Hello everyone,
I wanted to apologize briefly for not
keeping up the blog like I meant to over the past few weeks. With Christa in
town last month I decided to take a short vacation from it so as not to be rude
to her. My plans for guest bloggers fell through since Bill Simmons was busy
and Stephen King cursed me out in his e-mail, but I should have planned further
ahead.
You should all know that I have stayed on
top of the calculations, though. All the numbers are up to date, as well as
everyone’s rankings from prior weeks. If, for whatever reason, you would like
to know what your ranking was for weeks 4, 5, or 6, let me know and I’ll grab
it.
I also need everyone to know that I had to
make a quick schedule change. It has been brought to my attention that the
computer-generated schedules shorted some members out of 1 or 2 divisional
games. For instance, Matt and Dave were only set to play once, as were Ryan and
Corey. This would make it harder later on to determine divisional winners since
everyone would have a different number of games played.
As such, Ryan is now playing Corey instead
of Dave, while Matt is now playing his father instead of in-condo rival Corey.
I’m sorry for the confusion. To go off of that, there were some things that
cannot be fixed. My own father only plays Curtis one time, while Curtis plays
Corey 3 times. This, too, was a mistake, and it is unfortunately one that
cannot be fixed by a simple mixing of opponents. So, to correct it, Corey’s and
Curtis’ third matchup will not count as a divisional game.
And with that, the following is the (rather
disjointed) Week 7 power rankings! See you next week for rivalry week.
1.) (LW #1) Team Flood Gates, 5-1 [110.33 PPG, .219 NPRP]
Ryan has finally grasped the top spot in
the league: a position that he has so endlessly pushed for, but I will still
refrain from giving this team respect. Will said it best: it’s a team of
questionable pieces that has put up points in the flukiest start of an NFL
season that we have ever seen.
Ryan’s team puts up points. It fluctuates
between “How can we beat them?” to “Oh right he starts Kendall Wright and
thinks it’s a good decision” in the blink of an eye. Ryan came into this league
saying that the trophy was his. He has disrespected us and has recently called
for an undefeated season from hereon out.
No one calls me out like that in my own league
Ryan hardly beat one of the worst team in the
league two weeks ago solely because Philip Rivers insisted on getting the ball to
his overrated tight end to prove that he can still score touchdowns without
steroids. When they play a defense that didn’t wake up on Monday morning with a
text message telling them that their names might actually be in the program
this week, Gates won’t put up 2 TDs.
Ryan’s quarterback and starting running
backs have put up fewer points than his defense. No defense in NFL history has
started out hotter than the Broncos’, but look at who they’ve played: The
Ravens, the Chiefs, the Raiders, the Lions, and the Vikings.
These 5 teams have combined for 6 wins.
They’ve played 3 of the worst teams in the NFL and have barely pulled off these
wins. This won’t continue.
And yet this guy prances around saying how
we’ll be worshipping him for his skills. Skills that include a love affair with
a bandwagon team and drafting their defense unreasonably early in what is,
admittedly, the call of the year. But calling that he will go undefeated from
here on out?
This will not happen.
As an owner and a writer, I am calling for
a bounty on Ryan, just to make things fun. The person to knock Ryan from the
top spot, to leave him in a cannon-less Reno with another loss in the books,
will get to write my team’s portion of the blog for the week. You will be able
to finally get the poetic justice that you have all sought for so long.
God speed.
2.) (LW #3) Lindy's Lynch Mob, 4-2 [100.17 PPG, .180 NPRP]
There’s not really a good metaphor to aptly
describe what Melinda Brown has been to fantasy football and to this league. She
is always there. She is omnipresent. She is, to quote one of my favorite
novels, the little scratch on the roof of your mouth.
Whether we like it or not, this woman is
obsessed, and she has become her own brand of monster in a world that was once
a sandstorm to her. She didn’t understand, but she wanted to, and that desire
has led to maniacal pursuit.
