Fantasy State of the Union: Week 9
With Week 9 in the books, it’s time to see how all the “experts” in the Big Baller Brand League sponsored by Yobagoya fared.
With yours truly on a personal bye week last week, let’s quickly run through the Week 8 results:
COB(125)-Costas(144.6)
Tuna(117)-Jackson(140.6)
Ben(152.2)-Colin(102.6)
Thomas(138.1)-Aaron(186.3)
Griff(160.4)-Shriver(100.7)
Derek(107.3)-Plummer(143.6)
Aaaaaand back to the Week 9 action.
COB vs. Aaron
Man, did I need this one. After 3 straight losses and 3 straight games putting up 125 or less, my team finally woke up. Outside of Ryan Succop, who missed an extra point, there really wasn’t a BAD performance in my starting lineup. Drew Brees looked like his normal self, Marqise Lee caught his first TD of the year, Jacoby Brissett had some great chemistry with TY Hilton (partially thanks to a fluky 80-yard TD) and Jack Doyle, and the Jags D had a punt return TD. The fact that I was able to put up 166.7 points without Duke Johnson, Melvin Gordon, and #teamJuJu was huge for my squad. Really didn’t have a good feeling going into this one, but my team picked me up and helped me steer 1 more game clear of the sacko. Still not in love with how my team is playing because of Brett Hundley (Randall Cobb), Drew Stanton (Larry Fitzgerald), and the Colts Offensive line (Jacoby Brissett, TY Hilton, Jack Doyle) making it possible that half of my team could completely disappear any given week.
Not that my team needed it this week, but a huge portion of this win was due to the fact that Deshaun Watson torn his ACL Thursday, ending his (and Aaron’s) season. Just take a moment to let this sink in. Aaron has now played Blake Bortles and Brock Osweiler this season. Yikes. Given the fact that Aaron had to pick up Brock Osweiler as a starter, this week wasn’t so bad for him. Carson Wentz continued to set the football world on fire, Christian McCaffrey made the most of J-Stew’s 2 fumbles by racking up 66 rush yards and a rush TD and could see an increased workload going forward, DeAndre Hopkins snagged a late TD from Tom Savage (and almost had another), Travis Kelce led the Chiefs in receiving yards, and the Rams D forced 3 turnovers and 2 sacks. The problem was that outside of those guys Aaron’s team really kind of sucked. Doug Martin didn’t rack up a whole point, Jordan Matthews got outplayed by Zay Jones, Cooper Kupp was 3rd fiddle to Robert Woods and Sammy Watkins, and John Brown only had 1 catch for 52 yards to start the game. Aaron’s going to need a lot more out of his skill position players if he’s going to hang onto a playoff spot. That should be helped by the return of Greg Olsen and Danny Woodhead in the next few weeks.
The Jags D had last week off (coincidentally why I also took the week off…?), and came back this week in another dominating performance. They held the Bengals offense to 149 total yards and racked up 2 sacks, but didn’t force any turnovers. Kind of a letdown against a team that’s turned it over 15 times this year, but whatever. This win was also helped up the ejection of AJ Green, who took objection to Jalen Ramsey and decided to put him in a rear-naked choke and hit him with a few punches. Not quite the Cortland Finnegan-Andre Johnson fight of years past, but I’ll take it. Ramsey got completely cheap-shotted and didn’t put up much of a fight, but the fact that he got Green ejected is an overall plus. New Jags D wins again.
Next Week: COB vs. Plummer, Aaron vs. Shriver
Jackson vs. Colin
This was the first of 2 terrible matchups this week. Looking at the box score for this one all day was like watching someone walk into a pole while looking down at their phone. You see it happening, you know it’s gonna turn out poorly, and yet there’s some weird satisfaction about watching it happen.
Jackson’s team has been pretty bad all year. This week was no different. Without a 2 TD performance from Alshon Jeffrey and an extremely pedestrian 12.8 point game out of Eli Manning, Jackson’s boys only racked up 63.3 points. Shady did nothing Thursday night, Aaron Jones fell by the wayside as the Packers fell behind early, and Andy Dalton showed how useless he was without AJ Green. In all, a really rough week for Jack’s squad. Jack really said it best here.
Disclaimer, Jackson is a good Christian boy who saved himself for marriage and is alluding to his team as an analogy for his wedding night. Jack’s squad started with 3 really bad losses (read: bad foreplay), got a big win (read: bow chick a wow wow), lost 3 more in a row (read: well…that didn’t last long), and then has racked up another win and loss since (read: rinse and repeat minus bad foreplay).
