Sacred Sundays 2023 begins!

Joe's Pats is tops in Week 1!

Week 1 of Sacred Sundays 2023 is in the books!  This marks the start of the 6th season with all of the same owners, and get this, the 20th season overall!  Crazy to think how this league started way back in 2004 in Phil Harvey’s living room.

The big congratulations for this year’s opener go to Joe’s Pats who held off a surging Wyld Ass Monkeys team, the 2nd highest scoring team this week.  Thanks to a ginormous game from the Dallas Defense (41 pts, more on that later), Joe’s Pats pulled off a 107-104 victory to claim the season’s first Weekly High Score Prize!  Joe also had big performances from Austin Ekeler (21 pts) and Deshaun Watson (20 pts).  In other games around the league, Young Guns had a come from behind victory to start their title defense campaign with a victory (88-84 over Big Sack No TD’s) and American BadAss and my 76 managed to win by only scoring 67 and 65 points, respectively.  So 104 points is a loser this week and 65 points is a winner… got it.

This week I’ll give my draft recap and we will hand out the first Best Bench of the season!  

BIG TIME

• Dallas, DEF – Joe’s Pats – 41 pts – To say the Cowboys dominated the G-men would be the understatement of the season.  This was a thorough dismantling.  All told, the Cowboys had 3 turnovers, 2 defensive TD’s, 7 sacks, 1 blocked kick, 2 4th down stops and surrendered zero points.  Simply incredible.  This ties for the 3rd best Defensive performance in league history and is only 4 points shy of the record.  (Seattle scored 45 points way back in Week 14, 2012).
• Tyreek Hill, WR – Wyld Ass Monkeys – 36 pts – Hill is showing he is still the best pass catcher in the league.  He’s off to a tremendous start, catching 11 passes for 215 yards and 2 TD’s.
• Tua Tagovailoa, QB – Young Guns – 29 – pts – What a day for Tua!  He was like the Energizer Bunny and just kept going and going… finished with a whopping 466 yards passing and 3 TDs!
• Christian McCaffrey, RB – Sofa King Great – 25 pts – CMac was masterful in Week 1, rushing 22 times for 152 yards (nearly a 7 yard average) and a TD.

COME ON MAN

• George Kittle, TE – sprouts – 1 pt – For as good as the 49ers looked, Kittle didn’t really have much of an impact.  He tallied just 19 yards on 3 catches.
• Tee Higgins, WR – Attack of Mahomes – 0 pts – The goose egg was not from lack of trying… Higgins was targeted 8 times but finished with zero catches and zero yards.  Oof.
• Dallas Goedert, TE – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 0 pts – Goedert did play, but barely.  He only had 1 ball thrown his way, which he failed to catch.  Yuck.
• Anthony Gibson, RB – Attack of Mahomes – -1 pts – Gibson really made the least of the few opportunities he had.  On four touches he netted 19 yards on three of them, and lost a fumble on the other.

DRAFT RECAP

First off, I’d like to recap the Yahoo! grades and projections for this season.  A few notes about Yahoo!’s grading system… we only had one owner on autodraft (Timmy) and guess who received an A+ grade. Also, for American BadAss, it noted his best draft pick being Brandin Cooks in the 9th round, and also noted his worst draft pick being Brandin Cooks in the 9th round.  In any event, here are the grades and projected records as foretold by Yahoo!:

Team	Owner	Record	Points	Draft Grade
Attack of Mahomes	Timmy	13-1-0	1455	A+
sprouts	Russ	8-5-1	1376	A-
Big Sack No TDs	Jens	8-6-0	1369	B+
Wyld Ass Monkeys	Rob	7-5-2	1390	B+
Sofa King Great	James	7-7-0	1364	C+
CL Drunk Guys	Shawn	6-7-1	1327	D+
Young Guns	John	5-7-2	1336	D+
American BadAss	Jason	5-8-1	1347	D+
76	Jerry	5-8-1	1317	D
Joe's Pats	Joe	2-12	1282	D-

Of course I will track the actual results against this to see how Yahoo! does by the end of the year.

Now on to my breakdown of the draft.  Here are some tidbits:

• Every NFL team had at least one player selected.
• Carolina had the fewest (1), and Arizona only had two selected.
• Kansas City and Philadelphia tied for most selected with 8, while Baltimore, Buffalo and Seattle each had seven selected.
• The highest concentration of any one NFL team picked by one owner was 3.  Big Sack No TD’s selected 3 from the Chiefs, Young Guns selected 3 from the Giants, and Joe’s Pats selected 3 from the Browns and 3 from the Patriots.
• Wide Receivers was the most selected position with 48 picked, followed by Runningbacks with 43.
• There were 20 Quarterbacks selected which is two more than last season.
• There were 15 Tight Ends selected which is one more than last season. 

Top Three picks of the draft* (based on Week 1 results):  *Draft Value DV determined by adding Week 1 score plus round selected in the draft

#1 Dallas, DEF – Joe’s Pats – 9th round selection (DV = 50)

#2 Tyler Algeier, ATL, RB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 15th round selection (DV = 35)

#3 Jake Elliott, PHI, K – Sofa King Great – 15th round selection (DV = 32)

Worst Three picks of the draft (based on Week 1 results):

#1 Tee Higgins, CIN, WR – Attack of Mahomes – 3rd round selection (DV = 3)

#2 Mark Andrews, BAL, TE – Sofa King Great – 4th round selection (DV = 4)

#3 Ja’Marr Chase, CIN, WR – Wyld Ass Monkeys – 1st round selection (DV = 4)

Teams with the best keepers (based on Week 1 results): 

#1 Wyld Ass Monkeys – Tyreek Hill/Daniel Jones (total pts = 40)

#2 Big Sack No TD’s – Tony Pollard/Justin Jefferson (total pts = 38)

#3 Young Guns – Tua Tagovailoa/Saquon Barkley (total pts = 35)

BEST BENCH

Two of the lowest scoring teams this week had a tight battle for Best Bench.  The Coors Light Drunk Guys put up a valiant effort, with a 30 point-improvement possibility, but doing just a bit better, and finishing with a 31 point-improvement possibility, the Week 1 Best Bench goes to… Attack of Mahomes!  Timmy needed just three roster changes to get there:  M. Pittman for T. Higgins +15, D. Montgomery for A. Gibson +14 and R. Rice for M. Thomas +2.  This was Tim’s first Best Bench since Week 7, 2021.

 Get those waiver claims in and get ready for Week 2!!