The whole nine yards... A stitch in time saves nine... Dressed to the nines... There is something special about the number 9. (It is not as cool of a number as 27, but hey, not many things are…) Week 9 proved to be a magical week, with players scoring craptons of points, and the race to the playoffs heating up big time! More on that below...
This week my team finally lived up to all the preseason hype, and posted a super solid 138 points! That is the second highest total that we have seen all season. (Timmy posted 140 in Week 6). My team was boosted by Andre Johnson having a career day in basically the 1st half of his game. Johnson had all 3 of his touchdowns and all but 39 of his 229 yards in the first 2 quarters. Not bad for 30 minutes of work! I also got big games from Russell Wilson and Tony Gonzalez. Well done chaps! Let's keep that going for another couple weeks!!
This week I do a refresher on the playoff rules, put together the best free agent team of all time, and explore a paradigm shift that may be occurring in fantasy football right now.
Onward and upward!!
BIG TIME!
-Nick Foles, QB – Free Agent – 48 pts – Foles gets to notch his name in the NFL record books as only the 7th player to throw 7 touchdown passes in a game. He made the Raiders secondary look like the Raiders.
-Andre Johnson, WR – Butkus’ Dick – 43 pts – Johnson had 229 yards and three touchdowns en route to the highest scoring game by a wide receiver in Sacred Sundays history. This bested the 39 points put up by his brother Calvin from last week.
-Tom Brady, QB – Joe’s Pats – 36 pts – You know there was some ridiculousness going on when a quarterback has a game throwing for 432 yards and 4 touchdowns is not the best game for a quarterback that week.
-Chris Johnson, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 32 pts – Best performance by a runningback this season, going for 150 yards and 2 TD’s plus 20 yards receiving. Johnson doubled his points from the last time he played (16 in Week 7, on a bye in Week 8), so he should get 64 next week.
-Riley Cooper, WR – Free Agent – 32 pts – Cooper had the game of his life, catching 3 TD’s and 139 yards.
-Case Keenum, QB – Free Agent – 31 pts – Keenum made a “case” to take over the starting job for the Texans. Ok, that was bad, but his performance wasn’t, throwing for 350 yards and 3 TD’s.-T.Y. Hilton, WR – Vandelay Industries – 30 pts – Another wide receiver with 3 TD’s this week? Oh yeah! Tyrone’s Youngin’ did that while racking up 121 yards.
-Zac Stacy, RB – American BadAss – 29 pts – Good game for the rookie, rushing for 127 yards and 2 TD’s, and adding 51 yards receiving. That’ll do.
COME ON, MAN…
-Bernard Pierce, RB – sprouts – 1 pt – Pierce has only gained 33 yards on 18 carries over the last three games, so yeah, he’s not seeing much playing time.
-Vincent Jackson, WR – American BadAss – 1 pt – Nothing doing for V Jax this week against the Seahawks, with only 2 catches for 11 yards.
-Brandon Pettigrew, TE – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 0 pts – Hard to have a guy score points for you when he’s on a bye…
-Jordan Cameron, TE – American BadAss – 0 pts – Only one catch for four yards this week.
FREE AGENT DOMINATION
Talk about the power of the un-wanteds. Four of the top five quarterbacks in Week 9 were free agents: Nick Foles, PHI (48 pts), Case Keenum, HOU (31 pts), Ben Roethlisberger (29 pts) and Jason Campbell, CLE (24 pts); two of the top four wide receivers were free agents: Riley Cooper, PHI (32 pts), Jerricho Cotchery, PIT (27 pts); the fourth ranked runningback was a free agent: Rashad Jennings, OAK (23 pts); and the top defense was a free agent: Miami (23 pts). Just look at the free agent team I put together for this week:
QB: Nick Foles, PHI – 48 pts
RB: Rashad Jennings, OAK – 23 pts
RB: Darrel Young, WSH – 19 ptsWR: Riley Cooper, PHI – 32 pts
WR: Jerricho Cotchery, PIT – 27 pts
TE: Tim Wright, TB – 11 pts
K: Nick Folk, NYJ – 16 pts
DEF: Miami – 23 pts
GRAND TOTAL – 199 points! Best Free Agent team ever!!
