisicki goose egg on TNF and I was never able to get off the ground running. Godwin and DK must’ve still been drunk off their bye week excursions cause they both played liked they’d rather be anywhere else in the world than on a football field Sunday. Jalen Hurts got off to a rip-roaring start against Denver, going for over 20 points in the first half. But here’s the thing… he finished with 19. Do the math, he lost a point somewhere over an entire half of football. I finally got decent performances from Dalvin and Darrel Williams for the first time in what seems like forever. Now its all about putting it together so that everyone can have a big week at once. Anyway, I know I’m not the worst team in the League, but as punishment for 2 sucky weeks in a row, I must don the dunce cap as the League’s number 10 team.
#9. South Jersey 4th & Schlong – Brad Peddito (Previous Ranking: 7) Well, at least you’re not 10th. For the 3rd week in a row, the Bradley’s put up a valiant effort in pursuit of their 2nd win, only to just fall short. Down his top 2 RBs, QB and starting WR, Brad has now put up 100 points in 3 straight weeks. Solid! He actually got great games from his Eagles for once. DeVonta exploded and Boston Scott had his best game in a while. Pressed into emergency action, Derek Carr and Brandon Bolden both did just ok. Sadly, Brad was burnt by the other Pats RB, more on that later. Honestly, not even that many bad performances to report here. It was just the inability to score touchdowns that doomed the Bradleys. Outside of DeVonta’s two, no other Schlong found his way into the bonezone. That’ll have to change, and quickly, if Brad has any chance of getting off standup watch. Fortunately, some positive injury news should hit Brad for once with Chubb, Saquon and Kyler all back next week.
#8. Beans Corp – Brendan Cahill (Previous Ranking: 8) Is Beans back? Probably not, but he at least doubled his lead over Brad in the race for last place, so this was arguably Beans Corps biggest win since 2018. It wasn’t easy, it definitely wasn’t pretty, but a win is a win is a win. Shoutout to Beanso for making the waiver wire pickup of the week. Rhamondre Stevenson went for 25 and potentially saved Brendan’s season. The other waiver wire pickup of the week was also made by Beanso with the Colts D dropping 14 on the beleaguered Jags. Hell, even Chris Boswell scored 12. Clearly, Brendan is seeing things more clearly the last week or so and that’s dangerous. Perhaps he knocked the dust off the ol “Bean’s Book of Secrets”. Unfortunately, it was not the Nyhiem Hines game, or the Zach Moss game for that matter, but it didn’t matter. Justin Herbert had a dud. Mike Evans scored a late 40-yard TD to save what would’ve otherwise been a typical Mike Evans game. Anyway that you put it, Beans has to feel good after getting off the schneid, and looks to double up his personal winning streak in an absolutely massive game against Brent this week.
#7. Norse Horse – Kris Blaine (Previous Ranking: 9) This couldn’t be the Pat Freiermuth game that we got last week? Sadly, the Steeler’s rookie TE was unable to miraculously rally the Nordics for the second straight week as our boy dropped a close one to Abie, making his record 4-6. Things looked promising for Kris for much of Sunday, but then SNF happened (more on that later). KB got underwhelming performances from his RB trio of Aaron Jones, Myles Gaskin and Lenny Fournette, but the trio was able to outscore Freiermuth and Cole Beasley. Another staple of the Packers offense, Davante Adams had a tough one as not much went right for the entire GB offense in the snowy confines of Lambeau. Josh Allen had an alright 20 points, but you’d expect more from a Bills QB who led his team to 45 smackaroos against my lowly NY Jets. Can’t say I didn’t see that one coming. Kris’s best performance of the week came from CeeDee Lamb, who grabbed 2 TDs vs the Falcons. Nothing on his bench really would’ve turned this game in Kris’s favor, so he can’t really beat himself up to badly. Rest up kiddo, a massive matchup with Jack awaits in week 11.
#6. The Martians – Ryan O’Connell (Previous Ranking: 6) Alright Marzy. The eternal league underdog, our TikTok superstar was able to finally end his longtime losing streak with a relatively easy victory against Tommy-no-longer-so-hotty. This game would’ve been a larger margin of victory had Ryan not started Russell Wilson in his first game back from a hand injury. His 5 points was nearly 3x less than Tannehill’s 18 on the bench. Stefon Diggs and Antonio Gibson finally broke out of prolonged slumps, each going for 20+ and scoring a combined 3 TDs. 2 of those came from Gibson against the Bucs defense, however, who only could muster 6 pts against the Footballers of Washington. Another week, another touchdown for Melvin Gordon. He’s destined for Canton at this rate. Mark Andrews had a rock-solid game and is a must-start TE every week. Finally rounding otr Ryan’s squad were a few mediocre WR performances from Scary Terry, Diontae Johnson and Christian Kirk. All 3 scored 8-9 which is not great, but not exactly duds either. Looking ahead, Ryan has suddenly launched himself back onto the “In the Hunt” graphic for one of the League’s WC spots. He looks to stay hot against and ice-cold Commish.
#5. Buffalo Bonez – Thomas Antonello (Previous Ranking: 3) The Buffalo’s couldn’t extend their winning ways, dropping a tough one to the Martians coming off of last week’s top performance. One could say that Tommy Bonez got boned by Lamar Jackson, DeVonta Freeman, Hollywood Brown and the rest of the Ravens on Thursday night. All 4 parties were guilty of stinking it up against the ‘Phins. To be completely transparent here, I like to think of myself as one of the more insightful fantasy minds there is… but I had no idea DeVonta Freeman was still kicking in the league. Our boy also fell victim of the Will Fuller effect, who hasn’t at this point? Donovan Peoples Jones, one of last week’s breakout stars, earns his way into the starting lineup for his efforts and on que reverts to his normal self, which is to say he stunk. That’s why we don’t overreact to one-week explosions folks. Darren Waller was finally back, but sadly not the production you come to expect from one of the games top TEs. Justin Jefferson had another nice performance, something often said in these rankings. Plus, the dynamic duo of Najee and Ekeler rolled on for another week, but it was all too little, too late to matter. I’m afraid the doomsday trade for Calvin Ridley may be the end of Bonez as we know it. Tommy has to turn it around in a big way in week 12. Fortunately he has an easy one against Brad on the schedule.
#4. Vibrant Vignali’s – Max Cohan (Previous Ranking: 5) Seriously Max, I’m getting sick of your shit. Just keep one name throughout the year and let it be. I bet by the time this is published, Max will change his name to “Leider Lederhosen’s” or some dumb shit like that. Anyway, rant over. Congrats on beating me this week. I royally sucked and you didn’t. Why did it have to be D’Ernest Johnson and Jamal Agnew? This guy Jamal Agnew in particular is apparently a WR for the Jaguars. Well, here’s the thing. He had 0 catches on Sunday, but ran the ball 3 times, including a 66 yard TD. I mean, what kind of bullshit is that? Christian McCaffrey is back healthy which means even when he sucks, he still gets 20+ points. Max’s team is actually pretty filthy on paper with Rodgers, McCaffrey, Swift and Kelce. That’s a hell of a top 4. He’s got absolutely nothing out of the WR spot however after the very hit or miss Mike Williams. Anyway, I don’t know if this is a positive write-up or a negative one, I think I’m just bitter. Max not only has a big dong, but he got the better of me this week. Some guys just have it all.
