Two in a row!

It’s back to back weeks of utter domination from American BadAss!  Last week, ABA was one of only two teams in triple digits, and blew away the 2nd place team by 28 points, finishing with 134.  This week, ABA was again only one of two teams in triple digits, and this time was 10 points better than the 2nd place team, notching 118.  Jason now leads the South Division with a record of 5-2, and leads all teams in scoring with 777 total points scored.  Jackpot.

The most impressive player on American BadAss’ roster is without a doubt the New England Patriots defense.  They are scoring at a pace I’ve never seen from a defense.  With 170 points scored this year, they rank second in total scoring only 1 point behind Lamar Jackson (who has scored 171).  They are outscoring the next closest defense (San Fran) by 64 points.  They have more points than the 3rd & 4th ranked defenses combined.  Compared to last season, they have already scored more points (through 7 weeks mind you), than all but ONE team scored ALL SEASON!  (Last year’s top defense was Chicago with 189 points, and the second place team, LA Rams, had 154).  I mean this is unreal!  Last season, after Week 7 the leading defense was the Rams who had scored only 88 points up to that point…barely over half the Patriots’ production so far.  Searching deep in the records I found the 2012 Chicago Bears who finished the season with 274 points, ranking them 9th overall.  May be the highest finish for a defense all time.  That team had only scored 154 points through their first 7 games.  So the 2019 Patriots are averaging 2.3 more points per game than the highest scoring defense of all time.  Amazing…

In the league standings, Attack of Mahomes still owns the best record at 6-1, followed by American BadAss and Golf & Fishing at 5-2.  Vandelay Industries moved into 4th place with a 4-3 record, and four teams are at 3-4.  Six more games until the start of the playoffs!

Just a few items to get to this week, including handing out two Best Bench awards… onward!

BIG TIME
-Aaron Rodgers, QB – Big Sack – 46 pts – Monster day for ARod, piling up an incredible 429 yards and 5 TD’s through the air, plus a rushing TD.  This is the best single game performance by a player this season (and we’ve had some amazing performances!).
-Marvin Jones Jr, WR – Joe’s Pats – 33 pts – On only 10 catches for 94 yards, Jones managed to find the end zone 4, yes FOUR, times!  How about that catch-to-TD ratio?
-Chase Edmonds, RB – Free Agent – 32 pts – Chase who?  More like David Johnson who?  Edmonds filled in for the aforementioned starter and basically had the game of his life going for 150 yards and 3 TD’s.
-Matt Stafford, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 30 pts – Threw 4 TD’s and had 364 yards and only one pick.  This moves Stafford into the top 10 fantasy quarterbacks so far.

COME ON MAN
-Terry McLaurin, WR – Young Guns – 1 pt – Heavy rain made the passing game difficult, and plus it’s the Redskins, so yeah...
-Malcolm Brown, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 0 pts – Brown was ruled out prior to the game, but Shawn still thought he had a chance.
-Jared Cook, TE – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 0 pts – Cook was ruled out prior to the game, but Shawn still thought he had a chance. ;-)
-Larry Fitzgerald, WR – Golf and Fishing – 1 pt – Larry was more of a decoy in this game, especially once the Cardinals had a lead.  One catch for 12 yards is all he got.
-Devonta Freeman, RB – Golf and Fishing – 1 pt – Freeman got ejected after throwing a punch in the third quarter.  Not that it made much difference, he hadn’t done jack crap to that point and finished with just 19 yards.
-Evan Engram, TE – Golf and Fishing – 0 pts – Engram had just one lowly catch for six lowly yards.

WORST FANTASY PLAYER (SO FAR)
One for the record books this week… so earlier I went on about how dominant the Patriots defense has been.  The player who bore the brunt of it this week was New York Jets quarterback Sam Darnold, who may wish he had stayed in bed with mono.  He finished the game only 86 passing yards, threw 4 interceptions and lost a fumble.  It all added up to -7 points, which ties him for second worst single game score of all time.  (John Skelton and Nathan Peterman hold the record at -8).


