Category: Power Rankings

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 4^th & 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 7^th 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 14^th 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*:

1. Jack – Clinched the first overall seed and bye
2. Brent – Clinches 2^nd seed and bye with a victory
3. Andrew – Clinches 2^nd seed with win and Brent loss
4. Thomas – Clinches playoff spot with victory, or losses by at least 2 of Abie, Max, Kris and Ryan
5. Max – Clinches playoff spot with victory, or losses by both Abie and Kris
6. Abie – Clinches playoff spot with victory, or losses by both Kris and Ryan
7. Kris – Clinches playoff spot with win and loss by either Max or Abie
8. Ryan – Clinches playoff spot with win and losses by Abie and Kris
9. Brendan – Can help me out by beating Brent
10. 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*

Got all that? Good, great, grand.

Go League!

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 4^th & 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 3^rd and 4^th 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…

Go League!

Gobble-gobble, motherf*ckers. Turkey day is finally here, my 2^nd 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 4^th & 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 7^th 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 5^th 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, 4^th 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…

Go League.

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 4^th & Schlong – Brad Peddito (Previous Ranking: 7)
Well, at least you’re not 10^th. For the 3^rd week in a row, the Bradley’s put up a valiant effort in pursuit of their 2^nd 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 9^th 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 4^th & 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.

Go League.

**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 4^th & 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 4^th 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 5^th 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 1^st 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 3^rd 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 4^th & 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…

Go League. Shoutout Sebastian.

*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 4^th & 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 6^th 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 8^th 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 “12^th 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…

Go League!

I’d like to dedicate this opening paragraph to the Ravens D for allowing me to beat Bonez. -6 points is pretty hard to do, but you all picked the perfect week for a stinker. I’d also like to thank the NFL schedule makers for putting Buffalo on a bye and forcing Tommy to pick up Baltimore. I couldn’t have pulled it out this week without your combined efforts.

Now that I got that out of the way, it’s time to revisit our weekly power rankings.  This is probably the least movement we’ve seen in 7 weeks as teams start to distance themselves from the rest of the pack. Remember, these are only my opinion. Things may turn out very differently at the end of the season. So with that said, let’s get going with our 10 spot…

10. South Jersey 4^th & Schlong – Brad Peddito (Previous Ranking: 10)
 – See previous power ranking posts-
For the sake of time, not going to go to in depth on this one. You all know why Brad’s team is ranked as low as it is. His team is perfect combination of just plain bad and decimated by injuries. He won’t be leaving the #10 spot for quite some time. Moving on.

9. Beans Corp – Brendan Cahill (Previous Ranking: 9)
Let me paraphrase the late, great, former Mets manager Yogi Berra — “It’s getting late early around here.” Brendan must start winning some ball games and soon before he finds himself too far out of the playoff picture. Desperate times call for desperate measures and my sources are telling me Beanso is willing to trade coveted TE1 Travis Kelce in an attempt to overhaul his roster and turn this ship around. Will he find a suitor? Stay tuned. Anyway, week 7 was not kind to my podcast co-host, losing a backbreaker to Max. Down his RB1, it was the other RBs on Brendan’s squad that picked up the slack with Swift and Harries both going for over 20. Derek Carr filled in nicely for Justin Herbert and Brendan smartly played the Pats D against my New York football Jets. That game was a massacre. Where did it go wrong? Look no further than the garbage WRs crop Brendan had to trot out there. Robby Anderson, Courtland Sutton and Marquez Callaway all scored in the single digits, yuck. I like ya Beans, so I’m rooting for a quick recovery for CMC. But something has to be done and quick to fix this mess.

#8. The Martians – Ryan O’Connell (Previous Ranking: 6)
Fuckkkk. This one hurt to write. After a hot start, my man Marzy has suddenly gone ice-cold, dropping each of the last two games without cracking the 110-mark in either. A painful defeat to Kris has seen Ryan drop to below .500 and currently out of the playoff picture. The Bucs D played their little hearts out to keep Ryan in the game, forcing 6 (six) Justin Fields turnovers. Christian Kirk, Scary Terry and Tannehill also outperformed their projections in the defeat. Ryan was doomed by poor performances from the normally reliable Mark Andrews and Antonio Gibson, while surprising starters Henry Ruggs and Mecole Hardman played their way back onto the bench for next week. I guess I can say that Melvin Gordon was ok. Good, not great. Anyway, let’s see if Marzy has any tricks up his sleeve as he looks to upset the #1 seed Jack in week 8. Do you believe in Miracles?

#7. Waller Nothing – Max Cohan (Previous Ranking: 8)
Alright, I’ll let you get your wisecracks out of the way. Yes, Max has a winning record. No, I don’t hate Max. I love Max. But despite his early returns this season, I still don’t think his team is better than any of the top 6 teams on this list, and these are my power ranking so what I say goes. Don’t like it? I invite you to write your own. Anyway, he is 8^th out of 10 in scoring after all. Besides Kamara, his RBs are Devonta Booker, Elijah Mitchell, Mark Ingram and Rashad Penny. Granted, to their credit, Booker and Mitchell has good games on Sunday and lead Max to victory over Beans, but I’m sorry… I don’t see Max having a deep playoff run unless he addresses that weakness. In a massive shakeup, Max is shipping out of town his namesake Darren Waller, along with Calvin Ridley, and taking in Mike Evans and Noah Fant. Well, Mike Evans sucks and Noah Fant is a downgrade from Darren Waller, so I’m going to hand Maxwell a fat L on that one. I hope I’m wrong, but when it comes to fantasy, I rarely am.