#3. HOCKEYPRO69 – Abie Leider (Previous Ranking: 4) Watch out now. If Abie gets this Patrick Mahomes for the rest of the season, he may be allll the way back. 5 touchdowns against Da Raiderrrrs and 36 tic-tacs went a long way in helping Abie get back on track against the Nordics. Finally, the 69ers were on the right side of some injury news, as AJ Dillon jumps into the RB1 spot for the Packers while Aaron Jones is on the mend a couple weeks. He, James Robinson and my main man Michael Carter will make a young, formidable RB core. Jeudy, Pittman and Crowder all kind of underwhelmed, but D Hop should be back next week to help. This one could’ve been an even bigger blowout had Abie started the right defense, the Cowboys against Atlanta was the obvious play over a Sam Darnold-less Panthers squad v Arizona. Whatever, that’s about the only negative thing I can say about you Abe. I don’t know how to tie this in, but I have to point out TJ Hockenson’s goose egg, not that it mattered. That at least makes me feel a little better about Mike Geisicki.
#2. The Flandrew’s – Brent Gotkin (Previous Ranking: 1) Brent, the biggest ego in fantasy, just got son’d by his lifelong pal Jack. As a result, has dropped out of the #1 spot in Da Commish’s power rankings. That’s gotta sting just a little bit. You wanna be the best? Well, you gotta beat the best. The Flandrew’s had big weeks from usual culprits, Dak Prescott and Zeke hammered home 45 points against the Falcons, while Cooper Kupp caught a million passes again on MNF against the Niners. Even James Conner kept alive his TD streak, the guy is a freaking monster. Sorry for forgetting, it’s been such a long time, but some smart guy took him late on draft day and then inexplicably traded him for Corey Davis after like 3 weeks. Wonder who that was? Anywho, that’s about all that went right for Brent on Sunday. The rest of his team, not so much. Ravens D only scoring 4 against the Dolphins is freaking pathetic. Amari Cooper, AJ Brown and DJ Moore did the thing where they don’t catch many passes. Tough for WRs to score when that happens. At least Brent played the right TE again with Pitts outscoring Goeddert, but neither performance is worth writing home about. Looking ahead, Brent is in for a dousy of a week 11, facing off against the red-hot (for his standards) Beans Corp. Something tells me our man won’t be a happy camper come Tuesday morning, stay tuned.
#1. Jonathan Taylor Thomas 2.0 – Jack Staub (Previous Ranking: 2) Honestly, is anyone even shocked by this one? This guy Jack must’ve unlocked the secret to being a fantasy God because every button he’s pushed as GM this season has been the correct one. Hey bud, you mind sharing your secret? Or at least wanna throw me Deebo Samuel? I mean seriously, this guy was a 9th round draft pick in August and is somehow WR3 in standard half PPR scoring. What’s even worse is Jack also is sandwiching Deebo between the WR2, Tyreek Hill, and WR4, Ja’Marr Chase. Never seen anything like that. For good measure, let’s throw the RB1 on the squad, namesake Jonathan Taylor. Add George Kittle, Tom Brady Corrdarelle Patterson… I can go on and on but you get the gist. Jack has assembled a Death Squad from top to bottom and until someone can end the monstrous winning streak he’s been on, his spot atop the Power Rankings is safe. For my own personal gain, I hope that day comes this week against the Nordics. But I’m willing to bet it doesn’t.
Biggest Rise: Norse Horse Biggest Fall: South Jersey 4th & Schlong/Buffalo Bonez
Well there you have it, another week down. It’s getting super dicey with 9 out of the 10 teams seemingly in the mix for only 6 spots. I have some deep seeded inner demons to work out as I try to push through the past 2 week slog of absolute suckage. I promise you all I will be better, and quickly. Anyway, week 11 kicks off in 24 hours with one of the worst matchups you can possibly imagine, Pats-Falcons. Pats are going to win this game by at least 2 scores so there’s really no point to watching. But as your fearless leader, I have a commitment to you, your squads and this League, so watch I will. Let’s hope Joe Flacco keeps me sane on Sunday or I might not make it to week 12.
We are past the halfway point of the season. Good news for me, bad news for people who have fun playing fantasy football. Make it stop, please. Since we are more than 50% of the way through the season, I think it would be fun to look back at the draft and see what went right and what went wrong. Spoiler – if your name starts with the letter B everything went wrong.
I am going to go through the first ten rounds and analyze the best and worst pick based on what we know now. Remember, I am doing this for you. This is going to be painful for me. The things I do for The League.
Round 1
Christian McCaffrey (Beans)
Dalvin Cook (Andrew)
Derrick Henry (Abie)
Alvin Kamara (Max)
Ezekiel Elliot (Brent)
Austin Ekeler (Thomas)
Jonathan Taylor (Jack)
Davante Adams (Ryan)
Saquon Barkley (Brad)
Travis Kelce (Kris)
If I was writing this a couple weeks ago, the player I would name as the best pick in this round is obvious – Derrick Henry. D Henry scored less than 7 points in week 8, didn’t play at all in week 9 and is still RB1 on the year! King Henry may be back in time to lead Abie to a championship, but it’ll be increasingly difficult to make the playoffs without him in the first place! J Tay at the 7th pick was clearly the best move in round 1. Jack has been apart of the Taylor Gang since he was a mere little rookie. It is finally paying off, and then some! Some potential names that Jack could’ve picked instead of Taylor: Barkley, Kelce, Jones, Chubb & Gibson. Jack’s season could look mighty different if he didn’t have RB2 on the year.
Worst pick is, as you all guessed, Barkley. Brad took a gamble and, similar to most of the bets I make, it didn’t pay off. Brad wouldn’t be spending each night practicing standup to Waylon if Barkley returned to anything close to 2019 form. Barkley got off to a slow start, had two solid games and hasn’t played since. There are 42 better options at RB so far this year. Absolute nightmare. It happens. Just ask Kris last year. He had Barkley too. Or me with David Johnson in 2019.
Round 2
Aaron Jones (Kris)
Nick Chubb (Brad)
Antonio Gibson (Ryan)
Tyreek Hill (Jack)
Najee Harris (Thomas)
Joe Mixon (Brent)
Calvin Ridley (Max)
DeAndre Hopkins (Abie)
Clyde Edwards-Helaire (Andrew)
Stefon Diggs (Beans)
Congrats, Jack! You started the draft off real hot. While there are some fantastic picks here – did you know Joe Mixon is RB3? The WR depth this year was/is ridiculous. While Harris and Mixon are having great years, Jack has JTay as we spoke about, and a surprise 50 year old breakout player that we can discuss later. Jack could’ve gotten cute and taken Ridley or the historically fantastic Hopkins. Instead, he took the obvious choice and it’s paid off! T Hill is WR2 on the the year. Even more impressive considering the Chiefs offense hasn’t looked as sharp in recent weeks.
Obviously the worst pick is CEH. Andrew sort of needed to take him here, so I won’t criticize him for the pick, but CEH objectively stinks. RB51. Horrible. Andrew could’ve taken James Robinson. He also could have reached for Chris Carson like a certain owner of http://www.mustbesunday.com did. If he didn’t take a RB with the pick, Andrew would’ve almost certainly have drafted Metcalf, as he did a few picks later in round 3. With Metcalf going in 2 instead of 3 he then could’ve taken Robinson. He also could’ve forgone RB’s in this area and he likely would have picked AJ Brown, who is having a disappointing year himself.
