Midnight Maulers crank it up in Week 6!

What a week! After two weeks with only two teams scoring over 100, Week 6 delivers four teams scoring in triple digits along with Vandelay Industries' first victory!

The big congratulations this week go to Jamie and his Midnight Maulers! Jamie posted the highest score that we have seen all season (139 points), and did it with one of his best players, AJ Green, only scoring 3 points and one of his keepers, Frank Gore, only scoring 8. He had outstanding performances from Matt Stafford (36 pts), Chris Ivory (25 pts), the Philadelphia Defense (20 pts), Greg Olsen (19 pts), and even his kicker (Hauschka) rang up 14 points. But here is the most amazing thing about the Maulers this week, if Jamie could have had his optimal line-up in, he would have amassed 173 points which would be the highest total ever in Sacred Sundays’ history! Congratulations Jamie! That is just spectacular.

(If you are wondering, the highest score ever was recorded by Channel 4 News Team in Week 15 of 2013, when Timmy’s boys posted 149 points.  I’m still waiting for that 150 point performance…)

In the league standings, the Coors Light Drunk Guys are now in the top spot with a record of 5-1, while Z German Overlords have slipped to the bottom with a record of 1-5. Should make for an interesting week of smack talk leading up to the "What Do You Know?!? Bowl" this week. Would have to say that the Drunk Guys are the favorites going in, but the Overlords might not be as bad as their record indicates. They have had the misfortune of having the 2nd most points scored against them so far this season.  Now check this out, since 2007 the "What Do You Know?!? Bowl" series is tied at 6-6.  Barring a playoff match-up, this is the only time they’ll face off this season, so the winner will hold the series advantage for a year!  As Joe Biden would say, "This is a big f***ing deal!"

Just a quick update this week, so let's do this!


BIG TIME
-Matthew Stafford, QB - Midnight Maulers - 36 pts - Stafford finally came to life and put up 405 yards and 4 TD's with only one interception. His point total this week was higher than his last three weeks combined.

-Philip Rivers, QB - American BadAss - 31 pts - Rivers completed 43 passes on Sunday for 503 yards. Completed 43 passes because he attempted 65 passes in the game. I don't think Colin Kaepernick has attempted 65 passes this season and Rivers does it in one game?! Crazy!

-Devonta Freeman, RB - Coors Light Drunk Guys - 27 pts - The fantasy monster continues! Freeman averaged 7.7 yards per carry which was better than Matt Ryan's yards per pass attempt. And Freeman's 27-point day was his lowest, lowest!!, point total since Week 2.

-Andrew Luck, QB - Vandelay Industries -27 pts - Apparently the Colts felt that Luck's shoulder wasn't an issue, as they radioed in 50 passing plays against New England. He delivered by completing 30 of those passes for 312 yards and 3 TD's.

-DeAndre Hopkins, WR - Bubble Crap Bandits - 25 pts - Here is the most impressive stat for this guy... he has at least 10 targets in every game this season, and is on pace for 237 targets this year. Against the Jaguars he was pretty much unstoppable, racking up 148 yards and 2 TD's.

COME ON MAN
-Antonio Brown, WR - Scottish Rebels - 2 pts - Saw a great meme that had the caption "The only person capable of shutting down Antonio Brown" and it was a picture of Michael Vick. Pretty well sums it up.

-Tevin Coleman, RB - sprouts - 2 pts - Playing behind Freeman probably means Coleman isn't going to get a lot of opportunity, especially when he loses a fumble as he did this week.

-Eddie Lacy, RB - Z German Overlords - 1 pt. - Although he's not listed on the injury report, there is speculation that Lacy is nursing an ankle injury. He only carried the ball 4 times for 3 yards and caught 2 passes for 17 yards. So something ain't right...

-Josh Brown, K - Joe's Pats - 1 pt. - The Giants scored a touchdown early, then just laid down and went to sleep against Philly.

-Melvin Gordon, RB – Z German Overlords - 0 pts – You figure a team is going to run 75-80 plays in a game, and Rivers took up 65 of those with passing plays. So that left little room for Gordon, who only carried it 7 times and lost a fumble.


ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK
A dog gave birth to puppies near the road and was cited for littering.

