'Merica!!

 Sometimes the Weekly High Scoring team comes out of the gates like a rocket blasting to a huge lead and never looks back.  Other times it’s a team who looks dead early on but has a resurgence to take over.  The latter was clearly the case this week as American BadAss started off by being down 64 points, yet came back to win 122-112 over Big Sack and took the high score in the process!  Jason had huge games from Dak Prescott (29 pts), Tyler Lockett (28 pts) and the Indianapolis Colts Defense (28 pts).  (That defensive performance is the best single week we have seen from a defense this season).  The win gets BadAss a first victory of the season and moves them into a 3-way tie for 2nd place at 1-2 in the South Division.  Nice work bro!

Three weeks in and we are down to just one undefeated team (sprouts – Russ) and one winless team (Big Sack – Jens).  Big Sack would have had a victory this week against any other team, as 112 was the 2nd highest score of the week.  Tough matchup and outcome…historically speaking, scoring over 100 pts has led to victory 88% of the time.  But this season there have been 14 scores over 100, with already 4 of them ending in a loss, as we also saw Young Guns lose this week with 100 points.  Sprouts has the best record and leads all teams in scoring by a 50-point margin (375 total), plus they have scored over 100 points every week so far!  The Sacred Sundays records for undefeated and winless starts both stand at 6 (i.e. 6-0 and 0-6), so we are halfway there.  

Not a whole lot to get to this week, so let’s do this!!

BIG TIME

• Patrick Mahomes, QB – Attack of Mahomes – 42 pts – It’s hard to find new superlatives and adjectives to describe what Mahomes is able to do.  He was splendid on Monday night, stupefying defenses, while throwing an inconceivable 31-of-42 for 385 yards and 4 TD’s, plus rushing for 26 yards and another graceful TD!  The guy is an absolute marvel.  
• Russell Wilson, QB – Longshanks – 36 pts – Another 30+ point performance from Wilson.  He got into a slugfest with the Cowboys, ultimately throwing for 315 yards and 5 TDs!  Through three games he has thrown 14 touchdowns which is the most in NFL history.  Keep it up Russ!
• Alvin Kamara, RB – sprouts – 30 pts – Kamara did his damage mostly by receiving, as he caught 13 passes for 139 yards!  He also added 58 rushing yards.  Kamara is the lead scoring runningback in fantasy, currently averaging 25 points per week.
• Josh Allen, QB – Young Guns – 30 pts – Yet another quarterback this week with 5 total TD’s.  Allen rushed for 1 TD, but also threw for 311 yards and 4 TD’s!  (He did also have one interception).  This is his second game in a row with >= 30 points.
• Dak Prescott, QB – American BadAss – 29 pts – Dak attempted 57 passes (!), a career high, completing 37 for 472 yards (!) and 3 TD’s.  Two interceptions marred what was otherwise an awesome day.
• Stephen Gostkowski, K – Free Agent – 25 pts – He’s kicking for Tennessee now (weird), but had an amazing day with 6 field goals… 3-for-3 from 30-39 and 3-for-3 from 50+, and 1 extra point.

COME ON MAN

• Josh Kelley, RB – Longshanks – 2 pts – Only 43 yards and a lost fumble… that’s just not good.
• Mark Andrews, TE – sprouts – 2 pts – This is the second week in a row Andrews has laid a deuce.
• Darren Waller, TE – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – Solid performance from last week sure didn’t carry over to this week, as he caught just 2 passes for 9 yards.  Ouch.
• New Orleans, DEF – Vandelay Industries – 0 pts – The Saints D didn’t do much to disrupt the Packers as their only stat was a single, solitary sack while also giving up 37 points.

TOP 5’s CHECK IN

Through three weeks here is a breakdown of the top five by position:

Notes: 

-Every team has at least one player represented above.

-sprouts has the most players represented (5), followed by American BadAss and Attack of Mahomes who each have 4.  

-Free agents only show up in kickers (of course).  Seriously, if anyone would have drafted a guy named “Rodrigo Blankenship” I would have thought you were making shit up.  I’m still not convinced a) that is his real name, or b) it’s even a real person.

-Vandelay Industries has a real love affair with tight ends.  On top of the two TE’s currently ranked in the top 5, Vandelay’s current starting tight end is George Kittle.  (Although Kittle currently ranks as the 47th tight end in fantasy).  Didn’t Mike Holmgren once say “You can never have too many tight ends”, or something?  Rob abides.