Round 3
Chris Carson (Beans)
DK Metcalf (Andrew)
James Robinson (Abie)
Darren Waller (Max)
AJ Brown (Brent)
Justin Jefferson (Thomas)
George Kittle (Jack)
Terry McLaurin (Ryan)
Keenan Allen (Brad)
Allen Robinson (Kris)
Oh man what an ugly round. I think we are going to look back at these names as soon as next year and be shocked that some of these names went as high as they did. Best pick is clearly DK. Way to go, comish. The Seattle pass catcher is the only player taken in the third round who is top ten at their position, aside from Waller. Waller is five. This means there are four TE’s better than Waller. Which means he is a disaster third round pick.
He’s not the worst though! That belongs to Allen Robinson III. WR57. Poor Kris. He could’ve had CeeDee Lamb, Mike Evans, Amari Cooper or Adam Thielen. If the football god’s aligned and sent Robinson to a team with a good quarterback for the first time in his career he could be in store for a big second half. Instead he’s still wasting away in Chicago. Despite me listing all of the good WR’s that Kris could’ve taken, there is a RB that he could have grabbed in the fourth round that would’ve been even more of a disaster …
Round 4
David Montgomery (Kris)
Robert Woods (Brad)
CeeDee Lamb (Ryan)
J.K. Dobbins (Jack)
Mike Evans (Thomas)
Amari Cooper (Brent)
Adam Thielen (Max)
Patrick Mahomes (Abie)
Chris Godwin (Andrew)
DeAndre Swift (Beans)
Go Beans! I nailed the DeAndre Swift pick. Although he isn’t on my team anymore, he’s having a fantastic year and was one of the few semblances of hope and happiness I’ve had the last few months. When we discuss round 5 you’ll see why this was such a critical pick. Swift is RB12 on the year, which means he’s an absolute must start every week despite the fact the Lions consistently seem to be playing a different sport than their opponents.
This one is, unfortunately, too easy. Dobbins went down literally within minutes of this pick. What horrible luck! Jack could’ve had Swift! However, if he took Swift he likely wouldn’t have picked Mike Davis, which means he never would’ve landed Patterson. Still though, your fourth round pick never touching the field in the regular season is tough. Not Jack’s fault and unless he is secretly spending time with Doc Brown he wouldn’t have known Dobbins was about to go down for the year.
Round 5
Miles Sanders (Beans)
Josh Jacobs (Andrew)
Julio Jones (Abie)
Kareem Hunt (Max)
Cooper Kupp (Brent)
Chase Edmonds (Thomas)
Tyler Lockett (Jack)
Diontae Johnson (Ryan)
Brandon Aiyuk (Brad)
Myles Gaskin (Kris)
Two people with the same name spelt differently taken in this round. Weird! I wonder if that’s ever happened before. There are some great picks and some horrible picks here in round 5. This is when the empanadas started hitting and brains turned to mush. Brent was clearly eating his brain food because he took the WR1 in the fifth round. Cooper Kupp! Who woulda thought. The third WR Brent took but first in his heart. No one else to even consider as the best pick. Best pick of the draft.
Although there’s no shortage of bad, Julio takes the cake as the worst pick of the fifth round. We all know Abie loves to gamble. This is one bet that didn’t hit. Julio is WR71 on the year. He’s missed a number of games and was just added to the IR yesterday. As stated, WR is deep so there were many realistic options here for Abie … including Cooper Kupp! Ouch! Brandon Aiyuk is an honorable mention here. I’m giving it to Julio because he was earlier in the round and a bit more of a gamble. Also, Aiyuk will be playing the next three weeks and Julio won’t be I do respect that Aiyuk just kind of stopped doing his job for a while though. I will show solidarity by doing the same.
Round 6
Josh Allen (Kris)
Kyler Murray (Brad)
Mark Andrews (Ryan)
Mike Davis (Jack)
Tee Higgins (Bones)
DJ Moore (Brent)
Kyle Pitts (Max)
T.J Hockenson (Abie)
Kenny Golladay (Andrew)
Courtland Sutton (Beans)
Oh man this is another baaaaad round. I guess the best pick is Mark Andrews? TE2 on the year. Fourth one to go. Kelce in the first round, Waller and Kittle in the third. That’s a great value. Good job, Ryan. You nailed this pick. Courtland Sutton was looking like the best value in the sixth round to start the year, but because he’s on my team his star has dimmed in recent weeks. But is life.
Worst pick is interesting. Mike Davis has been a humongous disappointment. He is unstartable. However, as stated, getting Davis required Jack to handcuff him with Patterson, who in turn has randomly turned into a fantasy star. With that in mind, I’m going to give it to Kenny G. The Comish fell victim to Kenny’s trap. It’s a tale as old as time. Drafters see Kenny’s objective talent at catching footballs and running routes and think he’s the guy for their team. They fail to remember that Kenny doesn’t play football very often, which turns into a problem for their fantasy team. Andrew could’ve rolled the dice on a player who is shoo-in to win Offensive Rooke of the Year. More on that next round …
Round 7
Robby Anderson (Beans)
Darrel Henderson Jr (Andrew)
Jerry Jeudy (Abie)
Aaron Rodgers (Max)
Javonte Williams (Brent)
Lamar Jackson (Bones)
Ja’Maar Chase (Jack)
Russell Wilson (Ryan)
Sony Michel (Brad)
Juju Smith-Schuster (Kris)
Yuck! I really like Brent’s pick in this round. No one could’ve predicted than Melvin Gordon would revive his career in Denver, which has undoubtedly hurt Williams fantasy value. Huge pick if this was a dynasty league, but alas, it is not. Obtaining RB11 (Henderson) in the 7th round is unheard of, but so is drafting WR3. Ladies and gentleman, I am decreeing the best pick of the seventh round to be Ja’Maar Chase! He likely would’ve went a couple rounds earlier but he dropped some passes in the preseason. Everyone except Jack is stupid. That’s what I’m gathering from writing this. Some other WR’s hanging around here that Jack could’ve taken with this pick include Juju, Tyler Boyd and OBJ. My man dodged several bullets. Matrix ass guy. I’ve never seen any of those movies but I understand there is a lot of slow motion bullet dodging in them.
Juju is out for the rest of the year so that’s obvious – but I’m actually going to give it to Sony Michel. Kris was able to include Juju in a trade – to me. Brad ended up having to drop the LA running back. He started him a couple times and never got anything out of him.
Round 8
Damien Harris (Kris)
Logan Thomas (Brad)
Tyler Boyd (Ryan)
Chase Claypool (Jack)
Odell Beckham Jr (Bones)
Dak Prescott (Brent)
Will Fuller V (Max)
Raheem Mostert (Abie)
DeVonta Smith (Andrew)
Lavishka Shenault (Beans)
Uhhhh I guess the best pick here is Dak? Harris is having a nice year too. This round is tough. I’ll give it to Dak. Good job, Brent.
The Will Fuller pick was stupid but I gotta give it to Mostert. Again, no way to know he was going to be out for the year, but he is, and this is a Look Back At It so that’s what I’m doing. This is a bad round I don’t want to look at it anymore.
Round 9
Justin Herbert (Beans)
Brandin Cooks (Andrew)
Michael Thomas (Abie)
Zack Moss (Max)
Corey Davis (Brent)
Noah Fant (Thomas)
Kenyan Drake (Jack)
Curtis Samuel (Ryan)
Jaylen Waddle (Brad)
Jarvis Landry (Kris)
As lovely as it has been to have Justin Herbert, I’m going to give best pick in this round to Andrew for taking Brandin Cooks. Cooks is lowkey WR18 on the year. Again, this means he’s a must start every week without thinking. All without having Taylor under center for most of the games! Impressive. Andrew could’ve been a homer and taken Corey Davis. Instead, he took the better player and it paid off. Now, Brent is hoping he stays the course in the second half.
