Lights out for the Maulers!

The only known image of the Midnight Maulers mascot...

Highest scoring week of the season so far! Four teams crossed the century mark, which is the first time since Week 13 last year where we have seen that many teams accomplish the feat. Also, the three undefeated teams got knocked down, so now 5 teams stand with a record of 2-1, three at 1-2 and only one winless team remains at 0-3.

But the big congratulations this week go to Jamie George and the Midnight Maulers! He had three players score over 20 points, with A.J. Green leading the pack with 37! The other two players were Greg Olsen (25 pts) and Frank Gore (20 pts). Any time you can get 25 points from your tight end, you’re gonna have a good week. Also, Jamie followed my lead from last week by having his optimal line-up in the game...no bench improvements for him. Finally, his 76-point margin of victory is the largest margin of victory this season. Well done Jamie!!

Just a quick recap this week, as we get ready for week 4 and the first bye weeks...

BIG TIME
-A.J. Green, WR - Midnight Maulers - 37 pts - It is hard for a wide receiver to have a better game than 227 yards and 2 touchdowns.  Is good...I like!

-Devante Freeman, RB - Coors Light Drunk Guys - 37 pts - So much for the Cowboys #1 ranked run defense...a well-groomed ficus would have provided more resistance. Freeman just made mincemeat out of Dallas to the tune of 193 yards and 3 TD's.

-Aaron Rodgers, QB - American BadAss - 34 pts - Rodgers has now gone 15 consecutive home games without throwing an interception. He was marvelous on Monday night, throwing for 5 touchdowns and 333 yards. Yeah, that’ll do.

-Steve Smith, WR - SofaKinglucky - 33 pts - He may go by the title of "Senior" now, but he sure didn't look old hauling in 13 catches for 186 yards and 2 TD's.

-Andy Dalton, QB - SofaKinglucky - 33 pts - Someone had to throw all those passes to Green. Dalton did that and more, finishing with 383 yards and 3 TD's.

-Julio Jones, WR - Z German Overlords - 31 pts - While Freeman was destroying the Cowboys on the ground, Jones was doing it through the air. It is not often that you see two players on the same team score over 30 points in the same week, and we saw that twice this week.  (Freeman & Jones, Green & Dalton).


COME ON MAN!
-Jeremy Hill, RB - Coors Light Drunk Guys - 2 pts - The Bengals' coaching staff keeps insisting that Hill is their starting back, but the proof is in the pudding. Giovani Bernard played more snaps and had better production.  But I guess technically Hill did start the game...

-Alfred Morris, RB - Vandelay lndustries - 1 pt - Alf only managed 19 yards on 6 attempts. His weekly production has gone from 12 pts in Week 1, to 6 pts in Week 2, to 1 measly point in Week 3. Not a good trend.

-Kyle Rudolph, TE - Z German overlords - 1 pt - He would've had a good day had he not dropped an easy 24-yard touchdown catch. Things won't get easier next week as Minnesota faces Denver.

-Martellus Bennett, TE - American BadAss - 1 pt - The Bears are a mess. Not much more to say than that.

-Jordan Cameron, TE - SofaKingLucky - 1 pt - Another guy trending in the wrong direction, with weekly score totals of 7, 6 and now this... yikes!

-Kansas City, DEF - Bubble Craps Bandits - -1 - Green Bay pretty much did whatever they wanted to do to KC...the only bright spot for the defense was that they did record 1 sack. But they gave up 38 points and probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 yards...

ESOTERIC JOKE OF THE WEEK
The fattest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference. He got fat from too much pi.


WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?
The Browns went back to looking more like the Browns this week, although Josh McCown had a good game, as did tight end Gary Barnidge.  Here is how the full Browns roster shaped out:

QB	Josh McCown Cle - QB	19
RB	Isaiah Crowell Cle - RB	3
RB	Duke Johnson Jr. Cle - RB	3
WR	Brian Hartline Cle - WR	9
WR	Travis Benjamin Cle - WR	8
TE	Gary Barnidge Cle - TE	16
K	Travis Coons Cle - K	9
DEF	Cleveland Cle - DEF	2
	Total	69

Six points total from the runningbacks hurts, and a 2-point defensive performance just isn’t going to get it done.

DE-FENSE! DE-FENSE!
Philadelphia was the fourth ranked defense before the season started, and they were terrible in Week 1, finishing with zero points (ranked 29th), but they have shown quite a bit of improvement as of late.  Last week they were the 11th ranked defense and now this week they finished 3rd.  Overall they now rank as the 13th defense, which is well below their preseason rank but not as bad as it was looking after that Week 1 train wreck.
Houston may be a lost cause, however.  They were the 3rd ranked defense in the preseason and currently stand ranked 25th overall.  Arizona on the other hand was ranked 6th in preseason and they are now the top ranked defense overall.  (Getting two pick-sixes off of Colin Kaepernick sure did help that!)  Here are the top 10 preseason defenses, along with their Week 3 rank/score, and their overall rank:

			OVERALL
Rank	Defense/Special Teams	Week 3	RANK
1	Seattle Sea - DEF	Rk #2 - 21 pts	3
2	Buffalo Buf - DEF	Rk #6 - 15 pts	7
3	Houston Hou - DEF	Rk #16 - 7 pts	25
4	Philadelphia Phi - DEF	Rk #3 - 17 pts	13
5	St. Louis StL - DEF	Rk #7 - 12 pts	5
6	Arizona Ari - DEF	Rk #1 - 28 pts	1
7	New England NE - DEF	Rk #19 - 5 pts	15
8	Baltimore Bal - DEF	Rk #7 - 12 pts	7
9	Green Bay GB - DEF	Rk #14 - 9 pts	16
10	Kansas City KC - DEF	Rk #29 - -1 pts	16

The New York Jets continue to be the surprise team, having been ranked 29th in the preseason but currently ranked 4th overall.  The Broncos are also proving the pros wrong, as they were the 17th ranked defense in the preseason but are currently the #2 ranked team.