#6. Norse Horse – Kris Blaine (Previous Ranking: 7)
Welp, we let it happen. Kris is officially back and out for blood. Well, back might be a bit of a stretch since he only scored 111 point this week, but it was still enough to beat Ryan in a low-scoring affair and double Kris’s winning streak to 2 games. Faced with a depleted roster from bye weeks and injuries, Kris ran the B squad out in week 7, rolling with Matt Ryan at QB, Hunter Henry at TE and Myles Gaskin at the flex. All three respectively met/exceeded their projections, so that’s a good roster management right there. Who did not meet projections you ask? That would be Chubba Hubbard, Aaron Jones, Jarvis and Rams D. The last on is surprising considering they played the Lions, but Dan Campbell and his cocaine infused gameplan seemed to thwart whatever Los Angeles threw at them Sunday. Davante Adams and the rebirth of Leonard Fournette in Tampa are both fantasy studs and Nick Folk kicked a big 13 points to get Kris over the hump and into the W column. I like Kris’s team moving forward, especially with David Montgomery soon to return. Did we fuck up by not burying Kris when we had the chance? Let’s hope not.

#5. Buffalo Bonez – Thomas Antonello (Previous Ranking: 5)
The Buffalo’s thankfully got DK Metcalf’d on Monday night and dropped their 3 straight after a hot start to the fantasy season. I’m not going to punish Bonez greatly for this one however, as it was a tall order going against one of the best teams in The League (me) without 4 key players on byes, Austin Ekeler, Najee Harris, Justin Jefferson, and the Bills D. Things looked bleak for the Bones’s after Noah Fant’s poor Thursday, but his Ravens duo of Lamar and Hollywood Brown linked up for a long TD and things turned around. Sadly, the rest of the Ravens weren’t so kind for Tommy, their defense got blitzkrieg’d by the mighty Bungals and took 6 points away from Tommy’s team total. I should’ve had this one wrapped up, but then Mike Evans happened. It was destiny for this to happen to me. I talk a lot of shit about you Mikey, but you bested me on Sunday. Three (3) tuddies, including Touchdown Tommy’s 600^th were nearly enough to pull off the upset. I’d also like to thank Ryan Succop for blowing a gimme 30-yard FG in that same Bucs game, or else I’d have been sweating it out even worse on Monday night. Anywho, Thomas now is the proud owner of one Calvin Ridley and Darren Waller, so let’s see if that is the recipe to get him back in the win column.

#4. HOCKEYPRO69 – Abie Leider (Previous Ranking: Tied for 1^st)
Sorry about this one Abie. After last week’s unprecedented 4-way tie for the #1 spot, inevitably someone was going to have to be this week’s big loser. In a Battle of the Titans, the 69ers laid their first real egg of the season, barely eclipsing the 100-point mark in a 60-point thrashing by Brent which dropped our man out of The League’s top seed. Pat Mahomes was seeing ghosts as he and the Chiefs got their teeth kicked in by the real-life Titans. Fortunately, it appears he escaped that game with just a bad head bruise and will be good to go for week 8. Speaking of those Titans, Derrick Henry had a pedestrian game by his standards, mustering only 15 in that blowout win. DHop, Michael Pittman and Cardinals D all performed well and, as a Jets fan, I was encouraged by what I saw from Michael Carter, who was just about the only positive thing you can take out of that abysmal showing up in Foxboro. I think Julio Jones is suffering from a case of being too damn old to still be kicking in the NFL. The poor guy is constantly hurt or underperforming in a run-heavy Tennessee offense. Not all bad news for Abie, however, as it appears some of his key guys may be back this week to help a thin WR room. Jerry Jeudy, Sterling Shephard and perhaps Michael Thomas may all see action on Sunday. Fortunately, Abie’s got Beans Corp this week so I forecast only a one-week slip-up before he returns to his winning ways.

#3. Thomas and Friends – Andrew Vignali (Previous Ranking: Tied for 1^st)
Whew. I’ll be the first to admit that I barely skated by this week against a bye-week ravaged Tommy Bonez. Overall, my team’s performance this week left a sour taste in my mouth, but a win is a win, so I won’t apologize. 121 points, a season low, was barely enough to squeak it out, but that’s now 5 W’s out of the last 6 for those scoring at home. I owe it all too my main man Jalen Hurts, fantasy’s #2 QB. Can’t believe y’all didn’t veto that trade. I don’t think he’s a good QB, but he puts up a lot of garbage time points to churn out these overall solid fantasy numbers which is the only thing that matters to me, so in my eyes he’s a lock for Canton. He added a late touchdown in a blowout loss to the Raiders in a week I needed every point I could get. Speaking of those Raiders, I lost Josh Jacobs at halftime after he put up a big first half. He’s on a bye this week so hopefully he’ll be ready to go for week 9. Chris Godwin is a freaking stud and DK Metcalf did just enough (barely) on Monday Night to get me this win. However, my RBs took a hit as Darrell Henderson and Darrel Williams put out unusually poor performances. I still have ace in the hole Khalil Herbert so I’m not too worried. Anyway, I got Brad this week (pencil me in for an easy dub) so I’m already looking ahead to week 9 where I got a big matchup against the Nordics. Let’s keep the good times rolling.

