BadAss once more!

We are nearing the halfway point of the season which means that midterms are almost here!  Midterm grades will be doled out after the conclusion of this week’s games, so make all of your awesome trades, amazing waiver wire pick-ups and ingenious roster moves this week as there is typically a recency bias applied to the grades.  Nearing the halfway point of the season also means that there are only 5 weeks left of the regular season until playoffs start!  With Channel 4 News Team squeaking out a 1-point victory over Vandelay Industries, along with Joe’s Pats and sprouts playing to a tie, the South Division is wide open.  There is only a two game difference between the top and bottom team!  Remember that the top two teams from each division automatically qualify for the playoffs, plus two wildcard spots are given out.  Every year when we have had a tie game, it seems like we have to go to 4th and 5th level tiebreakers on determining wild cards.  So it’s much better to just be a top two team and qualify that way.

The big congratulations this week go out to American BadAss who secured a second Weekly High Score Prize for the season with a dominating 122-90 victory over Sofa King Shit.  BadAss was the only team this week that was able to crack into the triple digits, and for the second week in a row, one of the top three highest scoring teams lost to the highest scoring team (sorry James!).  Jason had a monster game from Demaryius Thomas, 32 points, the 2nd highest single week point total for a wide receiver.  (Thomas, coincidentally, holds the record for most points in a week for a wide receiver with 37 scored in Week 5).  It also doesn’t hurt that Jason has Aaron Rodgers at QB, who is the 4th ranked quarterback in fantasy, and who is averaging 23.8 points/game over the last four weeks.  Nice work bro!

Just a quick update this week as we check in on the Undraftees, get up to date on the “What Do You Know!? Bowl” and award another multi-Best Bench winner.  So…let’s go!!


CHA-CHING!!
-Russell Wilson, QB – Joe’s Pats – 36 pts – Wilson did all he could to win the game (313 passing yards, 2 TD’s, 106 rushing yards, 1 TD), but you can’t overcome a fake punt return.  Any team that successfully executes a play that shouldn’t even exist is destined to win.  If you didn’t see the Rams’ fake punt return, you must Google it and watch it.

-Demaryius Thomas, WR – American BadAss – 32 pts – As mentioned earlier, Thomas holds the record for the highest and second highest weekly scores by a wide receiver this year.  Over the last 3 weeks, he is averaging 29 ppg.  Wow!

-Peyton Manning, QB – sprouts – 28 pts – Really, was there any doubt as to whether or not he would set the TD record this week?  Dude is an absolute machine at scoring points, and trails only Andrew Luck for most points scored this year.

-Sammy Watkins, WR – Channel 4 News Team – 24 pts – I absolutely love this guy’s name.  It just sounds like a professional football player.  Sammy Watkins!  It's a name like 'Shane Falco' that I feel you would only ever hear in a movie.

COME ON, MAN
-Frank Gore, RB – Midnight Maulers – 2 pts – Barely a two yard average, going 9 carries for 20 yards.  Yuck.

-Julius Thomas, TE – sprouts – 2 pts – JT was held out of the endzone for the first time this season.  He was the only player who, up to this point, had scored a touchdown every week.

-Giovani Bernard, RB – Scottish Rebels – 1 pt – Last week Gio got hurt, was in the locker room for like 20 minutes, went back into the game and ended up scoring 21 points.  This week plays the whole game and gets one goddamn point?  What the hell?!

-Heath Miller, TE – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 1 pt – Miller followed up on his impressive 1 point performance last week, with another 1 pointer this week.

-Delanie Walker, TE – Sofa King Shit – 1 pt – Rough week for tight ends…

-Alshon Jeffery, WR – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – Normally if a guy catches 2 passes, he’ll at least put some points on the board.  Not Alshon!  He’ll catch his two passes and go exactly 9 yards.

-Jordan Cameron, TE – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – Joe had two blankouts from two of his players this week, and both were active and didn’t get injured!  Cameron only caught 1 ball for 5 yards.  You kidding me?

-San Francisco, DEF – Sofa King Shit -2 pts – It is a topsy turvy week when the lowest scoring defense is the 49ers, while the highest scoring defense is the Jaguars.  What in the hell is going on?

THE SAGA OF THE UNDRAFTEES
It is starting to show why these guys weren’t drafted.  Here is the line-up this week:
QB Derek Anderson Car 5
RB Justin Forsett Bal 9
RB Chris Ivory NYJ 17
WR Allen Hurns Jax 0
WR Steve Smith Sr. Bal 6
TE Dwayne Allen Ind 11
K Matt Bryant Atl 1
DEF Minnesota Min 16
Total 65
The average score for the week was 84.3, so this goes down as yet another loss for these guys, dropping their record to 1-6.  Brutal.  I think for next week, I will swap out Allen Hurns for Greg Jennings to see if a little more production can be gleaned from the wide receiver position.


WHAT DO YOU KNOW!? BOWL
I want to give a little background for those of you who may not know the origin of the “What Do You Know!? Bowl”.  Back in Calle de Salud days (Las Cruces circa 2002-03), Jens and Shawn would just drive each other crazy.  No one ever really knew (or cared) why, it was just one of those things that was how it was.  Out of nowhere, Jens just started saying “What do you know, Shawn?”  (To get the proper delivery of the phrase, it is important to use a slight German accent and really hit the “you”.  And say it really loud.  Something like “WHAT DO YOOOUUU KNOW!?”).  This of course annoyed the hell out of Shawn, only encouraging Jens to do it even more, which made it all the more hilarious.  So then the first time that their teams met in Sacred Sundays, it was dubbed the “What Do You Know!? Bowl”, and has been thusly recognized since.

Here are some historical stats on the game, going back to 2007:
Total Number of Occurrences: 12
Overall Record: 6-6
Total Points Scored: Shawn 1,006; Jens 936
Highest point total scored in the game: 120 points by Jens in Week 13, 2012.
Lowest point total scored in the game: 44 points by Jens in Week 9, 2008.
Largest margin of victory: 48 points when Shawn beat Jens 115-67 in Week 10, 2011.
Most consequential:  The “What Do You Know!? Bowl” has had one occurrence in the playoffs, which came in 2012 in the semi-final round.  Jens won that one 114-102.

This week’s “What Do You Know!? Bowl” was an easy victory for Shawn, who scored 95 points to Jens’ 62.  Jens changed his team name last week to Fantasy Nightmare, which I can only assume was due to having to play Jay Cutler at quarterback and Michael Crabtree at receiver.  Yes, that is a nightmare.


BEST BENCH
The winner of this week’s Best Bench award gets some credit for not being as bad as their first time, but then loses that credit for taking the award two weeks in a row.  So with a 28-point improvement possibility this time, this week’s Best Bench goes to… Joe’s Pats!!  Joe needed only four roster moves this week:  A. Gates for J. Cameron (+12), E. Sanders for A. Jeffery (+10), T.Y. Hilton for J. Jones (+5) and Steelers for Patriots (+1).


Bring on Week 8!!