Worst pick goes to Abie for taking yet another gamble on Michael Thomas. Can’t Guard Mike if he isn’t playing. This was as dicey of a draft pick as they can come. If he came back and returned anything close to true form it would’ve been the pick of the century. Instead, Abie wasted a pick he could’ve used on Marquez “The Truth” Calloway. In the words of Swiper The Fox, “Ohhhh man!”
Round 10
Leonard Fournette (Kris)
Ronald Jones II (Brad)
Melvin Gordon (Ryan)
Deebo Samuel (Jack)
DJ Chark Jr (Thomas)
Trey Sermon (Brent)
Mike Williams (Max)
AJ Dillon (Abie)
Jonnu Smith (Andrew)
Marquez Calloway (Beans)
This is a fun round! Ryan got clowned for drafting and rostering and starting Melvin Gordon but he’s been nothing short of good finding himself at RB14 at the time of writing this. Regular Season Lenny is right behind him at RB15. Huge values this last late in the draft. You know what’s cooler than a million dollars? A billion dollars. That’s what Jack found himself with by drafting Deebo Samuel of all folks in the tenth round. WR4. Unreal! Is Jack extremely skilled at drafting or is he lucky? The dude spends his days crunching numbers and cooking books both for his current real life job and MustBeSunday.com. I think he knows what he’s doing. Wow!
As horrible as Ronald Jones has been, DJ Chark is out for the year. Sorry Bones. Whole lotta nothing for him. You shoulda taken Deebo Samuel!
That was fun! Let’s do it again at the end of the season. Congrats on Cooper Kupp, Brent! Sorry for your loses Abie and Brad.
In the words of Tom Wambsgans, “Buckle up, fuckleheads!” We had quite the week of close games, which have been discussed ad infinitum in the last few days on the Pod and in the Power Rankings. Obviously, I look at things a little differently and have a trove of stats and charts at my disposal, so get ready to relive the highs and lows of Week 9 and maybe learn something along the way…
Max vs. Brad Background: Aw man, are we pulling for a win from Brad. Not just to keep Stand-Up Watch interesting, but so that his inaugural season in The League isn’t so bad that he doesn’t want to come back next year. Hopefully your dynasty league has been going well and you’re already scheming how to come in and fuck shit up next year when no one suspects it. No one expected me to be good this year, it could happen to anyone. I wonder how many times Max and Brad have met in person, I bet you could count them on one hand, or even one finger, but let me know in the GroupMe because I’m genuinely curious. Let’s see how things were going for both teams in the lead-up to this match-up:
As you can see, Max has just been bouncing on the .500 line like he bounces all over the country to do the news like a regular Michael Thompson (from Rick and Morty). Meanwhile, aside from the Week 1 win which is covered by Max’s chart, Brad has been doing his best James Cameron impression (from South Park). If this week goes a different way, Max will get his first glimpse below that line and Brad may finally find bottom and begin the process of raising the bar.
The Match: Looking at The Wire (new location for this week), it once again comes down to the defenses. Max bid $2 less than Vigs for Steelers D/ST (more on that move’s effect on Vigs later). This makes sense because Max only has $16 FAAB left compared to the $80 held by Da Commish. If Max decided to throw $6 instead and started Pittsburgh (4 pts.) over Las Vegas (8 pts.), things would be much closer. Pair that with Brad not dropping Vikings D/ST (6 pts.) and not buying Boston Scott for $10 and keeping the Eagles (-3) on the sidelines, we have an entirely different outcome. Boston Scott actually missed his projection by 5.6 points, brutal. Another missed projection came from Jordan Love, who fell 5.3 points short. You truly hate to see it, even though the projections largely mean dick. Basically, the saviors for Max were Kirk Cousins (11.24 more points than the dropped Derek Carr) and the Raiders Defense (6 points more than dropped Falcons D), although none of this would have mattered if Max just played Elijah Moore (23.9 pts.). You’ll be hearing that last sentence again later…
Analysis: Since Brad has less data to draw conclusions from, see below for some trend lines from this season:
Despite the loss, this was very promising in terms of getting yourself above that line. I know I forgot the apostrophe, sue me.
Points are also trending up after a couple of shitty weeks. Not quite in the range where you’re gonna win a lot, as we know, but there is definitely some green in your portion of the Bell Curve-type chart that I posted back at the beginning of LeagueStory. See that below:
Wins have been pulled off here, but the odds are against ya 😦
Max has surely had some close games in the past, as seen in this chart:
Beans and I gotta remember that if it’s gonna be close between us and Max then we better have an ace up our sleeve, because these are pretty heartbreaking to see.
We live for the nail-biters here, and even when you’re on the losing end it’s still exciting and great for content. Let’s take a look at the one we had this week:
Kris vs. Vigs Background: What more can I say about this historic match-up that hasn’t already been said? It’s like the Packers and the Bears, the Cowboys and the Giants, the Jets and the Jets (or the Mets and the Mets heheh). Similar to those rivalries and mine with Max for an in-League example, Kris has won a hefty majority of the meetings between the two. It got to the point where Vigs made his team name “Everybody Hates Kris” for a whole season, pretty harsh. Let’s see their historical performances:
As you can see, both teams have seen quite a lot of victory over the year, with Andrew on the upswing and Kris in a bit of a middling stage as of late. The way the season has been going, you could possibly think you knew how this would go down. I don’t think anyone expected the absolute stinker that came out on the other side of Monday.
The Match: You all saw the graph at the top of the column, Kris wins by 0.48. Insanity. The second closest game in the history of The League and the lowest scoring game that had a margin of less than a point. We all know it was the Pat Freiermuth game, a phrase which I can’t imagine being uttered ever again, but did any other pick-ups or drops have a large effect? Surprisingly little moves were made by these two owners this week. As mentioned above, Andrew picked up the Steelers D for $5 and dropped the Broncos who scored 3 points more, it was a smart move on paper but the Broncos are an enigma with that weird undefeated start and surprising plays like this even after losing noted Internet Troll, Von Miller. Basically anything going different could have helped the Tank Engines so I won’t ruminate on it too long. One thing that made a huge difference is the benching of Elijah Moore. I think this has happened to Brad before, but it’s gotta sting leaving that many points on the bench especially when it’s from your own hometown team. Maybe you should have let your “Homerism” kick in there… Kris made a bid for Boston Scott but was $4 short, picking up Patty Points was all he needed though. The only other move he could have made to his roster was starting A-Rob over Juice Landry, which I would have done considering I named my team after Mister Robinson II a few years ago. However, as much as it pains me to say it, Justin Fields is not doing that man any favors.
Analysis: Let’s look back at the past close and low-scoring games from these two gentlemen:
I was shocked how many close games Kris has had, and how many he’s won. This includes a tight win against our Commish in the 2018 playoffs. Maybe that was an inspiration for the team name because I can’t think of anything else it could be based on.
I remember that time I blew out the Norse Horses, doubt I was picked to win on the pod too. Also good to see that Andrew can look back on the fond memories of Week 12 of 2019.
This for sure shows that Vigs is less seasoned when it comes to these nail-biters, despite having more of them in the past 2 years. The win against Alex was one of two games to have a margin of less than 2 in 2020, the other being Me beating Abie (ironic) in Week 7 by 1.48.Once again, my roommate does not normally score little, same way he doesn’t win or lose little. That’s why he’s the commish, he does it big or not at all. We know this. I won’t call attention to the brutal loss he took to Kris in Week 2 of 2019, so don’t even think about looking at that.
