Three weeks all in one...

It’s baaaack!! Yes, the Sacred Sundays Blog finally resumes in Week 3 of the 2010 season! Two reasons for the late start this year: 1) Only nerds do things on time, and 2) I’ve been busy working on my new book entitled “Fantasy Football Advice I’ve Learned From Jens”. Unfortunately it’s only a page and a half long. HA HA! What do you know Jensy!!!

We have a lot of ground to cover, so without further adieu, let us begin…

Week 1 started right where Week 17 ended last year – with Timmy’s Lords of Lumberg whooping everyone’s ass! Timmy’s was the only team to break into the double digits, registering an even 100 points. Meanwhile, my Scottish Rebels posted what would be a really good nine holes of golf, but is unfortunately a really bad fantasy football score…32. Not one of my active players scored in the double digits, and two of my active players scored zero. I stress the word active because my bench probably set a record for best bench. More on that later…

Week 2 saw a very tight battle for the Weekly High Score, but ultimately it went once again to Mr. TPS Report – The Lords of Lumberg!! In spite of only getting 1 point from Brett Favre, Timmy still managed to post 96 points just edging sprouts by 1. Sprouts score was notable because 69.4% of his score came from just two players…Matt Schaub had 32 points and the Pittsburgh defense rang up 34 points!! Week 2 also featured Round 1 of the “What Do You Know?!?!” Bowl, which was won handily by the Coors Light Drunk Guys 80-60. Lastly, Week 2 had a tie-game between Frito Pie and the Midnight Maulers… I only mention this because in year’s past it is always interesting how tie games can end up coming into play when determining playoff spots.

Things got going a lot better scoring-wise in Week 3, with three teams breaking into double digits!! There were 97 more points scored than compared to Week 2 and 199 more points than compared to Week 1. SOFA KING GOOD led the way with a big 122 points to take the Weekly High Score Prize!! Way to go Cap’n!! After three weeks of intense competition, the Hand brothers are the only two undefeated teams remaining. Odd how they both have also won all of the Weekly High Score prizes… there must be a correlation between scoring a lot of points and winning games… hmm… interesting.

This week I’ll preview an entirely new fantasy football stat that I’ll be tracking this year, push for the demise of the screen pass, and give out three Best Bench awards. But first, some observations from the first three weeks:

They Came To Play:
Arian Foster, RB – Scottish Rebels – 44 pts (Wk 1) – Foster made quite the splash in his NFL debut going for 231 yards and three touchdowns. All while firmly planted on my bench.
Matt Forte, RB – Scottish Rebels – 33 pts (Wk 1) – The bulk of Forte’s points came from an 89-yard touchdown catch that was a thing of beauty. Forte finished with just over 200 yards and two touchdowns. All while firmly planted on my bench.
Peyton Manning, QB – Frito Pie – 32 pts (Wk 1) – Peyton passed for 433 yards and three touchdowns, yet the Colts lost to Houston. Weird.
Javid Best, RB – Lords of Lumberg – 43 pts (Wk 2) – Best was the best in Week 2. Too bad the Lions defense is as porous as the roof on the Superdome because their offense actually has some talent.
Jason Snelling, RB – sprouts – 35 pts (Wk 2) – Snelling had the game of his life and netted a total of 186 yards and three touchdowns. I say “game of his life” because in that one game he equaled 21% of his yardage from last year (872 yards) and 60% of his touchdown total from last year (5).
Matt Schaub, QB – sprouts – 32 pts (Wk 2) – Schaub passed for an amazing 497 yards and 3 touchdowns. He’s good.
Adrian Peterson, RB – Lords of Lumberg – 34 pts (Wk 3) – You knew AP would blow up at some point, so why not against the Lions?
Anquan Boldin, WR – Tailgate Approved – 32 pts (Wk 3) – After three weeks, it’s Anquan Boldin 46, Larry Fitzgerald 26. Come on, you know everyone’s watching that.
Michael Vick, QB – Scottish Rebels – 32 pts (Wk 3) – Here is the second highest scoring player in fantasy so far (with 75 points), second by only 4 points to Peyton Manning. Trust me I am just as shocked at that stat as you are…I’m just glad he’s a Rebel! Oh yeah!!

Just Plain Bad
Miles Austin, WR – Lords of Lumberg – 2 pts (Wk 3) – After starting off super hot (20 pts in Week 1, and 14 in Week 2) Austin became little more than a decoy against the Texans.
Chris Johnson, RB – sprouts – 2 pts (Wk 2) – Pittsburgh actually held Chris Johnson to only 34 yards rushing and 19 yards receiving. (He also lost a fumble). Pretty remarkable considering in his other two games he had 142 and 125 yards respectively.
Maurice Jones-Drew, RB – sprouts – 2 pts (Wk 2) – It’s not the MJD looks bad, it’s that Jacksonville just looks bad. My prediction – Jacksonville will have a top 5 pick in the 2011 NFL Draft.
Steve Smith, WR – Midnight Maulers – 2 pts (Wk 3) – With the quarterback situation in Carolina, it’s actually pretty amazing that Steve Smith even managed to score this many points.
Pierre Garcon, WR – Scottish Rebels – 1 pt (Wk 2) – Rookies are always hit or miss, and… wait he’s not a rookie? Dang…
Felix Jones, RB – American Bad Ass – 1 pt (Wk 2) – For the season, Felix Jones has been outscored by Daniel Fells, Rashad Jennings and Mike Goodson. I will mail a bright, shiny penny to anyone who knows what team any of those players play for, without looking it up.
Brett Favre, QB – Lords of Lumberg – 1 pt (Wk 2) – Favre’s current QB rating is 60.4. If he throws a couple more picks, he might be the first player in NFL history to be as old as his rating.
C.J. Spiller, RB – Frito Pie – 0 pts (Wk 1) – Rookies are always hit or miss, and this one was definitely a miss.
Mike Sims-Walker, WR – Scottish Rebels – 0 pts (Wk 1) – I just don’t understand.. did he marry Herschel Walker’s daughter and take her name?
Owen Daniels, TE – Scottish Rebels – 0 pts (Wk 1) – Two active players in my line-up netted zero points. Suck me.