BEST BENCH
It is quite a feat to more than double your point total with your bench players, and an even more impressive feat to do that with only 3 players.  This week’s Best Bench winner did just that.  The winner of the Week 3 Best Bench is… the Coors Light Drunk Guys!  Shawn could have improved his point total by 63 (his starters only scored 52) by swapping: D. Freeman for J. Hill (+35), Cardinals for Browns (+26) and G. Tate for T. Austin (+2).


We get eased into the bye weeks this season with only two teams on a bye for Week 4: the New England Patriots and the Tennessee Titans.  Make sure you have your rosters set!  Also, we are only two weeks away from me making my playoff team predictions…

Double it Up!!

Fifteen times since 2007 we have had a back-to-back Weekly High Score Champion, but not since 2010 have those back-to-back weeks been to open the season!  (Lords of Lumberg is the first team that accomplished this).  Some truly outstanding performances from Larry Fitzgerald, Antonio Brown and Colin Kaepernick (all combined for 85 points) led my Scottish Rebels to accomplish that feat as well! The crazy thing is that if I had solely started those three players in my line-up this week and moved everyone else to the bench, only two teams in the league would have outscored me (Bubble Craps Bandits-93, and Joe's Pats-88). Final note before I dislocate my shoulder from patting myself on the back, my roster this week was the optimal line-up...there were no improvements to be had!  Booyah!  That is just awesome...

The record for the most Weekly High Score Prizes in a row is three held by three teams (Channel 4 News Team in 2013, sprouts in 2012, Scottish Rebels in 2007) so I will be going for a record tying game this week. If my Rebels manage to win three high scores to start the season, well, I think we can pretty much conclude that the rest of the season will simply be semantics. Haha!  Interesting matchup this week, as the only two winless teams will face off (Vandelay Industries and Midnight Maulers), so barring a tie, there will be only one winless team left after three weeks. Also there are only 3 undefeated teams left (Scottish Rebels, Coors Light Drunk Guys and Bubble Craps Bandits), so Letter 27 is kicking some ass this year!  Oh yeah!

Already in this young season there have been some roster-wrecking injuries, with Dez Bryant, Jordy Nelson, Julius Thomas, and now Tony Romo going down. The waiver wire is sure to be quite active, so make sure you get your claims in early! Also, don't forget that the team who picks the most correct wins in the weekly matchups gets moved to first in the waiver order for that week. For Week 2, I correctly picked 4 of 5 winners with the next closest only getting 3 of 5. If there is a tie between two teams picking the most correct, the waiver order will just be set as the reverse of standings.

This week we'll check in on the Browns, get an update on Team Defenses (Forecast versus Actual) and I give out some free Blackjack advice. But first, some quick observations...

BIG TIME
-Ben Roethlisberger, QB - Midnight Maulers - 33 pts – Ben has thrown for over 350 yards in each of the first two games, with 4 TD’s and only 1 int.  Not a bad way to start the season…

-Travis Benjamin, WR - Free Agent - 32 pts - What in the hey? A Cleveland Brown scores big?...this is a weird week...

-Tom Brady, QB - Bubble Craps Bandits - 31 pts - Brady has that look in his eye like he has been wronged and is looking to avenge himself. I feel sorry for any team playing against him, because he is going to score and score a lot.

-Antonio Brown, WR - Scottish Rebels - 30 pts – Big reason why Big Ben has been so good is this man.  Brown is the third highest scoring player in fantasy so far (49 pts), behind only Roethlisberger and Brady.

-Allen Robinson, WR - Midnight Maulers - 30 pts - What in the hey? A Jacksonville Jaguar scores big?...this is a weird week...

-Larry Fitzgerald, WR - Scottish Rebels - 29 pts - Never too old to have your first 3-touchdown regular season game! La-rry! La-rry! La-rry!

-Derek Carr, QB - Free Agent - 29 pts - Let's see he scored 2 points last week and now 29 points this week... extrapolate that trend out a few more weeks and he should be scoring 137 points by Week 6.

-DeAngelo Williams, RB - 26 pts - Look at this... Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald, DeAngelo Williams all having big weeks. Hey 2010 called...they want their players back.


COME ON MAN
-Ameer Abdullah, RB - sprouts - 1 pt - The entire Lions runningback core was just pure crap against Minnesota. The three Lions backs combined for 15 yards on 11 carries. What a drop-off from last week when Abdullah tallied a solid 17 pts.

-Coby Fleener, TE - Vandelay lndustries - 0 pts - Only one catch for 5 yards last week, and now zero catches for zero yards, and had the ball thrown to him zero times. That sucks.

-Jimmy Graham, TE - sprouts - 1 pt - Not the kind of production that Graham or any of his owners were expecting.  Twelve points through 2 weeks places him as the 17th ranked tight end.

-Dan Carpenter, K - sprouts - 1 pt - Three 1-point players for sprouts this week... dang!

-Miami, DEF - SofaKinglucky - 1 pt - The Dolphins' lone point came from the fact that they gave up fewer than 28 points, only allowing 23.