#2. Jonathan Taylor Thomas 2.0 – Jack Staub (Previous Ranking: Tied for 1^st)
If the season ended today, the fantasy playoffs would run through Ardsley Drive. That’s sports banter for Jack is the #1 seed. Fortunately for everyone, the season does not end today. Unfortunately, Jack’s team looks almost unbeatable. Deebo Samuel, Tyreek Hill and Jamarr Chase form probably the best WR tandem of any team. It doesn’t even matter that Tyler Lockette now stinks without Russell Wilson. Jonathan Taylor is quickly ascending into Derrick Henry territory, he’s an absolute stud behind that Colts offensive line. I can’t believe Cordarrelle Patterson is a weekly RB play, I don’t even have a witty joke I can make about him. He’s just flat out good. And then there’s Tom Brady, who at age 44 is the fantasy QB1. I hate this guy more than any athlete that has ever played a second of professional sports, but I’d be remiss to not admit what he’s doing in year 20 of the NFL is astonishing. I still have questions/concerns about the depth of Jack’s roster (Mike Davis?, Devin Singletary?, Jamaal Williams?) but the JTT2.0’s should have built up a sizeable enough lead that he should have a playoff spot wrapped up quickly. Let’s hope nothing happens to JT.

#1. The Flandrew’s – Brent Gotkin (Previous Ranking: Tied for 1^st)
He’s big, he’s bad and he’s back as the sole owner of the #1 spot on Da Commish’s power rankings. A convincing 60 point victory against the former #1 seed 69er’s is enough to break the four way tie and earn The Flandrew’s the top spot; and he did it all without his top dawgs on the Cowboys. It was a different two-headed monster that got Brent going on Sunday, Joey B and Mixon absolutely crushed Baltimore in convincing fashion. The old two TE play worked out just fine, Pitts and Goedert went for 30 points. AJ Brown is seemingly healthy and back to his old ways and what can be said about Cooper Kupp? I still kick myself for taking Josh Jacobs over him at the draft. You know it’s a good fantasy week when you’ve done everything right, meaning that your all-Pro kicker, Justin Tucker, was the lowest scorer for the week. I kinda want James Conner back, we’ll talk. Anyway, look for Brent to continue his winning ways now that he survived the Cowboys bye week and will have Antonio Brown back soon. Congrats on the top spot bud.

Biggest Rise: Norse Horse/Waller Nothing
Biggest Fall: HOCKEYPRO69

There you go. No longer a 4 way-tie at the top. Everyone ranked unbiasedly one through ten just like a power ranking is supposed to. We’re officially at the regular season’s half-way point so things are starting to get dicey, just the way I like it. We got a good one to kick-off week 8 as the Packers take on the NFC leading Cardinals. Anyway, see you all at the Lake House (facetime us Max) for a nice weekend of boozing, comradery, and more than enough fantasy banter that’ll make all non-League members want to rip their heads off, I’m sure. Well, it’s their loss.

Go League!

Wow. What a freaking bloodbath. Scary season is officially upon us, and The League did its best to join in. There were more than a few ugly, horrifying performances this week and it’ll take a proper fantasy brained genius to analyze it all. Fortunately for everyone, I fit that bill. So in keeping up with this week’s theme, allow me to put on my Victor Frankenstein hat and dissect the monster that I created, beginning as always with number 10….

#10. South Jersey 4^th & Schlong – Brad Peddito (Previous Ranking: 10)
A moral victory! Unfortunately, they don’t count any extra in fantasy as they do in the real sport. Still, I must acknowledge the vast improvement in the Bradley’s this week, even if they dropped a big one to Kris. 115 point is normally a meh game, but still a 30-point improvement over what I predicted on this week’s pod. Kyler was back doing Kyler things, playing like an MVP frontrunner in a blowout at the Dawg Pound. Also, it appears the Phins got a good one in Jaylen Waddle, 24 for #17 across the pond. And the biggest story of the week was R. Stevenson (not even bothering to lookup that first name) rewarding Brad’s faith in giving him the rarest of starts and finding the endzone against Dallas of all teams. That must’ve felt good. Hell, even Zach Ertz scored in the double digits. I want to keep Brad’s write-up a positive one, so I won’t mention his shortcomings, but nonetheless, still something to build off as we near the season’s mid-way point.

#9. Beans Corp – Brendan Cahill (Previous Ranking: 8)
The era of good feelings for Beans Corp fans lasted all of one week. It was one step forward, three steps back. At a glance, the final score of our game was much closer than the actual competitiveness, as some late garbage time touchdowns from Robby Anderson, Courtland Sutton and D’Andre Swift moved Bean’s projected points from like 85 to 105. Anywho, I already mentioned what went right, now let’s discuss what went wrong — which was pretty much everything else. Brendan was victimized by usual culprits Jerrick McKinnon, Miles Sanders and Robby Anderson, the last of whom can’t escape the ghosts of Sam Darnold. Poor guy.  Last week’s hottest waiver addition Kadarious Toney was doomed from the day he put on a Giants jersey and he naturally got hurt. However, the biggest disappointment had to come from Justin Herbert who could only muster 11 against Baltimore. While Bean’s tries to ast least stay afloat without CMC for another couple weeks, hopefully the rest of his squad can step it up.

