Week 8: Todd Gurley is the Real MVP

Yesterday in our group conversation, I said I hated Todd Gurley because he wouldn't stop scoring points for Matt.  Turns out, he stopped scoring points at the very end, and I now love him for it.  But more about that on the official game recaps below.

Matt vs Skyler:  I was flying for most of the match, but when I landed, I had a 5.42 lead.  I only ended up with that lead because Todd Gurley didn't run it in at the end of his game.  That last TD would have scored about 6.4 more points for Matt, and he would have won.  Matt leads his division at 3-5, after starting 3-0 (he is tied for 1st, but he owns the tiebreaker).  Skyler moves to 6-2, which is what he was at last year -- and then missed the playoffs.

Geoff vs Rob: Geoff got the Monday Night miracle behind a solid game from McCoy and a strong game from Gostkowski.  It moves Geoff up into 4th place, and Rob drops down to last place, but with the Matt loss, he stays in the playoff hunt for his division.

Tommy vs Tyler:  Behind a huge Thursday night from Watson and Drake, Tyler hung on to win, even after his defense got him negative points.  The win moves him up to 3rd, though he would be 2nd seed in the playoffs because he is first in his division.

Brady vs Kyle:  Brady gets the come from behind victory based off of a pair of Patriots putting a pounding on the Bills (tried to get more alliteration, but couldn't find a good way to do it).  James White is a PPR stud.  Brady somehow survived his QB tossing 4 INT's and getting pulled.  What a weird week for Brady.  Brady keeps a game lead on second place Skyler.

Ren vs TJ: Ren kept his solid lead, and got the win with TJ needing a semi-injured Gronk (he was questionable/doubtful during the week I believe) to score him more points. TJ really hates Monday Night Football, as he has now lost several games due to players playing on Monday.  The win means Ren, who is in 9th place, is tied for first in the division, he is just behind on total points.

Trevor vs Jordan:  Trevor took on the Ginger Buzzsaw of Parowan, who was the highest scorer for the last two weeks.  Trevor did it in style by being the highest scorer of the week himself.  Despite the great week, he is still in last place. **Edit: He is no longer in last place.  He is in 11th place** However, if he can pull even on wins with his division rivals, he is doing well enough he could pass some people on points tie-breakers.  It will be interesting to see if he keeps it up, though losing Will Fuller V for the year certainly doesn't help.  Even with the loss, Jordan puts up decent points and should help him in the playoff race when it comes to tie-breakers.  There are no moral victories, but this wasn't a terrible loss.

Time for some "awards".

High score of the week:  Trevor won this and it wasn't close.  He had a great week, we'll see if it's a sign of things to come.

Low score of the week: TJ had an unfortunate week, even though his QB, RB1, and WR1 had decent weeks.

Luckiest team of the week: Ren was the 10th best scorer of the week (aka 3rd worst), but still managed to get the win by playing the lowest scorer of the week.  Skyler came in a close second since he won based on the Gurley kneel down.

Unluckiest team of the week:  This one goes to Jordan.  He had another solid week (5th highest score of the week, just under 140 points), but he was shut down by Trevor's high flying offense.  Matt came in a close second, simply based on Gurley should have scored that TD and it would have won Matt the game.

Looking forward to next week.  First I want to talk about how excited I am that the Raiders play the 49ers on Thursday night.  It means that I will hopefully get to see some good games next Sunday instead of being stuck watching local teams.  Yesterday there were 3 afternoon games:  The Rams/Packers, the Raiders/Colts, and the 49ers/Cardinals.  I lost out and couldn't watch any of the Rams/Packers game.  Living in a football market of a team you don't like is terrible. Also, in 2013, I lived in the Jags secondary market (Orlando), so I had to watch them every week, so I know what I'm talking about.  I kind of miss Utah for football games, but the west time zone is best.

Anyway, fantasy view for next week.

