Vikings win! Steelers win! Broncos win! That’s all of the fandoms right? So all in all a good week for non-fantasy football! That said… Seriously what the hell is with this year and this week of fantasy football in particular. We had approximately everyone’s starters/studs either die on the field or put up abysmal numbers. I’m going to start keeping track of who’s gone down injured who is also a starter. Let’s take a gander: Indian Outlaws Thomas Rawls (Leg) Big City Hillbillies Doug Martin (Hamstring) Twin City Tree Cats Danny Woodhead (ACL tear. Done for season) Vicious Veg-Heads Ameer Abdullah (Foot) Suzy’s Pancakes Jonathan Stewart (Hamstring, out for a couple weeks) 90° Putters Arian Foster (Groin) Adrian Peterson (Torn Meniscus) Now that is just this week. And not all the injuries that kept people on the sidelines for a bit. Just the ones that caused them to leave the game. Keenan Allen blew out his knee last week sending the Outlaws scrambling and the lack of Charles and Gronk for sure impacts the Angels ability to keep points on the board. And this is just Week 2. What’s next? I fully expect all of us to be scrambling for third or fourth string RBs or WRs by Week 4. This week in aggregate seemed pretty low scoring. 2 matches didn’t break 100 points for either team. And then we only had 2 that had both teams over 100. Big turnaround from last week where only 1 team scored less than 100 points (oddly enough that was the Outlaws who are averaging 85.35 PPG so far). Hopefully the points go back up next week so we can see some big numbers and not be left numb as we bench another starter when they blow out a knee or gets a concussion. P.S. The Rams beating the Seahawks 9-3 is probably one of the most hilarious things of all time. Week 2 RecapNorthside Angels (92.1) vs. The Mullynation (96.1) – Title Fight This match up seemed to be a fight between two teams who really did not want to win. Both teams had abysmal outings by their starters and it really came down to the defenses. Defense wins championships, or at least saves two teams from sub 70 point games. The Angels mainly just experienced this week’s low scoring from everyone. Not one of their starters got over 16 points besides the Broncos D/ST. The biggest move they missed was not starting Crowell who has been showing some promise in the new Browns offense. Lots of running coming out of there right now with them losing RG3 and McCown in two weeks. The biggest thing hurting the Angels right now is the lack of their two highest paid picks (draft wise). Both Gronk and Charles are riding the bench so here hopes they get back into the line-up. Mullynation had an equally poor week from their starters. No one besides the defense got over 14 points, it’s just that they had more starters (Non D-ST) getting above ten points with 4 to the Angels 2. No real standouts on the bench to score much better besides one or two points here and there. Just one of those weeks for this match-up. Injury Report: A Both teams came out of this week without a starter being injured. But that may only be because the Angels have their starters out for injuries already. Big City Hillbillies (104.8) vs. Troll Hunters (115.7) The Troll Hunters claim a solid win over the Hillbillies. Nothing too shabby in terms of huge outliers or anything. Just one of those games. The Hillbillies came into this match with a hope that they could repeat a respectable showing of 130ish points. But alas. That was not to happen. He lost Doug Martin in the second quarter and wasn’t doing too hot before that either. This obviously limited his scoring potential which was too bad considering the rest of the team did pretty solid. The exception being Yeldon and Rodgers. The biggest thing for the Hillbillies is the negative point differential between his starters and his bench though. The Hillbillies threw up 109.6 points with his bench. And that is with 3 less slots and 1 bench player out (Ertz) and 1 putting up 0.8 points (Powell). He had 4 on the bench put up 20+ points including Diggs and the Vikings D, If he had slotted in just one of those bench players he would have won. Trust in Diggs man! The Troll Hunters had another week with not much variation from last week. Only a two point difference. The Troll Hunters managed to make it out of the week without any lasting injuries as Marshall was able to keep going for his game. So that right there is a major bonus. Nothing too special for the Hunters this week except for a big 16 points from Gano. Gurley is not looking super promising though so let’s hope that he starts to live up to that high ADP. Injury Report: B- Two of the starters got hurt, one for each team. Though only one was pulled out for the game. The bench of the Hillbillies appears like it can sustain the blow though as long as Bernard keeps up his production. Twin City Tree Cats (94.5) vs. Indian Outlaws (84.4) The Tree Cats pull off a victory over the Outlaws. It was looking like it could be a close one coming in to Sunday night but Mike McCarthy forgot that Eddie Lacy exists and is a good runner when allowed to ya know, actually run. So Lacy puts up a measley 5 points which does nothing to help the Outlaws. The Outlaws other starters were typical for this week: disappointing. ODB has not been his usually self, especially when going up against the Saints. I was expecting at least 20 points from the man. Elliot was looking decent but had a fumble to drag it back down to 12.4. I don’t know if he’s going to work out this year, but he could be primed to pick