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!

Make it two for sprouts!

Two in a row!  Sprouts are on an absolute tear, having won their last two games by an average margin of 63 points, and scoring an incredible 279 points over the last two weeks which is 57 more points than the next closest team (American BadAss with 222) and nearly 100 points more than the league average (181.9 points).  Last week, sprouts had a huge game from Mike Evans (40 pts), plus over 20 points from: Chicago (24 pts), Cooper Kupp (22 pts) and Matt Ryan (22 pts). It all added up to 154 points, which ranks as the 2nd highest Weekly High Score of all time!  This week, Russ overcame zero points from his tight end (Greg Olsen) to still score 125 thanks to a huge game from Nick Chubb (38 pts), and double digit scores from 6 other positions.  Nice job, Russ!  Keep it going!

In league standings, Attack of Mahomes leads the way as the only undefeated team at 4-0.  Three teams have only one loss (American BadAss, sprouts and Bella Dancers).  Joe’s Pats is the lone winless team, sitting at 0-4.  Don’t worry Joe…I still hold the record for (twice!) starting off 0-6, so you’ve still got a ways to go.

Just a quick update this week… onward!!

BIG TIME
-Nick Chubb, RB – sprouts – 38 pts – Massive performance from Chubb, going off for 183 total yards and 3 TD’s!  He's scored in double digits the last three weeks and currently ranks as the 4th highest scoring running back.
-Chris Godwin, WR – Big Sack – 32 pts – Godwin benefitted big time from the game turning into a shootout.  He finished with 172 yards on 12 catches plus 2 TD’s.
-Jameis Winston, QB – Big Sack – 32 pts – Winston is improving each week, having scored 6, 12, 28 and now 32 points this week.  Perhaps Bruce Arians is the quarterback whisperer, like people say.

COME ON MAN
-Juju Smith-Schuster, WR – Young Guns – 1 pt – The Steelers rout the Bengals 27-3, yet somehow JSS caught 3 passes for only 15 yards. 
-Greg Olsen, TE – sprouts – 0 pts – After a 2 touchdown performance last week, Olsen was held to a pathetic 5 yards on 2 catches.
-Adam Thielen, WR – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – Just 2 catches for 6 yards, in a very lackluster game against the Bears. 
-Delanie Walker, TE – Big Sack – 0 pts – One catch for 4 yards.  Not so much.
-Green Bay, DEF – Coors Light Drunk Guys – -1 pts – The Packer defense recorded no defensive stats and gave up 34 points to the Eagles.  Wow that’s bad.

PLAYOFFS?
It is never too early to start thinking about the playoffs, right?  Well get ready because next week will be my annual “5 Weeks In Playoff Predictions”.  Last year I was correct on 5 of 6…can I make it 6 for 6 this season?

BEST BENCH
Two best benches to award this week, and both go to “J” names so you are safe this time, Timmy!  Week 3 saw a couple big bench improvements, but none bigger than from my team, Longshanks.  With just three roster moves: P. Lindsay for P. Barber (+20), D. Moore for S. Diggs (+11) and W. Dissly for G. Kittle (+7), I could have improved by 38 points!  (38 is the highest best bench total for this season).
This week was interesting because we actually had the lowest point improvements overall, and the winner has the lowest improvement total for the season.  With a 30-point improvement possibility, the Week 4 Best Bench goes to… Young Guns!  John only needed three roster moves:  R. Woods for T. McLarin (+19), D. Williams for C. Hyde (+10), and M. Brown for J. Smith-Schuster (+1)

Sorry to cut it short this week...just haven’t had my normal time at work to get some writing in.  Don’t you hate it when your boss makes you do actual work?  What in the hell?! 
We’ll be back to a full length write-up next week.  Until then, get those waivers in and get ready for Week 5!!!

All-American Week 2

Two weeks in and we have just two teams at 2-0 and two teams at 0-2.  Attack of Mahomes is top dog, leading the way with 221 points scored thus far, which ranks as the 3rd most points scored in the first two weeks in Sacred Sundays history.  (Channel 4 News Team—Tim’s 2013 incarnation--holds the record of 231 points scored in the first two weeks).  Keep on rocking, Timmy!  Defending champ Joe’s Pats, is at the other end of the spectrum, having yet to find a victory and having only scored 147 points.  Of course, two weeks is not a lot of time and there is plenty of football left to be played.  Last year, after two weeks Young Guns were in 9th place and they ended up finishing in 3rd, while Coors Light Drunk Guys and sprouts were both 2-0 and ended up missing the playoffs.  So it’s still anyone’s game…

Player rankings are crazy right now too…!  Any guesses on the highest scoring wide receiver?  That would be John Ross III, wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals who has scored 47 points so far.  Top three runningbacks?  Dalvin Cook (50 pts), Austin Ekeler (48 pts) and Derrick Henry (42 pts).  Top tight end?  How does Mark Andrews sound to you?  Mark freaking Andrews??  (For those wondering, Andrews plays for the Ravens and has scored 33 points this year, which is 9 more than Travis Kelce.)  And my favorite position of all…Kickers.  The top kicker right now is Joey Slye.  Gold star to anyone who can correctly guess Mr. Slye’s team.  (Answer at the bottom).

