Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Week 4 bringing the bang!



It must be something about the fourth week of the season that brings out the big scores.  Total points scored this week came in at 976, which is the third highest total all-time.  The record was set one year ago in Week 4, when the total points scored reached 1,000.  That week there were 5 teams that scored over 100 points and this week we had four teams eclipse that mark.  Nice job to all of those teams!

But the accolades this week go out to Joe’s Pats who overcame a 2-point performance from Vernon Davis, and a 4-point performance from Steve Smith to score 129 points and take this week’s High Score title!  How’d he do it with two of his players only combining for 6 points, you ask?  Well, he followed his team name and got 70 points from three Pats (Tom Brady 31, Stevan Ridley 22, and NE Defense 17).  Note - If you’re going to load up on players from one team, it is good to do it with a team like New England that is now the highest scoring team in reality and the second highest scoring team in fantasy.  More on that below.  Also after four weeks we have had four different Weekly High Score winners.  How’s that for parity, huh?  But congratulations, Joe!  Nice job on the high score and on remaining the sole undefeated team!

Speaking of being undefeated, I guess the world needs balance (you know, that whole Jedi and Sith thing), because my Scottish Rebels still have yet to find a victory, and are scraping bottom at 0 and 4.  But don’t think that this counts me out of the playoffs… oh no!  Quite the contrary!  I’ve got a full playoff prediction breakdown, where I’ll go through each team’s record and give the historic percentages of qualifying for the playoffs at this stage of the season.  Don’t miss it!

So let’s get on with it!!


 NOW THAT’S THE INSIDE STUFF
-          Brian Hartline, WR – Free Agent – 34 pts – Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of this guy, he’s only owned in 23% of leagues.  And Yahoo! only had him projected for 4 points this week, so yeah, they were off just a bit.  He actually set a Dolphins receiving record with 253 yards on Sunday.
-          San Francisco, DEF – sprouts – 33 pts – Had the 49ers defense recorded a safety, they would have had a picture-perfect stat line.  Get a load of this one: 3 sacks, 3 fumble recoveries, an interception, a blocked kicked, a return touchdown, and ZERO points allowed. Well, that’s pretty perfect as it is…
-          Drew Brees, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 32 pts – Brees is putting up the numbers, but the Saints aren’t winning.  He logged 446 yards and 3 TD’s… and lost.  Man, it’s tough to win in this league.
-          Roddy White, WR – Scottish Rebels – 31 pts – Oh yeah!  These kinds of games are the reason I traded for this guy!  169 yards and two touchdowns!  Booyah!  Wait…he wasn’t active?  I played Brandon Lloyd instead? D’oh!
-          Tom Brady, QB – Joe’s Pats – 31 pts – Brady threw for 3 touchdowns, and also ran for a touchdown.  That went along with 340 yards passing and no interceptions.  Yeah, I’d say he had a good day.
-          Minnesota, DEF – Free Agent – 31 pts – The Vikings sacked Matt Stafford 5 times, and had one fumble recovery, but get this – they had two return touchdowns (one kickoff and one punt) and racked up 186 return yards.
-          Cam Newton, QB – Scottish Rebels – 30 pts – Classic case of over-thinking it… Cam Newton against the red-hot Falcons, or Matt Schaub against the struggling Titans?  When in doubt, go with your keepers.  Don’t be like me.  Double d’oh!
-          Matt Ryan, QB – Midnight Maulers – 27 pts – Ryan trails only RG3 for the top spot in fantasy scoring.  He is flat out throwing it like a madman this year, and already has 11 passing TD’s through the first 4 games.
-           Aaron Rodgers, QB – American BadAss – 27 pts – It was the weekend of quarterbacks!  Five of the top 9 scorers for the week were signal callers.


 COME ON, MAN!
-          Evan Royster, RB – American BadAss – 1 pt – I guess you shouldn’t expect too much from a guy who had his breakout game last week scoring 3 points.
-          Dennis Pitta, TE – BoomGoesTheDynamite – 0 pts – Never caught a pass and never really needed to as the Ravens walked all over Cleveland.
 -          Jeremy Maclin, WR – Midnight Maulers – 0 pts – Only one catch for seven yards.  That’s not gonna get it done.

