We are now over 1/3 the way through the fantasy season so I want to take this time to give a 30,000 foot view of where things stand thus far in both leagues. And if you don’t like it…you can get out.
Dynasty League
- Standings
Remarkably, 70% of the league is .500 or above. It’s nearly impossible to explain that except Linkage and Slick are doing wonderful work to provide teams with wins. It’s truly a thankless job to sit down and grant wins to the rest of the league but a round of applause to those who have the guts to do so. This is dynasty so their chance will come around again.
Down With ODB, and FSociety are leading the way with wins. The most remarkable thing to note is teams that play ODB apparently get snake bit (or voodoo cursed…) and score a ridiculously small amount of points. There is currently a 31.4 point gap between Nik’s 97.4 average points against vs. FSociety’s next lowest score of 128.8. That’s insane. Like straight jacket insane. Like carve symbols into your forehead insane. 3 of the 6 wins have come against the lowest score of the week. ODB’s luck will eventually run out because it’s fantasy and it always does, but dating back to last season ODB is on a 10 game winning streak including playoffs. This week he trounced Evil Corp 159.70-84.58. Evil Corp’s line up is full of boom or bust talents that all busted on him which resulted in the 3rd lowest point total of the season, and once again pitted ODB against the low score of the week. Drew Brees at home is a point producing machine and Odell Beckham Jr. had a career day and combined they earned just 6 points less than Evil Corp’s roster.
Evil Corp just couldn’t get out of the blocks. The majority of the starting line up scored single digits, and only Deandre Hopkins could muster a score over 15 points. Ryan Tannehill, while winning against Pittsburgh, only scored 10 fantasy points. Mark Ingram isn’t performing well in favorable match ups and needs to remember how to run the ball effectively, same with Carlos Hyde (though to be fair he was playing against the Bills who have an amaze-balls defense….for now). There was no where to turn for Evil Corp. No one on the bench really out performed the starting lineup in a meaningful way. Tyrod’s Tailor takes on ODB next week and Evil Corp will take on the rudderless (and as seen above winless) Home Run Darby.
There were loads of close matches this week but the closest was Archer’s FSociety squeaking out a victory from Dud’s Studs 118.74-116.28. Dud did the absolute best he could but just fell short. He could also send hate male to Coby Fleenor for stealing a Willie Snead touchdown pass vs. Carolina. The true critical error Dud made was benching LaGarrette Blount who scored 15 points on the bench. Subbing him in for Bilal Powell would have put this game out of reach for FSociety. Powell is a hard one to read now. Forte has fallen back to Earth and should give Powell more touches, but the Jets blow and the door is open for Geno Smith to take over for Fitztragic. The Jets bad season is about to potentially get worse even though the schedule will be getting easier in the coming weeks. This should force you to take a wait and see approach to all Jets talent players except Brandon Marshall who should still be relevant even though the Jets aren’t.
FSociety had to have been holding their breath every time Powell was given the ball on Monday night. Just one or two good runs would have put this game into the L column for them. The only things they could have done better would have been to put in Golden Tate and his 32.80 points which was good enough for 8th overall score for the week. There’s not much else you can say about FSociety’s team. They are consistent, and they put down opponents come hell or high water. They ride a two game winning streak into week 7 where they take on Direwolves who can run up the score. Dud moves on to a tough match up with Keenan & Kelce.
The D League
It’s funny….the overall analysis for the D League could be James Walkered from the Dynasty league. There’s a 6-0 team in Dud’s Studs, followed by 6 other .500 or above teams, and then 3 teams gifting wins to the league. One is truly a gift in that there’s a team very concerned with the Breast Cancer awareness movement who has 4 more games to forfeit before he will become a challenge to those aiming for the playoffs. Dud, who believes I ignore him in the fantasy article to make him angry, has been doing what is necessary to get wins. Only once has he obliterated an opponent (which oddly enough was against Boobs who was zeroed out so it looks even cooler!) otherwise he has been winning close ones by 2 points or 10 points. A win is a win and so far lady luck has kept pulling on his coat tails to keep him in the win column. He is once again favored to win this week but you never know with those bye weeks who will be ready to play.