TOP FIVE BY POSITION
Here is a look at the top five players for each position, and where they were drafted this season…

Quarterback	Points	Draft Rd	Keeper?
Lamar Jackson Bal	171	8	No
Deshaun Watson Hou	169	4	No
Russell Wilson Sea	166	6	No
Patrick Mahomes KC	152	7	Yes
Dak Prescott Dal	152	6	No
Running back	Points	Draft Rd	Keeper?
Christian McCaffrey Car	147	3	Yes
Dalvin Cook Min	138	2	No
Ezekiel Elliott Dal	106	1	Yes
Aaron Jones GB	105	3	No
Nick Chubb Cle	105	9	Yes
Wide Receiver	Points	Draft Rd	Keeper?
Chris Godwin TB	107	4	No
Michael Thomas NO	94	2	Yes
Amari Cooper Dal	91	4	No
DJ Chark Jr. Jax	90	UD	No
Cooper Kupp LAR	79	10	Yes
Tight End	Points	Draft Rd	Keeper?
Austin Hooper Atl	75	8	No
Darren Waller Oak	58	UD	No
Mark Andrews Bal	57	13	No
Travis Kelce KC	56	1	Yes
Will Dissly Sea	49	UD	No
Defense	Points	Draft Rd	Keeper?
New England NE	170	15	No
San Francisco SF	106	UD	No
New Orleans NO	82	14	No
Tennessee Ten	77	UD	No
Kansas City KC	77	14	No
Kicker	Points	Draft Rd	Keeper?
Greg Zuerlein LAR	75	8	No
Justin Tucker Bal	75	12	No
Zane Gonzalez Ari	70	UD	No
Josh Lambo Jax	68	UD	No
Wil Lutz NO	68	12	No

Of these 30 players listed, just 7 are keepers, and of non-keepers only one is a high draft pick (Dalvin Cook – 2nd round).  Look at wide receivers, two fourth round picks and an undrafted guy in the top 5!  And how about defenses?  Two 14th round picks, a 15th rounder and two undrafteds.  Thankfully, Greg Zuerlein who was the first kicker selected, has lived up to the billing and is currently tied for most points among kickers.

BEST BENCH

In week 6, the old adage “If you leave a player on your bench who scores 38 points you’re probably going to get Best Bench” was once again proven true, as yours truly did just that with Stefon Diggs and took the crown with a respectable 44-point improvement possibility.  Only needed two roster moves to get there… S. Diggs for D. Chark +34 and G. Kittle for W. Dissly +10.  This is my second Best Bench this season.

This week’s Best Bench was a first timer, who also only needed two roster moves.  Claiming their first Best Bench this year, Week 7 goes to… Joe’s Pats!  Joe could have improved by 40 points by swapping M. Jones Jr for A. Thielen +25 and P. Rivers for C. Wentz +15.

Get those waivers in, and get ready for Week 8!  Midterm grades come out next week!

Longshanks rolls in a wild week!

According to Wikipedia, this was Edward Longshanks wife... quite the looker huh?

What a crazy week!  Four teams scored over 100, including Joe’s Pats getting their first win on the season, and Attack of Mahomes continued the perfect run improving to 5-0.  But the crazy thing was the player scores… four players scored over 40 points and a defense scored 38!  I can’t remember any week where we had five players averaging 41.8 points between them.  Here is what you call an amazing line-up:

QB – Deshaun Watson, HOU (Golf and Fishing) – 44 pts – Perfect passer rating on 426 yards, 5 TD’s and 0 interceptions
RB – Christian McCaffrey, CAR (Longshanks) – 44 pts – 237 total yards (176 rushing, 61 receiving) and 3 TD’s
WR – Will Fuller V, HOU (Vandelay Industries) – 42 pts – Over half of Watson’s yardage went to fuller (217) and 3 of the TD’s as well!
RB – Adam Jones, GB (Attack of Mahomes) – 41 pts – Unbelievable day with 182 yards and 4 TD’s.
DEF – Philadelphia (Joe’s Pats) – 38 pts – 10 sacks, 3 turnovers, 2 TD’s in a blasting of the Jets.

