Wyld Ass Monkeys are on fire!!

That’s the way you do some fantasy football!  The Ass Monkeys had 6 of 8 players score in the double digits, led by Tyreek Hill with 34 pts, the Tampa Defense with 28 pts and Justin Herbert with 23 pts, to finish the week with a very nice 142 points!  Who would’ve thought WAM would take the Weekly High Score Prize with Derrick Henry tying for the fewest points (8) on their roster?  Crazy!  The 142 points scored this week is the highest total in two seasons since Week 12, 2020 when Sofa King American scored 144 points.  Excellent work Rob!  Chris Gallegos would be proud!

Across the rest of the league, and just like last season, only one team managed to finish week 2 at 2-0.  Sofa King Good holds the distinction this season, as all other winners last week lost this week, except for Shawn and I who tied in this year’s Powder Puff game.  Our game finished at a final score of 63-63, not even enough points COMBINED to outscore the Wyld Ass Monkeys!  We both would have lost to nearly any other team this week, as 63 was the second lowest total put up by any team.  Just really goes to show how much matchups can matter, and how much totals can change week to week.  My Scottish Rebels scored 32 fewer points this week, and last week’s high scorer, Attack of Mahomes, scored little more than half of their week 1 total (116 vs 67).  It’s the same players playing the same game, but somehow just seven days later things are completely different. Crazy game.

BIG TIME

• Lamar Jackson, QB – Big Sack No TD’s – 41 pts – What a performance from Jackson!  If you just took his passing yards, you’d say he had a good game with 318 yard, 3 TD’s and 0 interceptions.  But then you add in he had 119 yards rushing plus another TD, and it’s just like wow…
• Tua Tagovailoa, QB – Free Agent – 41 pts – Tua was just slinging it like a madman!  In the end he completed 35 of 50 passes for an insane 468 yards and 6, yes 6!!, TD passes.  He did also have 2 interceptions, but still an amazing day.
• Tyreek Hill, WR – Wyld Ass Monkeys – 34 pts – Hill was one of the beneficiaries of Tua’s slinging, grabbing 11 catches for 190 yards and 2 TDs!
• Jaylen Waddle, WR – Young Guns – 32 pts – Waddle was the other recipient, who was targeted an incredible 19 times in the game!  He ended up also making 11 catches for 171 yards and 2 TD’s.
• Jalen Hurts, QB – Joe’s Pats – 32 pts – Hurts did a Lamar Jackson impression with his day, throwing for 333 yards and a TD, but also adding 57 rushing yards with 2 more TDs.
• Stefon Diggs, WR – American BadAss – 32 pts – With Gabe Davis sidelined, Diggs stepped up in a big way, catching 12 balls for 148 yards and 3 TDs!

COME ON MAN

• Robert Tonyan, TE – Scottish Rebels – 1 pt – Nothing doing for Tonyan, as he only caught 2 balls for 11 yards.
• Greg Joseph, K – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 1 pt – The Philadelphia D gave the Vikings no chances to score, so Joseph finished with but a single extra point.  
• Taysom Hill, TE – Big Sack No TD – 1 pt – Last week Hill was huge, scoring 14 points and this week he only got 14 yards.  *wah wah*
• Juju Smith-Schuster, WR – Attack of Mahomes – 1 pt – First the good news… Juju caught every ball thrown his way.  Now the bad news… that amounted to 3 catches for 10 yards.  Oof.
• Kyle Pitts, TE – Joe’s Pats – 1 pt – Another single point outing for Pitts.  Gotta do better than that, kid.  Joe didn't spend a 4th round pick for 1 point a week!
• Rex Burkhead, RB – Big Sack No TD – 0 pts – Ol’ Rex did the classic 2-catch-for-9-yards-and-zero-points game.

SURPRISES IN THE TOP 5’s

Two weeks is not much of a sample size, but let's go ahead and take a look at some top 5's.  There are a few surprises in the top 5 running backs:

• Nick Chubb RB Cle 42
• Saquon Barkley RB NYG 38
• D'Andre Swift RB Det 37
• Aaron Jones RB GB 34
• Jonathan Taylor RB Ind 31

These are notable because of those top 5 only 1, Jonathan Taylor, is a keeper.  In fact, only 3 of the 8 running back keepers currently rank in the Top 20 RB’s.

Wide receivers have one surprise:

• Stefon Diggs WR Buf 50
• Jaylen Waddle WR Mia 44
• Tyreek Hill WR Mia 43
• Amon-Ra St. Brown WR Det 41
• Cooper Kupp WR LAR 38

How about seeing Amon-Ra St. Brown up in 4th place?!  Sprouts has gotten good value from the 7th round pick so far.  Here we see 3 of 5 WR keepers ranking in the top 5 (Diggs, Waddle and Kupp).

Defenses:

• Tampa Bay DEF TB 47
• Buffalo DEF Buf 39
• Pittsburgh DEF Pit 33
• Jacksonville DEF Jax 31
• Atlanta DEF Atl 24

Do you realize with 47 points scored by Tampa’s defense, they are the 8th highest scoring player in all of fantasy?  They have scored more points than Justin Herbert and Kyler Murray.

Quarterbacks:

• Lamar Jackson QB Bal 60
• Josh Allen QB Buf 59
• Jalen Hurts QB Phi 56
• Tua Tagovailoa QB Mia 55
• Carson Wentz QB Was 54
• Pat Mahomes QB KC 54

The surprises here have to be Tua (obviously) and Carson Wentz.  Who would’ve thought Wentz in Washington was going to have any success, and here he is even in points with Mahomes.

BEST BENCH

You know, I talk about it all the time: there is a reason you a) keep players, and b) draft players with high draft picks.  And that reason is… because they should be in the game!  Case in point were Jaylen Waddle (32 points on Young Guns’ bench) and Aaron Jones (28 points on my bench) this week.  This is one of John’s keepers and literally my first draft pick.  What on earth could have driven both of us to bench these players in Week 2?!  Fantasy football is crazy!

For Week 2, the Best Bench goes to yours truly, because along with stashing Aaron Jones on my bench, I had three more players who outscored starters.  For a 42-point improvement, I needed a half-roster four player swap: A. Jones for D. Cook +26, P. Freiermuth for R. Tonyan +7, D. Carter for J. Jeudy +5 and M. Sanders for C. Patterson +4.  

Okay get your waivers in and get ready for Week 3!!