Poor Brady’s Deflated Balls also remains winless alongside the Boobless wonder. It’s somewhat amusing that Archer is both on the top and the bottom of our leagues. It’s the fickle nature of fantasy. Joining him in the bottom third of the standings is A Gurley Has No Name but they are on the way up with a victory last week in the closest match in the league. He edged out Liquor Box by a score of 145.58-141.42. It’s hard to point to exactly where these two teams differed. Both employed New England Patriots who went off on Sunday (White for Gurley, Gronk for Box), Box even had Golden Tate in their lineup but to no avail. What did Box in was a shockingly efficient score from Andy Dalton of 21.86 points. Otherwise these two teams were neck and neck all weekend long.
Melvin Gordon has been fantasy gold this season scoring all those TDs that eluded him last season but this week he came up short and didn’t find pay dirt. With a TD he would have lifted Liquor Box to a victory without question. There will be more TDs in his future and he is making up for lost time but he’s been an ineffective runner thus far. It’s been hiding under the guise of high scores from touchdowns, but Gordon might have been exposed this Sunday. Liquor Box moves on to a tough challenge taking on the #1 team Dud’s Studs, while Gurley will do battle with Brady’s Deflated Balls.
I could go into great detail about how I not only defeated The Hooded Genius in Dynasty but also registered the largest blow out of the week in the against him in the D League, too. I could, but that would seem like gloating. And I’m sure you all agree I don’t need to feed my ego anymore than I already do. Instead I’ll recap the second biggest blow out which featured a 25 point win by Dud to remain undefeated as he took down I’m the Juggernaught.
Looking up and down the score card, it’s basically an even split. Juggernaught edged him out at QB, WR3, and RB2 but once you get to the end of the matchup and have Dud trouncing at the 2 Flex spots, kicker, and Defense there wasn’t anything else that could be done. These two even matched up the shocking haymakers of the weekend at RB. Dud registered the 34.20 of LeSean McCoy, and he was canceled out by David Johnson with 34.80.
Dud also had the advantage on the bench with Matt Ryan sitting in lieu of Big Ben who ended up hurting his knee and has now been ruled out for next week’s game against the Patriots. Filthy cheaters! Injuring opponents before they even get through their previous game! As mentioned above, Dud takes on Liquor Box and Juggernaught gets a free win. I wonder if he’ll put just 1 or 2 players in the lineup…
Injuries
As previously mentioned, Big Ben is out for the moment with a bum knee he sustained against Miami. The surgery is done and it was just a clean up procedure. Had it been reconstructed he would have been done for the year. Landry Jones is his back up and it’s rough to think he can be as efficient as Ben can be or even be remotely well. The Pats will take away Antonio Brown and force the Steelers to try to gash them on the ground with Bell. Just think about that for a second…The Pats are going to force the Steelers to use Le’Veon Bell, the same guy who reached 3000 yards rushing and 1500 yards catching faster than anyone else in NFL history, to try to make the Steelers one dimensional. Hope they are up to that task.
More RB injuries this week with Eddie Lacy reported to miss multiple weeks with a knee injury. Carlos Hyde was in and out of the game in Buffalo with a shoulder injury. If this seems like a small section for injuries it is…but only because all the other RBs were already injured. These are just the stragglers that haven’t caught up yet. Good god it sucks to be a running back in the NFL!
Key injuries to wide receivers include Odell Beckham Jr and his hip pointer that almost kept him out for the last drive on Sunday. The Broncos Emanuel Sanders is also dealing with a hip injury but was able to practice on Tuesday. For those Bills fans who have stashed Robert Woods, he was seen in a walking boot after the 49ers game. Keep your ears out for updates on him. Eddie Royal also hit the injury report for Chicago with a toe injury. With a quick turn around for Thursday you might not have him available. Terrelle Pryor of Cleveland is currently working through a hamstring injury, as is Colts receiver Phillip Dorsett. Coming off the bye week, Stephon Diggs finds his way to the injury report with a groin injury. Keep an eye on that. Those suckers linger. As was reported multiple times by blog commenters, Eric Decker is done for 2016 after undergoing surgery but again there’s not much worth picking up on the Jets right now.
In the wide world of concussions, Jordan Reed appears to be making his way back to the field for Sunday which is good news because no matter who you subbed for him they scored 20 points fewer than he would have. And if for some reason you had Devante Adams in your roster plans for this week he is still in the concussion protocol and didn’t practice Tuesday. If you’re stuck, you may want to try to trade or look on the waiver wire to unstick yourself.
I will do another league update around week 11 or so and one more as we hit the playoffs. Until next week remember: ain’t no party like a Genover party cuz a Genover party don’t stop!
“Stop being so mean to me!” -Geno probably
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