Fantasy League 2013 -- week 3 recap

This weekend was a beautiful slate of horrible football games: There were no upsets in college football’s top 25 and only six pro-football games decided by less than a TD. Here’s a quick recap of the most embarrassing beat-downs:

** Ohio State 76, Florida A/M 0
-- The Buckeyes led 34-0 at the end of the first quarter. A/M had 80 yards of offense, just four more than OSU had points.

** Louisville 72, Florida Intl 0
-- Florida Intl only had 30 yards of offense in this one. Louisville’s fourth-string RB had 33 yards himself.

** Miami 77, Savannah St 7
-- Miami had all their scoring in the first three quarters and never punted the ball. Savannah State had seven punts and eight first downs.

** Panthers 38, Giants 0
-- HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa Eli stinks. He’s still on pace for 43 INTs this year. The Giants could be 2-6 at the halfway point of the season, and the wins are only likely because they play the Eagles twice.

QB: Drew Brees, 37.78 pts -- started by Ant
WR: Antonio Brown, 34.65 pts -- started by Jeff
RB: DeMarco Murray, 28.37 pts -- started by Jeff
TE: Jimmy Graham, 29.93 pts -- started by Dad
K: Justin Tucker, 14.00 pts -- started by Dad
DEF: Carolina, 28.00 pts -- on the wire
D: Justin Houston, 19.50 pts -- on the wire

Another week, another Eagles opponent on the top performers list. Chiefs LB Justin Houston collected 4.5 sacks, seven total tackles, three pass defenses and one forced fumble in the Thursday night game. He’s never had more than 10 sacks in a season, and he already has 7.5 through three games this year.

“New York, New York” edition

3rd place: Louis Murphy, -0.47 pts -- on the wire
2nd place: New York Giants, -1.00 pts -- on the wire
1st place: Curtis Painter, -1.36 pts -- on the wire

HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa Eli stinks. The Giants defense is worth zero pts on the year, just slightly behind the 66 pts the Kansas City defense has accumulated so far (both are unowned in the league, though). The 38-0 loss by the G-men was the worst defeat of Tom Coughlin’s career, and Giants only totaled 150 yards of offense.

Worse still, they’re two games behind in the NFC East standings and two game behind in the New York standings, now that the Jets are 2-1. Raise your hand if you thought the lowly Jersey Jets would be the better of the Big Apple squads. Now put your hand down and admit that you’re a pathological liar.


** On the Sunday morning Fox pre-game show, injury-addled Terry Bradshaw predicted the Packers could have trouble with the Bengals because of their running backs, “BenJarvis Ben Ellis” and “the other guy.” Because names of players aren’t the kind of thing you can look up.

** Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins on Sunday wrote that restrictions on college athletes getting payouts “contains about as much justice and reason as stoning women for losing their virginity.” Don’t worry -- in context, it made even less sense.

** The ESPN halftime crew was reviewing the Tennessee-Florida tilt and focused in on a first-half interception by Florida QB Jeff Driskel that was returned for a TD. They spoke for three minutes about the team’s trouble with turnovers before mentioning that Driskel broke his leg on the play, and is out for the season. Might have been a problem worth discussing.

After a 2-14 season last year, the Chiefs are 3-0 this year for only the second time in the last decade, thanks to their portly new coach and his innovative (no, too strong) not-sucky play calling. Is this the same man we saw drive the once-proud Eagles franchise into the ground less than a year ago? Here’s a look at what has changed:

** Improved offense: Yes, they’re only 12th in the league in scoring. But that’s way up from being 32nd in the league last season. Reid doesn’t need to make them into a great offense to be better, only a average one.

** Soft schedule: They’re beaten the Jaguars (worst team in all of football) and two NFC East teams (worst conference in all of football). Granted, Reid couldn’t beat bad teams last year, but he’s not exactly facing the 1985 Bears every week.