Take a Pass on the Screen Pass
The last time I witnessed a successful screen pass was probably sometime in the mid-nineties. By successful, I mean a screen pass that resulted in more than the standard yard-and-a-half gain that has become ubiquitous with screen passes today. Seriously, a screen pass will work if you are coaching against an eighth grade defense, but not in the NFL. NFL defenders have been defending against screen passes since they were in the eighth grade, and they’re not falling for it anymore. The best thing a team running a screen pass can hope for is that the clock runs out on the quarter before the ball is snapped so the quarterback can go over to the sideline and talk his coach into calling a real play. An offensive coordinator who calls a screen pass is basically saying “I am no longer following a game plan…I am just selecting plays at random,” because there is no excuse for purposefully calling one of these plays. Screen passes need to die a quick death, and go on the football strategy trash heap along with the Wishbone and Run & Shoot.


Political Rant
With the November elections looming, there is a very important issue going on in Washington regarding the tax rates that will go into effect in 2011. In 2002 George W. Bush signed legislation that cut taxes across the board for all taxpayers. In order to get these tax cuts passed through Congress, Bush cut a deal with Democrats that established an expiration date for the tax cuts. That expiration date is 12/31/2010. If Congress does nothing, everyone’s tax rates will go up. Let me state that again, if Congress does nothing, everyone’s tax rates will go up.
Now this brings us to the debate on Capitol Hill… The Republicans want to extend the current tax rates for everyone (no exceptions) and make these rates permanent. The Democrats want to extend the tax rates only for those making less than $200,000 per year, but revert high earners back to the old (much higher) rates. Currently Republicans are filibustering the attempt by the Democrats to impose this massive tax increase. Our president who is out on the campaign trail (doing what he does best) is going around stating that Republicans are “trying to block a tax cut for the middle class.” As explained earlier, there will be no tax cuts for anyone. All the Democrats’ plan will do is keep exactly the same rates in place this year as next year for the lower income brackets. There are no “tax cuts” being blocked by Republicans.
Also, our president has mentioned that extending the tax rates for individuals making over $200,000 per year will “cost us” $700 billion. But what does this actually mean? If a business announces that something will cost them $700 billion, that means that they will be forking out $700 billion dollars of money that they already own or will have to pay back. That is a true cost. But when our government says that continuing these tax rates will “cost” $700 billion, all that means is that they (the government) won’t receive $700 billion in extra tax revenue! There is no “cost” here. And considering how the government spends money, any amount kept out of their hands is a good thing.


Quarterback plus Receiver Pairing
Over the past several seasons, I’ve tracked kicker rankings and compared actuals to pre-season projections. My analysis has unequivocally shown that trying to predict kickers is useless and pointless. This season I am going to analyze the effect of having on your fantasy team a quarterback paired with a receiver from the same team. For the purposes of the analysis, a receiver is defined as any position that can catch passes from the quarterback (wide receivers, runningbacks or tight ends).
So far this season there have been 19 instances where a quarterback has been paired with a receiver in our league. Next week I will release the preliminary findings and formulate a hypothesis about this strategy.


Best Bench(es)
Week 1 nearly had an historic event… Had Shonne Green scored more than 8 on my bench (he actually scored -1) I would have had a situation where all of my bench players outscored my active players. Basically that means that any change I would’ve made would have been the correct change. As it stood, I could have improved my point total by 79 points with 6 (yes SIX) roster moves… A. Foster for D. Williams (38 pts), M. Forte for S. Jackson (25 pts), K. Orton for C. Henne (7 pts), Chicago for Dallas (5 pts), R. Meacham for M. Sims-Walker (3 pts) and P. Garcon for D. Jackson (1 pt).

Week 2 had a very rare occurrence as well, with Timmy’s Lords of Lumberg taking both the high score prize and being the Week’s Best Bench. Timmy could have improved his score by a very nice 55 points with only two roster moves: J. Best for J. Charles (37 pts) and M. Ryan for B. Favre (18 pts).

Last week saw pretty decent team management from everyone, as evidenced by the higher scores. In the end, the Week 3 Best Bench went to the Midnight Maulers. Jamie could have added 29 points to his total with four roster changes: B. Edwards for S. Smith (12 pts), L. Tomlinson for R. Brown (9 pts), G. Olsen for C. Cooley (7 pts) and Carolina for Baltimore (1 pt). But don’t feel too bad Jamie, even with those changes you still would’ve lost to Lumberg by 2 points.


Okay, we have three weeks in the books, but frankly it feels like we’ve only just begun! Get those waiver claims in, and get ready for Week 4, the first week with byes…