Matt vs Geoff:  This game is interesting from the standpoint that these two teams are right next to each other in the standings, but this game doesn't really affect their chances of making the playoffs.  Matt has to worry about everyone in his division, and Geoff needs to worry about the wild card teams.  Obviously, they both want to win, but at this point, they need to worry about winning, and then seeing what their opponents do.

Tyler vs Brady:  This is the prime-time match-up of the week.  The number 1 team vs the number 3 (but 2 on playoff seedings) team.  We'll see how it plays out though since a lot of Tyler's team is on bye next week.

Sunday Night Football is the Patriots vs the Packers, which will be fun to watch, and will be fun for fantasy.  We could see somewhere around 15 fantasy players from this game (6 NFL teams are on bye, so a few lower tier WR/RB could see some time) in starting lineups.

Monday Night Football is the Titans vs Cowboys.  I may be the only one in the league who will be excited about this game.  There are likely no fantasy starters from the Titans (who are my favorite team), and probably only 1 starter from the Cowboys with Ezekiel Elliot (he is on my fantasy team).  So most of the games should be final after Sunday night.

Well, that's it for this week from Dallas. I'm here for work training, so don't expect any quick responses when it comes to fantasy football.  Best of luck to everyone this week, except Rob.

Week 7: Perfectly Balanced, As All Things Should Be

We are at the halfway point for the regular season, and half of the league has a winning record (click here for the latest standings).  I'm pretty sure Thanos would like that.  Anyway, enough Avengers references, onto the weekly review.

Skyler vs Kyle: Kyle getting his highest score of the year and Skyler getting his lowest score of the year is the recipe for instant butt-whooping.  The game looked like it might be close early on, but that ended fairly quickly.  Obviously, this is some sour grapes from me, but Kyle is 2nd to last in scoring and currently would have the bye week and the 2nd seed.  Fantasy football is weird.

Brady vs Ren: Brady underperformed a little bit, but Ren underperformed a little bit more (his 4th highest scorer was his kicker). Brady stays on top of the leaderboard, with Ren dropping a few spots.

Tommy vs Trevor:  I am Turbo wins the battle of the lower end teams by a healthy margin.  I am Turbo is now tied for 7th (he is technically in 9th due to the tie-breakers ).  Obviously, we still have a long way to go before the playoffs, but given the way the team started, Tommy has the team in a good spot.  Trevor, unfortunately, is in a bad place.  His ranking starts with a 1, just like Brady's ranking, except Trevor's ranking ends in a 2.

TJ vs Rob:  In a weird week, Rob got the win, even though he started a running back who got him -0.5 points.  This win gets Rob from 12th place to 10th place.  He still has a ways to go to make the playoffs, but a win is a win.  As mentioned on the group chat, TJ is a kingmaker, in that he gives the win to last place teams and they feel like Kings for the day.

Jordan vs Matt: This was the second closest game of the week, and the final score actually ended up being fairly close even though the result was never in question.  Basically what I'm saying is there were a lot of blowouts this week.  This win gets Jordan back into the playoff race (5th place overall), but his playoff seeding would be 6th since the south will somehow get a 3 seed.

Tyler vs Geoff: In what was the closest game of the week, Geoff managed to squeak out a win vs Tyler on Monday Night due to Mo Sanu getting his second-worst total of the year.  That or you can blame his kicker for missing two PAT's, whichever you want.  The loss drops Tyler to 4th place.  Even with the win, Geoff is in 6th for the standings but is currently in 7th for playoff seeding because someone in the south will make the playoffs, and the whole division is behind Matt.

High Scoring Team of the Week:  I will keep using the "Ginger Buzzsaw of Parowan" nickname until Jordan stops being the high scorer of the week.

Unluckiest Team of the Week: On the other side of the previous matchup is the runner-up for the unluckiest team of the week in Matt.  Normally I would give Matt this award for being the second highest scorer and losing, but Tyler managed to steal this victory from Matt.  Tyler wins the unluckiest team of the week due to his narrow margin of defeat, not because of his great score (he finished in 9th for highest score this week, so he deserved to lose), but because he lost by 0.32.  Sanu could have won him the game tonight with 4 more yards, or 1 more catch, but it wasn't meant to be.  His kicker also missed 2 PAT's, so I feel good giving Tyler this award.

