The Reckoning Has Cometh

 “Interceptions count as touchdowns?! I’m coming back!!” – tweet from Brett Favre.

What a weekend!  The replacement refs are really hitting their stride!  I heard on the radio that viewership for NFL games is up 8% this year, which I would guess is largely due to the fact that no one has any idea what will happen in these games.  To hear the announcers going apoplectic over the refs so hilarious—they sound as if there has never been an incorrect call made in a game prior to this season.

But alas, all good things must come to an end, and I just saw the news article that an agreement has been reached between the referee union and the NFL.  Sigh…oh well...

The big congratulations this week go to Gotham’s Reckoning!  Timmy put up a commanding performance and became the third different Weekly High Scorer in as many weeks.  His performance was all the more impressive by the fact that his optimal line-up was in the game!  That is not something that is accomplished very often, so well done Tim-may!!

Joe’s Pats remains the sole unbeaten team, and my Scottish Rebels remain in the basement with no wins.  The best ever starting record is 6-0, which has been accomplished 3 times (Jamie in 2007, James in 2010, and Jens in 2011), and the worst starting record is 0-6, accomplished by yours truly last year.  So Joe, we are halfway to tying the records!  Let's keep up the good work!

Now, on with it…

THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!

Jamaal Charles, RB – Gotham’s Reckoning – 37 pts – Charles had the second best day for a runningback in Chief’s history, going for 233 yards and a touchdown.  The best day also belongs to Charles, when he went off for 259 yards against Denver in 2009.  This is the kind  of game that Timmy has been dreaming about since that day!

Ben Roethlis--something, QB – Joe’s Pats – 34 pts – Big Ben has tossed 8 touchdown passes through the first three games.  He’s certainly got the hot hand right now… too bad he’s on a bye in Week 4.

A.J. Green, WR – Frito Pie – 28 pts – Dalton to Green is becoming a deadly combination.  A.J. caught 9 of the 11 passes thrown his way, with the longest being a 73-yard touchdown beauty. 

Joe Flacco, QB – Midnight Maulers – 28 pts – Flacco played great against the Patriots racking up 382 yards, 3 touchdowns and only 1 interception.  His next opponent is the Browns, who are without their best cornerback, and are the team that Flacco has had his best games against. 

Maurice Jones-Drew, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 27 pts – In spite of playing for the Jaguars, MJD continues to be an offensive machine.  He rushed for 177 yards and a touchdown. 

Jake Locker, QB – Frito Pie – 27 pts – Who would’ve thunk it?  Jake Locker looked like a solid quarterback tossing two touchdowns and racking up 378 yards in the process.

IT’S NOT FUNNY…IT’S NOT FUN…

Antonio Gates, TE – Scottish Rebels – 2 pts – Good thing I used a third round pick to net 6 points so far this season.  Yuck.

Rob Gronkowski, TE – sprouts – 2 pts – For the first time in a year, Brady actually threw to his wide receivers instead of his tight ends.  I don’t expect to see Gronk finish with only 21 yards very often.

Philip Rivers, QB – Frito Pie – 2 pts – Rivers played a horrible game, only throwing for 173 yards, no touchdowns and 2 picks.  He finished with a passer rating of 45.2, which frankly is generous.  I score this one a big fat zero.

Demaryius Thomas, WR – American BadAss – 1 pt – Thomas was targeted 12 times, but only managed to catch 3 of those for 34 yards.  Wide receivers are supposed to catch the balls.

Jordy Nelson, WR – sprouts – 1 pt – Nelson had 15 TD’s last season, but has yet to find the endzone this year.  Seattle’s defense really put the clamps on him in this one, holding him to only 2 catches for 19 yards.

Kevin Smith, RB – American BadAss – 0 pts – Smith was active, and did play, but was used only sparingly.  In fact, he never actually touched the ball.  Hard to score any points that way.

Lions, D – Scottish Rebels – 0 pts – The Tennessee Titans walked all over the Lions and rang up 44 points, gave up no sacks, and only had 1 turnover.  Buh-bye.

MAYBE YOU SHOULD CHANGE NAMES TO SOFA KING GIANT

Taking a page from the old Chief Dredd days, James has compiled a team consisting of six New York Giant players.  Week 11 will be tricky as those players plus two more will be on their bye week.

REALITY VS. FANTASY

The tracking of points scored in reality versus fantasy is getting interesting.  The top scoring team in real points is Washington with 99, but they rank only 7^th on the fantasy scoring list with 284.  Meanwhile the lowest scoring teams in real points are Philadelphia and Dallas (both with only 47), but they rank 19^th and 26^th in fantasy points with 225 and 211 points, respectively.   