** It’s still the regular season: I mean, if the Chiefs had to play in the conference championship game every week, they’d probably be 0-3. But in the regular season, big fat Andy still remembers how to coach.

** Mike Vick: Mike Vick does not play for the Chiefs. Immediately, that adds about eight wins to whatever team you’re coaching.

Cowboys third-year wideout Dwayne Harris made the first start of his career on Sunday, and punctuated the occasion with the second TD grab of his career. And then he punctured some guys lungs, probably, because all of the Dallas players are awful humans.

How do I know? You know the answer.

Dwayne Harris
-- Way harder sin
-- Disarray hewn
-- A randy wisher
-- His drear yawn
-- War’s hairy end

I’d say it’s surprising how often the words “sin” and “disarray” and “war” come up in these anagrams, but it’s not.

** Dad swept our picks this week, so I suddenly went from one up to two down. Ugh. No one was more upset about the Bengals upset of the Packers than me. OK, maybe the Packers. And their fans. And Aaron Rodgers’ Mom. But besides that, no one.

** The Eagles are still in second place. And next week, even if the Eagles lost to Denver (a certainty), they’ll still be in second place, because the Giants and Maryland Racial Slurs are 0-3 and without a division victory. Gawd, the NFC East is terrible this year.

Week 3 standings

1 -- I Mildly Like WRs (Paul) -- 468.75 pts
2 -- Blue Collar Killers (Jeff) -- 451.07 pts
3 -- the american way (Sam) -- 440.64 pts
4 -- Sheldon Cooper (Dad) -- 436.58 pts
5 -- III-time Champion (Capt. Awesome) -- 427.78 pts
6 -- Gettin' Chippy (Jo) -- 411.27 pts
7 -- Cheatstrong (ChampMike) -- 399.49 pts
8 -- The Maltese Falcons (Bob) -- 367.90 pts
9 -- Bad like Congress (Jim) -- 366.21 pts
10 -- Show Me Your TDs (Ant) -- 325.29 pts
11 -- Timmy and The Jets (Joel) -- 315.13 pts

Huge week for Jeff propels him up near the top of the standings, but Paul still appears comfortable in his perch up there. On the other end, Anthony is out of the basement finally and primed to make a run at the top ... of the bottom half of the standings.

But, it could be worse. You could be the New York Giants. HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa Eli stinks.

Fantasy League 2013 -- week 2 recap

On Thursday night, when the Eagles square off against the Kansas City Chiefs and former head coach Andy Reid, they’ll honor former all-Pro QB Donovan McNabb by retiring his jersey at halftime. Naturally, Philadelphia fans began booing the duo's return starting first thing Monday morning.

It’s hard to imagine any scenario that could unjustifiably enrage the Eagles’ faithful fans more than the return of the two polarizing figures, but just this week the team announced a few more ceremonial wrinkles that could up the ante:

** Master of ceremonies for the event will be Terrell Owens.
** Instead of shaking hands with ownership, McNabb will throw a short pass into their shins, for old times’ sake.
** Special introductory video by CBs Dieon Sanders and Ronde Barber.
** A tribute video will feature scenes of fans booing the 1999 draft, followed by fans booing the fans who booed the 1999 draft.
** Saluting from the sidelines will be McNabb’s favorite targets: WRs Torrance Small, James Thrash, Todd Pinkston, Freddie Mitchell, Greg Lewis, Charles Johnson, Reggie Brown, Hank Baskett and Na Brown.
** With one minute left in the halftime ceremony, the Eagles will inexplicably call a timeout.
** McNabb will graciously thank the crowd, thereby enraging them.


QB: Aaron Rodgers, 42.90 pts -- started by me
WR: Eddie Royal, 31.10 pts -- on the wire
RB: Marshawn Lynch, 33.27 pts -- started by me
TE: Jimmy Graham, 27.93 pts -- started by Dad
K: Nick Novak, 18.00 pts -- on the wire
DEF: Seattle, 29.00 pts -- on the wire
D: Alterraun Verner, 12.00 pts -- on the wire

Always great to see two Eagles opponents on the top performers list. Ugh.

