Week 4: The South All Lost Again

Raise your hand if your whole division lost this week.  Feel free to make fun of those losers if your division won 75% of its games this week.  The South had a real rough week in the first week of inter-division play.  I'm sure it sucks to be them and it is super embarrassing and shameful, but I don't remember what it feels like since it hasn't happened to the North since week 8 of 2013.  I know I didn't really worry too much since I was living in Florida at the time.  I don't have the members memorized for the West, so I didn't check for them. Anyway, I hope you are embarrassed Rob, Matt, Trevor, and Brandon -- and that this doesn't come back to bite me next week.

Game Recaps

Skyler vs Brandon: This was the battle of ineptitude, even though Skyler was the 3rd highest scorer.  Brandon's team looked like they had been coached by Urban Meyer while he was out at the club, sticking his fingers in random people. Justin Herbert scored 27 points for Brandon, and was actually the leading scorer in this game, he just didn't have any support this week. Brandon had one other player score 15+, and the rest of his players scored <8 points.  Skyler had three players who were in the 20+ club, and 7 of his 9 players scored double digits.

Tommy vs Trevor: The Skyler/Brandon matchup and the Tyler/Matt matchup would have been the blowouts of the week during a normal week (between 55 and 60 points), but Tommy decided to beat Trevor by 87 points.  To give you some context, Trevor and Brandon combined would not have beaten Tommy this week. Trevor had two players who tried this week (Tannehill and JT) by scoring 20+ points, but he had no shot after Tommy had one player go 40+, and two others go 30+. To give some more context, that means Mahomes, Moore, and the Bills DST beat Trevor by themselves, and the rest of the team was just helping boost Tommy's overall score.  This was also the weekly bonanza.  Despite Tommy's best efforts, we didn't get a 300+ point combined game this week. Yet even after this dominant showing to continue his unbeaten streak, he is still only in 2nd place.

Chad vs TJ: In a normal week, a 5 point loss would have been the weekly nail-biter, but two other matchups were actually closer. This wasn't even the nail-biter of the night as Rob and Kyle had a closer score, but it was the Monday Night Miracle/Nightmare since this was the only game where the lead changed on Monday night. I don't want to say I'm surprised, but if only one person was to lose a lead on Monday night, we would all bet on TJ right? TJ was given his false sense of security thanks to BHer Hall of Famer, Cordarelle Patterson. Now that he has a real coach/organization, it looks like Patterson is finally showing his potential (I'm insulting Matt AND the Bears here, just to be clear). Zeke also pulled his weight by putting up another 20 point week, but those two just weren't enough to get TJ over the finish line. Chad had 20+ points from Wilson, Henry, and Montgomery, but needed Keenan Allen and Dan Carlson to get him over the finish line.

Brady vs Jordan: This was the weekly nail-biter as Jordan only won by 3.1 points.  This game ended up being decided during the middle of Sunday, so that was a little anti-climatic.  I know Brady was considering Aiyuk, Sanders, Sermon, or Moss for his flex. 3 of the 4 on that list would have got Brady the win, but he got bad advice from multiple sources and ended up dropping a winnable game.  Jordan was able to eke out his win behind two 20+ players and four other 10+ players.  The players who got Jordan over the finish line were the Murray/Hopkins stack. The stack was only worth around 37 points, but when you win by 3.1, every point counts. Brady was let down by picking the wrong flex, but more from Chris Carson who had his first single-digit game of the season, as well as CeeDee Lamb and his steady decline this season.

Tyler vs Matt: This was a thorough dismantling of Matt by the law firm of Barkley, Rodgers, and Hill.  In fact, those 3 players would have beat Matt's whole team by 0.42 points. One of the silver linings for Matt is that he got CEH back for his best game of the season. That being said, Matt only had one 20+ scorer this week, and it wasn't even CEH. Tyler's team had three other players score double digits, but overall his players outside of his big 3 didn't off a ton of support.  I think Tyler cried about this lack of support with the second-highest score of the week and being the leading scorer in the league through 4 weeks with the best record.