THOSE WHO SHALLN’T BE DRAFTED

This was the worst week so far for the All Unwanteds.  The lone bright spot was another strong game from James Robinson, but other than that it was pretty brutal…

The average league score was 97.8, so this is a big loss for the UnW’s, dropping their record to 1-2.

BEST BENCH

Three weeks of the season and we’ve already got our fourth Best Bench winner.  With the best Best Bench of season so far this season, Week Three’s award goes to… Attack of Mahomes!  Timmy could have improved his point total by 31 with three roster moves:  J. Robinson for M. Gordon +21, T. Boyd for D. Moore +6 and Baltimore for Kansas City +4.

This is Tim’s first Best Bench since Week 2 of last season.  Every team in the league, except one, has had at least one Best Bench in the last 20 weeks--going back to Week 16, 2018.  But the team holding the current record for longest streak without a Best Bench has not held the dubious distinction since Week 8, 2015!!  We have a nearly five year record in the works!  To preserve the mystery and avoid placing a jinx on this team, I’ll refrain from naming them at this time.  (If the current record holder’s streak extends to 5 years (i.e. they make it past Week 8 with no Best Benches), I’ll divulge the team… for now it remains a secret.)

Week 4 is already upon us!  Two weeks away from the annual Playoff Predictions!

Double it up for sprouts!!

It was the week of the quarterbacks.  Eight of the top ten scorers this week were quarterbacks, four of the top five were QB’s, and five quarterbacks scored over 30 points with nary one of them named ‘Mahomes’.  Surprisingly, the top QB through the first two weeks of the season is Josh Allen.  Not bad for a 15th round keeper for Young Guns!  Allen posted 27 points in Week 1 and 36 this week, giving him 63 points and a 1 point overall lead over 2nd place Russell Wilson.  But even the old guys are scoring a lot… Matt Ryan currently ranked 6th with 54 points and Aaron Rodgers sitting at 7th with 51 points.

In other interesting news, Week 2-2020 goes down as the highest scoring week ever in Sacred Sundays history.  Thanks to six teams scoring over 100 points (which ties a record), the total points scored were 1,034 beating the previous record of 1,002 set back in Week 6-2018.  This marks only the third occasion where the total points for a single week crossed 1,000.  To put this in perspective, the lowest scoring week of all-time was Week 10-2015, where across all 10 teams only 689 points were scored.  The high score for that week was only 85 points, which would have only defeated two teams this week! 

Before we go any further, big congrats to Russ for destroying the competition for a second week in a row and taking home another Weekly High Score Prize!  Sprouts showed last week was no fluke, as they bested last week’s total by 20 points, finishing with 145 points and a 42 point victory!  Russ had a three-headed monster posting massive points with Aaron Jones, Alvin Kamara and Kyler Murray combining for 102 points!  (43, 28 and 31 respectively).  The victory puts sprouts at 2-0 and makes them one of only two undefeated teams remaining (Joe’s Pats is the other).  Excellent work Russ!

Just a couple things to report on this week, most notably a Best Bench of the sort we haven’t seen in five years… Onward!

NOW THAT’S THE INSIDE STUFF

• Aaron Jones, RB – sprouts – 43 pts – Forty-point performances are an exceptional feat that don’t happen very frequently, but this is Jones’ 2^nd time to do it as he had 41 points last year in Week 5.  He got there this time by having 236 total yards from scrimmage and 3 TD’s.
• Dak Prescott, QB – American BadAss – 42 pts – Dak with some huge numbers and killing it on the rush yards/rush TD ratio.  Check it out, on the day he had 450 passing yards and just 1 TD, but then added 18 rushing yards and 3(!) rushing TD’s.  Three TD’s with only 18 yards…sounds like Jerome Bettis’ stats in his final season when they would only put him in if they were on the two yard line.
• Jared Allen, QB – Young Guns – 36 pts – Your aforementioned leading fantasy point scorer two weeks in.  He’s already passed for 729 yards, 6 TD’s and 0 interceptions.
• Cam Newton, QB – Joe’s Pats – 36 pts – Newton had another outstanding game for New England, and is returning to his old form with getting into the endzone on the ground.  He led the Patriots in rushing with 47 yards and 2 TD’s, plus added 397 passing yards and 1 TD.   
• Russell Wilson, QB – Longshanks – 32 pts – Wilson scored his points in a bit more conventional fashion for a quarterback… 288 yards passing and 5 TDs!  He did also add 39 rushing yards.
• Kyler Murray, QB – sprouts – 31 pts – Murray had a good day passing (286 yards, 1 TD, 1 Int), but made this a special day by adding 67 yards and 2 TD’s on the ground.

