What up peeps!!. What a topsy-turvy week this past one has been in the new fantasy season. As you can tell by the title, injuries played a huge role this week as the bug has hit hard and early than years past. In some cases, the bug didn’t hurt teams too much but in others, it cost them the W. On top of that, this week saw the continued uprise of two teams that I’m pretty sure we all didn’t expect to be good, especially one in particular. But more on that later. For now, let’s take a look back at the week that was.
Party Like A Gronk Star vs Beast a la Mode [The Miloing of the Week]
I think it’s fair to say that as a group as well as individually, we have had a good time poking fun at Durete for some of her legitimately boneheaded decision-making when it comes to fantasy football as well as her status as our league’s Taco. At this point, It’s pretty much a yearly tradition. Though it’s still early in the season, those times might be coming to end because Durete is killing it right now, this week getting a 73.5-point victory over Brian. Unsurprising, drafting both of Brady’s prized weapons of Gronk and Edelman have contributed in her early season domination as both players have huge games the last 2 weeks. But she’s also getting some help from the unlikeliest sources in the Broncos’ D/ST, DeAngelo Williams, and Eric Decker. Hell, even Derpy Eli is helping out with the cause. Meanwhile on the side, Brian can’t catch a break, with another underperformance of the usually-reliable (and now injured) Drew Brees and a questionable benching of Randall Cobb in favor of the fantasy football plague that is Roddy White. Now I’m not saying the past 2 weeks disqualifies Durete of Taco status, but I am saying it may be time to stop and take notice because we may be seeing another Worst-To-First situation in the making.
Legatron Prime vs POONCON Red TACOS
Despite leaving 49.5 points on the bench, Emma and Tash were able to get the W victory over SJ thanks to another big game from Tom Brady. This is the best start to Emma’s team by far since the league’s inception which begs the eternal question: “Has Emma finally found a way to not self-Milo herself in fantasy football?”. Though it’s still way too early to tell, it appears so. On the other side, while SJ’s roster looks pretty good on paper, having Keenan Allen get a giant 0 along with another bad game from the Kam Chancellor-less Seahawks D never helps in the winning category. At least he has a decent kicker.
A A Ron’s B O’ D’s vs O Kaeptain! My Kaeptain
In a match-up that was projected to be one of the week’s closest matchups which came down to the Monday night game, the A A Ron’s B O’ D’s squeaked out a victory from Rodney and the O Kaeptain! My Kaeptains, despite Eddie Lacy and his rubber ankles contributing to 0 points as well as Frank Gore’s inability to not fumble the ball on the goalline. Can anyone say drafter’s remorse. On the plus side, it was another decent Sunday from Matthew Stafford, injured ribs and all, as well stellar games from Tyler Eifert(possible best late-round pick-up of ‘15) and Jarvis Landry. As for the defeated, the injury bug has hit Rodney hard, as he was without the services of Dez Bryant and Alshon Jeffery. While his choice of replacing Dez with Stevie Johnson was a pretty sound idea, I’m definitely sure if he would do it again, he would place Allen Robinson and his 30 points instead. But really, who expected the Jags of all teams to have a good game, amirite?
RG3: Basic Bitch vs .ODBHJ
In the 3rd installment of the Battle of the Browns, Laura was able to avenge her defeat last year by getting the 4-point victory for Alex, which has to be a bit crushing for the RG3: Basic Bitches considering they came into this matchup as the 20.2-point favorite. While both teams had players that did nothing to help either team’s chances of victory, it pretty much came down which team sucked less. Unfortunately for A-Brown, having 2 players producing a giant 0 is never going to go well for you. But hey, at least that Antonio Brown character is quite good in catching the football and scoring.
Mike Vick in a Box vs Geno 911
In this match-up, the partnership of the Breaux and Sweet D got their first win of the season over the league’s residential recluse, thanks to huge games from Ryan Tannehill and Torrey Smith(of all people). Both teams combined left 133 points just chilling on the bench, with Quentin’s QB2 in Derek Carr scoring 5 more than Russell Wilson, which would have easily won the match-up for him. But at least his WR1 Brandon Marshall put up big numbers on Monday, which is more than you can say about Andre Johnson, Adam Vinatieri and the entire Colts team in general these days. So much for Super Bowl contenders, though in this writer’s opinion, any ill will or misfortune that befalls the Irsay family warms me up inside.
Dumpster Grill vs Handegg Hooligans
Despite his FLEX player doing next to nothing, Jack was able the 12.5 victory over Erin, who didn’t get that much help from her players outside of Jordan Matthews. And though she finally got another quarterback for her team, it ended up being the wrong call as Jameis Winston got 8 more points than Nick Foles. So at least for this week, the Dumpster Fire burns on.
Washington Mullets vs Hut hut Pizza Hut
It took another week to get the gears going, but the fantasy savior that his OBJesus finally came through for Eric with 23.5 points as our reigning champs got their first win of the season over the former Suck It League commish. But the real hero of this matchup is without a doubt Larry Fitzgerald, who got a mind-boggling 33 points, proving that the veteran still has the game-maker abilities and talent that made him such a star in fantasy year’s past. For Danny, having Peyton Manning, AP, and Steve Smith, Sr doesn’t change the fact that having Zach Ertz as the sole TE has been disastrous for him as he’s only produced 8 points in the last 2 weeks. So perhaps a change is in order for that position(*cough* Richard Rogers *cough*)
Literally Goodell vs RG3andOUT! [Neck-2-Neck Match]
By far, the closest match-up this past week was that of one of the newest members of the Suck-It League versus our “esteemed” commish. Both teams got huge games from the usual suspects(i.e. Matt Ryan and D-Thomas) as well as noticeable duds(i.e 49ers D and Kendall Wright). But once the dust settled, it was young Zachariah edging out the vet Rob with a .5-point victory as it was the D that did Rob in as the 49ers were pretty much pimp-slapped in every facet of the game by the Steelers. The lone positive for the Literally Goodells is the re-emergence of Julio Jones, who after 2 years of fantasy irrelevance, is finally coming back to the stud that he was in years past. Plus his Falcons are 2-0 for the first time in years, so at least one of his teams is doing something right.
--Chip