Rob vs Kyle: This was another tight game with <5 points being the difference between winning and losing. Kyle was able to hang on to his lead on Monday night thanks to 16.5 points from Renfrow.  It was just enough to keep the 31.6 points from Ekeler and Williams from giving Rob the win. Other important players in this matchup were Josh Allen, who was Kyle Allen's only player to score 20+, and James Robinson and Najee Harris, who were the other 20+ members for Rob.  If you are wondering how Rob lost when he had three 20+ scorers when Kyle only had one, Kyle had 4 other players score 15+, and 7 of his 9 players scored in the double digits, while Rob had no one outside of his three 20+ players score more than 13.

Award Season

MVP: Given the number of close games this week, I am picking an MVP for each winner of the tight games.

• Jordan - The Murray and Hopkins stack got him the win
• Kyle - Renfrow did just enough to keep Kyle in the win column Monday night
• Chad - Montogmery had his best week of the year in a narrow game.

LVP: I'm going to give an LVP for each loser of the tight games.

• Brady - Even though Aiyuk is the easy pick because he was the person Brady was unsure about, this award will go to Chris Carson.  It's unclear if he was injured this game, but he was averaging over 14 points per game before this week, and then he decided to score 10 fewer points than his average this week.
• Rob - I almost gave Mike Williams the overall LVP of the week, but in order to keep the symmetry, I gave one to each losing team. Here are Williams scores by week in order 22.2, 22.1, 33.2, 2.1.  If I received these numbers from someone I worked with, I would ask if there was a typo/if they forgot to include an extra 2 on the last number.  He could not have picked a worst time to have his season low.
• TJ - Captain Kirk crashed back down to earth.  Weeks 1-3, he was averaging around 29 points a game.  He got 12 this week.

Unluckiest Team of the Week: TJ was the 6th highest scorer, but still lost.  It's not the unluckiest situation we've seen, but it still counts.

Luckiest Team of the Week: Jordan was the 8th highest scorer this week, but somehow got the win.

Game Previews

Side note, I'm going to try giving each of these a name.  They won't always be good or creative, so if you have any thoughts, feedback, or requests, I'm all ears.

Skyler (6) vs Trevor (8): Welcome to the Charger Bowl, or maybe the C4LB if Trevor were naming it.  Skyler has 0 players on Thursday and 2 players in primetime. Brandon has 0 players on Thursday and 2 players in primetime.

Brandon (9) vs Tommy (2):  If I had to give this a name, I would call it the New Guy Bowl, since these are both the newest members of the league, though they aren't really new anymore, and Tommy is a prehistoric, sorry I mean a pre mission OG. Brandon has 1 player on Thursday and 1 players in primetime. Tommy has 0 players on Thursday and 2 players in primetime.

Jordan (4) vs Chad (3):  Welcome to the Chad Bowl.  I couldn't come up with a good name, but Jordan has a picture of Chad for his team, so I'm going with the Chad Bowl. Jordan has 0 players on Thursday and 2 players in primetime. Chad has 1 player on Thursday and 0 players in primetime. This is one of the leading candidates for the bonanza given the rankings

TJ (11) vs Brady (12):  I dub this The Best Buds Bowl -- again, not my best work, but here we are. TJ has 1 player on Thursday and 3 players in primetime. Brady has 1 player on Thursday and 0 players in primetime (Brady's is expected to change depending on the Chris Carson news.  If Carson doesn't play Thursday, and Brady puts in Emmanuel Sanders, that will give Brady 1 player on primetime). Given the ranking of these two teams.

Tyler (1) vs Rob (5):  I have no good names here, so I'll go to a default name that will apply to multiple matchups this year, but let's call it something like "Members of the Championship Winning Marriott's Most Wanted playing against eachother while 'Hello' by Adele plays in the background" Bowl. Tyler has 1 player on Thursday and 3 players in primetime. Rob has 1 player on Thursday and 0 players in primetime. This is one of the leading candidates for the bonanza given the rankings

Kyle (10) vs Matt (7):  I shall call this the High School Baseball Bowl. Kyle has 0 players on Thursday and 2 players in primetime. Matt has 3 players (potentially 4-5) on Thursday and 1 players in primetime.

Best of luck to everyone except Trevor this week.