 

COME ON MAN!

• Julio Jones, WR – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 2 pts – Julio had a great start to the season last week, where he was targeted 12 times and had 18 pts, but this week he was only targeted 4 times catching two of those for just 24 yards.
• T.Y. Hilton, WR – Vandelay Industries – 2 pts – Tyrone’s Youngin’ caught just two passes and dropped what should have been a 44-yard touchdown.  D’oh!
• Cincinnati, DEF – Longshanks – 1 pt – I take full blame for playing the Bengals in the first place, but in my defense they were going up against the Cleveland Browns who had given up the most points to defenses (22!) in Week 1.  But somehow, again even though they were playing the Browns, Cincinnati's D gave up 35 points and managed just 1 interception.  They didn’t even sack Baker Mayfield.  That guy runs like a bag of potatoes and they couldn’t even catch him.  I hate the Bengals.

JOKE OF THE WEEK

I’ve asked so many people what LBGTQ stands for, and so far I haven’t gotten a straight answer.

ALL UNWANTEDS

The All Unwanteds were heavy on the Jaguars again this week, with the roster consisting of 6 Jaguars and 2, um, Football Players. 

QB	Gardner Minshew II	Jax	22
WR	Keelan Cole	Jax	11
WR	Laviska Shenault Jr.	Jax	6
RB	James Robinson	Jax	17
RB	Antonio Gibson	Was	11
TE	Tyler Eifert	Jax	9
DEF	Washington Football Team	Was	5
K	Josh Lambo	Jax	5
		Total	86

The average score for the league was 104, so this goes down as a loss moving their record to 1-1.

‘TOO SOON’ DRAFT ANALYSIS

Two weeks in is a bit soon to start drawing any conclusions, but here are some early season notes on draft picks:

Players you should’ve picked when you had the chance: 

• Aaron Jones, RB – sprouts – 56 pts – 9^th pick, 2^nd round (13^th selection excl. keepers)
• Russell Wilson, QB – Longshanks – 62 pts – 10^th pick, 3^rd round (23^rd selection excl. keepers)
• Calvin Ridley, WR – Joe’s Pats – 47 pts – 10^th pick, 4^th round (31^st selection excl. keepers)
• Cam Newton, QB – Joe’s Pats – 61 pts – 1^st pick, 7^th round (48^th selection excl. keepers)

Players you wish you hadn’t:

• Michael Thomas, WR – Vandelay Industries – 1 pt – 5^th pick, 1^st round (4^th selection, excl. keepers)
• George Kittle, TE – Vandelay Industries – 4 pts – 10^th pick, 2^nd round (10^th selection, excl. keepers)
• Kenny Golladay, WR – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – 1^st pick, 3^rd round (15^th selection, excl. keepers)
• A.J. Brown, WR – Young Guns – 3 pts – 8^th pick, 4^th round (29^th selection, excl. keepers)
• Le’Veon Bell, RB – Longshanks – 4 pts – 1^st pick, 6^th round (39^th selection, excl. keepers)
• Rob Gronkowski, TE – American BadAss – 1 pt – 9^th pick, 7^th round (56^th selection, excl. keepers)

Draft grades will factor in on midterms…still plenty of time for things to change.

BEST BENCH

As mentioned earlier, the Best Bench this week is like one we haven’t seen in five years, and one which has only occurred four times prior to this week.  For Week 2, 2020 I have the distinct honor of awarding not one, but TWO Best Benches this week!!  Two teams were able to make two roster swaps to improve their totals by 25 points… the double-honorees are:  Joe’s Pats and Young Guns!

Joe needed to swap L. Fournette for C. Edwards-Helaire (+17) and S. Diggs for M. Evans (+8).  John needed to swap R. Mostert for S. Barkley (+14) and J. Brown for A. Thielen (+11).  (In the annual tallies for total Best Benches, this goes down as a half Best Bench for each of you.)