On a more positive note, this week marked a great turnaround Alterraun Verner, the Titans CB who recorded five tackles and an INT returned for a TD this week. Prior to joining the Titans, he was a background villain in the last Star Trek movie. (Alterraun Verner? That is Klingon, right?)


3rd place: Kendall Hunter, -0.70 pts -- on the wire
2nd place: Perrish Cox, -0.96 pts -- on the wire
1st place: New York Giants, -4.00 pts -- on the wire

All these terrible scores are making me feel a little Perrish...

After two games, the New York Giants have allowed a spectacular 77 points, worst in the league. But division rival Maryland Racial Slurs are a mere six points behind them, and have actually surrendered 270 more yards to opponents than the G-men. The Slurs are the first team in the league to surrender 1,000 yards of offense this season, an impressive feat. So, the race to the bottom of the NFC East could be a fun one to watch.


** During the Michigan/Akron game (which featured the stupidest officiating I saw this week), the Wolverines followed a 50-yard run with an incomplete 30-yard pass. The Big Ten commentators noted that “Michigan likes to follow up a big play with another big play.” As opposed to teams like Penn State and Wisconsin, whose strategy is to follow up big plays with kneel-downs or turnovers, I guess.

** The local sports talk shows on Monday IDed the Maryland Racial Slurs key problem -- the team isn’t converting third downs. Not that they’ve surrendered 1,000 yards of offense and turned the ball over five times in two games. It’s the third-down conversion rate.

** Somewhere, right now, Matt Millen is still talking about football, and that’s just stupid.

Lost in the disaster of the Giants second embarrassing defeat of the season Sunday was a quiet but significant milestone: QB Eli Manning threw his 150th interception (and 151st just a few minutes later). That’s the most in the NFL over the last nine years, but he’ll have to step up his game significantly to reach Brett Favre’s NFL leading 337 INTs (or his brother’s 206, so far).

Still, he does have an outside shot at breaking the single season record of 42 INTs, set by George Blanda in 1962. With 7 pick-offs in just two games, Eli is on pace for a whopping 56 this year. And he has looked up to the task thus far.

He has also been sacked four times in those two games. Factor that in with a completion percentage around 60, and his penchant for getting frustrated after consecutive incompletions, and his 91 pass attempts so far … Eli is on pace for a whopping 232 dopey face grunts this year, potentially shattering his record 187 dopey face contortions from just one season ago.

That’s a real pro, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s all root for his success in this endeavour.

I don’t know Cowboys rookie Gavin Escobar, but I know he loved being drafted by the self aggrandizing Dallas franchise, because he’s an egomaniac like the rest of those wretched souls. How do I know this? His name, of course.

Dallas Cowboys TE Gavin Escobar
** Crabby clown loves a stage. Adios!

Oh, that’s so forced, you say. You’re forcing messages about his personality by manipulating letters, you say. My response:

Gavin Escobar
** A novice brags

OK, he's arrogant. But how do we know he belongs on Dallas? Is he really evil Cowboys material?
Yeah, you know where this is going:

Gavin Escobar
** A scrag bovine

It’s not coincidence. It’s destiny.

** Dad picked up two games in the weekly picks, thanks to Pittsburgh’s awful Monday night and the Bills’ confounding win on Sunday. He’s one game back in the standings so far.

** That Delaware/Navy game … let’s never speak of it again, OK?

** NBC has had two weather delays in the three NFL games it has broadcast thus far. Think God is pissed they had that stupid Ryan Seacrest intro thing to launch the season on a Thursday night? Me too.