After a rough 3 game losing streak where his team didn’t crack 105 points, Colin’s squad showed faint signs of life this week. Not sure if it’s actually signs of life, or those weird rigor mortis convulsions they always show the dead body having on CSI. Either way, Colin’s boys did enough to win this week even without Leonard Fournette, who supposedly got suspended for missing the team picture, Phillip Rivers, Stefon Diggs, or AJ Green, who basically didn’t play after getting ejected early in the game against the Jags. How did he put up his highest score in 3 weeks without 4 starters? It absolutely defies logic. If you look at his roster, there were actually some solid performances by Brett Hundley, Jay Ajayi, Jeremy Maclin, Drew Stanton, Rishard Matthews, Vernon Davis, and Chris Ivory. Pause for a second to realize that Colin just won with DREW STANTON and BRETT HUNDLEY as his starting QBs. I think I just threw up in my mouth. I must be in the upside-down right now. Or the Twilight Zone, or both. I don’t know what is real anymore.
Next Week: Colin vs. Derek, Jackson vs. Griff
Griff vs. Tuna
Aaaand this was the 2nd of 2 terrible matchups this week. As Griff so eloquently stated, this was him and Tuna attempting to score points this week:
Honestly could’ve score more points in pop-a-shot with a cube shaped ball than these two this week. Griff’s squad was especially miserable. Outside of a beastly performance by Alvin Kamara, another solid outing by Josh McCown (wtf, I know, right?), and decent outings by Derrick Henry and Matt Prater, no one of Griff’s team broke 5.5 points. To Griff’s credit, his waiver wire hero (Jerick McKinnon) was on bye, Jordan Reed was banged up, and Kelvin Benjamin was inactive after being traded to the Bills.
The other thing that can’t be ignored here is how Griff is the fantasy football equivalent of a black widow. With Jameis Winston going down, that’s the 3rd QB Griff has had that’s gotten hurt (Rodgers and Palmer in prior weeks). Will he sell off half his roster again to get a new QB again? Well see. In the meantime, if you want QB to get hurt, send him Griff’s way. Looking at anyone who owns an NFC East QB not named Kirk Cousins.
After finally losing a game that he deserved to lose, Tuna got right back on the lucky win train. The fact that he’s in 2nd place is absurd and complete bullshit. Three years ago he had our buddy Shane draft for him and he’s admitted he’s more concerned about not losing than he is winning. Cmon man…Anyway, Tuna got away with this one thanks to solid performances by Alex Smith (though he threw his first INT of the year), Dak Prescott, Cole Beasley, and Jared Cook. The troubling thing for Tuna is that he continues to get little to nothing on from his running backs. Still not sure why Tuna keeps all 3 QBs instead of trading 1 for better running backs, but he’s 7–2 and I’m not. Really expecting that to come back to bite him in the ass down the stretch.
Next Week: Griff vs. Jackson, Tuna vs.Costas
Derek vs. Ben
Derek came into this week thinking he had this one in the bag. Ben only had 10 healthy players to pick from. This had to be a win for Rick’s squad, right? WRONG. And it wasn’t even close! Derek’s team might be worse than the Browns, 2008 Lions, and 1990 Pats combined. His team has a worse chance of winning than a racecar with square wheels. Other than 2 surprisingly quality performances by CJ Beathard (thanks to a rushing TD) and Blake Bortles, a 37 rush-159 yard day by AP, another strong outing by Legatron, and a decent outing by Dez Bryant, Derek’s team was god awful. Greg Zurelein might be Derek’s best player outside of Tom Brady. Not even joking. Tom Brady has 161.6 points this season.Greg Zurelein has 112. Blake Bortles has 107.5. If that doesn’t put the misery of Derek’s team into perspective, I’m not sure what does. This team might be beyond saving as long as his skill position players continue to throw up massive duds week after week (see: J-Stew, CJ Anderson, and Will Fuller without DeShaun Watson).
Conversely, Ben’s team has gone through an insane revival over the past few weeks. With a few nifty trades, Ben has really been able to reinvent his team well enough to put up 145.4 points with only 10 viable players on his roster. That’s pretty damn impressive. With 4 players on bye and Zach Ertz and Jamison Crowder hurt, Ben had no choice but to gut it out this week. And it worked. Everyone except Allen Hurns (4.6 points) and Graham Gano (9 points) put up over 10 points. Russell Wilson, Robert Woods, and Matt Forte even pitched in 20+. From being a team that was barely able to get its first win 4 weeks ago to a team that can win down 2 men and without Le’Veon Bell, Case Keenum, and James White, Ben’s team has to be the Cinderella story of the year. Not sure who or what happened to get Ben’s team back on track, but it’s definitely caught the attention of the league office and is officially under investigation. You had better throw out all those PEDs and hope you can cycle all the P-Test out of your system before the anti-doping agents show up, Ben. I’m onto you.