DEFENSE (clap, clap) DEFENSE (clap, clap)
Houston had by far their best game of the season, finishing as the 5th ranked defense for Week 6 with 16 points.  Philadelphia also had a great week, finishing with 20 points as the 2nd ranked defense.  Other than that, no Top 10 Defense in the pre-season ranking did any better than 12th.  Here are the latest stats:

			OVERALL
Rank	Defense/Special Teams	Week 6	RANK
1	Seattle Sea - DEF	Rk #12 - 8 pts	2
2	Buffalo Buf - DEF	Rk #27 - 0 pts	22
3	Houston Hou - DEF	Rk #5 - 16 pts	27
4	Philadelphia Phi - DEF	Rk #2 - 20 pts	5
5	St. Louis StL - DEF	Rk #27 - 0 pts	8
6	Arizona Ari - DEF	Rk #21 - 4 pts	3
7	New England NE - DEF	Rk #18 - 5 pts	17
8	Baltimore Bal - DEF	Rk #21 - 4 pts	19
9	Green Bay GB - DEF	Rk #14 - 7 pts	4
10	Kansas City KC - DEF	Rk #12 - 8 pts	24

The one point I noted with these teams so far is that 5 of the top 10 ranked teams in the preseason currently do rank in the top 10.  The other 5 teams rank no higher that 17th.  Quite a wide spread there, but good to see that 50% of the top teams are living up to potential.

FREE AGENT DOMINATION
The Maulers had a truly impressive week, but check out the team of free agents I pieced together:
QB Ryan Fitzpatrick, NYJ - 25 pts.
RB James Starks, GB - 23 pts.
RB Dexter McCluster, TEN - 9 pts.
WR Lance Moore, DET - 16 pts.
WR Marvin Jones, CIN - 15 pts.
TE Benjamin Watson, NO - 18 pts.
K Chris Boswell, PIT - 17 pts.
DEF Miami, MIA - 25 pts.
Total = 148 pts.


ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK #2
Two silk worms had a race. They ended up in a tie.


BEST BENCH
Dual accolades happened last week for the first time since 2012, when Shawn Martin took the High Score Prize as well as the Best Bench. Now for the first time in history, we have back-to-back dual accolades! As mentioned earlier, with an optimal line-up the Midnight Maulers would have posted 173 points, which is a 34-point improvement. Jamie needed three roster moves to get it done... J. Brown for A. Green (+17), J. Stewart for F. Gore (+11) and A. Jeffery for A. Robinson (+6).

That is it for this week... we are almost at the midpoint of the season, so only two weeks away from midterm grades!

Start studying now!

Drunkards Dream!

F. N. A.  Now dat der is some good fantasy footballin'! The Coors Light Drunk Guys finally got enough high scoring players into an active roster spot this week to claim the Week 5 High Score Prize!  The Drunk Guys got another massive performance from Devonta Freeman (28 pts) who has become an absolute fantasy beast! Carson Palmer and Julian Edelman both added 18 points en-route to Shawn's 102-point week! The Drunk Guys just edged out SofaKinglucky by 2 points to claim the prize. Nice work Shawn! KERS EFFING LIGHT!!

The league standings are quite a jumble now, with the top two teams holding records of 4-1, one team at 3-2, one team at 3-1-1, two teams at 2-2-1,, two teams at 2-3, one team at 1-4 and one team at 0-4-1. The season is still young, so anything can happen. At this point last season, eventual champ SofaKinglucky (or make that SofaKingBackBaby!) had a record of 2-3. Heck, James' record through 10 weeks was 5-5 and he still went on to take the title. It is never too late to start kicking ass! Unless it's Week 17...then it's probably too late.

Also wanted to make a point about the scores from last week. At the end of the Monday night game there was a play where Calvin Johnson caught a pass by the goal line but had it knocked out by a Seattle defender and go out of the end zone right before he scored.  Yahoo! took a while to get this right, as it was originally scored as a lost fumble by Johnson and a fumble recovery by Seattle. That gave my Scottish Rebels a 2-point victory over Vandelay Industries.  Once they finally got it figured out, it was still counted as a lost fumble by Johnson but Seattle did not receive credit for recovery (even though possession did change). But because of that change, it made it a tie game between Louis and I.  Just know that whenever any point corrections like that occur, it is the system doing it, I have no part in that. But now we are stuck with 4 teams that have a tie game in their record...should make for interesting tie breakers come playoff time. Speaking of the playoffs, it is playoff prediction time!  See below for some bold predicting, going farther than ever before...predicting the Championship game matchup!

Now onward!!

THAT IS THE WAY YOU DEBATE
-Josh McCown, QB - Free Agent - 38 pts - Check out what the lowly Browns QB has done over the last three weeks, 19 pts (Wk 3), 25 pts (Wk 4), 38 pts (Wk 5). He was absolutely nuts this week, throwing for a crazy 457 yards and 2 TD's, plus he added a rushing TD. Can I really be contemplating adding McCown to my team?