#8. Waller Nothing – Max Cohan (Previous Ranking: 7)
Have the wheels finally fallen’ off for everyone’s favorite Southerner? Maxwell, who has recently navigated some tough sledding and still managed a 3-2 start through 5 games, ran into a hungry Brent and absolutely got his teeth kicked in by the defending champ. It was always going to be a tall order this week with Kamara/Ridley out on byes, but I would’ve liked to see more of a competitive fight put up by the Waller’s. Channeling his inner Gene Hackman, Max trudged out the Replacements, led by Kareem Hunt (who promptly got hurt), Zack Moss, Devonte Booker and Tim Patrick. Obviously, this strategy did not work and the actually good players on Max’s team were unable to dig him out of an early hole. Mike Williams had the most obvious Mike William’s game of all time. At least Rodgers and Thielen both are playing well. Anyway, Max has already emphasized his need of a quality RB and is looking for a trading partner, so perhaps a new look roster for next week’s game will be just the need Max needs to right the ship.

#7. The Norse Horse – Kris Blaine (Previous Ranking: 9)
Is Kris back??? It appears for at least one week that is the case. Who knew that all you need to remedy a slow fantasy start is to face Brad? It was the CeeDee Lamb show that led Kris past the aforementioned Brad with 31 big ones in his inaugural game as a Nordic. What’s this now? Leonard Fournette is suddenly good at football? I guess a little bit of Tom Brady’s greatness has rubbed off on the Tampa RB.  The Rams defense against a mush-brained Daniel Jones was the most obvious play of all time. Seriously, Kris should be locked up for taking advantage of a super concussed man like that (but all kidding aside someone on the Giants needs to be fired for that decision). The Packers dynamic duo was rock solid with 30 points and Chubba Hubbard continued to take advantage of playing time in CMC’s absence. Kris was burned by the Myles Gaskin experience again, sad, but the rest of his team performed well enough to double his win total in a laugher. Watch out boys.

#6. The Martians – Ryan O’Connell (Previous Ranking: 6)
Is Ryan back… to being bad at fantasy??? For at least one week, it also appears to be the case. Sorry Marz. The Martians suffered from one of their worst scoring outputs of the season, dropping a stinky 91 points in an easy defeat by Abie. Due to unfortunate injuries to his QB depth, Ryan was forced to play the other triplets out of the NFC East – Taylor Heinicke, Antonio Gibson and Scary Terry. The three combined for just over 17 points, or about half of what Derrick Henry dropped on them. Not a great ratio. Melvin Gordon is still a thing. Sadly, it appears we were all duped by Tyler Boyd’s fast start to the season. He, as expected, has turned it around – which is to say he’s back to being bad. The good was Stefon Diggs, Mark Andrews and Dionte Johnson. Hopefully we’ll be able to chalk up this week’s performance to unfortunate injury luck and Ryan will be back to selling #PlayoffMarz t-shirts. We’re all rooting for you. At least Ryan hit that monster parlay so maybe he’s this week’s big winner after all?

#5. Buffalo Bonez – Thomas Antonello (Previous Ranking: 4)
Just edging out the previously mentioned Marzy, my man Tommy Bonez must be kicking himself this week after barely losing a very winnable game against Jack to extend his losing streak another week. The ten-point deficit he suffered can be attributed to playing the wrong QB for the second week in a row, but this time it was Lamar who let down the Buffalos with a disappointing 11 points. Somehow, the Ravens still managed to blow out LAC, even though Hollywood Brown disappointed his way to 5.5 points. Notch this one as a victory for Vigs in my never-ending beef with Mike Evans, I told you he stinks! Seems like only Najee and Noah Fant got the memo that Bonez needed to pick up a dub this week, so good for those guys. The rest of his lineup, not so much. Again, the bench warriors, namely Alex Collins, Latavius Murray and Matt Stafford would’ve been enough to get Tommy the win. Perhaps Bonez should stop wasting his time and money fixing up his condo and instead invest instead in a time-machine.  I wish you good fortunate as you set your lineup for Sunday. Actually, we play each other so please pick the wrong QB again 😊.

–Prepare for something wild–

#1. (4-way tie) Thomas and Friends – Andrew Vignali (Previous Ranking: 3)
Jonathan Taylor Thomas 2.0 – Jack Staub (Previous Ranking: 2)
The Flandrew’s – Brent Gotkin (Previous Ranking: 4)
HOCKEYPRO69 – Abie Leider (Previous Ranking: 1)
Woooh, what the fuck happened here? Let me fill you in. I’ve been staring at the fantasy app and the top 4 teams for about an hour and a half; analyzing, ranking, and re-ranking them — and making my head spin. Honestly, you can make a fair case for ranking any of these teams in some combination of one through four. Since I can’t make up my mind, and for the sake of finishing this column and getting back to work, I’m just gonna go ahead and lump them all together. So, congrats to Abie, Brent, Jack and myself on being ingrained in history as the first four-way tie atop Da Commish’s power rankings. Let me state my case for each one:

Abie: Has the best record, but only 4^th most points scored. Capitalizing on the easiest schedule, Abie has gotten off to a rip-roaring start despite injuries decimating his RB/WR room. Once the 69ers are at full strength, Abie will be very much in the running to take the championship belt from his Albany brethren…

Brent: The “anti-Abie”. Brent has benefitted from the highest scoring team but has suffered from the second-hardest schedule. Add that up and you get a 3-3 record, the worst of the 4 teams tied for the top. However, Brent should benefit from playing in the opposite division as Abie, Jack and I and is clearly the top dawg in our Eastern division.

Jack: My gganbu and writer of the two-best columns on this blog, Jack has my vote as the early front-runner for Coach of the Year.  I’m convinced he’s got some kind of super Excel formula running his team like Jonah Hill in Moneyball. Whatever he’s doing, it’s working. Tied for second in both best record and for most points scored, plus throw in a head-to-head victory against Da Commish, the JTT2.0’s makes a strong case for the number one spot.