-Keenan Allen, WR - American BadAss - -(minus)1 pt - Lots of negativity this week... Allen started the game this week by fumbling a punt and it got no better from there. He ended up only catching 2 balls for 16 yards.

-Jeremy Hill, RB - Coors Light Drunk Guys - -(minus)1 pt - He got benched after a fumble and never saw the field again. Hard to score any points that way.

-Baltimore, DEF - American BadAss - -(minus)1 pt - Baltimore managed to record one sack and get one interception. Oh but they gave up 37 points...Tough week for defenses apparently...

-San Francisco, DEF - Midnight Maulers - -(minus)3 pts - Not to be outdone by Hill's, Allen’s and Baltimore’s –(minus)1 point games, the Niners tripled that with their performance against the Steelers. They allowed 43 points, had no sacks, no interceptions, no fumble recoveries, no blocked kicks and only 69 return yards. Brutal...


WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?
Apparently quite a lot this week.  Check out the All-Browns starting line-up this week:

QB	Johnny Manziel Cle - QB	14
RB	Isaiah Crowell Cle - RB	13
RB	Duke Johnson Jr. Cle - RB	4
WR	Travis Benjamin Cle - WR	32
WR	Andrew Hawkins Cle - WR	4
TE	Gary Barnidge Cle - TE	1
K	Travis Coons Cle - K	4
DEF	Cleveland Cle - DEF	23
	Total	95

That line-up would have defeated 9 out of 10 teams in our league this week.  Way to go Browns!!  Maybe you don’t suck so bad after all…


WINNER OF VOWEL TO CONSONANT RATIO
Undrafted rookie linebacker for the New York Giants, "Uani Unga".  Vowel to consonant ratio of 5:3.


DEFENSES – FORECAST vs. ACTUAL
Through two weeks it should start to become evident which team defenses are looking good and which are looking bad.  Here is the list of the Top 10 Defenses as ranked by Yahoo! the day before the season started and how they fared in Week 2:

			OVERALL
Rank	Defense/Special Teams	Week 2	RANK
1	Seattle Sea - DEF	Rk #16 - 6 pts	3
2	Buffalo Buf - DEF	Rk #26 - 3 pts	19
3	Houston Hou - DEF	Rk #13 - 7 pts	25
4	Philadelphia Phi - DEF	Rk #11 - 8 pts	27
5	St. Louis StL - DEF	Rk #22 - 4 pts	10
6	Arizona Ari - DEF	Rk #3 - 20 pts	4
7	New England NE - DEF	Rk #7 - 13 pts	12
8	Baltimore Bal - DEF	Rk #31 - -1 pts	17
9	Green Bay GB - DEF	Rk #13 - 7 pts	18
10	Kansas City KC - DEF	Rk #9 - 11 pts	7

This is actually really remarkable.  The 2nd ranked Buffalo Bills have done no better than 9 points in a week and are currently the 19th ranked defense overall, but even worse are Houston and Philly, the 3rd and 4th ranked defenses in the preseason that are currently the 25th and 27th ranked defenses.  That is not even close!
And in case you are wondering, the current top defense is the Denver Broncos who were ranked 17th in the preseason and the second ranked defense is the New York Jets who were ranked 29th in the preseason.  I guess they are a little better than expected…


WEEKLY BLACKJACK TIP
One of the most common rules you hear about Blackjack is "Always split your aces and eights." As with anything that has an "always" attached to it, this is generally bad advice. Suppose you are dealt 8-8 and the dealer is showing a Jack. You follow the "Always split" rule, so you split your 8's and get two 10's (the ideal outcome) and now both of your hands total 18.  The dealer turns over their hole card to show a King, so you lose both hands, which is twice as much as your original bet.
The better play is to simply play the hand as a 16 and surrender. By surrendering, you get half of your bet back, so instead of being down 2 units, you are only down 0.5 units. That there is a massive savings over the long term.


BEST BENCH
Last week we had a double best bench award handed out, but this week one team stands alone with the title.  The winner of this week’s Best Bench squeaked out a 1-point victory, while leaving 45 points planted on his bench, and that team is… American BadAss!  Jason needed four roster moves to make it happen: Broncos for Ravens (+22 pts), J. Matthews for K. Allen (+15 pts), I. Crowell for J. Forsett (+6 pts) and T.J. Yeldon for J. Randle (+2 pts).


We are really cooking with gas now!  Get your rosters ready for Week 3!!

Scotland is Free! Week 1!

Winning the first Weekly High Score Prize of the season is a great way to kick off your year.  Over the last five years, here are the teams that have held that distinction along with where they finished overall:
2014 – Vandelay Industries (117 pts) – Runner-up
2013 – sprouts (133 pts) – 3rd Place
2012 – BoomGoesTheDynamite (117 pts) – Champion
2011 – American BadAss (112 pts) – 3rd Place
2010 – Lords of Lumberg (100 pts) – 5th Place
One fifth place finish, two thirds, a second and a Championship.  If history is any indication, my Rebels look poised for a run at the title this year!  Oh yeah!
The winning performance from my boys started on Thursday night with Gronk just obliterating the Steelers defense to the tune of 27 points, and it continued on Sunday with two of my early draft picks delivering strong performances... Seahawks defense (21 points) and Demarco Murray (13 points). Murray only finished with 20 total yards, but managed to find the end zone twice on Monday night. It's like they say in golf...it doesn't matter how, only matters how many!

This week we'll get our first check on the Browns and team defenses, see what perfection looks like from a rookie, and award a double Best Bench. Let's do this!!

