Here comes BOOM!

There are big games, and there are monumental games.  Big games are like when Ronnie Brown put up 43 points in Week 3 of 2008.  Or when Chris Johnson put up 48 in Week 2 of 2009.  The biggest of the big games was when Adrian Peterson posted 49 points in Week 9 of 2007.  Michael Vick matched that number in Week 10 of 2010.  But records, as they say, are meant to be broken.  What Doug Martin did on Sunday can only be described as a monumental game, going for 251 rushing yards, 21 receiving yards and 4 touchdowns, coming to a grand total of 54 points!  This is one for the ages…Truly outstanding!

But the big boom this week goes out to BoomGoesTheDynamite, who dropped a bomb and exploded for 118 points!  Jens had a big game from Brandon Marshall (30 points), and 15 points from his kicker, giving him two more points than Frito Pie.  With the win, that gives Boom a 4-4-1 record, which moves him to 1st place in the South Division, and in the driver’s seat to qualify for the playoffs.  Well done Jensy!

And I would be remiss if I did not congratulate sprouts for taking the high score in Week 8, with a massive 138 points!  That is the most points scored in a single week all season, and the highest total since the Coors Light Drunk Guys posted 139 back in Week 14 last season.  Russ’ victory also marked three weeks in a row of taking the Weekly High Score prize.  That is some good fantasy footballin’!! 

The league standings are crazy right now… four teams in the South Division have records of 4-5, and those teams are only a half-game behind the division leader.  So to say that the South Division is wide open would be an understatement.  It is literally anyone’s game at this point.  The North Division is quite a different story with American BadAss leading the way with a super strong record of 7-1-1, and both sprouts and Joe’s Pats with 6-3 records.  Hard to believe that there are only 4 games left until we start the playoffs.

So this week, we’ll get caught up on some outstanding items from last week and hand out two Best Bench awards.

BIG TIME

• Doug Martin, RB – Frito Pie – 54 pts – Out of 494 players that have scored a point so far this season, there are only 160 that have scored over 54 points.  Doug Martin did that in one game.  Unbelievable.

• Adrian Peterson, RB – Scottish Rebels – 34 pts – You don’t expect a player scoring 34 points to be outscored by 20 on a normal basis.  But AP still had a tremendous game, going for 182 yards and 2 touchdowns on the ground, plus 11 receiving yards.

• Carson Palmer, QB – Scottish Rebels – 31 pts – 414 yards and four touchdowns is a pretty freakin’ good day.  But he also tossed 3 picks, so there’s that.

• Chicago, DEF – Midnight Maulers – 30 pts – I have never seen a defense have a season like this… this is the third time this year that the Bears’ D has scored over 30 points, and they are now averaging 23 points per game.  Also, they are the second highest scoring player in all of fantasy, only trailing Aaron Rodgers by 9 points.  But Rodgers has not had a bye week, and the Bears have, so they are technically outscoring everyone this year.

• New Orleans, DEF – Free Agent – 30 pts – Who dat?  Anyone need a defense that can score 30 points?  Here’s one.

• Brandon Marshall, WR – BoomGoesTheDynamite – 30 pts – Marshall caught 9 passes for 122 yards and 3 touchdowns.  Yeah, that’ll play.

 

• Andrew Luck, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 28 pts – Luck is looking like he just might be able to play football at the pro level.  He is averaging 20.3 points per game over the last three weeks, and is the 7th ranked QB overall.  Shawn, you might have yourself a quarterback controversy brewing…  Brees and Luck have both scored 61 points over the last three weeks.

COME ON MAN!

• Jeremy Maclin, WR – Midnight Maulers – 2 pts – Only 2 catches for 28 yards this week, giving him only 356 yards and 3 touchdowns for the season.  Surely not what Jamie was hoping for out of his 4th round pick.

• Jared Cook, TE – American BadAss - -2 pts – Cook had 2 catches for a grand total of 6 yards, plus a lost fumble.  It really doesn’t get much worse.

FANTASY vs. REALITY

The top three teams in reality scoring are also the top three teams in fantasy scoring.  New England is tops in reality (with 262 points), and ranks second in Fantasy with 807 points.  The New York Giants are second in reality (254 points) and first in Fantasy (814 points).  Green Bay ranks third in both categories with 239 points in reality and 789 points in Fantasyland.  (Side note – my spell check does not recognize “Fantasyland” as a misspelled word).  But the crazy thing is that New England has had a bye week (Week 9), yet the Giants and Green Bay have not.  So that just goes to show how much scoring the Patriots are doing this year!  (I guess you have to score a lot with a secondary like they have…)

Rounding out the top five are the Houston Texans who are 4th in reality with 237 pts and 6th in Fantasy with 730 points, and the Chicago Bears ranking 5th in reality with 713 points and 8th in Fantasy with 713 points.  (Side note about Chicago – The Bears Defense is not only dominating the league, but they are dominating the other Bears players… the Defense has 184 points on the season with the next closest Bear (Brandon Marshall) only having 118.)

Final note in the Fantasy versus reality – The Jacksonville Jaguars continue to live in the basement in both categories with only 117 reality points and 413 fantasy points.

TRADE DEADLINE AND PLAYOFFS

The trade deadline is Friday, November 16th.  If you want to make a trade after that date, both teams will have to drop the players and hope that no one else picks them up off of waivers.  And there are only four more games until the playoffs start!  Next week we’ll start looking at qualification scenarios.

NFL GAMES ABROAD

Last week (Week 8), the New England Patriots took on the St. Louis Rams at Wembley Stadium in England.  I just found it amusing to have a team named the “New England Patriots” playing in England.  “New” England, which is better than “Old” England, and the “Patriots”, named in honor of Americans who kicked the crap out of the British back in the day.  Simply awesome.

MARK TWAIN QUOTE OF THE WEEK

It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.

ELECTION RESULTS

Tuesday’s election results were a nightmarish train wreck of epic proportions, but it wasn’t all bad.  Here are a couple of positive things that will come out of this:

1)      We’ll finally get to learn what number comes after a trillion.

2)      We’ll get to find out what President Obama meant when he told that Russian diplomat that he needed more “flexibility”.

3)      We’ll all learn how to speak Chinese.

You always have to look at the bright side of things…

BEST BENCHES

Week 8 did not see much in the way of points being left on the bench… the winner of the Best Bench only improved by 25 points, which is the lowest Best Bench improvement for this season.  That team was…. Frito Pie!  Rachel only needed two roster changes to accomplish this: Titus Young for Wes Welker (+18) and Dan Bailey for Greg Zuerlein (+7).

For the Best Bench Award this week, the traveling trophy did not have to go far as my Scottish Rebels took home the crown!  I could have improved my point total by 30 points with four roster moves:  Denver for Baltimore (+12), Carson Palmer for Cam Newton (+10), Lance Moore for Percy Harvin (+4), and Ben-Jarvus Green-Ellis for Alfred Morris (+4).

Can it really be Week 10 already?... sheesh...