Me (Da Commish): Who is Jack tied with for second best record and points scored? That would be yours truly.  I basically make the same case as above for Jack. Interestingly, I am the only one of the 4 teams to have a H2H matchup with each of the others, accounting for both of my losses in high scoring affairs (to Jack and Abie respectively). Anyway, it’s my rankings, so I’m always gonna find an excuse to give me the top spot.

There you have it, an unprecedented four-way tie for the #1 spot. I hope you all recognize the history that was made here. One more sleep till week 7 kicks off with a lousy Baker-less Browns v. the Broncos. I’ll probably pass since I have no one going. The Knicks tip-off in their opener tonight so that will be cool. I’ll be splitting my commissioner duties for the time being between The League and fantasy basketball. Don’t worry though, The League and #MBS will always be my first love.

Go League!

**Disclaimer: This was written yesterday I just forgot to post it in the haste of preparing for last night’s podcast**

5 weeks down, 12 more to go before my crown our 4^th champion in LeagueStory. Already, the playoff picture is taking shape. Some teams are flying high, others are crashing low and plenty of teams in-between. I’m sure you are all waiting with baited breath to find out where you fall in this week’s Power Rankings. Well, wait no longer. Let’s jump right into it with our numero diez…

#10. South Jersey 4^th & Schlong – Brad Peddito (Previous Ranking: 9)
Brad commented last week that one day he will crack the top 8 in #BrentsCommish’s weekly power rankings. I’m sorry Brad, but you’ll have to wait another week. Actually, I’m starting to doubt that that day will ever come, especially after seeing Saquon’s ankle get rolled over the way it did on Sunday. Ouchie. Not that a fully healthy Saquon would’ve made much of a difference. Brad was finally victimized by a pedestrian Kyler Murray on Sunday which pretty much ruined any chance of an Abie upset. The only folks on Brad’s team who came to play were Nick Chubb and Robert Loggia Woods. Somehow the Charges scored 47 points and Keenan Allen only mustered 75 yards, yikes. You know your team sucks when you resort to starting Zach Ertz, double yikes. Not much else happening on Brad’s bench to note. Anyway, I’m bored with this team so moving on.

#9. Norse Horse – Kris Blaine (Previous Ranking: 8)
Another week, another move in the wrong direction for the Nordics. Last week’s number 8 team dropped his 4^th game out of 5 in the early portion of the season to the devilishly handsome and always good at fantasy Vigs. Hey, that’s me! Sorry about that bud. Anywho, Kris had a pretty meh performance,. 126 points is not too great, not too bad, but it definitely wasn’t enough to top ya boy. It looked like it was going to be way worse, but Josh Allen laid the beatdown on prime time television against KC. Too bad not enough of those gorgeous passes went to Stefon Diggs. Damien Williams showed the importance of a quality handcuff RB so good job there. Lenny Fournette escaped the barren wasteland that is Jacksonville and is suddenly a good fantasy player – who’d have thought? But too little from his receivers, namely Marvin Jones and Jared Cook, flushed Kris’s chances at a victory like a big ol’ turd – synonymous with his current team.

#8. Beans Corp – Brendan Cahill (Previous Ranking: 10)
He’s bacccck. Nobody, and I mean nobody, needed a victory more this week than last week’s biggest loser Beanso. And for most of Sunday, it looked like it was gonna be another long one for my podcast co-host. However, Justin Herbert would not let Beans go down in vain, single handedly snatching victory from the jaws of defeat with a 40 burger and putting Beans Corp back into the thick of things on the fantasy season. D’Andre Swift had another big game. Courtland Sutton mustered 20+ points and Travis Kelce more than made up for last weeks stinker. Add that all up and it was enough to take down the hottest name in fantasy in what was probably the best game of the weekend. Beans should be worried about his thin RB depth behind Swift (at least till McCaffrey comes back) as Miles Sanders and Damien Harris aren’t going to cut it. Still, nothing but positive vibes coming your way this week.

#7. Waller Nothing – Max Cohan (Previous Ranking: 6)
I guarantee I’m gonna be hearing from him after this one but I don’t care. I said it after last week and it remains true, Max’s team is a fraud. It sucks to score in the 130s and lose huh? Which is unfortunate because this was one of Max’s better weeks of the season. Alvin Kamara turned back the clock all the way to 2018 and finally had a big week. Kareem Hunt enjoyed a nice afternoon in that wacky Browns-Chargers game that saw a billion points scored. Speaking of that game, Mike Williams went OFF. We all know this by now, but he’s actually having a good year, I can’t explain it! Goes to show how far a stud QB can carry an otherwise very mediocre WR core. Anyway, that was about all the good for the Waller’s. Their namesake Darren and the Raiders have come back to life with another stinker. Alex Collins and Zack Moss? I guarantee in the history of fantasy football, this was the first time that combo of RBs every started in the same lineup. I don’t know what’s good with Adam Thielen either. And Aaron Rodgers could only muster 19 against the friggin’ Bengals? I don’t even have a joke for that one – he just stinks.

#6. The Martians – Ryan O’Connell (Previous Ranking: 7)
Cue the damn music. “He ain’t go-ing nowhere….” Seriously, King Marzy is 3-2 through 5 weeks and fully in the Fantasy playoff race. The big story this week? Mark Andrew dropping 36 Big Macs in that crazy Monday Night game in Baltimore. Ryan only needed about 4 points heading into that one, but Mark secured Marzy the victory with relative ease. The other big guns Davante Adams and Antonio Gibson laid the beatdown in #PlayoffMarz’s upset of Brent. Unfortunately, it might be hard stringing wins together moving forward considering Russell Wilson is down for a few weeks. We’ll also see how Ryan’s affected by the big trade that went down, seeing him ship out Adams and CeeDee to Kris, who was in desperate need of a team makeover, for Chris Carson and Stefon Diggs. Bold strategy Cotton, let’s see how it plays out.