NOW WE’RE TALKING!
-Carlos Hyde, RB - Scottish Rebels - 32 pts - Dude just went crazy against a porous Vikings defense racking up 168 yards rushing and 2 TD's, along with 14 receiving yards. Guess who just earned a starting roster spot?
-Tom Brady, QB - Bubble Crap Bandits - 27 pts - After defeating the NFL in federal court, facing the Pittsburgh Steelers must've seemed like a cake walk. Golden Boy sure made it look that way, putting up 288 yards passing and 4 TDs.
-Rob Gronkowski, TE - Scottish Rebels - 27 pts - There was a lot of talk from the Steelers prior to the season opener that they were going to be real physical with Gronk... checking him at the line of scrimmage, double-teaming, etc. Not only did they not do that, they didn't even cover him on one play, essentially letting him walk in for a touchdown. He showed why he is the best tight end in the game, finishing with 94 yards and 3 touchdowns.
-Julio Jones, WR - Z German Overlords - 26 pts - Impressive stats from JJ... 9 catches for 142 yards and 2 TDs!  Would've had even more had two big gains not been called back by penalties. He looks poised for a big year...
-Carson Palmer, QB - Coors Light Drunk Guys - 25 pts - Old man still getting it done! Deep throws, moving around in the pocket, scrambling...he did it all and looked good doing it! Final tally was 307 yards passing, 3 TD's, and 14 yards rushing.
-Tony Romo, QB - SofaKingLoveMyKicker - 25 pts - For all my badmouthing of Romo over the years, I must say that he actually came through big time on this one!  And in the clutch, no less.  I'm still not entirely sure how the Cowboys ended up beating the Giants in that one...seemed like a lost cause.  But all that matters is the score at the end of the game. Not the score with 42 seconds left! Romo put up a solid stat line (356 yards and three TD's), but did also have 2 interceptions. Hey, he is Romo after all...

COME ON, MAN!!
-Adrian Peterson, RB - Joe's Pats - 5 pts - Surely not the scorching start to the season that AP and about a billion fantasy owners were expecting. Sometimes a year off does a player good (see Carson Palmer) and sometimes it makes them slow and hesitant. Unfortunately for AP, it was the latter.
-Peyton Manning, QB - sprouts - 5 pts - Here's another stud who stumbled out of the blocks this year. Manning threw zero TD passes in the game, and had 1 interception. Contrast this to the opening game of 2013 when Manning threw for 7 TD's, 462 yards and 0 INT's on his way to 49 points. Now that is the way you start a season!!
-Steve Smith SR, WR - SofaKingLovemyKicker - 1 pt - Not for a lack of balls coming his way... Smith caught only 2 of 7 passes thrown to him, and only took those 2 for 13 yards.
-Greg Olsen, TE - Midnight Maulers - 1 pt - One catch for 11 yards. And that was against Jacksonville. Yuck.
-Adam Vinatieri, K - Midnight Maulers - 0 pts - Did he get injured? Did he not play? I see that the Colts scored 14 points, so there should have at least been an extra point in there or something. But just...nothing. Kickers man, what can you say?
-Owen Daniels, TE - Joe's Pats - 0 pts – Two for two! Daniels was 2-for-2 on catching balls thrown his way.  Unfortunately, he must have been catching sideways or backwards passes because he only netted 5 yards. Um..what??

ROOKIE PERFECTION
Marcus Mariota's football career is only going to get worse from here. He accomplished something in

his NFL debut that no other quarterback has ever achieved in their debut...he was perfect. His final stat line was 13 for 16, 209 yards and 4 TD's. That gave him a quarterback rating of 158.3. For those of you keeping score, the highest score on the QB rating scale that one can achieve is 158.3. He threw more touchdown passes than he did incompletions. He played so perfectly, and was so dominating that he was actually pulled out of the game in the 4th quarter. I mean, can you imagine?! A rookie QB got pulled out of his first game, not because he was getting killed and throwing pick-sixes, but because the coaches wanted to give the back-up some playing time. Simply amazing.

WHAT CAN BROWN DO FOR YOU?
As I pointed out in last week's write up, the one NFL team that had no players drafted in our league was the Cleveland Browns. I'll be tracking them this year as my "All Unwanteds"...
Let's see how they did:
Their leading scorer was wide receiver Travis Benjamin, finishing with 14 points (89 yds and a TD).  After that it was Johnny Football with 8 points, and Travis Coons (the kicker) with 4 points.  Here is how the full roster shaped out:

QB	Johnny Manziel Cle - QB	8
RB	Isaiah Crowell Cle - RB	3
RB	Duke Johnson Jr. Cle - RB	2
WR	Travis Benjamin Cle - WR	14
WR	Brian Hartline Cle - WR	2
TE	Gary Barnidge Cle - TE	3
K	Travis Coons Cle - K	4
DEF	Cleveland Cle - DEF	1
	Total	37

Boy that is brutal… fairly obvious this week why these guys are free agents.  Wait, American BadAss actually owns Crowell?  And he started him? Get outta here!  No!!


