Fantasy league 2018 -- week 14 recap

Quick quiz — what do the following 12 NFL teams have in common?
** Broncos, Colts, Eagles, Falcons, Giants, Packers, Panthers, Patriots, Rams, Ravens, Seahawks, Steelers

If you guessed “they were all smart enough not to sign Mark Sanchez this year”, well, you are correct. But more to the point, this is the full list of teams that have played in at least two Super Bowls in the last 20 years. (The Panthers are the only squad on here not to win one).

Now, a follow up question: what do the following seven NFL teams have in common?
** Bills, Bengals, Browns, Cowboys, Lions, Chiefs, Maryland Racial Slurs

That would be the full list of teams that have won two or fewer playoff games over the last two decades. It’s worth noting that the Houston Texas, who have only been in existence for 16 years, already have three playoff wins over that span.

Just wanted to give a friendly reminder to all as we wind towards the inevitable “Cowboys back on top of football” headlines that Dallas (2-8 in the playoffs since 1997) hasn’t been a relevant franchise for the NFL since Ezekiel Elliott was in diapers. Congrats on winning a weak division. See you on the golf course in mid-January, instead of your usual first week in January.

QB: Tom Brady, 32.62 pts — started by Mike
WR: Amari Cooper, 37.47 pts — started by Joel
RB: Derrick Henry, 47.80 pts — on Ant’s bench
TE: George Kittle, 23.50 pts — started by Paul
K: Michael Badgley, 17.00 pts — on the wire
DEF: Chicago, 27.00 pts — started by Jim
D:Bashaud Breeland, 11.00 pts — on the wire

In all honesty, I have never heard of Michael Badgley before this moment.

The big question this week was how did Ant fail to start Derrick Henry in the biggest fantasy performance of the year (238 rushing yards, 4 TDs)? The answer is because Derrick Henry stinks. His game last Thursday represents one-third of his rushing yds for the season (712), one-third of his fantasy pts for the year (135.72) and almost half of his TDs for the season (9). So, yeah, that one was difficult to see coming.


“Awful QBs” edition

3rd place: Jared Goff, -0.30 pts — on Jim’s bench
2nd place: Kyle Lauletta, -2.20 pts — on the wire
1st place: Mark Sanchez, -2.48 pts — on the wire

Dear gawd. Lauletta threw a pick in mop up work, so he is forgiven. Goff threw four INTs in prime time against a great Bears defense, and will have nightmares about that as we head into the playoffs.

But Mark Sanchez? He outshined the competition, as usual. He posted a dreadful 10.7 QB rating after his 6 of 14, 38 yds and 2 INTs performance in the Giants’ blowout win over the Maryland Racial Slurs. Not only did you have a better QB rating than him on Sunday (0 of 1, no yds equals a 39.6 rating), his QB rating was twice as high if you calculate him as playing for the Giants (2 of 14, 27 yds, 1 TD and 4 INTs equals a 23.8 rating).

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a truly awful game.

** Headline in Bleacher Report this week: “Heisman Trophy Cements Kyler Murray as Greatest 2-Sport Athlete Since Bo Jackson.” A few things ...

1 — Bo Jackson played 694 games in MLB and 38 in the NFL. Murray has played zero MLB games and zero NFL games.

2 — Deion Sanders played most of his games in the two sports after Bo Jackson. So you’re saying that Murray, who again has played zero games in either professional league, is already better than Sanders, the only person ever to play in a World Series and a Super Bowl.

3 — Charlie Ward won the 1993 Heisman trophy (that’s after Jackson, again) and then played 10 years in the NBA. But maybe Bleacher Report doesn’t believe basketball is a sport?

4 — I understand Murray has had a great collegiate football and baseball career, and the Heisman trophy sets him apart from a lot of other great college athletes. You know who else played baseball and football in college? Seahawks QB Russell Wilson. So you’re saying that Murray is already a greater athlete than Wilson.

But other than that, good headline.