Mom has been affected by the trophy.
On the flip side though, are the mind
games. Melinda maintains that fantasy football is “different” to her than to
the rest of us. Whereas some of us want to beat our opponents into submission,
Melinda will feel sorry for you. Is this better for her victims? Not in the
slightest.
Melinda’s constant barrage of the subject
“my team” combined with the adverb “probably” and any variation of the verb
“lose” has become the proverbial mustard gas of the league. Whereas it started
as a conversational piece with a weekly opponent, we have all fallen victim to
the sickness caused by that statement. And not even because it is repeated on
end each week, but because we all know that Melinda, historically, does not
lose very often.
Did Napoleon ride into battle amongst the
sound of trumpets that cried “We’re a little overmatched today?” Do the Notre
Dame Fighting Irish traditionally enter their home stadium by patting a sign
that reads “Play like you’re probably going to lose?” Did JK Rowling preface
each Harry Potter book with “To Thomas, this one’s my worst yet?”
No. Champions set their attitude to win. If
things aren’t going your way, then find a new way. You taught us that.
Please, mom. Just have fun with us. Enjoy it. Smile while you're winning and drink when you're not. Just #EndTheBarrage
3.) (LW #2) Judge Richard Berman's Team, 4-2 [97.33 PPG, .176 NPRP]
Will graced us with his presence a couple
weeks back. And, while it was short-lived, it sent a strong message: Even
without his stars, Will can win.
Then Will came into a game where Vegas favored
him by something like 15 points and Will held on to a tight one. His stars were
back, he was playing for the title of “Chip,” and he made a very, very smart
trade.
See, the point of a trade is not to “win.”
The point of a trade is to benefit both teams involved. Will did not need a
backup QB of Philip Rivers’ caliber, he needed a running back. I had one too
many starting running backs and was in need of an upgrade. Exo-facto, we looked
out for one another.
Will came into this game and did it to Corey.
His studs put up numbers, his flashy new starter put up numbers, and Will
maintained his position as a force in this league.
But does he actually belong there?
Van Der Beek tells it like it is
Will’s entire season has consisted of 3
games of 85-89 points and two big games. Is he good? No
doubt, no doubt. But is he the 3rd best team? Well, I think that will be revealed in the
weeks to come.
I disagree with Corey Hewett’s jab that
“That is unbelievable how lucky that kid is.”
I throw around luck as an excuse when I
lose. I throw it around here on the blog, but when we break it down, Will did
not get lucky in his matchup against Corey. He certainly did not get lucky in our most recent matchup.
There are players that are studs and there
are players that somehow put up points despite a lack of noticeable talent
and/or because of a fluke. Do we get angry when LeVeon Bell or Julio Jones put
up 20 points on us? Sure, but we know that they are capable of that because
they are some of the best players at their position. It’s lucky when Marquis
Colston or James Jones or Rex Grossman puts up a huge point total on you.
Colston is average, Jones is 5 years past his prime and is benefitting from
blown coverage, and Grossman is just Jay Cutler with a fake mustache.
Tom Brady hitting Julian Edelman for a long
touchdown? You can expect something like that to happen. Those are Will’s 2
best players. That’s not luck.
But then again, Will is limited to those 2 players. Sure, the
Patriots might turn out to be the best team in the history of the NFL, but Will only has 2
players on a 9-man starting lineup. That's the Fantasy equivalent of the Houston Rockets.
The only way Will is lucky is how he got
put up in a nice apartment in sunny LA while people around the world slum it
when they’re in college. The kid isn’t in touch with the struggles of the
world. In fact, I’d say that his high life has made him out of touch with his
fellow man, and with fantasy football.
Now that Will lives like the Monopoly guy
what with his blackout shades and his view of the veranda, he seems to think
that Tom Brady was right to cheat. He thinks that cheating gets him rings, and
I think that’s made him unpredictable. Watch out for him like he watches out
for spare $100 bills falling out of his deep pockets, because Will’s holding
nothing back this season.