Week 2 standings

1 --- I Mildly Like WRs (Paul) --- 321.79
2 --- Sheldon Cooper (Dad) --- 320.61
3 --- the american way (Sam) --- 315.88
4 --- III-time Champion (Capt. Awesome) --- 300.60
5 --- Bad like Congress (Jim) --- 291.13
6 --- Blue Collar Killers (Jeff) --- 280.38
7 --- Gettin' Chippy (Jo) --- 268.22
8 --- Cheatstrong (ChampMike) --- 267.21
9 --- The Maltese Falcons (Bob) --- 263.69
10 --- Timmy and The Jets (Joel) --- 242.36
11 --- Show Me Your TDs (Ant) --- 224.33

Dad closed the gap with Paul for first place, while Sam is close behi … wait, Sam is up top again? I gotta fix this league next year.

Mike becomes the first coach to see his team score under 100 pts for the week (99.64, but it’s still under) which has to be a crushing disappointment for him. Then again, after you make the decision to start a WR named Kenbrell, all the world becomes a disappointment to you.

Fantasy League 2013 -- Week 1 recap

EXCLUSIVE: Eagles coach Chip Kelly sat down with us today to discuss his successful coaching debut and expectations for the rest of the season. Here’s the full transcript:

Q: Coach, congrats on your big win Monday night. You must be thrilled. CK:YouBetchaThatWasAGreatWinForOurGuysICoudn’tBeProuder
LookingForwardToGettingBackOutThereNextWeek.

Q: Um, OK. A lot has been made about how fast your new offense is, and that was really on display this week. But is it really sustainable for the whole year? CK:ShootOurOffenseAintNoQuickerThanAnyOtherGoodTeamOut
ThereWeJustExecutedWellAndStuckWithOurPlanAndIHopeWe
CanDoThatAllYearLong.

Q: What about QB Mike Vick? He’s had injury problems. Can he sustain this kind of tempo week after week? 
CK: Nah. He’ll probably be dead after three games. No biggie.

Q: And what about your defensive lapses in the second half. One of the big problems… CK:SorryYour20SecondsAreUpIGottaGoThanks!

For the record, during the interview Kelly also finished reading “War and Peace” and completed his tax returns for next year.

QB: Peyton Manning, 60.28 pts -- started by Dad
WR: Anquan Boldin, 32.87 pts -- on Sam’s bench
RB: Adrian Peterson, 33.00 pts -- started by Paul
TE: Jared Cook, 26.40 pts -- started by Joel
K: Greg Zuerlein, 14.00 pts -- started by Jim
DEF: Kansas City, 31.00 pts -- on the wire
D: Barry Church, 13.50 pts -- on the wire

Manning’s seven-TD performance on Thursday night was the greatest single-fantasy player day in league history (besting the 57.53-pt performance by Mike Vick back in 2010). He’s the sixth QB to throw that many scores in a game, but he’s the first ever to do it on a special Thursday night edition of Sunday night football, because words have no meaning anymore.

Incidentally, Peyton’s younger, dopier brother Eli was the second highest-scoring QB this week, with 36.80 points (despite four INTs and a terrible loss). Together, the Super Manning Bros outscored Tom Brady, Russell Wilson, Tony Romo, Ben Roethlisberger, Cam Newton and Josh Freeman combined. And they also beat Kevin Kolb by almost 100 points.

3rd place: Marquise Goodwin, -1.00 -- on the wire
2nd place: Trumaine McBride , -2.00 pts -- on the wire
1st place: David Wilson, -2.10 pts -- started by Jo

It’s hard to have a worse debut than Wilson, who managed two fumbles and a measly 19 yards in the opener. On the plus side, he plays in New York, and those fans and sportswriters are known for patience when it comes to their pro athletes. FYI, WR Terrell Owens, who refuses to retire despite no interest from NFL teams, scored zero points this week.

We’re gonna try a different format here this year -- shorter, less analysis of the stupidity -- because, honestly, thinking about these things in depth is causing my brain to atrophy. And we’re already over our brain surgery limit for the year here at Fort Awesome. So, here’s what killed off frontal lobe cells this week:

 ** The local radio folks, every day at 2:59 pm, announce that “we’re about to hit R-G-Three’o’clock.” Because Griffin is so good, he has reinvented how we identify time.