DE-FENSE, (clap clap), DE-FENSE, (clap clap)
Defense is tough to predict.  You’re not just dealing with one guy…you’ve got 11 guys.  An injury to one guy could spell problems, or could bring in a new guy who kicks ass.  Defenses can be really high scoring (fantasy-wise) one season, and then fall to the bottom of the barrel the next.  Taking a defense early is a major gamble because it is hard to know how they will perform.  This all got me thinking that I need to track defenses from their preseason ranking through the end of the year to see if the "experts" have any idea what they are talking about.
So here are the Top 10 Defenses as ranked by Yahoo! experts on the day before the start of the season, and how they did in Week #1:

Rank	Defense/Special Teams	Week 1
1	Seattle Sea - DEF	Rk #1 - 21 pts
2	Buffalo Buf - DEF	Rk #13 - 9 pts
3	Houston Hou - DEF	Rk #22 - 2 pts
4	Philadelphia Phi - DEF	Rk #29 - 0 pts
5	St. Louis StL - DEF	Rk #5 - 16 pts
6	Arizona Ari - DEF	Rk #16 - 6 pts
7	New England NE - DEF	Rk #18 - 5 pts
8	Baltimore Bal - DEF	Rk #5 - 16 pts
9	Green Bay GB - DEF	Rk #16 - 6 pts
10	Kansas City KC - DEF	Rk #10 - 12 pts

Seattle, St. Louis, Baltimore and Kansas City performed at or above their projected rank.  Houston and Philadelphia were just atrocious and finished among the worst defenses in Week 1, while Buffalo, Arizona, New England and Green Bay all underperformed pretty significantly.  My prediction stands… I predict that there will be 2 or 3 highly ranked preseason defenses (currently SEA, STL and BAL) that finish the season as highly ranked defenses.  The rest will be a big jumble.

BEST BENCH(ES)
Not since Week 12 of 2013 have we had two teams earn the distinction of Best Bench in the same week.  Back then it was my Scottish Rebels and Channel 4 News Team sharing the crown with a 29-point improvement.  The winners this time had solid 35-point improvement possibilities, with quite a few roster changes.  The first was the Coors Light Drunk Guys who needed 5 roster changes to do it, and the second was sprouts who needed 4 roster changes to do it.  Due to space constraints, I’m not going to list out all of the changes this time…just take my word on it.


Okay, starting this week we will begin awarding the owner who picks the most winners from the weekly matchups with the top waiver spot. If you want that to be you, make sure to click on "League Pick Em" and pick which teams you think will be victorious!

Let’s go Week 2!!

2015! Let the games begin!

The draft! Oh the draft! It all seems to fly by so quickly leaving you saying, "Can we just redo that whole thing?" just a few hours later.  Crazy things happen in the draft...kickers go early, back-up quarterbacks get selected, unsigned players get picked, and one NFL team has no players selected. Wait... what? You mean to say that there is an entire team of professional football players in the NFL that doesn't have one player worthy of being selected out of 150 picks?! Yeah, apparently so... we'll get to that in a bit.

First, here are a couple of quick points about this year's draft:

-Most Selected Position - Wide receiver, with 44 selected (including keepers).

-2nd Most Selected Position - Runningback, with 40 selected (including keepers).

-The Most Homogeneous Round - Round 2 which saw 5 RB's and 5 WR's selected.

-The Most Diverse Round(s) - Rounds 10 & 12 which both saw all 6 positions selected (QB, RB, WR, TE, K, DEF).

-Kickers Going Early - 4 kickers were selected by Round 10... Last year that many kickers were not selected until Round 12.

-If You Need a Runningback, See Russ - sprouts loaded up on runningbacks, amassing a total of 6 in the draft, which was the most of any team.

-If You Need a Wide Receiver, Talk to the Champ - SofaKingHateRomo has a lot of guys to throw the ball to having drafted 6 wide receivers, the most of any team.

-Triple Option - Two teams went deep and drafted a 3rd quarterback position: sprouts and Z German Overlords.

-Confidence in Your Tight End - Those same two teams (sprouts and Z German Overlords) must feel confident in their tight end selection, as they only took one. All other teams took two.

-Always Good To Have Options - The Coors Light Drunk Guys and Midnight Maulers both have two kickers on their rosters. Hey, who am I to judge?

-Free Agents and Back-ups - The Ray Rice pick in the 11th round by Vandelay Industries stole the show as the biggest "Huh?" pick, as Rice is still unsigned and is drawing little to no interest. That pick must've thrown James for a loop because with the very next pick he selected RG3, a guy who had already been demoted from the starting position and could very well end up being released.

For something different this year, I took a look at which NFL teams had the most players drafted in our league. In all, 31 teams were represented along with one free agent. Before I get to the forgotten team, here are the teams with the most players picked...

Leading the way with 8 players selected... the Philadelphia Eagles!

Three teams had 7 players picked: the Dallas Cowboys, the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots.

Three teams had 6 players chosen: the Detroit Lions (what?!), the Green Bay Packers and the Indianapolis Colts.

Eleven teams had five players selected: Arizona, Atlanta, Baltimore, Kansas City (hat tip to Timmy), Minnesota, New York Giants, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Seattle and San Francisco.

So which team was the forgotten team? Have you figured it out yet? Tennessee? Nope, they had 2 players picked. Jacksonville? Ha! Crazy as it sounds, there were actually three Jaguars that got picked. Even the lowly New York Jets had three players picked.  No, the team that had zero players selected in the draft was... the Cleveland Browns. Apparently no one thinks highly of a Josh McCown quarterbacked team, with Isiah Crowell in the backfield and Brian Hartline catching passes. Wow, are they really that bad? Yes, yes they are. However, as perception and reality can oftentimes be quite a ways apart, I would be willing to bet that at least one Cleveland player has a respectable year. (By "respectable" I mean that they will finish in the Top 12 of their respective position). I'll be tracking the Browns this season as my "Unwanteds", so we'll see how these poor rejects fare throughout the year.