Listen, you both know how your seasons are going, and you can take this week as a lesson and get ready for the next time you’ll be butting heads. Whether it’s in the playoffs, the losers bracket, or the 2022 season, I’m sure it’ll be a good one.
A few more thoughts before I go. My match-up with Abie was close and I want to say that I’m sooooo thankful that Abie’s genius Wire moves were put on a bye week or something this week. If it was last year, this would be in the Ugly section (for those who are unaware or forgot, I used to format these things in a “Good, Bad, Ugly” manner. Now I’m trying a whole bunch of stuff. It’s fun!) SO basically Abie dropped the Browns defense who scored 18 and Darnell Mooney who scored 19.1. I won by 12.24, you do the math. He also added Adrian Peterson (one of my first fantasy favorites) on a Monday? I didn’t even know you were allowed to do that!? Let’s see if he can keep turning back the clock or if he’ll have to spend more time with his family, not sure which one would be worse for the rest of us…
Unfortunately, Tua Time is over. Luckily I don’t have to feel so bad because Ryan also spend FAAB on a player who goosed it (Bryan Edwards, $3). Live and learn is what I’m gonna say to wrap it up.
Alright, that’s our show! Hope you liked this little investigative piece, it was something different and with the match-ups and results of this week I felt a deeper dive was in order. You wanted to hear about YOUR match-up more? Should have been more exciting I guess. Maybe next time. Later!!
The Big Chart, in a new spot for this week but still as fun as ever!
Who even cares about this one? I’m gonna rework it at some point
Now this one is interesting because those 23.9 points for Andrew were left on the bench. It even puts him ahead of Kris in total Net Points. This is why I decided to put this next one together:
This is a chart showing Gross Points added to a given team in a given week, and whether those points Started or Sat. I’ll apply it retroactively to this season since I started keeping track of Start/Sits in the middle of last year. Stay tuned!
Tyler Boyd, seen here running with the football after catching a pass… something he couldn’t manage to do on Sunday while in Da Commish’s starting lineup
**Disclaimer: The bottom 5 spots of the power rankings were written before the MNF game under the assumption that the ESPN projections were accurate and that I would beat Kris. I’m too lazy to re-write what I already have and the result of our game has not changed the rankings whatsoever, so enjoy.**
U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi. There’s no better way to sum up the events that transpired in the League this past week than with such a simple 4 letter word. But let me try a different 4 letter word to describe my own performance… S-H-I-T. Or perhaps, L-U-C-K would work better. Anyway that you put it, I was disappointed with my team’s showing this week and it will be reflected in the rankings below. This week sucked and I hate that I now must heavily dissect it. It’s going to make me physically ill. Hopefully we all learn from it.
#10. Thomas and Friends – Andrew Vignali (Previous Ranking: 2) Simply put, I must be better. I talk the talk, but I did not walk the walk. Yes, I beat Kris, whoopty. But I also suffered the worst showing of my accredited fantasy career and would’ve lost to anyone else in the League and take away no gratification from this win. It took until the final Eagles play from scrimmage in their loss to San Diego for my team to record its first touchdown of the day on Sunday. That’s got to be a record, but not one that you want to have. My RBs are a mess, either banged up or severely underperforming. Jalen Hurts is playing awful. I haven’t gotten anything out of the TE slot in about 4 weeks, and I have no answers for how to overcome any of that either. I’m not seeing the board clearly and that concerns me. Brent fleeced me in a trade for a RB for the second straight year. I had no contingency plan for being down DK and Godwin this week and I was fortunate to survive. Perhaps most embarrassingly, I simply forgot to put in Elijah Moore on Thursday night like I had planned to all day. It was a disaster of a week for Da Commish and we’ve all come to expect better. I promise I’m going to watch the film and think long and hard how I’m going to turn it around. Fuck.
#9. Norse Horse – Kris Blaine (Previous Ranking: 5) Let’s just pretend Kris and I’s matchup this week never took place. I mean we had some classics over the years. 2019 week 13 where we both entered 11-1 and as the two highest scoring teams. The 2018 semi-final (all I have to say is Tommy Lee Lewis for y’all to know what I’m talking about). This one will be talked about for a long time, but in a much different regard. Jack, pull up the data, but I assume this is Kris’s worst performance of all time as well. Josh Allen got bettered by the other Josh Allen, turning the ball over 3x (should’ve been a fourth). Aaron Jones and Davante were victimized by Aaron Rodger’s vaccination status. CeeDee Lamb, Jarvis and Cole Beasley combined for 66 freaking yards on Sunday. Even Nick Folk missed his first kick in an eternity. Just awful all around, I can’t explain it. #8. Beans Corp – Brendan Cahill (Previous Ranking: 9) Well, things were not much better for Beanso on Sunday, but he’s still improving a spot based off the abomination that was my matchup with Kris. Beans lost to this week’s big winner Tommy Bonez and barely eclipsed the pathetic 80-point margin. Last week’s blockbuster trade with Max in the rearview, many of Beans Corp’s newest members continued to disappoint. At some point, one has to wonder whether there is a certain level of toxicity in the Beans Corp work culture. 31 from starting staple Justin Herbert and 18 more from new star RB Alvin Kamara was not enough to right the ship, as everyone else on Brendan’s team sucked majorly. Damien Harris and Adam Thielen both found the endzone and scored below 10 points, that’s hard to do. Kadarious Toney and Courtland Sutton both managed 1 catch a piece. How tf do you not have a better RB to start than Zach Moss? Yuck. It was ugly all around, a common theme you’ll find throughout these rankings. Fortunately, Mike Evans is coming back this week.
#7. South Jersey 4th & Schlong – Brad Peddito (Previous Ranking: 10) I’m rewarding Brad by moving The League’s biggest loser so far up 3 spots. Maybe it’s more to do with the actions/performances of others, but at this point, Brad will take whatever moral victories he can get. Having to start Jordan Love in an emergency due to the Kyler Murray news, the Schlong’s put up a valiant effort and kept it within 5 against Max. One would think that a healthy Kyler would’ve gotten Brad that elusive second win. Nick Chubb was back and seemingly better than ever. The LA double feature of Keenan and Robert Woods both went for 100 yards. All Brad had to do was play either Aiyuk or DeVonta over Emmanuel Sanders and he would’ve pulled it out. That hurts. What also hurts is being victimized by your beloved Birds, Boston Scott and Eagles D combined to net only 1 point. All in all, a great effort Brad and I’m now a believer that you will pick up that second win and keep things interesting the loser’s bracket. We’re all rooting for you pal.
#6. The Martians – Ryan O’Connell (Previous Ranking: 8) Let me start with this. I can’t explain it, there’s no reason for it, but Melvin Gordon is a good fantasy RB. I owe Marzy my deepest apologies for clowning him routinely both publicly and privately on that one. That said, Marzy’s tailspin has spun ever more – dropping his 4th straight with another stinker. It all goes back to that disastrous trade with Kris. Stefon Diggs kinda stinks now and Chris Carson has yet to suit up for the Martians. Not that Davante or CeeDee would’ve made up for it this week. With half his team out on bye, Ryan was faced with the dilemma of having to throw out his C squad against Brent. Well, Tannehill, Ty Johnson and Bryan Edwards weren’t close to cutting it, combining for only 25 (and one disastrous goose egg). Normal starters Christian Kirk and Mark Andrews were both meh. Surprisingly, Packers D on the road in Arrowhead played very well, much better than the 6-point margin they earned. They had no sacks or turnovers, so it was tough to score points, but they made it a living nightmare for Mahomes & Co. Anyway, Marzy should have his reinforcements coming back soon. Scary Terry and Gibson are off a bye and Russell Wilson had his nail removed. Will Ryan get back to the winning ways? Stay tuned.
