POWER RANKINGS
It’s been a hot minute since we’ve had some extracurricular activity in the HDL. The HDL Podcast airwaves are silent. Does Medium even still exist? How are we supposed to know who is good and who is bad if the Master of Sarlomonies is working three jobs and moving across the country and the Fun Commissioner refuses to do anything?
Have no fear. My team scored the second highest points last week and that means I’m happy to tell you how awesome I am! In honor of the Ben Simmons joyful reunion, here we go with some Sixers themed tiered power rankings!
TRUST THE PROCESS!
These teams are the Sixers at their lowest. Jahlil Okafor era, if you will. They aren’t trying to win. They’re trying to get to a place where they could try to win. Week 6 showed was a big week for the two worst teams in the league. Calhoun and Sarlo faced off and the loser was likely the winner of the 1.01.
12. SHARKLO (0–6, 12th in points)
Taking advantage of the last chance to draft a division of death, or so the theory goes, Sarlo’s plan is coming together beautifully. This weeks 7 and 9 pose the biggest threat to causing Sarlo to stumble into a victory as he faces off against Head and the-now-selling Chris Black. I’m not gonna look at bye weeks, but maybe they matter to someone in these matchups. We’ll see if Sarlo can pull off the first winless season in HDL history. He won’t be the first person to completely miss on the 1.01 though.
11. CALHOUN (1–5, 11th in points)
Calhoun is building a competitor one 1st round quarterback at a time. AJ Brown, Mark Andrews, Noah Fant, Ja’Marr Chase, and Jerry Jeudy actually aren’t a terrible core. But as has been the story for all 8 years of the league, Calhoun has failed to show that he is willing to make the moves necessary to expedite a quick build.
DON’T CALL ME IGGY
These teams aren’t bad enough for it to be funny and aren’t good enough to be relevant. Remember the ‘Dre years? Me neither, because like you I called him Iggy. But the point remains the same. Some of these teams are doing the equivalent of signing Andrew Bynum while others are closer to realizing they need to throw it all away and make TJ McConnell relevant. But for now, they aren’t going anywhere.
10. ANDREW BARTELL (2–4, 10th in points)
Head made some moves this off-season that I questioned. Trading Ridley for less than Ridley zone prices; trading a young, promising RB for a TE; moving on from Tee Higgins. But at least in the short-term, these have all seemed like the right move. The ATL offense has struggled and Ridley seems to be suffering as the lone WR threat. Dobbins, the aforementioned RB, tore his ACL. And Head moved Kittle, that TE up there, for a future first right before he got hurt. Higgins has battled injuries and while likely still a good fantasy and NFL WR in the long-term, he’s already taking a backseat to rookie Ja’Marr Chase. My biggest doubt for Head is his ability to stick with a rebuilding plan.
9. CHRIS BLACK (3–3, 7th in points)
Tom Brady should probably just be the next Bond. I don’t think the Brits would even be upset about that. While Tom’s performance helped Chris stay competitive in the division, he recently moved two of his top-2 performers in Brandin Cooks and Kareem Hunt. Chris appears to have his eyes on the future now that he has a 2022 1st and half of the 2022 2nds.
8. MIKE ALTBAUM (2–4, 9th in points)
Abaum has some solid building blocks — Lamar, Diggs, and DK — but several of the other pieces that were supposed to help make him a contender are disappointing — JuJu, Jacobs, and Aiyuk. Mike has decided to get off of the James Robinson roller coaster, time will tell how that will fair for him. With no meaningful picks in 2022 or 2023, Mike will need to hope for bounce back years from some of his guys or consider starting over.
7 — DAVE FALCONE (3–3, 6th in ponts)
Falcone’s team is similar to Chris’ in that there are a lot of aging stars here, but Falcone’s team ascended to greater heights and there isn’t as far down the descent. This would probably be a sell year to hasten a quick rebuild, but without his first round pick he seems to lack the motivation. Cruising along, he could upset some teams by beating them and holding on to assets that would be more helpful to teams better suited to make a run.
‘THE ANSWER’ NEEDS SOME HELP
These teams have an outside chance, but their ceiling is probably that of the 00–01 Sixers. They could make a run, build up hope, then get trounced when they face the real dominant teams.
6 — BRETT POULTON (4–2, 4th in points)
Like Mike McDermott, BPou is always hanging around. Unfortunately for BPou, his fantasy football foes don’t eat oreos like morons so it’ll be a little harder to break through. Without draft pick ammunition, I just don’t think Brett has the fire power to make up for the injuries and down years in the trade market. He used his last remaining relevant assets to trade for George Kittle who is now on the IR. Barkley is battling an ankle injury, Dawson Knox just had surgery on his hand, and Alvin Kamara and Robert Tonyan are both battling their own offenses. Like Falcone, BPou could make other peoples lives difficult (it’s what he does best), but ultimately I think he falls short.
5 — DAN MARINO (5–1, 5th in points)
Dan is a nice guy. He’s also the biggest fraud in the league this year and has faced the best schedule so far have the least points scored against him. Outside of Swift, Harris, and Mike Williams, I’m at a loss to understand how this guy got to 5 wins.
4 — DAVE HALLAHAN (3–3, 8th in points)
The haters will say it’s bias. But Hallahan is trotting our 4 of the top 14 RB in the league right now which is covering for his lack of depth at WR. Brandin Cooks is a garbage time beast and should be getting Tyrod back in a game or two.
A little behind the scenes, I spent weeks trying to move Darrell Henderson and Leonard Fournette for second. Meanwhile, Chris and I went back and forth trying to convince the other person to be a buyer. Literally as Chris and I were ironing out the details of the Cooks/Hunt trade, I got a DM from someone willing to give me the second I was looking for in return for Fournette. TOO LATE BITCHES! He’s mine! And so is the 4th over PR spot.
3 — TROY ALTBAUM (4–2, 3rd in points)
A week ago Troy would have been in the next tier, but I’m not so convinced anymore. This week is especially bad given the bye weeks (Mike Davis and RoJo? Oof). But even when bye weeks aren’t killing him, he’s got an aging Julio who has yet to show any real signs of life with his new team, an underperforming Amari Cooper, CMC on IR, Calvin Ridley struggling without someone taking away coverage on the other side, Darrin Waller with a new head coach. He’s still top-3 and maybe as soon as the next couple of weeks will be firmly back in the top tier. But for now, he sits with the rest of us.
DAME AND JOEL
These Sixers have yet to actualized, and may never, but their fantasy football equivalents exist in Billy and Ian’s teams. These are the real contenders.
2. BILLY DAVIS (4–2, 2nd in points)
The loss of Russ is going to hurt, but Kirk Cousins should help keep him afloat at the QB position. Bobby Woods and Tyler Lockett regressing may be the difference between Billy’s team and Ian’s. If those two guys were having the seasons we expected, this would be even closer.
- IAN CROSBY (5–1, 1st in points)
Jonathan Taylor and Derrick Henry are the best RB duo in fantasy football since David Johnson and Le’veon Bell [immediately after typing I thought of Dalvin Cook and CMC, but screw those bums, they weren’t on my team]. Justin Jefferson, Diontae Johnson, and Deebo Samuel all seemed poised to continue at a high level of fantasy production. And this means Ian and New-Mike are poised to win their first legitimate mug.