Just remember, Will. We was in the hood while you were shopping at Whole Foods.
4.) (LW #4) Fast Eddie, 3-3 [107 PPG, .174 NPRP]
I don’t think Eddie reads the blog, so I’ll
make this quick.
I see a lot of myself in Eddie: The desire
to win, a love of the game matching that of a young child experiencing Fantasy
Land for the first time, and so much spare time to invest into Fantasy Football
that experts may call him depressed.
The problem is, I see a lot of everyone
else, too.
Dad: He doesn’t know the names of his
players all the time and usually puts in waiver claims for the 5 players who
scored the most points the week before. I’m convinced Eddie’s bench is
bottomless because every time someone tries to snag a player he somehow picks
them up.
Mom: He really downplays his team. While
playing Sean this past week, Eddie was up 25 points and actually told Sean that
“Hey, you still have your kicker left, maybe you pull out the win!” Such
comments are reserved for children before they receive their participation
trophies. When you have the win simply shake your opponents hand and say good
game. If you really want to, write a blog about it later where you can rip them
to shreds.
Mom: Eddie asks who has every player. It’s
adorable. “Who has Tom Brady?” “Who has Andre Ellington?” They’re starters on
great teams, Eddie, someone has them.
Will: The dude has no good running backs.
OK, he has Carlos Hyde, but everyone else is a backup or a backup’s backup.
It’s disgusting. At least Will can negotiate a reasonable trade.
Ryan: WAY too many players on one team. Are
you kidding me, Eddie? You’re a Raiders fan. Why do you have so many Colts on
your team? This is unbelievable.
Sean: The guy puts up 110 points per game
and still happens to half of them. It’s painful to watch. Totally unlucky.
Dave: Way too lucky. The guy picked up
James Jones and starts him. James Jones was at the Gettysberg Address and Eddie
put him on his fantasy team. He also starts David Johnson, the 3rd
string running back for the Cardinals who somehow scores a TD every time Eddie puts him in the lineup. He should not be putting up these points.
Cheryl: He won’t openly say it, but I know
that deep down Eduard Boyadjian hates me.
They hate us cuz they ain't us.
Corey: Actually, he’s the opposite of
Corey. He has fun and he doesn’t let his ego get in the way. Maybe that’s why
he wins.
Matt: He really just overvalues his
players. I offered to trade for Donte Moncrief, the backup to TY Hilton (who is
also on Eddie’s team). You’ll never play them both at one time, and yet Eddie
wanted AJ GREEN for his backup WR. Eddie thought that his benchwarmer was worth
a Top 10 player at the same position. OK, Eddie.
Curtis: He’ll surprise you. Right when
you’re really low on him and come in thinking you have a free win, he’ll set
his ragtag lineup in a way that nets him 159 points. Don’t sleep on him.
Anyways, Eddie is good for the league
because he truly is a melting pot of our styles.
5.) (LW #6) Laced Jam, 4-2 [90 PPG, .162 NPRP]
Is he back?
After yet another 2-0 season against Matt
(Look it up, Matt’s only beat me once) and another top-3 takedown, Nicky B is back in the winner’s circle.
Not only that, but he’s topped 100 points
despite two players under 3 points, TWICE. From the perspective of this writer,
he’s only going to keep climbing.
Sure, there was that REALLY weird week
where he only put up 59 points, but let’s look at how he responded. I might be
so inclined to say that he’s a sleepy pick to be the best team in the league.
This past week on ESPN, Scott Van Pelt was
quoted as saying that “Laced Jam might be the most stacked fantasy team I’ve
ever seen.” And that “the only problem I see this team having is which stud
players to start and which to bench.”
Too good for my own good
Say what you want, but you can’t argue with
the experts. They get paid to do this.
Do you disagree? Maybe you should beat Ryan
and then you can write this part.