Here are the top five fantasy scoring teams:

Baltimore – 315

New York Giants – 310

Atlanta – 298

Detroit – 293

Cincinnati – 285

PLAYOFFS?!

Can we already be talking about the playoffs?  As Jens would say, oh you betcha!!

I now have 5 years of data from which I have tracked the results to see what starting records make it to the playoffs most often.  After three weeks of play, the record that is the lock to make it in is 1-1-1.  The only time that record has been seen in the past ended with the team making it to the dance.  (That was the Midnight Maulers in 2010).  The record that is sure to exclude a team from qualifying is 0-2-1, which has also only been seen once, but ended with the team not making it in.  Fortunately, no team has that record this year so everyone is still alive!  Remarkably, an 0-3 start has been seen 6 times in the past five years, with 3 of those teams making it to the playoffs.  So this is exactly the start that I was looking for... I’ve got all of you right where I want you!

In any event, based on the current records, here are my predictions for the teams that will qualify for the playoffs:

American BadAss – 1-1-1 (Record qualifying percentage = 100%)

BoomGoesTheDynamite – 1-1-1 (Record qualifying percentage = 100%)

Joe’s Pats – 3-0 (Record qualifying percentage = 77.8%)

Frito Pie – 1-2 (Record qualifying percentage = 66.7%)

Gotham’s Reckoning – 1-2 (Record qualifying percentage = 66.7%)

Scottish Rebels – 0-3 (Record qualifying percentage = 50%)

BEST BENCH

We have our first repeat champion of the season!  With four roster moves, and a 39-point improvement, the Best Bench for Week 3 goes to… the Coors Light Drunk Guys!  Shawn needed to sub in Arizona for Green Bay (+27),  A. Brown for M. Floyd (+7), A. Luck for D. Brees (+4) and M. Bush for CJ Spiller (+1).

Get ready for another Thursday night game, and the first week of byes!!!

F 'n' A!!!

The champ is back!  A week after sputtering out of the gates, the Coors Light Drunk Guys roared to life with a 40-point victory over Gotham’s Reckoning, and dominated the next closest competitor by 15 to take the Weekly High Score prize!  Shawn’s 127 points is the most scored so far this season, and is also a multiple of 27, so that is extra awesome!  (Editor’s note – Any number that ends in “27” is a multiple of 27 in the world of Letter 27.  So all you math nerds can just shut it.)  Way to go Shawn!!

In other news, we had our first tie game of the season, which was the first tie game since the Championship game in 2010.  BoomGoesTheDynamite and American BadAss both tallied 63 points, which would have lost to 7 other teams this week, but due to the luck of the draw, they finished with a tie.  Keep an eye on this, because tie games always seem to have a way of having an impact on playoff qualification.  Speaking of the luck of the draw, I just wanted to mention that the Midnight Maulers' 115-117 loss last week to BoomGoesTheDynamite was the second highest score in a loss in league history.  The record is 116 points held by both Coors Light Drunk Guys (lost 116-132 to the Lords of Lumberg in 2009) and my Scottish Rebels (lost 116-122 to SOFA KING GOOD in 2011).  So don’t feel too bad Jamie, it can get worse! 

Amazingly, after two weeks only 1 team has an unblemished record at 2-0… Joe’s Pats.  We have to go back to 2009 to see that again, when it was the Lords of Lumberg as the only 2-0 team.  That season ended with the Lords taking home the title, so Joe has to like that!  Starting next week I will make my first of a series of weekly playoff predictions, based on a highly detailed and scientific analysis. 

Not a whole lot on the docket this week, so let’s get to it!!

BIG TIME

Reggie Bush, RB – Midnight Maulers – 34 pts – How long has the fantasy world waited to see this?  Reggie Bush finally puts up a monster game (197 total yards and 2 TD’s), but he was sitting on the Maulers bench!

Robert Griffin III, QB – SOFA KING GOOD – 30 pts – How does the saying go? – Once is a happenstance, twice is a coincidence and three times is a trend? – or something like that.  Well, we’ve got two weeks in a row now, so if RG3 does this next week, we can officially say that this is a trend.

Eli Manning, QB – SOFA KING GOOD – 29 pts – What luxury to have your starting QB (RG3) score 30, and your backup QB score 29.  Makes decisions a lot easier.  And Eli would’ve been top dog had he not thrown 3 picks!