-Doug Martin, RB – sprouts - 33pts - There's that muscle hamster we've come to know and love! He now has two weeks in a row over 100 yards, and this week he had 2 rushing TD's plus a receiving TD.

-Eli Manning, QB – Z German Overlords - 31pts - Eli completed 41 of 54 passes, which is a 76% completion rate, and tossed 3 TD's while racking up 441 yards.

-Devonta Freeman, RB - Coors Light Drunk Guys - I think it is fair to say that this guy is a fantasy stud. In his last 3 games he has faced Dallas, Houston and Washington who all had strong run defenses, and he shredded all of them. Over those three games he is averaging 32.3 ppg. That is just freaking good!

-Blake Bortles, QB - Free Agent - 28 pts - Quarterbacks from Cleveland and Jacksonville in the top spots for the week? Crazy season!

-Andy Dalton, QB - SofaKinglucky - 26 pts - Even against a strong Seattle defense, Dalton managed to rack up 331 yards, throw 2 TD's and get a rushing TD. Two miscues (one a bad throw that was intercepted and a fumbled handoff that led to a Seattle touchdown) were his only blemishes. He is averaging 23 ppg and currently ranks as the #1 quarterback in fantasy for total points scored.


COME ON MAN
-Alfred Morris, RB - Vandelay lndustries - 1 pt - Here is what Yahoo! has to say about Alf... "The Redskins' backfield is a true three-way timeshare, and Morris has been the least effective member through five games." Harsh. But true. This week he had 15 yards on 8 carries.

-Jason Witten, TE - Coors Light Drunk Guys - 1 pt - Losing a 4th quarter fumble knocked him down from having just a bad week to a terrible week. Brandon Weeden just doesn't have the same connection with Witten as does Romo. Maybe a Mexican vacation needs to happen?

-Coby Fleener, TE - Vandelay lndustries - 0 pts - lf he doesn't find the endzone, Fleener just isn't going to score many points. This is one of those weeks where he didn't find the endzone, so yeah...

-Houston, DEF - Vandelay lndustries - 0 pts - Back to back scoreless weeks. Houston is an absolute bust as a team defense this season. More on this below.

-Owen Daniels, TE - Joe's Pats - 0 pts - Daniels did not catch any of the five balls thrown his way this week. Thanks for trying though...

WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?
It only took five weeks for the Cleveland Browns, the team that we all thought was too shitty to draft any of their players, to show all of us up.  A starting lineup consisting of only Browns players finished Week 5 with 107 points.  That's 5 points better than even our best team could muster.  And that was with the Browns Defense laying a goose egg, so they did it with only 7 players.
Here is that lineup that is better than yours:

Josh McCown Cle - QB	38
Isaiah Crowell Cle - RB	13
Duke Johnson Jr. Cle - RB	7
Travis Benjamin Cle - WR	8
Taylor Gabriel Cle - WR	7
Gary Barnidge Cle - TE	19
Travis Coons Cle - K	15
Cleveland Cle - DEF	0
Total	107

Josh McCown is averaging 27.3 ppg over the last three weeks (since returning from injury), which is a better average than Tom Brady.  Gary Barnidge is the 3rd ranked tight end in total points, behind only Gronkowski and Eifert.  Travis Benjamin is the 5th ranked wide receiver, currently higher than Antonio Brown and AJ Green.  I think it is safe to say that the Browns are not the cesspool of fantasy rejects they were made out to be in the pre-season.


DEFENSE (clap, clap) DEFENSE (clap, clap)
My hypothesis on team defenses at the beginning of the season was that there would be a couple of good teams out of the top 10 expert ranked teams, but that the rest would be a crazy mix.  Thus far, I would say that my hypothesis is mostly true.
Here are the top 10 ranked defenses, and how they are currently performing:

			OVERALL
Rank	Defense/Special Teams	Week 5	RANK
1	Seattle Sea - DEF	Rk #6 - 14 pts	2
2	Buffalo Buf - DEF	Rk #14 - 9 pts	15
3	Houston Hou - DEF	Rk #26 - 0 pts	31
4	Philadelphia Phi - DEF	Rk #6 - 14 pts	12
5	St. Louis StL - DEF	Rk #14 - 9 pts	5
6	Arizona Ari - DEF	Rk #4 - 15 pts	3
7	New England NE - DEF	Rk #4 - 15 pts	18
8	Baltimore Bal - DEF	Rk #19 - 6 pts	18
9	Green Bay GB - DEF	Rk #1 - 23 pts	4
10	Kansas City KC - DEF	Rk #10 - 11 pts	21

Seattle, St. Louis, Arizona and Green Bay were all ranked in the top 10 in the preseason and are still in the top 10 as of today.  Houston, New England, Baltimore and Kansas City are all massively underperforming, while Buffalo and Philly are also not living up to expectations.  The current worst defense in fantasy is the 49ers and they were ranked #11 in the preseason.  The top ranked defense is the Denver Broncos who were ranked 17th to begin with.