With just those five players, if that was your roster you would have scored 209 points!  (That’s 51 points higher than any eight man roster has ever scored in Sacred Sundays history.)  Then you throw in one more receiver (Michael Thomas – 33 pts), the top tight end (George Kittle – 14 pts) and the best kicker (Dan Bailey – 16 pts), and you have a 272 point roster.  272 POINTS!!  That’s dang near more points than Big Sack has scored all season!  (What do you know, Jens!! hahaha)

Fortunately no one had all those players together, so my Longshanks boys led the way to my first Weekly High Score prize this season courtesy of a still impressive 144 point performance!  My big 4 players were the aforementioned Christian McCaffrey (44 pts), DJ Chark doo doo do do doo doo (31 pts), Tom Brady (23 pts) and Philip Lindsay (20 pts).  This is the second highest score we’ve seen this season (behind sprout’s 154 in Week 3), and I’m the fourth different team to win a high score so far.

Now, it has become an annual tradition for me to make playoff predictions after Week 5, so lets get right to it!  The same methodology and criterion are being applied this season, plus I’m adding one additional category “Utilization” which I’ll get to shortly.  Here are the categories analyzed:

• Overall Record – Playoff qualification percentages have been tracked for all starting records through the first 5 weeks of the season.  Teams 5-0 have made the playoffs 80% of the time, and teams starting off 0-5 have never made the playoffs.
• Total Points Scored – Playoff qualification percentages have been tracked based on the points scored ranking through 5 weeks.  The top 2 highest scoring teams have qualified for the playoffs every time, while the lowest scoring team has only qualified 18.2% of the time.
• Schedule Difficulty – Team by team ranking of how upcoming opponents rank in terms of points scored.  The team with the easiest remaining schedule… Big Sack.  Toughest remaining schedule… Coors Light Drunk Guys.
• Utilization – This is a new category this season.  I’ve been tracking the bench improvement for each team each week, and the top ranked teams here have been doing the best job to maximize their points each week.  Thus far the highest ranking team in this category is American BadAss, and the lowest ranking team is Vandelay Industries.

On to the predications...  The first two teams predicted to make the playoffs are:  Attack of Mahomes and American BadAss!  These are the top two highest scoring teams, plus Attack of Mahomes has a 5-0 record.  American BadAss also has the 2nd easiest upcoming schedule.

The next two teams predicted to make the playoffs are:  sprouts and Longshanks!  Sprouts has the 3rd easiest remaining schedule, has a 3-2 record (69% qualification), plus is the 3rd highest scoring team (66.7% qualification).  For Longshanks, I’m currently the 5th highest scoring team which has oddly qualified for the playoffs 77% of the time and my record of 3-2 has qualified 69% of the time.

The final two teams predicted to make the playoffs are:  Vandelay Industries and Golf and Fishing!  These were tough choices… Vandelay Industries gets a nod by being the 4th highest scoring team, which has qualified 58% of the time, and have the 4th easiest schedule remaining.  Golf and Fishing gets the final spot because of their 4-1 record (72% qualification), but are hurt by ranking 6th in points scored (27% qualification) and having a difficult remaining schedule (7th).

This means the teams predicted to not make it are:  Joe’s Pats, the Coors Light Drunk Guys, Young Guns and Big Sack.  In 2016 I was correct on 6 out of 6, but in 2017 I missed 2 and last year I missed one.  We’ll see how I do this season…

BEST BENCH
When you have a player score 42 points on your bench, it’s a tough task to not be the Best Bench for the week.  And that is just the case this week, as the Week 5 Best Bench goes to… Vandelay Industries!  Rob had a solid 43-point improvement possibility (highest of the season) but only needed two roster moves:  W. Fuller for J. Edelman (+25 pts) and R. Wilson for L. Jackson (+18 pts).

That’s all I’ve got for this week… get those waivers in and get ready for Week 6!!  Mid-term grades are just around the corner!