** At halftime of the Eagles/Cowboys game, during their halftime yakfest, Fox flashed up a “breaking news” banner across the bottom of the screen followed by this announcement: “Saints defeat Buccaneers 28-14 to clinch NFC South.”

I get that the “breaking news” banner is overused by all networks, and a game result from two hours earlier can kind of count as new information for a football crowd. But, less than 90 seconds earlier, they showed game highlights from that matchup. Which is the point of the halftime show. So unless you’re prepared to label every highlight “breaking news,” there’s no point for that banner.

** On the Tony Kornheiser podcast, ESPN walking head Michael Wilbon rated the Bears 15-6 win over the Rams on Sunday (the one where Goff threw those four picks) as “one of the greatest games in Chicago history since 1985” because “Chicago loves defense … we don’t enjoy these 54 to 51 games.”

Correction: Everyone loves 54-51 games. Even in basketball. Watching a combined seven interceptions isn’t great football, it’s a complete mess.

Things that can’t be true but are:

** Tom Brady is 7-10 lifetime in games played in Miami. The Dolphins have only had six winning seasons since Brady entered the league.

** With three weeks left in the season, 16 players have already passed 1,000 receiving yards. Last year, only 15 did it for the entire season. In 2016, it was 25 players.

** The Arizona Cardinals have nearly 600 more punting yds on the season (3739) than offensive yds (3151). They’re also only 29 pts away from being doubled up on the season (178 pts scored, 327 pts allowed).

** Drew Brees, who has five of the league’s eight all-time highest single season passing totals, may not finish in the top 10 of passing yds this year (currently 10th, three yards ahead of 11th place).

** The Niners, Cardinals, Bills, Jets and Jaguars have been eliminated from playoff contention. Somehow the 4-9 Falcons have not. The Eagles still have a 10 percent chance of a wild card berth.


The Eagles embarrassing overtime loss to the Cowboys all but seals up the division title for the bad guys, a disappointing result after last year’s remarkable Philly football season. But, given that the inevitable will probably happen next week, we might as well roll the anagram dice and mentally prepare ourselves for the pain and torment:

Dallas Cowboys win pathetic NFC East race
** Fans wince: Bad play, tactic hole, the worst case

I thought about doing an anagram for “Dallas post-season success” but amazingly that hasn’t spelled anything coherent in about 20 years...
** Another week, another dropped game to Dad. I’m 12 back on the year and will be lucky to close that to double digits before the regular season runs out.

** So, hey … the Phillies are looking kind of exciting...

Week 14 standings

1 — For Who? For Wentz? (Ant), 1912.09 pts
2 — Carson's Chime Choir (Paul), 1843.73 pts
3 — Nick 'MVP' Foles (Capt. Awesome), 1748.71 pts
4 — Kneel Armstrong (Sam), 1738.49 pts
5 — Philly Special (Jo), 1692.74 pts
6 — The Garoppolo Gamble (Joel), 1682.20 pts
7 — Witch Hunting (Jim), 1605.84 pts
8 — We Love the Mud (Mom D), 1604.41 pts
9 — Kiss A Fish Today (Dad), 1475.01 pts
10 — Last Exit 2 Kutztown (Bob), 1471.68 pts
11 — SweatpantsEnthusiast (Mike), 1441.82 pts
12 — Blue Collar Killers (Jeff), 1351.29 pts

Only one change in the standings this week: Bob and Dad swapped spot. Never has the race for 9th place been so hard fought.

Ant picked up a few more points on Paul and me this week, while my squad and Joanna’s team both continued to slip further back from our mid-season highes. Six teams have realistic shots at topping the 2000-pts mark by the end of the year, which may be a league record, but I’m not gonna bother to check until we get closer to the end.

And if we all benched our rosters but let Jeff play for three more weeks, he likely would not make it into the top half of the standings.

We finally made it! This week marks the final Thursday night game of the season. After that, the only mid-week football will be ridiculous bowl games. So get your rosters set now so you can bid Joe Buck’s Thursday ramblings a proper farewell.