#5. The Flandrew’s – Brent Gotkin (Previous Ranking: 2)
Ok, I’m getting a little sick of writing about Brent getting fucked over on Monday Night Football. Wait, who am I kidding, it’s hilarious! Still, Brent is putting up with the likes only seen before when Alex (RIP) started like 0-7 in 2019 despite being the second highest scoring team. A pretty mediocre 120 was not enough to top the Martian’s as Brent dropped his third straight. Simply put, it was the Zeke and Kyle Pitts show for The Flandrew’s on Sunday. Thanks for showing up guys. Sadly if you’re a Brent guy, they’re all who showed up. DJ Moore, Cooper squared (Amari and Kupp), AJ Brown and Mixon all sucked with a capital S. I know he’s gonna act like it’s all good and he has everything under control, but we know Brent is secretly dying on the inside. We all expect better. Brent, maybe start preparing a few standup jokes.

#4. Buffalo Bonez – Thomas Antonello (Previous Ranking: 4)
Not gonna penalize my man Bonez here for dropping his first game after a three-game winning streak as Tommy remains in the number 4 spot. The same thing holds true as always, Austin Ekeler is a freaking monster *as long as his hammy remains intact*. I told y’all Najee Harris was gonna be the next Le’Veon in Pittsburgh. You’re welcome for the advice Tommy. Also, you’re welcome for Mike Evans. He stinks but he must have a personal vendetta against Da Commish because he keeps proving me wrong. Sadly, OBJ ACTUALLY stinks and at this point is looking like he should barely be playing CFL football, let alone on Sunday. I have no idea what happened with Chase Edmonds. Did he get hurt? Genuinely have no idea. Justin Jefferson definitely did not get hurt, however, so 15 points from him is a disappointment considering what he averages weekly. Does Matt Stafford stink suddenly? 16 points against the SeaGirls is horrible. Anyway, Bonez, you can’t win ‘em all.

#3. Thomas & Friends – Andrew Vignali (Previous Ranking: 5)
Yeah, my all around solid team continues to do all around solid things. At least 130 points for the 5^th straight week (only guy in The League do so) and a victory against arch-rival Kris, it was a good Sunday. Speaking of good Sunday’s, DK and Dawson Knox had GREAT Sunday’s (ok, DK’s was technically on Thursday). The best handcuff in football continued to rock ‘n roll in Dalvin Cook’s absence (thanks Max!). Hurts, Henderson and Jacobs all had pretty average games for their liking, but it didn’t matter. I even correctly played Corey Davis over CEH. It’ll be interesting to monitor the RB2 position going forward with CEH’s MCL all banged up. But, as I expected this to happen, I snatched up his handcuff Darrel Williams last week while y’all slept. Go Me!

#2. HOCKEYPRO69 – Abie Leider (Previous Ranking: 1)
Shocking, I know. Abie wins and drops a spot? That’s more of a testament to our yet-to-be-revealed number 1 team. Anyway, Abie continued his hot streak with an easy victory against Brad, which was good news for Abie considering his man Patrick Mahomes had probably the worst game of his acclaimed career. Derrick Henry shit-kicked Urban Meyer and the Jaguars on Sunday for like the billionth time and his counterpoint James Robinson was not too shabby either. Add some solid performances from Michael Pittman and De’Andrew Hopkins and it all adds up to a 4-1 start for the 69ers and the top seed through 5 weeks. It’s amazing he continues to win considering all the injuries Abie’s suffered (Jeudy, Julio, Mostert, Shepard). Will his luck run out? Will he finally get healthy? Will I figure out a clever way to finish off this team write-up? Spoiler, I can’t and I really want to finish this before the Rangers game so let me continue on to….

#1. Jonathan Taylor Thomas 2.0 – Jack Staub (Previous Ranking: 3)
Get ready to change your GroupMe name bud. Through 5 weeks, my roommate and gganbu Jack has accumulated the most points in The League (I’m a close second let me add). Still, let’s not take anything away from the JTT2.0’s. I’m just gonna put it bluntly, there’s no explanation for how he does it, but Tom Brady continues to ass fuck Father Time. Touchdown Tommy is playing arguably the best QB’ing the sport has seen at age 44. I laughed when he first picked up Cordarrelle Patterson, but now it’s Jack who is laughing all the way to the bank with 15 points and a TD against my Jetsies. Sigh. I’m pissed off I didn’t take Jamarr when I had the chance, easily the ROY front runner. But the MVP for Jack on Sunday actually came on Monday night! His namesake Jonathan Taylor needed only 3 points against Baltimore to secure victory, and managed only 10x that. Rodrigo added 5 points before rupturing every ligament/tendon in his kicking leg for good measure. So with all that, we got a new front runner for the championship belt.

Biggest Rise: Jonathan Taylor Thomas 2.0/Bean’s Corp/Thomas & Friends
Biggest Fall: The Flandrew’s

Ah yes, finished just in time for puck drop. Let’s Go Rangers. Anyway, don’t reflect on these rankings for too long. Week 6 kickoffs in twenty-four hours with a doozy, the defending champion Bucs against the scumbag Eagles, sorry Brad. You know I’ll be watching intently. We know the Bucs will win by 30 but I’m rooting for 2 garbage time touchdowns from my main man Jalen as he always does. So, with the well wishes of my fantasy QB in your thoughts, let me leave you with the two greatest words in sports…

Go League!