** Matt Millen is still working as a color commentator for college football. Every word that comes out of his mouth that isn’t “I put the only 0-16 team in NFL history together!” is an affront to human decency.

 ** The local paper keeps referring to the Washington Natinals “dwindling” and “vanishing” playoff chances. They’re seven games out with 17 left to play. They’re done. Stop it.

 ** Sports Illustrated has a feature story this week titled “How to beat Bama” with eight steps to upsetting the college juggernaut. 1, 2, and 3 were all “challenge their secondary.” Steps 4, 5, and 6 were “stop their RBs, WRs, and offensive line.” Step 8 was “make it to the fourth quarter.” Step 9, presumably, was “win the game.” It’s simple when you think about it.

 ** All offseason, the NFL execs said they would be more focused on player safety this season. So what do we get the first week? Four safeties, the most ever recorded in a single NFL weekend. Coincidence?

 ** Patriots TE Aaron Hernandez, currently in jail for murder, was ranked 2003 out of 2756 players in Yahoo’s fantasy pre-draft rankings. That means they think that, from prison, there are still 753 players who will score fewer points than him. One of those was free agent QB Tim Tebow, ranked 2755. Why won’t the NFL let him play?

 ** The New York Jets won a game this week. That has to be rigged, right?

The Cowboys selected Wisconsin standout Travis Frederick in the first round this spring, not because they needed a new center, but because all those vowels make him perfect for the weekly anagram insults. Consider:

Travis Frederick
** Decaf river skirt
** Fever-rid sick rat
** Iced fart iks Rev
** Faster driver? Ick
** Verdict: fare risk
** Riveted car frisk
** Starve Rick? Fired.

I don’t know who Rick is, but it’s just unconscionable for the new guy to starve him and he should have been fired for it. He’ll fit right in with these godless bums.

** It’s only one week into the season and I’m three games up on Dad in our weekly picks. The only game I missed this week was the Chiefs over the Jaguars, because I assumed Andy Reid’s QB would throw up all over their field when they arrive in south Florida. I guess it was just the one guy who had that problem.

 ** For the record, in my other league (which involves money) I had to play the guy who started Peyton Manning. And I crushed him anyways. That’s good coaching right there.

 ** Delaware beat Delaware State on Saturday. Next up is Navy, so this is the one weekend a year you can root for the US military to lose.

Week 1 standings

1 -- I Mildly Like WRs (Paul) -- 183.31
2 -- Cheatstrong (ChampMike) -- 167.57
3 -- Bad like Congress (Jim) -- 155.60
4 -- the american way (Sam) -- 150.59
5 -- Sheldon Cooper (Dad) -- 148.39
6 -- III-time Champion (Capt. Awesome) -- 145.79
7 -- Gettin' Chippy (Jo) -- 138.65
8 -- Timmy and The Jets (Joel) -- 138.18
9 -- The Maltese Falcons (Bobert) -- 121.14
10 -- Blue Collar Killers (Jeff) -- 115.10
11 -- Show Me Your TDs (Ant) -- 105.32

Big props to Paul, not just for his monster opening week but also for his team name change (‘I mildly like WRs’ is great internal comedy).

And even though Ant is all the way at the other end of the scale, even he topped 100 pts this week, which is the first time in league history we have everyone in triple figures in a single week (probably. I’m not going back to check that for accuracy.) So that’s a big round of applause for everyone.

But mostly just for Paul, because he’s in the lead.

Fantasy League 2013 -- preseason predictions

The teams are set, the season is ready to begin, and your fates have already been decided. Here’s how the 2013 fantasy season is going to play out.

11 -- Show me your TDs (Ant)
Projected Points: 1864.55
Analysis: Ant wins the best new team name of the year, hands down, but gets ranked dead last because he picked up Tony Romo. Sure, he has two great RBs and four, count ‘em, four WRs to back Drew Brees, but don’t let logic get in the way of rooting for his Romo-laden squad to fail.