Luckiest team of the week will be given to Geoff.  He finished in 8th for the week, which isn't great, and he also got lucky to sneak out that win in the end.

Looking forward to some of the interesting matchups next week,  the new hotness of I am Turbo takes on the old and busted Hukraine (mostly just wanted to make a MIIB reference).  If Tommy's turn around is real, this should be a good matchup to prove it.  The battle of top 3, but kind of 2 teams this week comes down between Brady and Kyle, which could affect the race for the number one seed come playoff time.

We won't see a large reliance on Monday Night Football next week given that one of the teams is the Bills, and they only have one fantasy relevant player if they are lucky.  The Patriots could provide up to 6 fantasy relevant players, but who knows.  Sunday Night should be more important overall as it is the Saints vs the Vikings and we could see anywhere around 12 total players from that night in starting lineups.

This year's playoff race will be interesting.  Usually, if you get to 7-6, you will make the playoffs (right around 80% of the time).  With half the league at 4-3 or 3-4, we may see a few of those teams only get to 6-7 and still manage to get in.  It's too early to tell, but just keep in mind that 6 may be the magic number this year.  So no one is really out of it, but Trevor will need a miracle to make it at this point.  6 wins may be the magic number to win the South Division, so Trevor still has a shot there, but again, it would take a lot of help.  I have a dream that one year, a whole division will make the playoffs while they other divisions only get their division winners in.  It doesn't look like that will happen this year with both the North and the West having strong number 2 teams, and with I am Batman's rocky start, but a guy can dream.

That's it for now.  Good luck to everyone next week except for Matt.

Week 6 part deux

Last night, during my quality recap (found here), I was on the phone with Brady, and didn't give the proper attention to my post.

Things that I missed included High Scorer of the Week, Lucky Team of the Week, and Unlucky Team of the Week.  I thought about updating the old post, but this seems like a cheaper way to pad my stats/views.

Jordan was the high scorer of last week with 175.28 points.  It is the 3rd highest score of the year.  Considering we have had 6 weeks, and there are 12 different scores in a week, that puts his overall performance of 3 out of 72, which is quite impressive.  It is likely an outlier, but if Jordan's team has turned a corner, he could become the division leader in 2 weeks. I realize that doesn't sound like much, but given that he is currently in last in the division, and doesn't hold any points tie-breakers, it would be a nice and quick turn around.

Luckiest team of the week -- That belongs to Tyler for beating Skyler. The luckiest team is TJ (he beat Tyler for that distinction by .32 points).  He was the 7th leading scorer, but had a match up that got him a victory, and even then it was only a 7 point victory.  But a win is a win and it moves him into a playoff spot.

Unluckiest team of the week is Rob. Rob was the 4th highest scorer of the week, but ran into the Ginger Buzzsaw of Parowan (not a permanent nickname, just trying something for this section).  The GBP was no respecter of persons this week, and Rob was the victim.

In other interesting news that was brought up by Brady last night.  The top 2 scorers are the only ones averaging over 140 (number 3 is really close at 139 points), but if you look at each week, 140 is only a slightly better than average finish.  With a score of 140, you would have finished in the following positions below.

Week 1: 5th place
Week 2: 3rd place
Week 3: 2nd place
Week 4: 6th place
Week 5: 5th place
Week 6: 6th place

So if you finish with over 140, you are in a good place to get a win, but hitting it consistently is hard.  So keep that in mind next week when setting your lineup.

I'm not looking to do a part 3 tomorrow, but you never know.  Good luck to everyone but Kyle.

Week 6: The Return of the King in the North

Week 6 brought back the Return of the King in the North to first place.  Skyler got whooped by Tyler and Brady squeaked out a 6 point win over Trevor, so now Brady moves up to first, Skyler moves down to second, and Tyler moves up to third (and currently has a bye week spot).