CHANGING PARADIGM
Wide receivers have been having some massive weeks lately. Calvin Johnson led all scorers in Weeks 7 and 8, scoring 30 and 39 points… Antonio Brown was the top scorer in Week 3 with 34 points. Vernon Davis, a Tight End, even led all scorers in Week 6 with 33 points! So where are the runningbacks this season? Thus far this year, no runningback has been top scorer in a week. Quarterbacks have done it 5 times, wide receivers 3 times and tight ends once.
In the past, the conventional wisdom has always been to get a good runningback and a good quarterback because that is where your main points will come from. I believe we are seeing a paradigm shift, where that might not be the only way to fantasy success. A top notch quarterback is still going to deliver buckets of points each week, but more and more it’s the guys catching those balls that are becoming ever more valuable. I don’t know if it’s due to runningback injuries, runningback by committee, or just the NFL going pass-wacky, but wide receivers have really closed the gap in terms of scoring production. Looking at the Top 5 RB’s versus the Top 5 WR’s, we see only a point and a half difference in their weekly production (RB = 14.6 pts, WR = 13.1 pts), and it drops to only 1.1 points difference amongst the Top 10 at each position (RB = 13.1 pts, WR = 12.0 pts). So the difference between a Top 10 runningback and a Top 10 wide receiver is only about a point per week.
But here’s the real difference… as mentioned earlier, wide receivers this season have provided the home run threat. Amongst the Top 20 runningbacks, the highest weekly score has been 32 points put up by Chris Johnson this last week. If you look at the Top 20 wide receivers, they have scored at or above 32 points 4 times this year. Prior to Chris Johnson this week, the best week by a runningback was Week 2 when Marshawn Lynch scored 30. The Top 20 wide receivers have scored at or above 30 nine times this season! So wide receivers as a group are posting bigger totals than runningbacks. My whole draft strategy might have to get revamped if this trend continues…
PLAYOFFS?!
There are four more weeks until the playoffs start. Playoffs will begin in Week 14 and conclude in Week 16. Here is a recap on the rules for getting into the playoffs, and the tie-breakers that will be used. (The Yahoo! Fantasy Football site has their own set of tie-breakers, but we do not use those. The tie-breakers for our league will be the ones listed here)
-Six teams qualify for the playoffs. The top two teams from each division automatically qualify, the other two spots are wildcards and are not division specific (i.e. both wildcard teams can come from the same division).
For the divisional standings, here are the tie-breakers that determine the ranking:
-Overall record
-Divisional record
-Head-to-head record
-Points scored
-Coin flip
For the wildcard standings, here are the tie-breakers that determine the ranking:
-Overall record
-Head-to-head record
-Points scored
-Coin flip
Other playoff notes:
-The two divisional winners will receive byes in the first round (Week 14) of the playoffs.
-Throughout the playoffs (Weeks 14-16), all teams are still eligible to win the Weekly High Score prize.
-The final standings at the end of the regular season will determine the final standings for teams in 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th place. (Yahoo! does a playoff bracket with those teams, but it does not determine the final standings for those teams.)
-There are no tie games in the playoffs. If there is a tie game in any playoff game prior to the Championship game, the higher seeded team will be declared the winner. If there is a tie in the Championship game, the following tie-breakers will be used:
1) Team with the highest scoring quarterback wins;
2) Team with the highest scoring runningback wins;
3) Team with the highest scoring wide receiver wins;
4) If still tied at that point, co-Champions will be declared.
Starting next week, I’ll work on playoff scenarios to show how each team can still qualify. As of right now, only one team is in for sure (SOFAKINGGOOD (formerly Channel 4 News Team)), and everyone else is still alive to make it in!
ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK
There are 10 types of people in this world. Those that know binary, and those that don’t.
BEST BENCH
Posting a low score doesn’t guarantee that a team will win the Best Bench, but it definitely leaves a lot of room for improvement. This week’s winner proved that point to a T. With a stout 51-point improvement possibility, the winner of the Best Bench for Week 9 is… American BadAss!! That’s right, Jason could have improved his point total to 94 points with four roster moves: Z. Stacy for D. Murray (+25 pts), P. Garcon for V. Jackson (+19 pts), G. Graham for J. Cameron (+4 pts) and Titans for Saints (+3 pts).
Get ready for Week 10! Next week playoff scenarios will begin…
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| At least there is something worth watching in Jacksonville... |
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