#5. Jersey Jerry Seinfeld – Max Cohan (Previous Ranking: 7) While I’m out here apologizing, let me offer my deepest apologies to Maxwell. I’ve clowned on thee for many years for squeaking by in low scoring affairs, and now I’m done it myself. While this isn’t quite 69-66, it was as close as we’ve seen since that dark Sunday. Now discussing this Sunday, things looked pretty good for our Southern brother. Although given quite the scare from Brad, Max was able to prevail in this week’s closest matchup earning his 5th win. Honestly, nobody really jumped off as having a huge week for Max, but rather it was the lack of dud performance that led the Seinfeld’s to victory. Kirk Cousins went for over 20, about average for a QB. Max played 3 RBs and all went for double digits. Travis Kelce returned to the Kelce of old and had 15 in his first game down South. 8 points from Raiders D is solid as well. I guess the WRs were a little disappointing, but still no egregiously bad weeks from anyone. Sum that all up, and you get a pretty average 111 points, but still enough to beat below average competition. Looking ahead, Rodgers is coming back, Swift and CMC will make a great RB room and Tim Patrick should earn a few starts in that WR room. I think Max may have turned things around here and has rightfully earned his #5 spot.
#4. HOCKEYPRO69 – Abie Leider (Previous Ranking: 4) The first week without Derrick Henry was not kind to our man. Pitted against Jack in the biggest game of the week, and the season so far, the 69ers went out and laid an egg without their 1st rounder. In his absence, everyone else had to step up their games. Well, they failed miserably. Abie’s highest scorer was Michael Pittman, who went for a solid 15 points against my New York Football Jets, and Hunter Renfrow also scored a respectable 14 against those New York Football Giants. The reworked RB room performed admirably in defeat. The old man Adrian Peterson and the young buck Michael Carter each turned in equal 9.1-point performances. Can’t ask for much else from those two-fill ins. Again, Julio Jones is not that good anymore, it’s sad. Even worse was the 49ers D, who got ransacked by the Cardinals backups at home. Kyle Shanahan must not be a happy camper. Anyway, Abie has a huge game against Kris this week as he tries to get back to his winning ways.
#3. Buffalo Bonez – Thomas Antonello (Previous Ranking: 6) Moving on up. The Buffalo’s were this week’s big winner, defeating the lowly Beans Corp and being the only time to crack the 120 point mark on Sunday (seriously, that’s how bad it was collectively). Well, it was enough to get vault Tommy all the way into 3rd for the first time this season. Call him Top Three Tommy from here on out. Leading the way for Bonez was Lamar Jackson, who dropped a 30 burger, and his sidekick Hollywood Brown, who went for 16. In that same game, Justin Jefferson caught a long touchdown and brought in 15 more. Najee, Tee Higgins and Darren Waller all had decent games as well. However, Tommy’s RB room took a hit. Austin Ekeler kind of stunk even though the Chargers beat the Eagles, and Chase Edmonds left the game early on Sunday and will miss a few weeks. Is that something to monitor going forward? Well, maybe not. Odell has escaped from purgatory, no wait that’s just Cleveland. Maybe he’ll turn things around and be a flex option going forward??
#2. Jonathan Taylor Thomas 2.0 – Jack Staub (Previous Ranking: 3) After a big win against Abie in week 8, Jack has firmly planted himself as The League’s #1 seed as we enter the regular season’s second half. He even managed it despite not getting his usual explosion from the wide receiver slot, as Deebo Samuel, Ja’Marr Chase and Tyreek Hill all scored in the single digits. Fortunately for my roommate, it was not Tua-Time on Sunday (since he didn’t play) and that trade with Brent for Joey B paid off to the tune of 7.38 points. Hell, that’s better than 0. Yet again, the story for the JTT2.0’s this week was their namesake. JT pummeled my Jets for an even 33 dunkaroo’s, averaging nearly 10 yards a pop against Swiss cheese defense. The waiver wire find of the century, Cordarrelle Patterson continues to turn back the clock and launch a second career as a RB. If you’re scoring at home, he added 16 points and is now the RB7 in standard Half PPR scoring. Insane! Things may only get better from here on out for our man, as this week will mark the return of a Russell Wilson led Seahawks (Tyler Lockette stock wayyy up), George Kittle from the IR and Touchdown Tommy fresh of his bye. With a huge matchup with Brent looming, expect Jack to pull out all the cards to try and grab a stranglehold within The League.
#1. The Flandrew’s – Brent Gotkin (Previous Ranking: 1) Excuse me for losing count, but how many weeks now has our man been ranked top dawg now? After the events of this week, Brent has vaulted all the way up to the #2 seed and earned himself a bye in the first round of the playoffs. Unfortunately, he still has a way to go before that day comes, but keep up the good work. The Flandrew’s had their lowest scoring output of the season (along with about 6 other teams) but it was still enough to cast aside #PlayoffMarz, 106-97. Leading the way for Brent was the Usual Suspects, Joe Mixon (2 tds) and Cooper Kupp (100 yards). Dak Prescott led two garbage time touchdowns against Denver to turn what otherwise would’ve been a nightmarish game into a somewhat decent performance (ala Jalen Hurts). Brent played the correct TE with Pitts outscoring Goeddert. Unfortunately, Zeke, Amari Cooper, DJ Moore and AJ Brown all had relative stinkers, and the Saints D managed only a single point against the Falcons. That last one is most shocking. Looking to next week, Brent’s team will be even scarier than normal, as James Conner will get a full workload as the Cardinals feature back (fuck) and perhaps even Antonio Brown resurfaces down in Tampa. I wish I had held onto James Conner for this sole reason. Anyway, a big primetime matchup with Jack awaits.
Biggest Rise: South Jersey 4th & Schlong/Buffalo Bonez Biggest Fall: Thomas and Friends
We officially have reached the home stretch of the Fantasy regular season so buckle up. Everybody still has plenty to play for and week 10 may be the biggest week we’ve ever seen with two marquee matchups: Brent-Jack and Brendan-Brad. I certainly can’t wait to see how it all plays out. It all kicks off in 24 hours with Ravens-Dolphins, another shitty TNF. Thanks Goodell. I’ve got to go reassess my team and life’s choices so let me leave you with the two sweetest words in sports…
I’m really gonna try and make this short and sweet because let’s face it, there’s already a ton of content recapping what went down last week and even this week and it’s Friday then, it’s Saturday Sunday WHAT.
In terms of close match-ups, there was only one in Week 8: Kris vs. Brent. As always, it was a good showing from both sides, with Brent edging out the victory. This was thanks in part to Cousin Greg Josephs (12 points) and Joe Burrow ($3, 20.26 points). Kris was actually beat out by one measly FAAB dollar for Ohio’s native son, although Josh Allen’s near-30-burger was pretty much all you can ask for. Still, there’s been situations in the past where someone’s picked up a player that another team needs just to keep their opponent that week from having them. Who’s to say that if Kris outbid the reigning champ, Matt Ryan would be making a start for the Flandrews and only dropped 6 points? We’d be singing quite a different tune, and Joey B wouldn’t be my starter for Week 9. It’d still be Tua Time, a simpler time… Further, Kris made another savvy move by picking up Cole Beasley for an 11 point surplus ($5, 16 points, you know the drill).