it up later and maybe next year if he stays patient in the backfield. The pickup to replace Allen had a crap game with only 4 receptions for 33 yards. And his boy Rawls went down with an injury in the first half limiting him to only 2.5 points. Hopefully Michael is able to pick up the slack if he gets slotted in next week. The Tree Cats had a pretty poor game even pulling off the win. Stafford and Murray put up solid points and Benjamin came in huge with 26.3 points. Other than that he had no one go above ten points on his team. I think it was pretty bold to start the Bengals D/ST against the powerhouse that is the Steelers offense but it really didn’t hurt him terribly. Unfortunately it is early season so Brown is not going to be a big part of the game plan for the Cardinals. I expect him to pick it up closer to the end of the season. And of course Woodhead died on the field to add on to the abysmal week. Injury Report: D+ We lost starters for both teams this week. Rawls looks like he is gonna be ok but no word on Woodhead yet. Combined with the injuries last week the Outlaws are looking to maybe end the season with exactly one person not injured. River Gypsies (110.2) vs. Vicious Veg-Heads (146.5) In the big points matchup this week the Gypsies and the Veg-Heads managed to both score above 110 points! That is big money talking! Unfortunately for the Gypsies the Veggies threw up 146.5 points in our highest score of the week. Tough luck Gypsies. Maybe the Mullynation curse transferred to you this week! The Gypsies had a respectable showing from his starters. He followed my advice and made sure Fitzgerald was in his lineup which was smart considering he was the second highest scorer on his team. Trust the Fitz! Murray and his kicker Tucker also threw up 18 and 15 points each. All in all, just a solid game. His weakest spots were his DP (crapshoot) and Wilson (never trust a Seahawk against the Rams). But really nothing could be done there. The Veg Heads roared back with a vengeance after their defeat in Week 1. Cam and Forte both threw up nearly 30 points each which covered up weakness from Abdullah (injured and out early) and Sammy Watkins. Basically all that could be done to improve this week was throwing in Benjamin for a quasi-injured Watkins. That would have thrown him up to 169.2 this week and be our first 50 point defeat. But, alas, the Gypsies survive a complete drubbing. Injury Report: B- Only one starter went down in this match-up so it was not that bad. The Veg-Heads may have to scrounge for another starter as its quite possible that Jeremy Hill is not going to cut it and Booker is just a handcuff to Anderson at this point. Suzy’s Pancakes (103.8) vs. 90° Putters (89.2) The poison is still in them pancakes. The curse is broken. The Putters tried their hardest to drag down the points scored against and did a pretty good job. But they were lured into eating them ‘cakes and felt the poison hit their own team fast. Suzy is now dancing off into Week 3 at 2-0. The Putters experienced the worst of this week in injuries. His week started off well with Decker throwing up 21.6 points in a big win over the Bills. Bortles increased his score by a few points and threw up 18.6. But after that it completely went to crap. No other offensive player went over 6 points and that is including the Blair Walsh Project. And unfortunately a lot of that was due to injuries. Adrian Peterson went down after a disappointing game against the Pack and looks to be out for a couple weeks. Arian Foster pulled his groin in the most expected injury of 2016. And Doug Baldwin hurt his knee though he powered through it to put up 3.5 points. So that’s three, count em 3 starters injured and having limited games beforehand. Everyone else just kind of played below their levels. Kuechly and the Panthers D tried their hardest to not be as bad. Solid scoring from both. Suzy’s Pancakes had one of the few mediocre performances this week. He was only struck by the injury reaper once with Jonathan Stewart who is expected to miss a couple weeks which could be big as he will soon be losing Deangelo. That said he has a fairly decent bench for potential backups in that flex spot. Antonio Brown came down from the heavens to give his powers to Diggs this week and only put up 6.6 points. I don’t expect that to continue. And this week, a mediocre week is all you need. Injury Report: F These teams lost 3 total players that were out by the end of the game. And 1 more that could be out for next week. 3 of those 4 were on the Putters, dealing a massive blow as he potentially lost his RB1 and RB 2 for at least one week and possibly more. Power RankingsSo as I am a mad fan of the hot takes and knee jerk (gah AD!) analysis of ESPN I am gonna change it up again from last week and move things around with my newly patented formula for establishing our power rankings. It is a matrix based upon winning percentage, PPG, injuries, stud production, and my general feeling about teams based upon my dearth of knowledge about fantasy football. Please understand that it won’t make much sense. So here we go! 1 – Troll Hunters (-) No major injuries and a solid performance with not much variance in PPG gives this top spot to the Hunters. Their players are looking good and put up average to great games so far this year and the bench is looking swell as well. No problems here but we shall see as the crazyiness that is 2016 (god rest Prince’s soul) continues on. 2 – Suzy’s Pancakes (+4) The syrupy seductress is too much for this league at the moment. The Pancakes escaped Bloody Sunday with losing only one player to injury but that is buttressed by the good performances by their other players. The low game by Brown will most likely not be repeated as it was pretty rain developed but we could see some trouble coming Week 4 when they lose the Williams could topple this team back down the stack. Again, Pancakes has some serviceable backs in Gore and Riddick, but no one will be a solid RB1 once Bell is back taking away Williams. So this position is tenuous. 