Winning the first Weekly High Score Prize of the season is a great way to kick off your year. Over the last five years, here are the teams that have held that distinction along with where they finished overall:
2014 – Vandelay Industries (117 pts) – Runner-up
2013 – sprouts (133 pts) – 3rd Place
2012 – BoomGoesTheDynamite (117 pts) – Champion
2011 – American BadAss (112 pts) – 3rd Place
2010 – Lords of Lumberg (100 pts) – 5th Place
One fifth place finish, two thirds, a second and a Championship. If history is any indication, my Rebels look poised for a run at the title this year! Oh yeah!
The winning performance from my boys started on Thursday night with Gronk just obliterating the Steelers defense to the tune of 27 points, and it continued on Sunday with two of my early draft picks delivering strong performances... Seahawks defense (21 points) and Demarco Murray (13 points). Murray only finished with 20 total yards, but managed to find the end zone twice on Monday night. It's like they say in golf...it doesn't matter how, only matters how many!
This week we'll get our first check on the Browns and team defenses, see what perfection looks like from a rookie, and award a double Best Bench. Let's do this!!
NOW WE’RE TALKING!
-Carlos Hyde, RB - Scottish Rebels - 32 pts - Dude just went crazy against a porous Vikings defense racking up 168 yards rushing and 2 TD's, along with 14 receiving yards. Guess who just earned a starting roster spot?
-Tom Brady, QB - Bubble Crap Bandits - 27 pts - After defeating the NFL in federal court, facing the Pittsburgh Steelers must've seemed like a cake walk. Golden Boy sure made it look that way, putting up 288 yards passing and 4 TDs.
-Rob Gronkowski, TE - Scottish Rebels - 27 pts - There was a lot of talk from the Steelers prior to the season opener that they were going to be real physical with Gronk... checking him at the line of scrimmage, double-teaming, etc. Not only did they not do that, they didn't even cover him on one play, essentially letting him walk in for a touchdown. He showed why he is the best tight end in the game, finishing with 94 yards and 3 touchdowns.
-Julio Jones, WR - Z German Overlords - 26 pts - Impressive stats from JJ... 9 catches for 142 yards and 2 TDs! Would've had even more had two big gains not been called back by penalties. He looks poised for a big year...
-Carson Palmer, QB - Coors Light Drunk Guys - 25 pts - Old man still getting it done! Deep throws, moving around in the pocket, scrambling...he did it all and looked good doing it! Final tally was 307 yards passing, 3 TD's, and 14 yards rushing.
-Tony Romo, QB - SofaKingLoveMyKicker - 25 pts - For all my badmouthing of Romo over the years, I must say that he actually came through big time on this one! And in the clutch, no less. I'm still not entirely sure how the Cowboys ended up beating the Giants in that one...seemed like a lost cause. But all that matters is the score at the end of the game. Not the score with 42 seconds left! Romo put up a solid stat line (356 yards and three TD's), but did also have 2 interceptions. Hey, he is Romo after all...
COME ON, MAN!!
-Adrian Peterson, RB - Joe's Pats - 5 pts - Surely not the scorching start to the season that AP and about a billion fantasy owners were expecting. Sometimes a year off does a player good (see Carson Palmer) and sometimes it makes them slow and hesitant. Unfortunately for AP, it was the latter.
-Peyton Manning, QB - sprouts - 5 pts - Here's another stud who stumbled out of the blocks this year. Manning threw zero TD passes in the game, and had 1 interception. Contrast this to the opening game of 2013 when Manning threw for 7 TD's, 462 yards and 0 INT's on his way to 49 points. Now that is the way you start a season!!
-Steve Smith SR, WR - SofaKingLovemyKicker - 1 pt - Not for a lack of balls coming his way... Smith caught only 2 of 7 passes thrown to him, and only took those 2 for 13 yards.
-Greg Olsen, TE - Midnight Maulers - 1 pt - One catch for 11 yards. And that was against Jacksonville. Yuck.
-Adam Vinatieri, K - Midnight Maulers - 0 pts - Did he get injured? Did he not play? I see that the Colts scored 14 points, so there should have at least been an extra point in there or something. But just...nothing. Kickers man, what can you say?
-Owen Daniels, TE - Joe's Pats - 0 pts – Two for two! Daniels was 2-for-2 on catching balls thrown his way. Unfortunately, he must have been catching sideways or backwards passes because he only netted 5 yards. Um..what??
ROOKIE PERFECTION
Marcus Mariota's football career is only going to get worse from here. He accomplished something in
WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?
As I pointed out in last week's write up, the one NFL team that had no players drafted in our league was the Cleveland Browns. I'll be tracking them this year as my "All Unwanteds"...
Let's see how they did:
Their leading scorer was wide receiver Travis Benjamin, finishing with 14 points (89 yds and a TD). After that it was Johnny Football with 8 points, and Travis Coons (the kicker) with 4 points. Here is how the full roster shaped out:
| QB | Johnny Manziel Cle - QB | 8 |
| RB | Isaiah Crowell Cle - RB | 3 |
| RB | Duke Johnson Jr. Cle - RB | 2 |
| WR | Travis Benjamin Cle - WR | 14 |
| WR | Brian Hartline Cle - WR | 2 |
| TE | Gary Barnidge Cle - TE | 3 |
| K | Travis Coons Cle - K | 4 |
| DEF | Cleveland Cle - DEF | 1 |
| Total | 37 |
DE-FENSE, (clap clap), DE-FENSE, (clap clap)
Defense is tough to predict. You’re not just dealing with one guy…you’ve got 11 guys. An injury to one guy could spell problems, or could bring in a new guy who kicks ass. Defenses can be really high scoring (fantasy-wise) one season, and then fall to the bottom of the barrel the next. Taking a defense early is a major gamble because it is hard to know how they will perform. This all got me thinking that I need to track defenses from their preseason ranking through the end of the year to see if the "experts" have any idea what they are talking about.
So here are the Top 10 Defenses as ranked by Yahoo! experts on the day before the start of the season, and how they did in Week #1:
| Rank | Defense/Special Teams | Week 1 |
| 1 | Seattle Sea - DEF | Rk #1 - 21 pts |
| 2 | Buffalo Buf - DEF | Rk #13 - 9 pts |
| 3 | Houston Hou - DEF | Rk #22 - 2 pts |
| 4 | Philadelphia Phi - DEF | Rk #29 - 0 pts |
| 5 | St. Louis StL - DEF | Rk #5 - 16 pts |
| 6 | Arizona Ari - DEF | Rk #16 - 6 pts |
| 7 | New England NE - DEF | Rk #18 - 5 pts |
| 8 | Baltimore Bal - DEF | Rk #5 - 16 pts |
| 9 | Green Bay GB - DEF | Rk #16 - 6 pts |
| 10 | Kansas City KC - DEF | Rk #10 - 12 pts |
BEST BENCH(ES)
Not since Week 12 of 2013 have we had two teams earn the distinction of Best Bench in the same week. Back then it was my Scottish Rebels and Channel 4 News Team sharing the crown with a 29-point improvement. The winners this time had solid 35-point improvement possibilities, with quite a few roster changes. The first was the Coors Light Drunk Guys who needed 5 roster changes to do it, and the second was sprouts who needed 4 roster changes to do it. Due to space constraints, I’m not going to list out all of the changes this time…just take my word on it.
Okay, starting this week we will begin awarding the owner who picks the most winners from the weekly matchups with the top waiver spot. If you want that to be you, make sure to click on "League Pick Em" and pick which teams you think will be victorious!
Let’s go Week 2!!
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