Several seasons ago, I tracked kickers from their preseason rankings through the end of the year to see how accurate the "experts" we're at predicting that position. The results = not good. Top ranked kickers at the end of the year were generally ranked outside of the top 10 or even the top 20 during the preseason. (Stephen Gostkowski was the lone exception.) This season, I'm going to do the same with defenses.

It has seemed like over the last several years, the Defense position has become more and more of a crapshoot (I don't speak of craps anymore)...err, more and more of an enigma, where you just never know what you're going to get. Like Forrest's box of chocolates. So I'm going to lock in the Yahoo! Defense rankings as of Sept. 9th, the day before the start of the regular season and see how they fare for the season. My prediction is that there will be 2 or 3 highly ranked preseason defenses that finish as highly ranked defenses and the remaining 29 teams will be a big jumble.

Alright, so that is it for now... James, your title defense is in full swing and we are all gunning for you!! Best of luck to everyone, except when you are playing my team! HAHA!!

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL!?!?

The King is Crowned!!

I’ve called him Jameson, Cap’N and MAJOR, and now everyone can simply call him Champ!  James rode Beast-mode to a victory Sunday night to become only the second team in Sacred Sundays history to win the league championship more than once.  James won his first championship back in 2005, and now is back on top nine years later!  Early on this time it was looking doubtful as Marshawn Lynch didn’t start Sunday night’s game for the Seahawks, and didn’t even really appear interested to go into the game as he was apparently suffering from an upset stomach.  But ultimately he got in the game and just thrashed the Cardinals defense, finishing with 23 points and giving Sofa King Back Baby a 4-point victory over Vandelay Industries!  Way to go MAJOR!!!  You are the CHAMPION!!!

Much credit has to go to Louis and Vandelay Industries as well, who in only their second season claimed 2 Weekly High Score Prizes, won the South Division and finished as the 2nd place team overall!  Andrew Luck had been an absolute stud all season, but became an absolute dud in the championship game registering a big fat goose egg.  It is odd how it works out that way sometimes with big-time players not showing up in the big-time moments.  But it was still a super successful season and I tip my hat to you!

Also for the final Weekly high Score Prize of the year, the congratulations go to the X German Overlords who started Ryan Tannehill of all people, who went on to have a career game against the Vikings, throwing for 396 yards and 4 TD’s...finishing with 32 points.  That, along with Odell Beckham Jr.’s 26 points gave Jens 97 for the week which topped all scorers, and secured a third place overall finish.  Well done Jens!  As you said in Week 10, you had your team built to play well in the final weeks of the season, and they did just that.  Not sure how, but they did.  What do you know?!?!?

As far as the rest of the standings, here is how things broke down:
1) Sofa King Back Baby – James
2) Vandelay Industries – Louis
3) X German Overlords – Jens
4) Scottish Rebels – Jerry
5) American BadAss – Jason
6) sprouts – Russ
7) Coors Light Drunk Guys – Shawn
8) Joe’s Pats – Joe
9) Channel 4 News Team – Timmy
10) Midnight Maulers – Jamie

The draft order for 2015 will be the reverse order of those standings, so start prepping now! *LOL*
 Keepers will need to be declared one week after the conclusion of the NFL draft which takes place at the end of April.  I’ll send out emails as we get closer to that.  Also, preliminary plans right now are to have the draft over Labor Day Weekend again and to meet up in Vegas once again!  Shawn has already said that he is going to be there (with his wallet this time), so you don’t want to miss seeing that!  Ha!  Once we get around keeper declaration time, we’ll start looking at making more definitive plans.

Here is the final tally on money winnings for this season:
1) Sofa King Back Baby – James - $375 (3 Weekly High Scores + Championship)
2) X German Overlords – Jens - $217 (3 Weekly High Scores + 3rd Place)
3) Vandelay Industries – Louis - $213 (2 Weekly High Scores + 2nd Place)
4) American BadAss – Jason - $150 (3 Weekly High Scores)
5) Scottish Rebels – Jerry - $145 (2 Weekly High Scores + 4th Place)
6) Coors Light Drunk Guys – Shawn - $100 (2 Weekly High Scores)
7) Joe’s Pats – Joe - $50 (1 Weekly High Score)

Congrats to everyone who won cash!  I will send each of you a separate email to make sure I have your correct address and will get checks mailed out this week.

Lastly, it has been an awesome season…I can’t hardly believe that we have already come to the end.  These 16 weeks of football just seem to fly by!  Many thanks to all you guys for making this league so much fun and giving me an excuse to watch football all day on Sunday.  I’m already looking forward to next year’s draft and season!

But we wouldn’t be complete this year without awarding the final Best Bench…  And it is only fitting that the master of the bench finished the year with his best effort of all!  So for Week 16, and for the sixth time this year, the Best Bench goes to… Joe’s Pats!!  As mentioned before, this was Joe’s best Best Bench of the year with an impressive 57-point improvement possibility.  Four roster moves:  A. Gates for T. Wright (+20), R. Wilson for M. Ryan (+19), A. Jeffery for T. Hilton (+13) and C. Ivory for L. Blount (+5).


So that puts a wrap on this season… Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you and your families!!

Wildcard Weekend!!