The Weekly High Score honors this week go to American BadAss who is living the mantra “Defense wins championships!”  ABA annihilated the field this week posting an impressive 130 points, 19 more than the next closest team and 50 points higher than the average score this week.  Jason had a legendary defensive performance from the Patriots, racking up 41 points, along with big games from Dak Prescott (26 pts), Ezekiel Elliott (17 pts) and his kicker Joey Slye (16 pts).  This week’s high score is the highest we’ve seen since Week 10 last season, when American BadAss had 158.  Nice work once again, bro!

This week we’ll see how good of a free agent team I can put together and find out which team is dominating the bench this season.  Onward!

BIG TIME
-New England, DEF – American BadAss – 41 pts – It was pretty well assumed the Patriots would lay the smack down on the Dolphins, but even this felt a bit excessive.  Seven sacks, 4 interceptions, 2 TD’s, 2 4th down stops and ZERO points surrendered!  This is the 3rd best defensive performance in Sacred Sundays history, with only Seattle (45 pts, Week 14-2012) and Philly (43 pts, Week 1-2009) having scored more in a single game. 
-Patrick Mahomes, QB – Attack of Mahomes – 34 pts – Once again, Mahomes 1st half would be considered a great full game by any other quarterback.  This week he had 313 yard and 4 TD’s IN THE FIRST HALF!  What this guy is doing is simply unprecedented.
-Demarcus Robinson, WR – Free Agent – 32 pts – Don’t feel bad if you don’t know who this guy is…even Timmy didn’t have him on his roster.  So to get everyone up to speed, Demarcus Robinson is a wide receiver for the Chiefs who just caught 6-of-6 passes for 172 yards and 2 TD’s.  Just an average game for a guy catching passes from a guy named Patrick Mahomes.
-Lamar Jackson, QB – Vandelay Industries – 30 pts – Jackson threw for 272 yards, ran for 120 plus threw 2 TD’s.  He’s scored only 2 fewer points than Mahomes so far, so he is on an absolutely blistering pace, averaging 31 points per game.

COME ON MAN!
-Josh Gordon, WR – Big Sack – 1 pt – Only two catches for 19 yards.  He is part of a now very crowded receiving corps in New England.
-TJ Hockenson, TE – Vandelay Industries – 0 pts – After looking like the 2nd coming of Tony Gonzalez last week (131 yards and a TD), TJ played like a true Detroit Lion and scored zero this week.  He did manage one catch, but it only went for 7 yards.
-OJ Howard, TE – Joe’s Pats – 0 pts – Howard caught one pass, but negated it with his own offensive pass interference penalty.  Not quite the production Joe was expecting from the 1st pick of the 4th round…

REALISTIC COMPANY SLOGANS
Denny’s – Because it’s 2:30 a.m., you’re drunk and want pancakes.
Facebook – We know more about you than you do.
US Government - …And we’ll take that info.
Internet Explorer – Your No. 1 browser for downloading other browsers.
Java – You don’t know what I am, update me anyway.

FREE AGENT DOMINATION
Check out the team of free agents I was able to cobble together this week:

Josh Allen Buf - QB	22
Demarcus Robinson KC - WR	32
Nelson Agholor Phi - WR	16
Raheem Mostert SF - RB	20
Jeff Wilson Jr. SF - RB	15
Will Dissly Sea - TE	17
Eddy Pineiro Chi - K	15
Tampa Bay TB - DEF	15
Total -	152

Of those, I think Agholor has been on a team once, and maybe Tampa Bay.  All of the others are complete newbies.  How about a Buffalo Bill QB being up there, and not one, but two running backs from San Fran.  Weird stuff man...

ESOTERIC JOKE(S) OF THE WEEK
There’s a band called 1023MB.  Unfortunately, they haven’t had any gigs yet.

Two hydrogen atoms sit on a curb.  One of them is sad
“What’s the problem, bud?”
“I think an electron left me.”
“Are you certain?  They’re small, they’re easy to miss…”
“No, no, I’m positive.”

What do you call 8 hobbits?  A hobbyte.

BEST BENCH
So this may be the craziest Best Bench situation I’ve ever seen… Last week Attack of Mahomes had the best bench, needing to swap in Sammy Watkins and LeSean McCoy for Kenny Golladay and Aaron Jones.  So Tim did just that this week, starting Watkins and McCoy.  However, fast forward to this week, and Attack of Mahomes once again claims the Best Bench, but two of the players needed to swap out are Watkins and McCoy back in favor of Golladay and Jones!  Are you freaking kidding me?
The total point improvement possibility was 37, and Timmy needed 3 roster moves:  A. Jones for L. McCoy +18, K. Golladay for S. Watkins +13, and C. Ridley for A. Cooper +6.  Attack of Mahomes is currently leading in points scored, and in Bench points… simply a point-making machine!

That’s all for Week 2… get those waivers in!!
Trivia answer – Joey Slye is a proud kicker for the Carolina Panthers.  Jason – I doubt even you got that right.  Ha!