PLAYOFFS? DON'T TALK ABOUT PLAYOFFS!!
Last season I made my playoff predictions in Week 5, and I was 5 out of 6 for predicting playoff teams.  The one team that I didn’t pick to make the playoffs, ended up being the league champion.  So those teams that I don’t pick to make it to the playoffs should probably feel pretty good about their chances.

This season I’m going to go one further and not only predict which teams are going to make the playoffs, but also predict the Championship Game matchup.  First the playoff qualifiers:

Joe’s Pats – Joe’s record of 3-1-1 has happened two times before in Sacred Sundays history and both times, that team made it in.  Also Joe is the 4th highest scoring team up to this point, which brings with it a playoff qualification percentage of 62.5%.
Scottish Rebels – The highest scoring team through the first five games (Rebels) has qualified for the playoffs 100% of the time.  However, the highest scoring team through the first five games has never won it all.
Bubble Crap Bandits – The second highest scoring team through the first five weeks has qualified for the playoffs 100% of the time.  Tim’s 3-2 record at this point also carries a 69.2% playoff qualification rate.
Coors Light Drunk Guys – A record of 4-1 leads to playoff qualifying 80% of the time.  Also Shawn seems to have a lot of good players stashed on his bench.
SofaKingLucky – James has the same 4-1 record, so he’s got an 80% shot to get in.
Midnight Maulers – The Maulers are the 5th highest scoring team so far, which has a playoff qualification rate of 66.7%.  Weirdly enough, that is a higher qualification rate than the 3rd and 4th ranked teams.

For the Championship Game matchup, my prediction is Midnight Maulers vs. Scottish Rebels!  Did I just predict my own team playing for the championship??  Oh yeah!!

PICKING GAMES
In the League Pick-Em, the only teams that have actually made picks for the last four weeks are Z German Overlords and myself.  I'm guessing that part of the issue has to be that there does not seem to be a way to access the League Pick-Em page and actually make picks with the Yahoo! app.  Picks can only be made when you are viewing the full webpage.  But because of that issue, along with the lack of participation I am discontinuing the reward of moving the person with the most right picks to the top of the waiver list.  Waiver priority will reset each week to the inverse of standings.


BEST BENCH
Not since Joe’s Pats did it back in Week 5 of 2012 have we seen a Best Bench like this week’s.  Prior to that occurrence it had only happened on three other occasions.  Those are the rare instances where a team gets props at the beginning and the end of the weekly write-up, for snagging both the Highest Score Prize and the Best Bench.  Did Shawn actually pull down his fourth Best Bench in only five weeks and do it in the same week where he was the high score?  It gives great honor to announce that, YES!  HE!  DID!!  This week Shawn only needed two roster moves to garner a 31-point improvement: T. Eifert for J. Witten (+20) and A. Boldin for M. Crabtree (+11).
I’m not sure how you keep doing this each week Shawn, but I am loving it!


Bye weeks keep on coming and injuries keep on piling up.  Get your waivers in, and get ready for Week 6!!

BOXCARS!!!

It is the yin and yang of fantasy football. Last week was the highest scoring week of the season (955 total points scored), with four teams crossing into triple digits and now this week is the lowest scoring week of the season with nary a team breaking the hundo mark. I can't prove it (yet), but I'm placing the full blame on pink shoes. More on that below. The points scored this week rank as the 2nd lowest total point total in Sacred Sundays history. The lowest ever came in Week 16 of 2007, when only 644 total points were scored.  Think about that…the average score that week was just 64.

The big congratulations this week go to TIMMY! and the Bubble Craps Bandits! After finishing in 2nd place twice in the first three weeks of the season, Tim finally claimed the top spot thanks to his kicker. Wait what!? That's right...the highest scoring player on the Bubble Craps Bandits this week was Kansas City Chiefs' kicker Cairo Santos.  He kicked an unbelievable 7 field goals (2 from 50+) and finished with 27 points! This goes down as the greatest performance ever by a kicker, overtaking Blair Walsh who had scored 25 in Week 5 of 2012. The Bandits almost gave it away by having the Chiefs Defense who finished with negative points, but in the end they came out on top. Well done senor!!