Damn, is it October already? The fantasy season is flying along at an alarming rate, and I can’t believe it’s already time to update this week’s power rankings. Feel’s like just yesterday I was analyzing the rosters post-draft. Fast forward to now and certain teams are riding high while others are completely dismantled – with plenty of teams falling somewhere in-between. I hope you’re all wondering where your team falls. If you aren’t and are just scrolling through to find Jack’s latest LeagueStory or whatever the fuck he’s got drummed up for us this week, well I’m disappointed. But I digress. Anyway, here we go…

#10. Beans Corp – Brendan Cahill (Previous Ranking: 6)
Jesus Christ. Beans, I won’t blame you if you want to keep scrolling here. There’s not much to report other than that your team is I currently a complete dumpster fire. I mean seriously, your team is putting up early day Ryan performances. I knew it be tough sledding this week from the jump after CMC went down and you lost the bidding on Chubba Hubbard. Things only got worse as the Bengals defense Bungled and only scored 1 measly point Thursday night against Urban Meyer. Pathetic. Sunday did not prove much better. I’ll keep it short because I’m sure everyone is aware and doesn’t need the full recap – but Sunday was about as bad a fantasy day as we’ve all seen. Keep your chin up, these weeks happen. But for at least one week, we have a new team in pole position to the stand-up stage. Yuck.

#9. South Jersey 4^th & Schlong – Brad Peddito (Previous Ranking: 10)
Who was the biggest winner from Bean’s abortion of a week? Brad of course. Consider it an early wedding present from Brendan. Well Brad’s week 4 went about the same as his first 3 week, which in short means not good. But hey, you’re out of the #10 spot. What do you know!? The Giants blocked just well enough to allow Saquon to show off his massive quads and finally put up the big week we all know he’s capable of. 2 tuddies for the former Nittany Lion. Kyler was good again – leading his Cardinals to victory over Los Angeles – let’s see if history repeats itself on Wednesday (NL WC game reference for those who didn’t get it). Apart from that, more general badness plagued Brad’s team as he dropped his 3^rd straight. Forward looking, I’m comfortable having Brad over Beans since Saquon is looking more and more like what made him the #1 pick just a few short seasons ago, and Bean’s is just not healthy at the moment.

#8. The Norse Horse – Kris Blaine (Previous Ranking: 8)
Coming in at 8 for the second consecutive week is our Nordic brothen. Kris was the big winner of the Chubba Hubbard sweepstakes dropping 41 dunkaroos for his services (its fake money anyway, kind of like our national debt). Unfortunately, Kris couldn’t drop any FAAB on a win – losing a low scoring affair to the Maximillians. Again, the injury bug reared its ugly head as David Montgomery, who looked prime to have his breakout game of the season, went down with an apparent knee injury that’ll sideline him indefinitely. Josh Allen and Diggs connected for a nice 40 burger between them. But apart from that, not much else went right. Carson, ARob and Aaron Jones all mustered less than 10 – yucky. But the real story was Kris getting confused and accidentally starting the Clarkstown North Rams defense against Arizona, who rightfully got abused for -5 points. No wait, I’m told it was the real NFL Rams that played on Sunday – I could hardly tell the difference! Anyway, Kris, as a veteran of this League, you should have known better. And I expect better going forward.

#7. The Martians – Ryan O’Connell (Previous Ranking: 9)
Choo-choooooo! You hear that? That’s the Martian’s bandwagon rolling into town after a big victory over the Schlong’s. Four weeks, 2 wins for #PlayoffMarz – his best start to date in four years of The League. Russell Wilson, Scary Terrys and Diontae Johnson’s big weeks were more than enough for Ryan to secure the bag against a lowly Brad – but Gibson and Bucs D outscored their projections as well for good measure. I know I sound like a broken record, but I still hate Ryan’s RB room. Melvin Gordon going against a strong Ravens run d did what we expected, not much. David Johnson did even worse so at least Ryan played the right of his two shitty options. Davante and Mark Andrew had meh performances and CeeDee Lamb was just straight bad. Did he get hurt? I genuinely don’t know cause I paid zero attention to the ‘Boys game but 2.3 points is concerningly low. Anyway, if he did, its not like Ryan wouldn’t have the WR depth to stay afloat for a bit.

#6. Waller Nothing – Max Cohan (Previous Ranking: 7)
What can I say about Max? To put it bluntly, Max is a fraud 3-1. Middle of the pack sure and better than the teams lower down on the list, but his team has underperformed what his record indicates. Put it this way, of all the teams with multiple wins, Max is the lowest scoring by quite a bit. Still, you only must beat who you’re going against – so no Max will not be apologizing. However, he should be apologizing for making us all suffer through his long-winded ode to Mike Williams on the pod last week. Well, Mikey finally proved who we thought he was all along, backing up his boss’s shit talk with a stinker. More of that to come, I’m sure. A-A-Ron is back to playing like the incumbent MVP again so that’s good news. Kareem Hunt is also pretty good despite being the #2 back in a loaded Browns backfield. Outside that, not much was happening for our man. Didn’t matter though on account that Kris’s team stinks.