10 -- Gettin' Chippy (Jo)
Projected Points: 1999.29
Analysis: Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it, but sadly even a history major couldn’t prevent Joanner from ending up with Mike Vick on her squad again. On the plus side, she did win the LeSean McCoy/David Akers sweepstakes. And the last time she drafted Tom Brady, he broke his leg in the first game of the season. So...

9 -- Bad like Congress (Jim)
Projected Points: 2001.03
Analysis: Jim’s starting TE this year is Rob Housler. I have no idea who that is. He does have Eli Manning and Victor Cruz, and I know who they are. And I’ll be rooting for their failure every week too.

8 -- Blue Collar Killers (Jeff)
Projected Points: 2079.56
Analysis: Jeff’s team looks good on paper, but sadly for him, we’ve been doing this league on computers since day one. A Detroit QB? A Denver running back? A first round WR? The answer to that Jeopardy entry is “what are three things that never work out in fantasy football.”

7 -- Kickers Rule (Sam)
Projected Points: 2106.41
Analysis: It doesn’t really matter who Sam drafts, because he only knows who the Patriots players are (and even then, he really just knows Tom Brady and former New Englander Wes Welker). Still, relying on Cam Newtown and Jamaal Charles -- the newest RB to be ruined by coach Andy Reid -- is a recipe for disaster.

6 -- I heart WRs (Paul)
Projected Points: 2146.77
Analysis: Paul’s top two running backs are all-time legend Adrian Peterson and Giovani Bernard, someone who none of you knew was even in the league. He snagged QB Andrew Luck for the second year in a row, but his WR corps is only five deep. That’s not very loving, if you ask me.

5 -- Timmy and the Jets (Joel)
Projected Points: 2147.77
Analysis: Joel finished a strong fifth last year and will follow up that success with … stagnation. Larry Fitzgerald? Stevan Ridley? Golden Tate? Darren Sproles? Meh. Even his team name feels a year old. Hey, what ever happened to that Tebow guy? I hardly ever hear him mentioned on ESPN nowadays.

4 -- Sheldon Cooper (Dad)
Projected Points: 2200.08
Analysis: Don’t worry -- I don’t really think Dad will finish this high. I just ran out of room at the bottom to rank his team. Dad ended up with no Eagles (which is good), no NFC East rivals (which is good) and Peyton Manning/Arian Foster/Jimmy Graham (which is great). As long as he doesn’t look any deeper at his team (Jonathan Stewart is still in the league?) he should be fine.

3 -- III-time Champion
Projected Points: 2321.21
Analysis: Ugh. I’ve grabbed Marshawn Lynch and Aaron Rodgers, and I still don’t like this team. It’s mostly WR T.Y. Hilton. You don’t win championships with guys who have initials for names. Just ask T.O., or T.J. Houshmandzadeh, or J.R. Montana.

2 -- Cheatstrong (ChampMike)
Projected Points: 2486.41
Analysis: You can’t coach good coaching, and that’s what Mike brings to the table again this year. That, and three solid WRs, three solid RBs and QB Russell Wilson. Seriously, his worst starter got 128 pts last year, because he was hurt for six games. This could be a bloodbath.

1 -- The Maltese Falcons (Bobert)
Projected Points: 2501.33
Analysis: Maybe it’s the magic of Robert Griffin III (you can never have too many IIIs on your team), maybe it’s his deep RB pool, maybe it’s just my attempt to jinx Bob yet again, but this feels like a winning squad. Of course, Bob’s attempt to class up the joint with his team name is an ill-fated endeavor. If he really wants to win, he should switch over to Vick in a Box immediately. The football gods are pretty crude.

Good luck to everyone on the season (except Anthony, he’s already sunk) and remember that the first game comes on Thursday. If you can’t get your lineup set by then, that’s a coaching problem, not a league failing.