We had something fun/rare happen this week that not many people would notice, but I did. If you check out the chart above, there’s one line where the added and dropped player have no color filling their cell. This means this is the first time the added player has been added (MVS) and the first time the dropped player has been dropped (Curtis Samuel). Shout-out to Ryan for that little treat, because the rest of the FAAB moves my guy made were pretty awful. Every player that Ryan shelled out a few bucks for (MVS for $3, Gallup for $2 and Kalif Raymond for $2) threw up a goose egg, either due to injury or just being plain bad. Not sure about the logic of spending money on hurt players when you could get them for free, but my guy’s always got a master plan none of us can see. C.J. Uzomah is definitely somewhat viable as a TD-vulture, but DeVante Parker scored 12.5 compared the the Bengals TE’s 5.3. Better luck with your pick-ups this week, Marz.
Tommy Bonez was the high roller of the week with a modest $13 on Bobby Tonyan. Definitely not the biggest dollars-to-points deficit we’ve seen here (-6.6) and Buffalo pulled out a solid win against Max Trade-room over here, so we’ll take it in stride. This guy’s a contender.
Zero moves by Brad this week, must have been busy getting his Randy Marsh costume together. I appreciated the hell out of that, Tegridy Farms is on par (if not at times better) than South Park and it deserves its respect.
Beanso ALWAYS knows just how much to spend on defenses, he’s like Rain Man in that respect. He can probably do it without even knowing the match-up. I haven’t seen the movie so I’m guess that’s about where the comparisons end, but the 49ers costed $6 and spat out 6 points in return. This was also the most sought-after acquisition of the week, with 3 other teams making offers that didn’t quite cut it. Randall Cobb was a solid grab, David Johnson not so much.
Lastly, I’d like to give a big “fuck you” to reddit user newtya (a Lions fan, like the animal from the circus, what a joke) for sticking his nose in places it doesn’t belong. A different reddit user, AlbuquerqueAardvarks, called me terrible for “confirming that you’re trying to collude with another owner and then using that publicity to push your blog” and I responded with a sarcastic comment. This idiot Lions fans calls me a dick and says “I’m never clicking that link”. Can people not just leave things alone on the internet anymore? That’s another joke for ya. Obviously I didn’t know I was colluding if I’m making a post about it, and then when everyone tells me it’s collusion I’m not lashing out at every single comment (I already did that in the GroupMe discussion), but when you start attacking my character I’ll play along and feed into your anger over whatever it is you’re projecting onto me. As for pushing the blog once I realized I’d get a lot of views on my post, you’re clearly mad you didn’t think of that for whatever little creative thing you’re trying to push. Otherwise, why would you care? I literally say “damn, this is doing numbers”, the most generic jokey shit you put in an edit or reply post, after getting like 5 upvotes and 12 comments, big whoop. You’re looking at it and we’re talking about it, I win.
Goddamn. This has been The Wire, enjoy the weekend folks. Go League.
Derrick Henry suits up at practice, hoping to give it a go for a week 9 matchup against the JTT’s
*Disclaimer: I’m writing this introduction as of Tuesday night, 8:19 p.m. EST
Oh my fuck. Seriously, my head is spinning from all of today’s activity. Maybe y’all trade deadline’s confused, today’s is only the NFL’s. The League’s deadline is not for another month. A lot of bullshit happened today. Listen to the podcast if you want a breakdown of everything. I’m only here to talk teams and results. So let’ start talking, starting with the worst team yet again…
#10. South Jersey 4th & Schlong – Brad Peddito (Previous Ranking: 10) It’s great that I can pencil in Bradley to the number 10 spot and just move on with my life every week. Seriously, did anybody expect anything different. A 50-point beatdown at the hands of #BrentsCommish isn’t good for much unless if you’re a fan of Brad’s standup aspirations. An already tall order was made even taller after Kyler Murray laid a dud on TNF and pretty much set the stage for how this contest was gonna go. Nick Chubb continues to majorly disappoint. Somehow the Eagles RBs accounted for 4 rushing touchdowns, and none went to Kenneth Gainwell. Speaker of Eagles, Devonta Smith and the former Bird Zach Ertz also missed their projections. Then there was Emmanuel Sanders who victimized Brad with our first goose egg of the season. **I’m sure it’s happened already but I’m too lazy to look it up** The only thing that saved Brad from having a historically awful performance (which from hence forth we’ll call “Pulling a Ryan”) was the Eagles D, who managed 20 big smacks against the lowly Lions. Somewhere my brother Ryan is crying. Somewhere a little further south, so is Brad. Sad.
#9. Beans Corp – Brendan Cahill (Previous Ranking: 9) Maybe one of these weeks Beans will turn it around. Sadly, it didn’t come against Abie in week 8. Brendan’s leading scorer for this week wasn’t even rostered until about 5 minutes before kickoff on Thursday, and even though Cobb only snagged 3 receptions, 2 of those managed to come in the endzone. Can’t complain about 15 points from Randall. You can complain, however, about Travis Kelce, the big addition from that ill-fated trade with Kris a few weeks back. Yeah, he’s TE1, but he has been struggling for Kelce standards and has largely disappointed in the Beans Corp lineup, refusing to eclipse 15 points for 6 games in a row now. You know who also sucked? Laviska Shenault, Courtland Sutton, D’Andre Swift and Tyler Higbee; all of whom scored below 5.6 points. Damien Harris is finally showing out as the feature back in NE so I guess that’s one thing you got going for you. Anyway, Beans has had a massive roster shakeup (check out this week’s pod for more) so who knows how things will turn out next week. But we’re all in agreement, something had to be done…and it was done.
#8. The Martians – Ryan O’Connell (Previous Ranking: 8) I’m sorry to report, but Marzy is officially in a tailspin. Three straight defeats and three straight stinkers for our resident TikTok’er. I’ll switch it up and start with the good here… which was shockingly Melvin Gordon? I swear I’m not reading this incorrectly, old arthritis leg managed to double-dip into the endzone on a rush and a reception. Pretty rad! Ryan Tannehill continues to rock and roll in Tennessee after escaping the wrath of Adam Gase. Stefon Diggs and Diontae Johnson both missed their projection, but only slightly. Compare that to the rest of Ryan’s squad and there are basically prime Jerry Rice and T.O. Now for the bad, which is namely the WFT duo of Antonio Gibson and Scary Terry, both managed less than half their projected total. Scary Terry even managed to do so on Halloween! I guess he should change his nickname to not-so-Scary. Christian Kirk had 6.6, what more could you want from him? The Bucs D got ransacked up and down the field by Trevor Siemen of all people. All in all, just an ugly performance from Marzy who desperately needs a victory against the high powered Flandrew’s this week or risk another lost season.
#7. Jersey Jerry Seinfeld – Max Cohan (Previous Ranking: 7) Alright Max, two things before I rip into you. First, please just stick to one team name for the season. This act is getting old and isn’t funny. Second, what the hell does your new name even mean? Jerry Seinfeld was born in Brooklyn and grew-up in Massapequa. He’s a New Yorker through and through. Read a Wikipedia article for once. Anyway, I already wasted enough of everyone’s time, so I’ll keep this one short. Your team sucked yet again. Mike Williams, Noah Fant, Zack Moss, Aaron Rodgers, and Mike Evans all personally owe you an apology. I’m crying… the one time you don’t play Elijah Mitchell of course is the week he goes for 19. It wouldn’t have mattered; this game was all Bonez. Anyway, Max was on the other side of the aforementioned trade with Beanso, so if you want my thoughts on the lookout for the rest of his season, best tune in to the latest episode of League Talk, the official podcast of The League.