C.J. Spiller, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 28 pts – The Chiefs defense put up little resistance for Spiller who gashed them for 123 rushing yards, 47 receiving yards and 2 TD’s.  After scoring 25 last week, Mr. CJ is the #1 RB in fantasy.

Hakeem Nicks, WR – Gotham’s Reckoning – 28 pts – In a game that became a wild shoot-out, Nicks went crazy for 199 yards and hauled in a touchdown.  Nice.

Victor Cruz, WR – SOFA KING GOOD – 26 pts –  Only barely behind his compadre, Cruz racked up 179 yards and a touchdown.  In case you were wondering, Eli had 510 passing yards in the game.

YEAH, NO…

Julio Jones, WR – BoomGoesTheDynamite – 1 pt – Well so much for my assertion last week that this guy could be a stud.  Fourteen yards ain’t gonna cut it in this league Julio.

Dez Bryant, WR – American BadAss – 1 pt – Against the vaunted Seattle defense, Dez only caught 3 balls for 17 yards.  (Did the sarcasm come through on my description of Seattle there?  Maybe I needed some quotes around “vaunted”, or italics on defense, or both…)

Fred Davis, TE – American BadAss – 1 pt – In a shootout game with St. Louis, Davis was a non-factor catching 2 passes for an under-whelming 14 yards.

Jamaal Charles, RB – Gotham’s Reckoning – 1 pt – Charles carried the ball 6 times and only netted 3 yards.  But it wasn’t due to the Bills defense stuffing the run…  Peyton Hillis and Shaun Draughn (who?) combined for 16 carries and 122 yards.  Not sure why Charles is struggling, but he needs to get it figured out, and quick.

Dan Bailey, K – Frito Pie – 1 pt – A week after beating the defending Superbowl champs, the Cowboys offense looked flat and only managed one touchdown.

Larry Fitzgerald, WR – Frito Pie – 0 pts – The Patriots must have thought that Larry Fitzgerald was the only person who could beat them, because they did everything to shut him down.  He finished with only 1 catch for 4 yards (lowest reception total since 2010 and lowest yardage total since 2004).

James Jones, WR – Midnight Maulers – 0 pts – Even with Greg Jennings out, Jones wasn’t able to do anything on the field.  He actually caught two passes, but finished with minus -1 yard.  How do you catch TWO passes for negative yardage?

SNATCHING DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY

The Arizona Cardinals have a long and storied history of being able to take a situation that looks like sure victory, and turn it into a heart-breaking defeat.  They are much like the New Mexico State Aggie football team in that way.  On Sunday, it looked like they had added a new chapter to this all too familiar tale against New England. 

Arizona led by 8 points (20-12) in the final minutes of the game with New England driving.  The Patriots scored the touchdown, then went for two to tie it.  The conversion failed, so Arizona re-took possession ahead by two, with 2:06 to play.

In this situation, the Cardinals need to be thinking only two things: “Protect the ball” and “Stay in bounds”.  Well, they managed to stay in bounds, but on their 5^th play of the drive... when they could have been kneeling on it... in true Cardinal fashion, they fumbled the ball back to New England on the 35-yard line.  Now with 1:01 left to play, New England moved the ball up to the 24-yard line, where Tom Brady positioned the ball in the dead center of the field in order to set up a field goal.  Gostkowski had been money all day, and was 4-for-4 up to that point, so a 42-yard kick was all but in the bag.  The Arizona newspapers were already running the print reel reading “Cardinals blow another lead”, as Gostkowski lined up.

Then, the craziest thing happened… in a true Ray Finkle moment, Gostkowski appeared to aim his kick at some cheerleader on the sideline and missed wide to the left by like 10 yards!  It wasn't even close!!  What the?!  That’s not supposed to happen!  Could it be that the Arizona Cardinals have a streak of luck going? 

MARK TWAIN QUOTE OF THE WEEK

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

NFL SCORES BY WEEK

Two weeks into the season, and the top five scoring teams in the NFL have all scored over 60 points.  They are:

Washington – 68, Atlanta – 67, Baltimore – 67, Buffalo – 63 and San Diego – 60.

The top five fantasy scoring NFL teams are:

Baltimore – 205, New York Giants – 202, Washington – 198, Atlanta – 197 and New Orleans – 183.  (Green Bay is also tied with New Orleans at 183).