6.) (LW #7) Joe Buck Yourself, 3-3 [93.3 PPG, .152 NPRP]
Brutal. Just brutal.
Sean’s sitting at #6 after two really
uncharacteristic losses. Granted, he got a win against the lowly Bobby B this
past week in what was seen as a bye week, but let’s focus on those losses.
Week after week we have labeled Sean as a
victim of circumstance in this league. His team will look dominant before
injuries set in or before someone randomly gets benched and throws off his
team’s chemistry.
Sean, one year removed from the fabled
stable of the Kessel Runners, is now relying on a couple horses bound for the
glue factory. Khiry Robinson, Tevin Coleman, and the West-Knile virus don’t run
deep or far for this offense, so it’s a little understandable that they’d be
struggling.
However, even with Sean slipping down after
his #1 ranking in week 3, he’s still a top 6 team. Nothing to run himself down
over.
7.) (LW #5) Wiggity Wiggity Wack, 3-3 [85.33 PPG, .139 NPRP]
Cheryl is so odd to me.
Cheryl starts off slowly every single year.
It’s inevitable. She’s going to look like a team that you can walk through.
But at some point she turns it around and
just rolls through some teams. She’s already in Act 2 of her season and she’s
focused on staying there for as long as she can.
Her team is just as strange this year.
She’s off to a hot start on the back of free agent pickup Andy Dalton. Her
running backs are nothing to make you smile, and yet they’re somehow
serviceable. She lost her top receiver, and yet her backup has been a
depressing fill-in to accent OBJ.
My reaction when looking at Cheryl's roster
It’s not an exciting roster, but Cheryl has
never been about having a little flash in her team, she’s about consistency.
She has put up 109 twice so far and once Dez comes back she will continue to
put up these high scoring games.
Cheryl has also taken the whole “The Smiths
are the bottom 4 teams” to heart, almost single-handedly climbing while the
Smith boys fail to get higher than (spoilers) 8th.
No jokes here, just a woman looking to go
back-to-back.
8.) (LW #9) Rank This, 3-3 [81.167 PPG, .132 NPRP]
Putting our history aside, it’s been an
off-year for Dave. Normally he comes in and we talk a lot of trash and he uses
it as fuel to win games and make it into the playoffs.
Yes, Dave beat me in week 4 and Lindy in
week 5, but other than that he has really struggled. He lost his best game of
the year and won his second-worst. He has 2 games under 65 points and only one
over his average coming into this season.
On top of that, Dave has been a lot more
friendly to us over the course of his brutal season. He gave us beer when we
helped him with his truck, he assisted Sean with his Mustang, and he invited us
to book club on Tuesdays (you bet we’ll be there).
So keep your chin up, Dave. It’s way too
early to count yourself out.
9.) (LW #12) Staff Infection, 2-4 [90 PPG, .130 NPRP]
Curtis, for all intents and purposes, is
about to have his comeback.
Yes, we had the whole conversation about
kicking him out of the league. Yes, he started a player on BYE last week, but
Curtis’ team is finally showing why he was the preseason #1 sooner rather than
later.
What I expect Curt's team to do in the coming weeks
Curtis has been the second highest scoring
team the past two weeks, and we have no reason to believe that he won’t
continue that this week against yours truly.
Curtis not only has all the right players
(the surprisingly dominant Devonta Freeman, the consistent Matt Ryan, and the
resurgent Calvin Johnson), but they are all facing teams against whom they can
score big.
Yes, even down here at #9, Curtis’s
incorrectly named squad has all the right ingredients to make the mid-season
push for playoffs.
Not to be my mother, but this week Curtis’
studs go against an average of 12.8 points. An astounding point total could be
coming his way.
10.) (LW #8) Talkin Bout Mockdrafts?, 2-4 [89 PPG, .128 NPRP]
Matt came into this season with a plan.