3 – Big City Hillbillies (-1) I mainly moved down the Hillbillies because they are 0-2. And really when the time comes the record is all that matters. If the Hillbillies can make better starting choices, they will rapidly move up the ranks and are actually my favorite to win this overall if the Angels don’t manage the dark horse championship. Just need to start Diggs and that Minnesota D! 4 – River Gypsies (+1) The Gypsies stay the same due to losing again and also having some problems with that Atlanta backfield. Other than that the PPG isn’t pretty and there might be problems if the team starts acquiring injuries. Some upside can be found in their bench but they have to make those smart choices. The WRs and RBs are pretty good but choices will need to be made for the future regarding the Flex spot. 5 – Vicious Veg-Heads (+3) Forte has established himself as the back for his team so I doubt this Powell controversy is gonna flare up again. Losing Abdullah is going to be hard but I think they can make it work with the strong performances by the WR corps they have assembled. They also have the highest PPG this year at 133.15 at the time of the article being written. The RBs are gonna be the problem for this team and the Veggies will probably have to make some moves once the two-headed beast that is Hill and Gio starts rearing up. 6 – Northside Angels (-2) The benched Charles and Gronkowski are hurting me badly. I need them back in the line-up. Until then I need to rely too much on a WR corps that is a bit streaky. There could be some sneaky moves with a handcuff or two on the team so the RB group is still looking strong. Just have to play the smart PPR choice. Hopefully we see a rebound in Week 3 against the Hilllbillies! But right now I am just not impressed with my team. Gah. Injuries. 7 – The Mullynation (-4) While the Mullynation pulled of the win it was a wet noodle sort of win. Chances are her fortunes will be brighter in the coming weeks as Sims steps in for Martin and the rest of the team starts putting up serious points. Her defense is not going to save her every week like this week so a bit more consistency would be a major bonus. We will need to see some more consistency from everyone not names McCoy and Snead and a bit better production from the non-defensive players 8 – Twin City Tree Cats (+1) While coming down from the major points last week, the Tree Cats threw together a decent enough week to rise to 2-0. Losing Danny Woodhead will be a major blow but they only need to hold out two more weeks until Bell is ready to play and they already have Ajayi on the bench to step in for the groin injury extraordinaire Arian Foster. Once Bell is able to play again I think this will be a solid team, but there will be some pains until then. 9 – Indian Outlaws (-2) The points just aren’t there for the Outlaws. They have the lowest in the league with 85.35 PPG. Losing Allen last week and the lack of production by Lacy with another injury to Rawls and this team isn’t looking great either. Even having Michael to step in means little as the Seahawks offense is not doing it at all. Putting up 3 points on the Rams? Come on! Plus the $30 sitting on the bench FOR TWO WEEKS is just kinda twelve types of terrible. Why start Rawls over Gordon? Gordon put up 10 more points the week before. Yeah, Woodhead was gonna be there but you obviously paid for Gordon for a reason. Playing that Seahawks RB roulette is gonna get you burned. Rawls and Michael are not Beastmode. Good thing is that the team still has ODB but overall this team is not like the Outlaw teams of old. 10 - 90° Putters (-) I’m sorry to do this but the massive damage done to your starting RBs and some potential damage to your WR corps is leaving this team with a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in it. If you lose those guys, you are left with a WR2 in Sanders and a couple RBs that are streaky as all get out. That said maybe not having to play AP and Foster every week means more flexibility in choosing those benched players. But right now you are still in the dregs. Week 3 PredictionsNorthside Angels (1-1) vs. Big City Hillbillies (0-2)
Vicious Veg-Heads (1-1) vs. Indian Outlaws (0-2) 90° Putters (1-1) vs. Twin City Tree Cats (2-0) The Mullynation (1-1) vs. Suzy’s Pancakes (2-0) River Gypsies (0-2) vs. Troll Hunters (2-0)
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By: Hayden HansonMr. Hayden Hanson (Editor in Chief) is an Accountant-extraordinaire, as well as an aspiring writer. He has written several moderately-successful self-help books, the most famous of which is "What Do You Mean You Can Smell My BO?" Gustav Travers of the New York Times praised the book as "A vulnerable, courageous look into the mind of a man who has literally no sense that other people exist. And also no sense of smell. Nope, he definitely doesn't have that either. Just musk, like a hog that's gotten into the cabbage." Archives
September 2019
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