So after two weeks, three of the top five scoring teams in reality are also in the top five for fantasy.  Buffalo ranks 10^th in fantasy scoring and San Diego is 12^th. 

The Bottom Five Fantasy scoring teams are: Kansas City – 136, Oakland – 131, Arizona – 121, Jacksonville – 105 and Tennessee – 98. 

BEST BENCH

Quite a display for Best Bench this week!  It’s not too often that the improvement from the bench tallies more than 50 points, and even less rare to see it total more than 60 points.  But this week, with an impressive point improvement possibility of 61 points, the Best Bench award goes to… sprouts!  Russ needed four roster moves to make this happen:  W. McGahee for D. McFadden (+21), M. Vick for P. Manning (+17), B. Tate for S. Greene (+19) and D. Moore for A. Johnson (+4).

Already gearing up for Week 3!  And I learned something very important last week… there is a Thursday night game every week this season.  So the earlier you have your line-up set the better…

BOOM! Week 1!

Back in business and it feels so good!  The long, cold, dark offseason is finally over and it is football season again!!  Week 1 certainly did not disappoint as there was one OT game, five teams scoring 40 points or more, and the Cowboys whipping the Giants in Giants’ Stadium.  Ain’t nothing wrong with that!

In the fantasy world, everyone had to be impressed with the debut of Robert Griffin III.  It’s odd to say that he’s the second coming of a player who is only in his second year, but I’m going to go ahead and say that he is clearly the second coming of Cam Newton.  Also, it looks like the pundits were right about Julio Jones… that guy could prove to be a major stud this year.

But the big congrats this week go to BoomGoesTheDynamite!  All week Jens has been boasting about how awesome his team is, and he went out and proved it.  Boom had huge games from Tony Romo (23 pts), the aforementioned Julio Jones (22 pts), and Ray Rice (20 pts), finishing with a total of 117 points and besting the second highest scoring team of the week (Midnight Maulers) by only 2 points.  How the top two scoring teams were matched up head-to-head is beyond me.  That’s just tough luck, Jamie… normally scoring 115 points will garner a victory.  But nice job, Jensy!!  We’ll see if you can keep it up throughout the season…

This week we’ll examine which NFL team scored the most fantasy points, give out the first Best Bench of the season, and I give my take on the whole replacement ref situation.  But first, some player observations:

THAT’S THE WAY YOU DEBATE!

-Matt Ryan, QB – 31 pts – Midnight Maulers – There was not much that Matty Ice did wrong, throwing for 299 yards and 3 touchdowns, along with 25 yards rushing and a rushing TD!
-C.J. Spiller, RB – 25 pts – Coors Light Drunk Guys – No one could have predicted this one… Spiller rattled off 169 yards on the ground and 25 yards through the air, and added a touchdown.  Had he not lost a fumble, he would have ended up with the best score in the game – 27.

-Robert Griffin III, QB – 24 pts – SOFA KING GOOD – I’ll be honest, I didn’t believe the hype.  But 362 total yards and 2 touchdowns does a lot to change minds.

-Baltimore, DEF – 24 pts – Scottish Rebels – Continuing the list of the best players of the week being on the bench, the Ravens absolutely destroyed the Bengals with 4 sacks, 2 turnovers, a touchdown and only 13 points allowed.  Spoiler alert – they won’t be on the bench in Week 2.

-Cleveland, DEF – 24 pts – Free Agent – Cleveland gave Philadelphia all they could handle, notching 5 turnovers (4 interceptions and 1 fumble recovery), 2 sacks and a defensive touchdown.

SON OF A … WHAT THE?!?

-Mason Crosby, K – 2 pts – Coors Light Drunk Guys – The high-powered Green Bay offense only managed to have Crosby kick 2 extra points.  Ouch.

-Toby Gerhart, RB – 1 pt – Scottish Rebels – All week long, heck, all off-season long, word was that AP would play sparingly in the Week 1 game for the Vikings.  Turns out the only thing you could apply sparingly to in that game were Gerhart’s touches, and his ability to play football.  He finished with only 18 rushing yards and 8 receiving yards.  Go suck your head.

-Jason Witten, TE – 1 pt – Coors Light Drunk Guys – For a guy with a ruptured spleen, he actually played pretty well.  Seriously, Jason Lowery missed a week of work due to a hangover, but Jason Witten played in an NFL game with a ruptured spleen!  Now that’s a man!  (See the item below further highlighting Witten’s toughness).