The only other close game outside of Brady and Trevor was Matt vs TJ, which was a 7 point game, but that was decided last night.  Overall, the quality of the fantasy games tonight was seriously lacking.

The new standings are in a screenshot below:

Things to note:  I am Turbo moved up two spots after Tommy's first week taking over.  If Geoff had scored 4 more points, Matt would have dropped down to 7th.  He would still qualify as the division winner, but it would have been funny that no one in the South division would qualify for the playoffs on schedule.  The North went 3-1 this week, the West went 3-1 this week, and the South went 0-4 this week.  Not a great week for them.

Looking forward to next week -

Kyle (4) vs Skyler (2) looks like it will be the highest ranked matchup of the week.

Tommy (10) vs Trevor (11) will be the battle of the lowest teams.  If Tommy can get a win though, that would put him on a nice streak and put him back in the hunt for 6th place.

With bye weeks being crazy, and two fantasy-friendly matchups in primetime on Sunday and Monday night, we should have some closer/more intense games.  After a quick glance, every potentially has someone playing one of those two nights.  The only player who looks like all of their players will finish before Sunday Night Football is Geoff, and he is the one who is least affected by bye weeks, so I doubt that changes.  Otherwise, it should make for a fun week of fantasy football with some good primetime games. 

Good luck to everyone this next week, except for Kyle.

Week 5.5

For whatever reason, being in St. George caused too much of a distraction to get my week 5 recap done.  So here goes nothing.

Skyler vs Trevor: Another Monday Night Football come from behind victory for Skyler.  This one was thanks to the newly reinstated Mark Ingram.  He had some help from the best game of the year for both Aaron Rodger and Demaryius Thomas.  Trevor was moderately unlikely that he was the 5th highest leading scorer of the week, but didn't have a good matchup.

Ren vs Geoff:  Alvin Kamara was allegedly (according to the projections) supposed to make it close, but it never happened and Geoff maintained his comfortable lead the whole night.

Jordan vs Chad: In the battle of less than stellar owners, Jordan had an illegal roster due to keeping Edelman in the IR spot too long, which meant he couldn't pick up a TE for the week, so he was down to 8 men on the roster.  Not to be outdone, Chad never removed Fournette from his lineup, and the only RB on his roster would have won him the game.  After a lengthy, heartfelt, emotional, and tearjerking conversation with Chad (I don't know if any of those words are accurate, I'm just trying to add some emotion and drama here), it was decided to bring on a co-owner to the team to help out.  So we welcomed back original member Tommy Leavitt to the league.  He helped Chad at the draft because Chad was absent for part of it due to a family vacation, so he should be familiar with the team.  It will be interesting to see how he can turn the last place team around.

TJ vs Brady:  The closest game of the week, TJ was projected to come from behind and win by 3ish points.  Instead, he ended up losing by 5ish, partly due to an injury to his running back who was getting lots of dump off passes at the end of the game.  It was an intense game all night.

Kyle vs Matt:  On a night that belonged to Drew Brees, Kyle rode his many accomplishments to a come from behind victory over Matt, and ended up winning by about 8 points.  When asked for comment, Kyle was sobbing into his Drew Brees jersey and said: "Who won that trade with Matt now?"  (only half of that last statement is true, I'll let you guess which half).

Tyler vs Rob: In what ended up being the shoot out of the week, the number one scorer of week 5 (Tyler) beat the number four scorer (Rob).  Oddly enough, even though Rob was the 4th highest scorer of the week, Tyler thumped him by a solid 20 points.  Tyler had a 2-3 point lead going into Sunday night with his QB still to play, and Rob being out of players.  Instead of taking a knee, Deshaun Watson piled on and led Tyler to the comfortable win.  His margin of victory moved him up into fourth place in the league, as he is now ahead of Matt on the points tiebreaker.