Wildcard weekend has wrapped up, so now there are only four teams left vying for the 2014 Championship!  In the first wildcard game, Jens' newly named "Sprouted" sprang to life and amassed an awesome 132 points!  Sprouted did it with great games from the St. Louis Defense (2nd shutout in a row!, 30 pts), Jordy Nelson (26 pts) and Jay Cutler (25 pts, what the hell?!).  Russ' sprouts meanwhile had a rough go of it, primarily because Peyton Manning posted a measly 2 points, and sprouts only player to score double digits was his kicker, Stephen Gostkowski.  But congratulation on the big game Jens!  That is the second highest single-week total this season and is the second Weekly High Score Prize for Where Is Shawn's Wallet/Down Goes Jason/Sofa King Stupid/PappaNobleJr2/BeatsByRay/Brady Gaga/Lovin the Bye Week/Fantasy Nightmare/German Kickers/Brusselsprouts/Starck Industries/3rd Down Cowbell/They Call Him Daddy/Sprouted.

In the second wildcard game, Sofa King Back Baby took out the juggernaut that is American BadAss, and left Jason out of the Final Four for only the 4th time in Sacred Sundays history.  It was a close game too, only separated by 5 points.  Sofa King Back Baby got a huge game from Le'Veon Bell (44 pts) which pretty much carried him to the victory.  For BadAss, Aaron Rodgers nearly closed the gap on Monday night with a solid 27-point performance, but came up just short.

Just a quick write-up this week, so let's get to it!

NOW THAT'S THE INSIDE STUFF
-Le'Veon Bell, RB - Sofa King Back Baby – 44 pts – Games like this don’t happen very often, and to get one in the playoffs is truly a magical thing.  Bell went crazy for 185 yards and 2 TD’s on the ground, plus 50 yards and 1 TD receiving.  This ties for the 12th highest single-week point total for a player all-time, and the 6th highest for a runningback all-time.

-Cam Newton, QB – Channel 4 News Team – 35 pts – This is the dominating Cam Newton that we are used to seeing…dude had 226 yards and 3 TD’s through the air, plus had 83 yards and a TD on the ground.  Love that!

-Julio Jones, WR – Joe’s Pats – 34 pts – Jones came out in the second half against Green Bay like a man possessed and nearly won the game for the Falcons.  He finished with 259 yards (on only 11 catches), plus a TD.  He nearly had a second TD, but got tackled at the 5 yard line on a long run.

-Matt Ryan, QB – Joe’s Pats – 34 pts – Ryan had his best game of the season, throwing for 375 yards and 4 TD’s but added one interception.

-Ben Roethlisberger, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 31 pts – Big Ben got all his points through the air, literally.  Threw for 350 yards plus 3 TD’s, and had 1 carry for -1 yard.  Let’s just say hes not very mobile.


COME ON, MAN!
-Peyton Manning, QB – sprouts – 2 pts – This is the only Come On Man that I can do this week because it is just so shocking.  I’ve kept good week by week player records for the last 3 seasons, and Peyton has only scored in single digits one other time…Week 2 of 2012 when he had 7 points.  Manning’s line this week against the Bills…178 yds, 0 TD’s and 2 interceptions.  Make sure you remember where you were when you saw this, because this is a rarity.

PLAYOFFS??!?
Semi-final matchups this week, and thankfully, the games listed on the website are correct.  My Scottish Rebels will face off against the giant-killing Sofa King Back Baby and Vandelay Industries will battle Sprouted.  Also, to determine the 5th and 6th place finishes, American BadAss will play sprouts.  Remember that all teams are still eligible to win the Weekly High Score Prize, so make sure you have your line-up ready!


BEST BENCH
I’m almost to the point of renaming this segment “Joe’s Bench”, because Joe’s Pats continue to dominate when it comes to bench players.  For the second week in a row, and for the fifth time this season, Joe claims another Best Bench.  And just like last week, he had another 40-point improvement possibility with four roster moves:  J. Jones for E. Sanders +28, M. Ryan for R. Wilson +6, J. Cameron for T. Wright +4 and C. Ivory for L. McCoy +2.


Only two weeks to go this season!!!  It's the final stretch!

Let the playoffs begin!!!

What a way to finish out the regular season!  Five teams broke the 100-point barrier, and three of those teams broke the 120-point barrier!  Also, bucking the trend that we have seen recently, all of the teams that scored over 100 won their games.  That makes a total of 39 times this season that teams have broken the triple-digit mark, with 34 of those resulting in victories.  A win percentage of 87.2% is why I always recommend scoring over 100 if you want to give your team the best chance to win.  Historically speaking, the win percentage for scoring over 100 points is 87.7%, so this season has been practically right in line with that.  Two more notes on the scores this week: 1) This is only the third time in Sacred Sundays history that 5 or more teams scored over 100 points, and 2) the 978 points scored this week mark the 5th highest single-week scoring total ever.

But none were higher this week that Mr. Shawn Martin and his Coors Light Drunk Guys who set a season-high record with a stellar 140-point performance.  F.  N.  A.  Nice!  The Drunk Guys got terrific performances from Drew Brees (30 points) and recent addition DeAndre Hopkins (38 points).  Add to that Arian Foster’s 15 and the Denver D’s 15, and Shawn was unstoppable this week.  Well done senor!

Now everyone's thoughts should be geared toward the playoffs.  The Yahoo! site does not allow me a lot of flexibility in terms of setting playoff match-ups, so don't go by what you see on the site.  See below for actual playoff qualifiers and seeding.

But first, some quick hits...

AWWYEAH!
-Ryan Fitzpatrick, QB - Free Agent - 42 pts - This guy is only owned in 8% of all leagues, and probably only started in like 0.2% of those.  So those four teams that started him were treated to a 6 touchdown, 358 yard performance.  Holy cow! (Get it?...Because the Texans' helmet has a cow on it?...*tap tap* Is this thing on?)

-DeAndre Hopkins, WR - Coors Light Drunk Guys - 38 pts - What a way to welcome a guy to your team?!  238 yards and 2 TD’s…just doesn’t get much better.