That plan included research, preparation, and a lot of rehearsal. He came into
the draft with a shiny new sheet of players to target and, to be fair, he drafted
VERY well.
You see, Matt was sick and tired of being
at the bottom of the totem pole that is our league rankings. He left the room a
new man, and I could hear his smile from the better of the 2 condos when he saw
that he was ranked #2 overall in the preseason.
But Matt was smart. He’s an educated man
from the better of the 2 Nevada universities. Matt didn’t smack talk. Instead,
he decided to wait for his team to start winning like he expected them to.
Then Matt walloped Eddie. We’re talking
almost as bad as I’m gonna wallop Corey later on in this blog.
Get ready, Chip
But then disaster struck Matt. It is a
nameless disease, but it crippled him enough to go 1-4 since that #1 ranking.
What is it, Matt? Why must you continue to
suffer? Was it the Arnold Schwarzenegger story? (And do you need the poster of
him back?) Please, Matt. Talk to us. How can you be healed?
11.) (LW #10) Roger Goodell's Team, 1-5 [93 PPG, .118 NPRP]
Last week I arrived home at around 4:30 in
the morning after another 10 hour shift. I was tired, I was hungry, and boy,
had I had a day. As I jiggled my key in the busted lock, I thought I heard a
noise coming from the dark parking lot behind me.
I looked around, my hands clenched in
fists, and felt a certain uneasiness in the night. When I felt safe, I turned
back around and spent another 2 minutes trying to turn the key before my door
finally opened. Just as I walked in and began to close the door, I heard the sound
again and I quickly locked myself in the confines of my condo.
I looked around and took in my
surroundings. I hadn’t really kept it clean since Christa left. So, being the
adult that I am, I cleaned up and did the peanut butter and salsa-free dishes. When
all was said and done, I grabbed the trash bag and walked to my front door.
As I opened it, the sun was on the verge of
breaking over the mountains to the east of me. The sky was a gorgeous blend of
black and gold as I once again heard the loud crash in the darkness.
I silently crept my way downstairs and
tip-toed to the dumpster just a stone’s throw from my front door. As I got
closer, I noticed that the noise that had so haunted me came from within the
dumpster.
I dropped my trash bag inside and the noise
suddenly stopped. Curious, I took a peek to get a glimpse of what had been
making such a noise from the depths of a trash heap.
Deep inside, underneath all my trash, laid
Corey’s team.
I don’t know how it always happens, or why
we always try to speculate, but Corey has once again found his way to the
bottom 2. And with a big matchup against his brother this week, we may see him
fall to the bottom spot once again.
Timberrrrr
12.) (LW #11) Mr Rodgers' Neighborhood, 2-4 [77.33 PPG, .112 NPRP]
With all due respect to my father on the
week of his wedding anniversary:
Shave this team like you did that mustache.
Seriously, Bobby B, your hoarding of
players is second to only Eddie. You tried to build your team like mine last
year, and now what has it gotten you? You’re all the way down here about as far
away from your beloved wife as you could possibly be.
Which trashy running back will I start today?
I don’t want to say this team is dreadful,
because it isn’t. You have a lot of promise here. But you’re holding on to 2
Washington running backs. Think about that for a moment. That’s the equivalent
of grabbing 2 propane tanks during a house fire.
No, that’s a bad analogy. Let me try again.
That’s like having two shares in ENRON in 2015. Closer, but I’m still not
getting it. Hold on a second.
Dad, that’s the equivalent of carrying 2
trash bags with you at all times “in case of emergency.”
Honestly, move on from one of them. It’s
not working out. Treat it like the sitcom staple where a guy asks two girls to
the dance. Sure, they’re both cute, but only one of them can carry a storyline.
As for your rotating cycle of tight ends? I
don’t know what to tell you. Same with your search for a WR2. Ty Montgomery is
Desmond Howard if Desmond Howard was born with stubs for hands and then
proceeded to burn both stubs off in a grease fire.
I pray that you build a new team.
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