Looking forward to next week:

Skyler vs Tyler: Not only does it rhyme, but it's the highest matchup based on the current standings (1 vs 4).  They each have one Packer playing on Monday Night Football, so it should be a fun matchup.

Geoff vs Kyle: 8th place Geoff takes on 3rd place Kyle.  Yet Geoff has outscored Kyle by 40 this year.  He is projected to win this one by 20.  Who knows what will happen.  Kyle has two players on Monday Night though, so it could be another sweat it out night for him.

Chad/Tommy vs Ren:  Tommy looks to make his mark on the league as the last place team takes on the 6th place team (6th place being the last spot to make the playoffs).  Interestingly enough, only one game separates them, so I am Turbo (that's my nickname for them since Chad's team is "I am Batman", and I believe Tommy's teams were called "Turbo" or "Turbo Tommy" back in the day) can make up some ground this early in the season.  No Monday Night games for them at the moment.  After I am Turbo picks up a kicker, this will likely be the closest projected game of the week.

Brady vs Trevor:  Currently projected to be within in 4 points, this is looking like the most entertaining matchup of the week.  As of this writing, Brady has two players on Sunday Night Football and one on Monday Night Football, while Trevor has nothing after the early games except one Sunday afternoon game.  This may be another tense few nights for Brady next week.

Matt vs TJ: TJ may be in trouble this week as his MVP, Michael Thomas, is on a bye this week.  As of this moment, Matt is missing a defense (though it is on his bench) and TJ is missing a kicker, so the projections aren't super accurate, but as of this writing, the game should be decided by Sunday night since there are several players playing in primetime, with Matt being the early favorite.

Rob vs Jordan:  Another one where the current projections don't mean much thanks to incomplete lineups (due to bye weeks and illegal roster construction), this game should come down to Monday night as Rob has two different running backs who play that evening.

That is it for now, thanks for reading, sorry for being late, and good luck to everyone next week, except for Tyler.

Week 4: Quick Recap

I apologize to the 8 of you who wanted to read this.  I was working late, and then I had to pack my bag for my way too early flight tomorrow.  So I'm writing something quick because it's the right thing to do.

Skyler vs. Ren = Skyler squeezes out another win in the 4th quarter of Monday Night Football.

Trevor vs. Geoff = The battle between teams 10 and 11 (out of 12) goes to Trevor on a combined 60+ points from Andy Dalton and Jared Cook.  That was not a typo.

Chad vs. TJ = Last place Chad gets his first win over 3rd place TJ.  Upset of the week.  Chad's running backs: "Watch us cost Chad a chance at winning. TJ's Defense: "Hold my beer".

Brady vs. Jordan = Do you remember in NBA Live Volume whatever, when the announcer says something like "It's like a tank vs a dixie cup.  Who'd you think was going to win"?  I vaguely remember that, and it's what Brady did to Jordan this week.  Top scorer against the bottom scorer.  If you would have added Tyler's score (he was the third highest scorer of the week) to Jordan's score, he would have only beat Brady by 6.5

Matt vs. Tyler = Matt lost by 15, Sammy Watkins averages ~14 a game.  He got 0 tonight due to an injury.  I feel like we were cheated of a really close game, not that Tyler is complaining.

Kyle vs. Rob = The game of the week, it certainly didn't disappoint those who were following closely, except for Rob.  Kyle won by 0.68.  I'm a little disappointed that Emmanuel Sanders didn't hang onto the pitch from the hook and ladder, because I have no idea how it would have been scored.  I don't know if he would have been credited with the catch, or just the yards, but it would have possibly won Rob the game.  That was an intense ending.

There is only one matchup I care about next week.  And it is me vs. the St. George marathon.  The goal is to not get disqualified or die along the way.  I still want to beat Trevor, and I have another potential Monday Night miracle in Jordan Reed, but I'm not worried about that at the moment.  So good luck everyone next week.  Except for the slow pace guy at the marathon, and of course Trevor.