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Scoring a touchdown for the Lions on Sunday was a gentleman by the name of Joique Bell.  I am continually amazed and impressed by the unique names that black people come up with.  (LaDainian, Demarius, D’Brickashaw, etc.)  But this one is extra unique because I don’t even know how to pronounce it… is it two syllables – Joy-key, Joy-kay, Joke-y, Joy-cue? -- or is it just one syllable – Joik, Jock? – or maybe it’s three syllables – Joe-eye-kay, Joe-eye-cue?  Frankly I’m too lazy to research this one, so I’m just going with the one syllable option.

WHO IS THE BEST TEAM IN REALITY?

Through the magic of spreadsheets and pivot tables, I am going to be tracking the fantasy scoring by NFL team this season.  Ultimately I want to see if the team that scores the most points in the actual games also scores the most fantasy points.  The scores listed below encompass all offensive players that score a fantasy point, along with all kickers and team defenses.  For Week 1, here are the top 5 scoring NFL teams by actual game points:

1)      NY Jets – 48

2)      Baltimore – 44

3)      Chicago – 41

4)      Washington – 40

5)      Atlanta – 40

And here are the top 5 scoring NFL teams by fantasy points:

1)      Baltimore – 123

2)      Chicago – 122

3)      NY Jets – 116

4)      Washington – 115

5)      Atlanta – 114

So for Week 1, the top five scoring teams in the actual games were also the top five fantasy scoring teams, although in a slightly different order.  Not super surprising, but I’ll continue to track this all season long.  Also, if you are curious about the worst teams fantasy point-wise, they are: Seattle (59), Cincinnati (53), Miami (53), Cleveland (53) and Tennessee (49).

TOUGHEST COWBOY

Three cowboys were sitting around a campfire and starting arguing over who was the toughest.  The first cowboy said, “Just last week I was walking down a trail and a 15-foot rattler slid out from under a rock and made a move for me.  I grabbed that ol’ boy, ripped his head off, and sucked down the poison in one gulp.  And I’m still here today!” The second cowboy said, “Ah that’s nothing… just yesterday a bull got loose in the corral and gored six men before I got there, wrestled it down, and tied it up with my bare hands!”  The third cowboy just sat there quietly, slowly stirring the coals with his penis.

That third cowboy was Jason Witten.

GET OFF YOUR KNEES REF, YOU’RE BLOWING THE GAME!

In case you haven’t heard about it incessantly for the last 5 weeks, the NFL is currently using replacement referees due to a labor dispute with the regular referees’ labor union.  I’ve been doing some research to try to figure out exactly where the two sides are in the debate, but details are surprising scarce.  As near as I can tell, the refs want more money and a better pension, while the NFL wants to give not quite as much money and move to a 401-k retirement plan option.  (One report that I saw showed that the refs’ current average salary is $149K, and under the NFL’s proposal this would rise to $189K annually, which apparently isn’t enough.) 

As Timmy can surely attest, I have always had a healthy disdain for referees which really reached its pinnacle during my college years while attending NMSU basketball games.  I developed what I affectionately referred to as my “Referee Yelling Voice” at those games.  So here’s my take on this issue… Are the replacement refs going to make mistakes?  Absolutely.  But the regular refs make just as many!  (Remember the officiating when the Seahawks were in the Superbowl a couple years ago?  Freaking joke.)  In my opinion all refs suck and are going to blow calls, so I say use the refs that actually want to work the games.  Simple solution.  Replacements all the way!!

NEXT TIME GET THREE TOUCHDOWNS

After Kevin Ogletree’s awesome game on Wednesday night against the Giants, the Yahoo! Trend Tracker showed that he had been added 73,103 times on Thursday!  The amazing thing is that it also showed that he had been dropped 876 times.  Apparently 114 yards and two touchdowns just doesn’t cut it for some people… 

INAUGURAL BEST BENCH

My Scottish Rebels really gave quite a push to take the Best Bench title for the first week of the season.  With a runningback scoring 20 and a defense scoring 24 on the bench, I should have had it all wrapped up.  But the Coors Light Drunk Guys had other plans this week, and edged me out for the crown with a 41 point improvement, besting my Rebels improvement by 1!!  Shawn needed almost a complete roster overhaul…five changes for the Best Bench: CJ Spiller for C. Johnson (+21 pts), M. Bush for M. Jones-Drew (+8 pts), B. Celek for J. Witten (+5 pts), N. Washington for A. Brown (+4 pts) and M. Floyd for M. Wallace (+3 pts).

Get your waiver claims in, get your rosters set, and get ready for Week 2!!