 
YOU NEED A KICKER!
I’ve always been rough on kickers here because, well, they’re kickers.  They are impossible to predict week-to-week, change teams every other year and injure themselves with their celebrations.  But because my best player this year is my kicker, I’ve decided to extend an olive branch to the Vanderjagt’s, Septien’s and the like.  So each week, I’m going to highlight the highest scoring kicker, pass along an interesting tidbit, and point out some high profile players that he outscored. 
Now, without further adieu, here is Week 4’s HIGHEST SCORING KICKER:
Greg Zuerlein – St. Louis Rams – 18 points
How’d he do it? Four field goals (including 2 from 50+ yards (one of those was actually from 60 yards out), and 1 extra point.
Following in Apollo Creed’s footsteps – He has three nicknames: “Greg the Leg”, “Legatron” and “Young G.Z.”
He’s way better than: Michael Vick (17 pts), Victor Cruz (16 pts), Rob Gronkowski (14 pts), Arian Foster (14 pts) and Frank Gore (13 pts).


FLY AGENT, YOU’RE FREE!!
Check out the team of unwanteds that I put together this week:
QB – Kevin Kolb, ARI – 20
RB – Brandon Bolden, NE – 20
RB – Jackie Battle, SD – 20
WR – Brian Hartline, MIA – 34*
WR – Andre Roberts, ARI – 23
TE – Scott Chandler, BUF – 18*
K – Greg Zuerlein, STL – 18*
DEF – Minnesota, MIN – 31
Total – 184
 The asterisk (*) next to the player names above denotes players who were the highest scorer in their position for the week.


MARK TWAIN QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.


FANTASY VS. REALITY
All year I’ve been tracking the total fantasy scores posted by NFL team, combining all offensive players, kickers and team defenses, in order to see how points on the scoreboard correlate to fantasy points.  Thus far, the way the teams are ranked in terms of game points is running pretty close to the fantasy ranking, except for Philadelphia, who is ranked 29th in game scoring, but 19th in fantasy scoring, and the New York Jets who are ranked 21st in game scoring, but 28th in fantasy scoring.  Speaking of the Jets, their fantasy point total this last week is stupefying.  So far this season, the average points scored per team each week is 80.2... the Jets scored 14 points this week.  Fourteen!!  That is crazy terrible!  The only team to even come close to that was Jacksonville in Week 2 scoring only 25 points.
Here are the top five scoring teams in game points, with their fantasy points and rank in parentheses:
1)      New England Patriots – 134 pts (Fantasy Rk #2, 410 pts)
2)      Houston Texans – 126 pts (Fantasy Rk #5, 381 pts)
3)      Atlanta Falcons – 124 pts (Fantasy Rk #1, 412 pts)
4)      Washington Redskins – 123 pts (Fantasy Rk #8, 368 pts)
5)      Baltimore Ravens – 121 pts (Fantasy Rk #3, 404 pts)


WEEK 4 PLAYOFF PREDICTIONS
    In looking at five years of Sacred Sundays history, there is one record that is a lock to qualify for the playoffs after 4 weeks.  That record is 1-2-1, which has been observed 2 times, with both teams qualifying for the playoffs.  So that means that with BoomGoesTheDynamite sitting with that very record right now, Jens is a shoo-in to make it to the big dance.  The next highest qualifying record, amazingly, is 1-3.  There have been 9 teams to start with a 1-3 record, with 8 of those qualifying to make the playoffs.  That’s 88.9% of the teams!  So Midnight Maulers and Frito Pie are poised to make a strong run.
    An undefeated record at this point sounds like a good place to be, but we’ve only seen that record four times, with three of those teams making it in.  So Joe’s Pats has a 75% chance to make it in.  A record of 3-1 has been observed 10 times with 7 of those teams qualifying.  That means SOFA KING GOOD and sprouts are looking at a 70% shot to make it in.
    Now for the teams that have an uphill battle… Coors Light Drunk Guys and Gotham’s Reckoning both have a record of 2-2.  This is the most common record that has been observed, having been achieved 17 times.  However, only 8 of those teams qualified, so Shawn and Timmy are looking at a 47% shot to get in.  American BadAss looks to have a strong record at 2-1-1, but in the three times that record has occurred, only one team made it in.  So Jason, you’ve got a 33% shot staring you in the face.  Bringing up the rear (and I mean that in the worst possible way that you can imagine), are my Scottish Rebels sitting at 0-4.  Four teams have started out this bad in the past, with one of those still managing to qualify.  The team that qualified was back in 2007, when the now defunct “2Fantastic” went 0-4, but battled back to a 6-7 record and snagged the final wild card spot.  There is hope!  I’m not out of this thing yet!!


BESTEST BENCH
I can’t even sugar coat this one this week… I made some bad decisions and rightfully deserve the crown for Best Bench this week.  So, with a 44-point improvement possibility, the Week 4 Best Bench winner is my Scottish Rebels!  Only three roster moves were necessary for this one:  R. White for B. Lloyd (+20), C. Newton for M. Schaub (+14) and A. Morris for B. Green-Ellis (+10).


Four teams are on byes this week, so make sure you have your rosters ready to go!  Week 5 is coming at ya!!

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