Next Week: Derek vs. Colin, Ben vs. Thomas
Costas vs. Shriver
Shriver shook up his roster in a big way this week by trading Jordan Howard for Mike Evans and Michael Crabtree. Well, hate to break the news, but it really didn’t pay off this week. Mike Evans suffered thanks to Jameis Winston’s shoulder injury (and the enter offense sputtering against a weirdly good Saints D) and Michael Crabtree took a backseat in a Beast-Mode fueled offense on Sunday night. The good news for Shriver was that Cam started to look like himself again (86 rush yards, 1TD) and had decent chemistry with Devin Funchess, and Marcus Mariota started to get back on track after his mystery dud against the Browns a few weeks back. The bad news is that Shriver benched Sammy Watkins, who finally managed to hit paydirt again, and has no running back depth AT ALL after trading Jordan Howard away. How was it logical to trade away one of your stud RBs when you only had 3 on the roster? Sounds like something the Browns would do, as is probably one of the many causes for Shriver’s 5 losses in his last 6 games. Keep it up, Shreeves.
I’m not even going to bother acknowledging how good Costas’ team is. Another week, another 170+ point performance for Big Boy. He has Todd Gurley in as a flex for God’s sake. THAT’S NOT HOW THIS IS SUPPOSED TO WORK. And as a sneak preview for this week, he’s projected for 160+. No one else is projected for more than 140. Guess we’re all drafting in Greece this offseason.
Next Week: Costas vs. Tuna, Shriver vs. Aaron
Plummer vs. Thomas
Brutal week for Thomas, who was without Gronk, Antonio Brown, Adam Thielen, and Steven Gostkowski. To add insult to injury, two of the replacements this week (Bennie Fowler and Ed Dickson) dropped goose eggs and only Marshawn Lynch (acquired in a trade with Griff for Josh McCown), Tyron Taylor, and Lamar Miller (acquired much earlier in a separate trade with Griff) broke double digits. Guess Thomas can thank Griff for singlehandedly helping him avoid a complete embarrassment this week. Going forward, things won’t be nearly this bad for T-Mac, though I️ really can’t say I’m confident in his pro-’Skins offense thanks to a multitude of offensive line injuries (currently 3 starters hurt and playing 2 rookies and Orlando Franklin, who we signed 2 weeks ago) and a brutal schedule to close out the year. And that’s coming from a die hard fan.
That’s 2 rough losses i️n a row for T-Mac. Oddly, UF has 2 bad losses in a row, getting outscored 87–23 in their past 2 games vs. UGA and Mizzou. Thomas now sits at 4–5. UF is 3–5, and would’ve been 4–5 if their game vs. Northern Colorado wasn’t cancelled. Is Thomas’ team’s fate directly tied to UF? Wow, maybe. Bummer for T-Mac if true.
How many more times will Zeke get a stay on this god forsaken suspension? Hopefully this is the last one, because I won’t be able to withstand a 160+ point showing from Plum. This week, Plum’s entire team, including his bench, went off. If he had played Ted Ginn instead of Paul Richardson, he would’ve topped 170. It was such a good week that that’s the only thing I can really nitpick. Going forward, Plummer has to love what he has in Jared Goff. The man is on another level right now. How did he go from bumbling rookie idiot last season to one of the better QBs in the NFL this year? Sean McVay. Conveniently, the same reason the ‘Skins offense hasn’t been as good as years past. Funny how that works. The biggest concern for Plummer has to be the production of Kareem Hunt. Still no TDs since Week 3, and had steadily seen his production ween down to 60–70 scrimmage yards per game the last 2 weeks. Teams are begging for Alex Smith to beat them with his arm instead of letting Kareem get loose. As long as Zeke can keep appealing, Plummer has a stable of running backs to cover for Kareem, though. This team takes a huge hit if Zeke’s suspension gets upheld this week, though.
Next Week: Plummer vs. COB, Thomas vs. Ben
Let’s take a look at the standings. Once again, it’s a lonely week at the top for Costas, who is really running away with the league at this point. Tuna shouldn’t be hanging onto the 2nd spot for long, as he runs though a gauntlet (Costas, Aaron, Plummer) over the next 3 weeks. The interesting thing will be to see how Plummer and the other 6–3 teams fare over the next few weeks. There could easily be a very crowded bunch at 7–4 or 8–5.
At the other side of the spectrum is still Derek and Jackson, followed by Shriver and myself, followed by Colin who could easily find himself falling down the standings quickly. Honestly, the race for sacko is way more interesting than the race to the top. It’s like watching that weird British downhill cheese wheel chase. Not actually good, but for some reason, you can’t keep your eyes off of it as you wait for disaster to strike. Derek appears to have an early strangled hold on it, but you never know, as there are still matchups between Jackson, Derek, Colin, and myself in the last few weeks.
That’s all for this week. Tune in next week to see how we all fared in Week 10. Can I️ put together 2 wins in a row? Will Griff injure another QB this week? Will Tuna be able to overcome the beast that is Costas? When the hell will Zeke get suspended for good? Til next time, football fans.
