Fantasy league 2015 -- week 4 recap

Around 3pm on Sunday, as the Eagles struggled down in Maryland and the Phillies got ready to start their final contest of the year, a large bird flying above Citizens Bank Park was killed by a batting practice ball and fell onto the field below, delaying the start of the baseball game.

This almost seems too easy to deal with in this column, but I feel like it’s my civic duty to plow ahead and get the predictable responses out of the way:

** The bird appeared to be a hawk, not an eagle. The dead Eagles were found all over the football field down in Maryland.
** That’s the first outfield fly the Phillies have killed in a while.
** No truth to early reports that Chip Kelly immediately signed the downed bird as his newest running back.
** If a bird dies in an empty stadium, does it make a sound?
** It’s worth noting that in all the news coverage, no one pitied the bird, and many Philly sports writers were openly jealous of its fate.
** Still not the worst collapse in a local sports stadium this year.

Rest in peace, dear fowl. You really are the mascot we needed for October.

QB: Philip Rivers, 32.22 pts -- started by Mike
WR: Tavon Austin, 23.40 pts -- on the wire
RB: Devonta Freeman, 32,70 pts -- started by Dad
TE: Martellus Bennett, 17.53 pts -- started by me
K: Cairo Santos, 27.00 pts -- on the wire
DEF: Atlanta, 22.00 pts -- on the wire
D: Josh Norman, 13.50 pts -- on the wire

So … yeah, not a great week for us. You could have fielded a team that totaled 211 points with just the top available guys on the wire. Meanwhile, we had seven teams fail to break 100 pts this week. We kinda looked like the Eagles out there, folks.


“Players we started” edition

3rd place: Ryan Matthews, 0.00 pts -- started by Mike
2nd place: Houston, -4.00 pts -- started by Paul
1st place: Kansas City, -6.00 pts -- started by me

One week after we had our first lowest-score-possible of the year, we have our first idiot coach who started a defense that bottomed out. Thanks a bunch, big fat Andy Reid. I needed your defense for exactly one week while mine was on a bye, and you cost me a touchdown worth of scoring. Good to see you’re still there to let me down.

There were actually a bunch of different players on our teams that scored zero pts, but Ryan Matthews gets the nod here, because, dammit, Eagles. Just dammit.


** I love me some fantasy football predictions, and RantSports.com doesn’t disappoint, with a weekly feature of “15 players you can safely drop” which higlights complete duds from all over the league. Their week 4 highlights, as of Saturday night? Doug Martin (21.57 pts on Sunday), Rashad Jennings (14.40 pts), C.J. Spiller (16.10 pts), Teddy Bridgewater (17.06 pts), and Brandon Weeden (16.34 pts). But other than getting 1/3rd of their “complete failures” completely wrong, it was a solid list.

** After watching Cowboys QB Brandon Weeden get sacked in the Sunday night game, NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth noted that the problem was “when you go backwards as a quarterback, you have to step up and throw. So that’s a problem.” Which means … something, I’m sure.

Vegas released their updated betting lines for this season’s Super Bowl Champion. And while the top two are predictable (Patriots and Packers at 7-2 odds), the rest of the list is … interesting. Consider:

** The Giants are the top team in the NFC East at 33-1 odds. The Cowboys (who beat the Giants) are 35-1. And the Maryland Racial Slurs, who have the same record as those two, are 100-1. Meanwhile, the Eagles are 35-1, despite effectively being two games down on all those teams in the worst division in football.

** The Jaguars, who nearly beat the Colts on Sunday, have the worst odds in the league at 500-1. The Colts, who beat the Jags in overtime thanks to three missed Jacksonville field goals, have 25 times better odds, at 20-1.

** The Bears are 300-1. Would anyone even put a dollar down on them at those odds? Unless it’s over 1,000-1, I can’t see spending a nickel on that wretched team.

** The Panthers, who are 4-0, are 33-1 odds. And it’s just weird to have two teams with odd numbers like that in the list.

** The Buccaneers are 400-1, and I honestly had forgot they were still playing.


A lot of the focus on the Cowboys since Dez Bryant’s injury has centered on whether the other wide receivers on the team will be able to pick up the slack. If the question is whether they’ll be able to pick up the evil slack, the answer is “yes, clearly, they are all Satan’s spawn.” We’re gonna spend the next few weeks looking at the rest of the receiving corps, starting with this sterling pair:

Dallas Cowboys wideout Cole Beasley
** A occult odyssey, so a bewailed bellow

So evil…

Cowboys WR Lucky Whitehead
** Sow debauchery thickly. Wow.

So evil...


** Dad and I split our picks this week, which is fine because I picked Dallas on Sunday night and was very happy to be wrong. We’re tied for the year at 43-20, which is a good enough record that we should be putting real money on this.

** The baseball playoffs are this week, so here’s a reminder who you can root for: The Astros, the Pirates, maybe the Royals, and the Dodgers if Jimmy and Chase do awesome and the rest of the team flails. If the World Series ends up Yankees and Mets again, you’re not allowed to have any more baseball ever.

Week 4 standings

1 -- Lake Weed Monsters (Dad) -- 550.44 pts
2 -- king hippo (Sam) -- 530.25 pts
3 -- Gettin' Chippy (Jo) -- 511.17 pts
4 -- Blue Collar Killers (Jeff) -- 488.97 pts
5 -- Cosby's Sleepers (Mike) -- 460.57 pts
6 -- Clinton's Email (Jim) -- 456.78 pts
7 -- 1.21 Chip-a-watts (Ant) -- 455.11 pts
8 -- Bethlehem Moravians (Bob) -- 445.00 pts
9 -- Yelp for help (Mom Doyle) -- 428.58
10 -- Eat Drink & D Murray (Capt Awesome) -- 396.99 pts
11 -- Heap Big Chief Reid (Joel) -- 383.13 pts
12 -- May Pay Attention (Paul) -- 357.17 pts

Prior Awesome Cup champions Dad and Sam are still in the lead, but Joanna has made a serious move up the charts in recent weeks (and posted the highest score this week, 127.60 pts, albeit the lowest highest score I think we’ve ever had).

We’re starting to see a gap forming around the bottom half of the standings, separating the contenders from the NFC East contenders. The season is already one-quarter over, folks. Time to get a move on.