With the rash of injuries we saw in Week 2, I’m sure the Yahoo! servers are going to be set on fire with all the waiver claims this week.  Make sure to get ‘em in, get your roster set, and get ready for Week 3!!

Week 1 Has Sprouted!!

 And we’re off!  Bit of an odd week with no fans and all the safety protocols in place, but at the end of the day it was still football!!  So good to see…

Due to the way Week 1 matchups shook out, four of the top five scoring teams played each other.  That meant my Longshanks boys lost despite scoring 112 points (3rd highest) to Joe’s Pats (122 pts - 2nd highest) and Sofa King American lost despite scoring 96 points (5th highest) to the Week 1 High Scorer: sprouts!  Russ had a solid all-around performance with 7 of his 8 players scoring in double digits, led by Kyler Murray-QB (26 pts) and three players with 18: DeAndre Hopkins-WR, Juju Smith-Schuster-WR and Alvin Kamara-RB.  It all added up to 125 points, and was nearly an optimal victory as he only had a 3-point bench improvement possibility.  Nice work Russ!

Just a quick one this week to kick off the season… we’ll see how the All Unwanteds performed in Week 1, take a look at what Week 1 results mean, and of course, award the first Best Bench of the season.  Onward!

BIG TIME

-Aaron Rodgers, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 33 pts – Look at Rodgers making everyone say “Why in the f*#% didn’t I draft Rodgers?!”  The dude discount-double-checked the Vikings for 364 yards and 4 TD’s!  

-Josh Jacobs, RB – Joe’s Pats – 31 pts – That’s a good way to start your season… 93 yards and 3 TD’s.

-Davante Adams, WR – Sofa King American – Adams was targeted 17(!) times and caught 14 passes, on his way to 156 yards and 2 TDs. 

-Russell Wilson, QB – Longshanks – 30 pts – Big day for Russ as he completed 31 of 35 passes for 322 yards, 4 TD’s and 0 INTs.

COME ON MAN!

-Rob Gronkowski, TE – American BadAss – 1 pt – Gronk caught just 2 of 3 passes thrown his way for only 11 yards.  The Brady-Gronk magic has not returned yet.

-Mecole Hardman, WR – Attack of Mahomes – 0 pt – The love for Kansas City Chiefs runs so deep with Timmy, he started their 4th string wide receiver.  That is some deep devotion there.  But hey with Mahomes throwing the ball, anything is possible...unfortunately this week it amounted to just 1 catch for 6 yards.

-Evan Engram, TE – Young Guns – 0 pts – Not for lack of trying… Engram was targeted 7 times, caught 2 of the passes, but only gained 6 yards.  Yuck.

ALL UNWANTEDS

Solid showing to start the season for those who shalln’t be drafted (except Terry McLaurin and DJ Chark).  Jacksonville surprisingly had a decent fantasy showing in Week 1, and Peyton Barber from the team that shalln’t be named had a solid performance as well:

The league’s average score this week was a 94.6, so this goes down as a victory for the Unwanteds! 1-0

DOES WEEK 1 MATTER?

My official annual playoff predictions don’t come out until after Week 5, but I wanted to take a look at Week 1 outcomes and if they seemed to have any effect on playoff teams or final finishes.  For data, I only went back five seasons, so through 2015.  Across all five years, winning or losing in Week 1 didn’t have any impact on playoff qualification.  Teams winning in Week 1 qualified 60% of the time, which is right in line with how many teams make it in to the playoffs.

Looking at points scored in Week 1 versus final standings did show a negative correlation, suggesting higher scoring teams ultimately finish better in the standings.  For playoff qualification, higher scoring teams have qualified at higher rates.  Teams scoring over 95 points in Week 1 have qualified for the playoffs 75% of the time, and teams scoring over 120 have qualified 100% of the time.  (Albeit that has only happened twice.)  Teams scoring 75 points or better have qualified 66% of the time, which is pretty much the same as the percent of teams who qualify.  And so do you know what this mean?  It means that what happens in Week 1 really doesn’t matter at all…come on, its only Week 1!