#6. Buffalo Bonez – Thomas Antonello (Previous Ranking: 5) I don’t actually think Thomas is the 6th best team in The League, but I’m knocking him down a spot as a one-week punishment for the bullshit him and Jack tried to pull earlier today. I’m sure he doesn’t care about this arbitrary punishment, but it makes me feel better and overall more powerful, so fuck off. Besides, I had to shake up the standings somehow. Finally removed from bye-week purgatory, Bonez’s team was back to its winning ways. Ekeler and Najee must’ve used the bye week to rest their little legs, which allowed them to run all over Pats and Brownies respectively. It was easy to pick the right QB this week with only Stafford to choose from, and he added a strong 24 bing-bongs. Chase Edmonds, Tee Higgins and Van Jefferson all cracked double digits. I guess the only disappointment was Justin Jefferson, who settled for a measly 3.1 on his voyage to Trayvon Diggs Island. Thomas will have to take on Beans in the up-coming week without Jamarr Chase (because we veto’d that trade remember). Will it matter? Probably not.
#5. Norse Horse – Kris Blaine (Previous Ranking: 6) By default of Thomas dropping a slot this week, my man Kris Blaine shot up into the top 5 for the first time in weeks. Consider it a post-surgery present and well wishes. Kris was this week’s closest loser, dropping his game to Brent but only by 17. I’ve said all along that the trade for Davante and CeeDee really balanced out Kris’s team; and he’s had 3 great weeks in a row now. Aaron Jones got things going to a hot start with a huge 20 points on Thursday. It should have been more, but Matt LaFleur inexplicably refused to run the ball at the goal-line on that final possession. Josh Allen went off for a huge second half against Miami and dropped a 30 burger, also throwing 16 the way to his Bills (unvaccinated) counterpart Cole Beasley. In one of his last weeks of fantasy relevance, Chubba Hubba scored a respectable 13.6; and CeeDee accounted for 14 more on SNF. Hell, even Nick Folk kicked 15. However, it was all for naught as a trio of Florida based players doomed the Nordics. Gaskin, Lenny F and Gronk combined for only a dirty dozen. Had they just managed their projection, it would’ve been just enough to take down Brent. Damn. Kris has his second of three against Da Commish this week, so as Rocky III anti-hero Clubber Lang would predict, pain is in the forecast. Hopefully at least you’re hip feels better (I think that’s it, right?).
#4. HOCKEYPRO69 – Abie Leider (Previous Ranking: 4) Abie, I’m sorry bro. Of every weekly team write up I’ve ever done, this one hurts the most… metaphorically and literally. In the past week, Abie has lost his golden child, Derrick Henry, and his ace in the hole, Michael Thomas. What a waste. Add on top of that prolonged injuries to Raheem Mostert, Julio Jones and Jerry Jeudy, it’s a miracle Abie has gotten off to the start he has. Hell, even James Robinson is questionable this week after hurting his ankle last game. Oh, and De’Andre Hopkins as well. Week 8 saw the 69ers defeat Beans Corp in a rather low scoring affair, 117-76. Can’t really fault Abie though when half his team went down early in their respective games. Out of those who played a full 60, he got good returns from his boys Michael Carter and Michael Pittman. Hey, maybe they can bring back the old Mike & Mike Morning show on ESPN. TJ Hockenson also had a strong 13 in his TE spot. You know who sucks now? Patrick Mahomes. He couldn’t even blow out the Giants at home at put up only a stinky 14. Anyway, moving forward, I really have no idea what Abie does from here on out. He quietly scooped up Adrian Peterson on Monday to replace Henry, but I doubt you can count on him to be anything more than a flex option, and a bad one at that. My deepest sympathies.
#3. Jonathan Taylor Thomas 2.0 – Jack Staub (Previous Ranking: 2) What?? You didn’t think I wasn’t going to punish Jack here as well? Well, as the other party involved in the tomfoolery with Bonez, I have no choice but to drop Jack a spot this week. For seemingly the 8th time out of 8, my man Jack was the big winner of the week, dropping 160 big smacks in a complete beatdown over Marzy to move to 6-2 and maintain the #1 seed in The League. It’s easier to start with what went bad on Sunday for the JTT’s, only Dalton Schultz’s poor 2.1. Everyone else cracked the double-digit mark. Touchdown Tommy led the way with 25. Tyler Lockette, Tyreek Hill, Deebo Samuel and namesake Jonathan Taylor followed suit with 20 pointers as well. Randy Bullock punched in 12, including a game winner, and the Seahawks honored their fans, the “12th Man”, by dropping a dirty dozen too. Everything went right on Sunday. Looking ahead to this week, Jack is pitted up against the beleaguered Abie and well get first crack at seeing a Henry-less 69ers. Still, this is a battle of two of the three 6-win teams, so a lot is on the line.
#2. Thomas and Friends – Andrew Vignali (Previous Ranking: 3) So who’s the big winner from the Thomas-Jack shenanigans? That’s right, ya boy, moving into this weeks top 2. I will not be apologizing. The fantasy Gods were kind to me in week 8, blessing me with an easy Sunday without any stress as I took care of business against the lowly Schlong’s by a 50-point margin. Working around Jalen Hurts worst performance of the season, the rest of the squad picked up their QBs slack. Darrell Henderson, DK Metcalf, and Chris Godwin all did as they do, finding the endzone and putting up huge weeks. Darrell Williams had a nice bounce back as my RB2, dropping 14 Monday night against the G-Men. Mike Gesicki, in his first start as a Friend, managed to meet his projection; and the Broncos D managed to block not one, but two Chris Blewitt field goal attempts. I guess you can say Chris really “blew it” against Denver, zing! The only real disappoint, yet again, has been my first-round pick Dalvin Cook, who couldn’t get anything going in front of a national television audience on Sunday night. Whatever. As the League’s #2 seed through 8 weeks, I’m not gonna get too fancy and do anything drastic (like start Alexander Mattison?).
#1. The Flandrew’s – Brent Gotkin (Previous Ranking: 1) Make it three straight weeks a top the leaderboard for the biggest, baddest man in fantasy football. Brent was without his top gun Dak Prescott for a week, but it hardly mattered as he easily cast aside Kris in this week’s closest matchup, 145-128. Joe Burrow filled in for Dak with a respectable 20 pointer, and his Bungals counterpart Joe Mixon scored 2 touchdowns, both coming in a loss to Mike Fuckin’ White and the Greatest Show on Turf (pick him up if you haven’t done so yet folks). The three headed monster of AJ Brown-Amari Cooper-Cooper Kupp combined for a near 70 (which alone would’ve nearly beat Beans Corp). All of that was enough to overcome a handful of poor performances, namely Zeke and Kyle Pitts. At least he has Dallas Goeddert to throw in there if need be. Somehow the Bengals actually managed to score 1 point even though they couldn’t do anything to stop the Jets’s own Mike & Mike, White and LaFleur. Brent should have an easy one in week 9 as he faces the Martians and tries to extend Ryan’s 3-game losing streak. That said, don’t take this one too lightly Brent, as weirder things also seem to happen in The League.
Biggest Rise: Norse Horse/Thomas and Friends Biggest Fall: Jonathan Taylor Thomas 2.0/Buffalo Bonez
That’s it folks. I promised I’d get it done in time for Thursday Night Football. Speaking of which, I’ll be tuning in to watch your New York Football Jets go into Indiana and take down the Colts, much similarly to a glorious January afternoon in 1969. Go Jets and as always…