Four weeks are already gone from the season, so in fantasy terms that means 31% of the regular season is done! (Four weeks out of a 13-week regular season). After this week's games I will officially make my playoff team predictions! And this year, I'm even going to go so far as to predict the Championship Game matchup! But that's next week, here is this week's stuff...

YOU'RE THE BEST AROUND, NOTHIN' GONNA EVER KEEP YOU DOWN
-Devonta Freeman, RB - Coors Light Drunk Guys - 32 pts - Over the last two weeks, Devonta has amassed a total of 342 yards (rushing & receiving) and 6 touchdowns.  Atlanta looks like a team on a mission right now.

-Philip Rivers, QB - American BadAss - 29 pts - Good game for Rivers, in spite of missing three starters from his offensive line. That actually ended up being a good thing, because that kept Rivers in the shotgun all day, where he tossed 3 touchdowns and racked up 358 yards.

-Cairo Santos, K - Bubble Craps Bandits-27 pts - lt is almost absurd how many field goals this guy made... 2 from 21-29, 1 from 30-39, 2 from 40-49 and 2 from 50+. Seven field goals?!? In one game?

-Chris Ivory, RB - Midnight Maulers - 25 pts - Tea and crumpets did well for Ivory as he ran all over the Dolphins for 165 yards and a touchdown. That is his second game this year scoring over 20 points.


I'M A LOSER BABY, SO WHY DON'T YOU KILL ME?
-Carlos Hyde, RB- Scottish Rebels - 2pts – I would say that it is a case of Jekyll & Hyde, but he has only been Jekyll since Week 1.  Or is it Hyde? Well, whatever it is, he has sucked eggs since his 32-point Week 1 performance, scoring only 13 points TOTAL in the last 3 weeks.

-Zach Ertz, TE - Scottish Rebels - 1 pt - Would have had a better game had a touchdown catch not been called back for illegal formation. But still...2 catches for 11 yards. Yuck.

-Jordan Cameron, TE – SofaKinglucky - 1pt – After a ho-hum start to the season (7 pts and 6 pts in Weeks 1&2), Cameron has had back-to-back 1-point weeks. Not the best way to start off with a bang on a new team.

-Arian Foster, RB - Coors Light Drunk Guys - 1 pt - Not the debut back from injury that Foster was striving for... only 10 yards on the ground (plus a lost fumble) and 25 yards through the air. Well, it can't get much worse...

-Anquan Boldin, WR - Coors Light Drunk Guys - 1 pt - Boldin caught three passes for only 12 yards. Three passes for 12 yards? What wide receiver runs three 4-yard patterns? Oh he plays for the 49ers?...that explains everything.

-Kyle Rudolph, TE - Z German Overlords - 0 pts - Two catches for seven yards. 'Nuff said.

-Houston, DEF - Vandelay lndustries - 0 pts - No team had more hype about their defense this offseason than the Texans, and no team has underperformed more. Another dud performance, giving up 36 points, and only managing 2 sacks. The Texans now rank as the #30 defense.

-Kansas City, DEF - Bubble Craps Bandits - -2 pts - Probably the only player in fantasy that had more total points after Week 2 than after Week 4. KC had 23 points through two weeks of play, but they have shrunk that total to only 20 now, owing to last week's negative 1-point performance, and now this week's negative 2-point performance. Going in the wrong way here Timmy!

SAVE THE TA-TA'S
You always know it is October when you start seeing pink shoes, pink wrist bands, pink gloves, pink eye liner, etc. on the field in an NFL game. I just find it all very distracting. In a day and age where the NFL will fine players thousands of dollars for wearing the wrong brand of socks, or the wrong color of shoe, I fail to see why a pink chinstrap is okay. It destroys the uniformity that the NFL is so keen on. And no other promotion that I know of goes on for an entire month!  Can't this just all happen in one week?
Now, I know I have asked this question before, but why not just sew the pink ribbon onto each uniform and call that good? That maintains uniformity, and is the official symbol for breast cancer awareness. If teams choose to go crazy with pink, how about the cheerleader outfits can be entirely pink? Or better yet, have the cheerleaders go topless. Show us all what this month is really all about! Now there is a month-long promotion l can get behind!!


BEST BENCH
They say that if you are going to take the time to do something, you might as well be the best at it. One team has been head-and-shoulders above all contenders this season when it comes to the Best Bench. With his third Best Bench crown, in only four weeks of play, the Week 4 honors go to...the Coors Light Drunk Guys! With four roster moves this week Shawn could have improved his point total by 52 points... J. Hill for A. Foster (+23), T. Austin for A. Boldin (+22), D. Brees for C. Palmer (+6), and T. Eifert for J. Witten (+1).  Keep up the good work Shawn! F N A!