BEST BENCH

Just because your team scores a lot of points doesn’t make you immune from earning the Best Bench in any given week.  In fact since 2010, there have been 10 instances where the Weekly High Score Winner also nabs the Best Bench, and we frequently see high scoring teams end up here as well.  Not the case this week.  Nope, look down at the bottom of this week’s scoreboard and you’ll find Week 1’s Best Bench… Big Sack!  What do YOU know?!  Jens could have improved by 30 points with 3 roster moves:  M. Brown for J. Mixon +18, S. Watkins for C. Godwin +7 and M. Brown for A. Robinson II +3.  (Seriously Jens, how do you have 2 players named “M. Brown”?  You need to fix that.  Hahaha!)

The waiver wire has already been lighting on fire, so I don’t need to remind you guys to get your waivers in.  Let’s go Week 2!!

We are BACK!! 2020!

 

The 2020 Sacred Sundays season is underway!  This marks the 17^th season overall, and the 4^th in a row with the current team owners.  Hard to believe something spawned in Phil Harvey’s living room could endure for so long.  

The draft was a good one, and in spite of it seeming like I should have undone dozens of picks, there was only a single use of the pause/undo pick when Joe inadvertently picked Daunte Culpepper.  Among positions, wide receivers were the most taken position, with 46 selected.  There were 21 quarterbacks selected, as all teams took two QB’s except for Golf & Fishing who oddly autodrafted three.  Here is the breakdown by position:

Pos	#	%
WR	46	31%
RB	39	26%
QB	21	14%
TE	16	11%
DEF	15	10%
K	13	9%

 

Among NFL teams, all 32 teams had at least one player selected or kept.  Three teams led the way with 8 fantasy players selected:  Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  There were two teams with only one player selected: Washington Redskins and Jacksonville Jaguars.  These two teams will form the ‘All-Unwanteds’ this season with the exception of DJ Chark-WR and Terry McLaurin-WR.

Last season, the Kansas City Chiefs led the way with 10 players selected and this season only had 6 selected.  (Although had Timmy not been autodrafting, we likely would have seen many more Chiefs selected.)  The Saints had 6 players selected last year, the Cowboys had 5 and the Bucs only had 3 picked last season.  So bringing in TB12 made five more players on the Bucs roster “fantasy worthy”.  That’s some strong fantasy power right there!

Yahoo! Grades

The autobots at Yahoo! pump out draft grades and predictions as soon as the draft is completed.  The highest grade was a tie this season between Vandelay Industries and Longshanks, both being awarded an A-.  However, for season record predictions Vandelay Industries is projected to finish 11-2, while my Longshanks boys are only projected to be 7-4-2.  Meanwhile, the lowest grade goes to Joe’s Pats with a C-.  But oddly, for projected finishes Joe’s Pats is projected to be 3-10, while Young Guns ('C' grade) and Coors Light Drunk Guys ('C' grade) are both projected to finish worse (2-11 and 1-11-1). 

Here is a summary of the grades and predicted record:

Team	Grade	W	L	T
Vandelay Industries	A-	11	2	0
sprouts	B	9	3	1
Longshanks	A-	7	4	2
American BadAss	B+	7	4	2
Attack of Mahomes	B+	7	4	2
Big Sack	C+	7	6	0
Golf and Fishing	C+	7	6	0
Joe's Pats	C-	3	10	0
Young Guns	C	2	11	0
CL Drunk Guys	C	1	11	1

Last season, four teams received grades of A or A-.  Those teams were sprouts, Attack of Mahomes, Young Guns and American BadAss.  Actual finishes were 9^th, 3^rd, 8^th and 2^nd, respectively.  The worst grade last season was a D, awarded to Big Sack, who ultimately finished 7^th.  Joe’s Pats, last season’s cellar dweller, received a B- grade last season.  So I’d say these grades don’t have much in the way of predictive power, but in the accompanying write-ups they do drop a couple good bombs:

• From Coors Light Drunk Guys: “Picking No. 7 overall, they were clearly unprepared.”
• From Golf and Fishing: “With a projected record of 7-6, this team strikes fear in the heart of no one.”
• From Big Sack: “Entering the draft with a solid draft position (No. 4 overall), expectations were high for Big Sack. Then they drafted, and those expectations vanished instantly.”
• From Joe’s Pats:  “After a Couple Stretches, Joe's Pats Have a Great Team if the Goal is to Finish Dead Last”
• From Attack of Mahomes (autodraft): “What's the sign of a wonderful GM? Turning a bottom-half draft slot into top-half results.” You go, Yahoo.

                        

Now the only thing left to say is…  ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?!?!?!