-Andrew Luck, QB - Vandelay Industries - 35 pts - Just another day at the office for Luck, tossing a mere 5 TD's and 370 yards.  Luck leads all fantasy scorers by 26 with 307 points scored this year.

-Le'Veon Bell, RB - Sofa King Back - 33 pts - Solid game on the ground for Bell, rushing 21 times for 95 yards and a TD, but he did even better catching the ball 8 times for 159 yards!

-Tre Mason, RB - sprouts - 33 pts - Mason was rolling against the Raiders and finished with 164 total yards (117 rushing, 47 receiving) and 3 touchdowns (2 rushing, 1 receiving).

-St. Louis, DEF – WhatDoYouKnow 2 – 32 pts – After a game like that, the NFL might need to consider installing a mercy rule.  I mean, 52-0?  Six sacks, five turnovers and 1 touchdown.  That just shouldn’t happen at the pro level.  But playing against the Raiders might not qualify as playing against a pro-level team.

-Drew Brees, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 30 pts – A quarterback throws five touchdown passes and he’s not the top QB for the week...or even the second best?  This league has gone pass wacky.

-Philip Rivers, QB – Midnight Maulers – 29 pts – This was the week of QB’s.

-Colt McCoy, QB – Free Agent – 29 pts – See what I mean?

-Ben Roethlisberger, QB – Coors Light Drunk Guys – 28 pts – I wasn’t kidding.

-Aaron Rodgers, QB – American BadAss – 27 pts – I can keep going all night.


COME ON, MAN!
-Tim Wright, TE – Joe’s Pats – 1 pt – On the flip side, it really sucked to be a tight end this week.

-Delanie Walker, TE – American BadAss – 0 pts – See what I mean?

-Jimmy Graham, TE – Sofa King Back Baby – 0 pts – Really?  Graham?

-Jason Witten, TE – Vandelay Industries – 0 pts – You too, Witten?  Come on man!


ALL UNDRAFTEDS
This has been an extremely challenging year for our Undrafted Squad, although they did show a bit of life in Week 12 and finished with 124 points and their second victory of the season.  Week 13 represents their (thankfully) final game of the season.  Here is how these poor chaps fared:
Jake Locker Ten 1
Justin Forsett Bal 11
Mark Ingram NO 12
Greg Jennings Min 10
Allen Hurns Jax 4
Delanie Walker Ten 0
Minnesota Min 27
Matt Bryant Atl 18
Total 83
With the league average of 97.4, this goes down as one final loss, for a final record of 2-11.  There were a few gems on this team this season (Steve Smith Sr, Minnesota D) but by and large I think it was pretty obvious why these guys went undrafted.


PLAYOFFS?? DON’T TALK ABOUT PLAYOFFS!!!
As mentioned earlier, Yahoo! does not provide me with much (or any) flexibility on setting playoff match-ups and does not follow the tie-breakers and seedings that we use for the playoffs.  As we have always done, the top two teams from each division automatically qualify along with two wildcard teams.  So here is how the seeds breakdown:

#1 – Scottish Rebels – North Division Champion and best overall record.
#2 – Vandelay Industries – South Division Champion by virtue of best record in division.
#3 – American BadAss – North Division Runner-up by virtue of division record.
#4 – sprouts – South Division Runner-up by virtue of overall record.
#5 – WhatDoYouKnow 2 – Wildcard #1 by virtue of overall record.
#6 – Sofa King Back Baby – Wildcard #2 by virtue of win-loss record against Coors Light Drunk Guys.

The remaining teams finish in this order:
#7 – Coors Light Drunk Guys – by virtue of overall record.
#8 – Joe’s Pats – by virtue of overall record.
#9 – Channel 4 News Team – by virtue of total points scored.
#10 – Midnight Maulers – rough season.
So this means that Jamie George will be picking first in next season’s draft.  Jamie, you are on the clock!

As far as the matchups go for Week 14, my Rebels and Vandelay Industries have a bye, American BadAss plays Sofa King Back Baby, and sprouts plays WhatDoYouKnow 2.  Remember that in the playoffs there are no tie games…any ties prior to the Championship game go to the higher seeded team.  Tie games in the Championship game will be settled as follows: 1) Team with the highest scoring QB wins, 2) Team with the highest scoring RB wins, 3) Team with the highest scoring WR wins, 4) If still tied at that point, co-champions will be declared.  Now as a reminder what we are playing for, here is a breakdown on the prize money:
Champion - $225
Runner-up - $113
3rd Place - $67
4th Place - $45
Lastly, remember that throughout the playoffs all teams are still eligible to win the Weekly High Score prize, so make sure you have your roster set each week!


ESOTERIC JOKE(S)
I figured I’d do a flashback to a running item from last season:
-It’s hard to explain puns to kleptomaniacs because they take things literally.

-There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure

And finally, one for Jensy:
-A German walks into a bar and asks for a martini.  The bartender asks, “Dry?”  He replies “Nein, just one.”


BEST BENCH
In 13 weeks, 7 different teams have claimed a Best Bench.  No team has won it more times than this week’s winner, who pulled down their fourth of the season.  So for the fourth time, and with a 40-point improvement possibility, the Week 13 Best Bench goes to…Joe’s Pats.  This time Joe need four roster moves: J. Jones for E. Sanders (+20), A. Jeffrey for TY Hilton (+7), A. Gates for T. Wright (+7) and D. Martin for L. Blount (+6).


Now is when it really counts!  Get ready for Round 1 of the playoffs!!