#5. Thomas and Friends – Andrew Vignali (Previous Ranking: 1)
Motherfucker. A steep drop this week for #BrentsCommish after a stinker vs Abie. You may say 130 points is nothing to sneeze at, but quite frankly, my team left a lot of points on the board. And I needed to take this one against an injury depleted 69ers team. This’ll sting for a while. Look no further than Dalvin Cook, Chris Godwin and Josh Jacobs who couldn’t get anything going on Sunday/Monday. I knew it was a tall order considering Cook and Jacobs were returning from injury but come on boys – I DEMAND better. Hell, even Matt Gay missed a 40 yarder, a 5 point swing! Jalen Hurts was rock solid and Clyde Edwards-Helaire is suddenly good? I’ll take it. Also my live on the pod waiver addition of Dawson Knox proved to be one of the best moves of the week, 2 touchdowns! Sadly, it was all in vain. Looking forward to having a bounce back performance against Kris this week or else I might be in serious trouble.

#4. Buffalo Bonez – Thomas Antonello (Previous Ranking: 5)
Whoah, who saw this turn around coming? Not me, that’s for sure. My man Tommy Too Hotty is not just hot aesthetically, but his fantasy team is currently roasting. 3 straight victories after a dropping his inaugural matchup with Brad has seen Bonez climb all the way to the top of the standings and in a three-way tie with Max and Abie. I think technically he’d be first in a tiebreaker. You might be asking yourself why is he only ranked fourth? Well, it’s my column so I make the rules. Let’s start with what went right this week, which to put short and sweetly was everything except OBJ (any maybe Mike Evans?). I must highlight the Buffalo Bills D – who honored their namesake Bonez with an outstanding 21 points. Austin Ekeler, Chase Edmonds and Najee Harris are a powerful 1-2-3 RB punch. Hell, he won and even played the wrong QB (only by .14 pts). Especially if you can consistently count on double digits points from Noah Fant, I don’t see many holes on this roster. Keep up the good work Bonez (hopefully Ekeler doesn’t get injured).

#3. Jonathan Taylor Thomas 2.0 – Jack Staub (Previous Ranking: 3)
Jack, the only negative thing I can say this week is that for your sake, you probably wish you didn’t waste this week’s performance on Beans. In the law of averages, you’re bound to put up a stinker eventually, so you might as well have cashed in on Bean’s anomaly this week with a slightly less of a stinker yourself and saved your 166 big ones (and this weeks high score) for a more worthy opponent. That’s even counting the Saints D’s -3! Someone check the data, but this may be the first 100+ point margin of victory in LeagueStory. The story of this week was the WMD that Tyreek Hill, Deebo Samuel and Cordarelle Patterson dropped on Beans Corp. 105 combined points for the trio – more than enough to take down Beanso themselves. To top it off, Jonathan Taylor finally played like a first round pick and sniffed the endzone for the first time on the season. It really didn’t matter that Tom Brady, Jamarr Chase and George Kittle sucked – this one was a laugher from the get-go.

#2. The Flandrew’s – Brent Gotkin (Previous Ranking: 2)
Remember last week’s Monday Night Massacre? It happened again, and Brent was victimized for the second week in a row. Not gonna lie, I kinda love to see it. 150 tall boys wasn’t enough to take down the hottest name in fantasy. Still, Brent’s the highest scoring League member through 4 weeks, so respect must be put on his name. This matchup came down to what is so often does, the defenses. The Broncos couldn’t get it done against Baltimore, and the 21 points Brent surrendered to Thomas’s defense was enough to ensure defeat. Naturally the Cowboys’ triplets had another monster game. Its scary to think that maybe Zeke is back. If Zach Wilson continues to play like he did on Sunday (hopefully for my sanity he does) than Corey Davis becomes an automatic weekly starty. Cooper Kupp finally had a pedestrian game, but you can’t really complain there, he’s still WR1. Unfortunately, Joe Mixon went down with a knee injury late on Thursday’s game, another reason why short weeks just suck in general. Anyway, Brent will look to end his 2 game losing streak against the rival Martians in what may be this weeks game of the week. Stay tuned.

#1. HOCKEYPRO69 – Abie Leider (Previous Ranking: 4)
Congrats Abie, you bettered me. Defeating the previously ranked #1 team is grounds to shoot up the board into this week’s #1 spot for the third time in 5 weeks. Not even my perfectly constructed team could match up with the greatest QB in NFL history, Pat Mahomes, who anal raped the Eagles secondary all Sunday long with five tds. At least one of them went to CEH. James Robinson and Derrick Henry also decimated the lowly Bungals and Jets defenses, each scoring a touchdown and adding an additional 20+ points. Tyler Bass added 16, Ravens D had a late pick in the endzone (a four point swing in our matchup) and Renfrow tacked on 13.5 Monday Night. All pretty good performances. Going forward, you’d like to see more from big names like DHop and TJ Hockenson. All in all, at full strength, the 69ers are just the best team on paper. And being 3-1 despite all the injuries shows you what a behind the scenes genius our boy Abie is – the early frontrunner for Coach of the Year.

Biggest Rise: HOCKEYPRO69
Biggest Fall: Thomas and Friends/Beans Corp

The pod should be an angry one this week so stay tuned. Anyway, I gotta sit down and watch the Red Sox hopefully lay the beat down on $324 million-dollar man Gerrit Cole, a nice little baseball break during the week as the NFL season rolls on. We also have to look forward to a decent TNF football matchup for once as the Rams visit the Seahawks. Both will be looking to keep pace in a loaded NFC West. Hopefully Jamal Adams does something embarrassing. I’m rambling so I’ll leave you all with the sweetest two words in sports…

Go League!