Fantasy league 2017 -- week 6 recap

After six weeks of play, here’s the top contenders in the NFC:

5 — LA Rams, 4-2: The surprising leader of the NFC West, the Rams will still have to hold off a strong challenge from the Seahawks to win the division.

4 — Green Bay Packers, 4-2: This team was the odds on favorite to get to the conference championship before QB Aaron Rodgers had his collarbone forcibly removed Sunday.

3 — Minnesota Vikings, 4-2: They’ve weathered their own QB injuries and now own the tiebreaker over the division-rival Packers.

2 — Carolina Panthers, 4-2: QB Cam Newton looks like he’s returning to MVP form, and they’re clearly better than every other NFC team except the one that beat them last week.

1 — Philadelphia Eagles, 5-1: What now?

Huh?

Really?

Not only are they tops in the conference right now, if they beat the Maryland Racial Slurs next Monday night, they’ll have at least a three-game lead in the NFC East.

Yeah, I’m worried too. Feels like it’s going too well.

QB: Kirk Cousins, 32.30 pts — started by Sam
WR: Antonio Brown, 20.33 pts — started by Jim
RB: Melvin Gordon, 29.27 pts — started by Joel
TE: Rob Gronkowski, 20.53 pts — started by Dad
K: Ryan Succop, 21.00 pts — started by Dad
DEF: New Orleans, 32.00 pts — on the wire
D: Lavonte David, 19.50 pts — on the wire

Coming into Sunday, the New Orleans defense had scored 33 fantasy pts in its first four games. Against the Lions, they returned three of five turnovers for touchdowns and recorded five sacks. Because, football.

Cousins and Marcus Mariota were the only winning QBs this week to pass for more than 300 yds. Meanwhile, nine RBs topped 100 yds rushing, and eight of them won their games. Don’t tell me it’s just a passing league.


“Mostly TEs” edition

3rd place: Niles Paul, -0.10 pts — on the wire
2nd place: Fozzy Whittaker, -0.30 pts — on the wire
1st place: Maxx Williams, -1.10 pts — on the wire

It’s the rare week where none of the defenses scored negative points. Detroit lost 52-38, but three of those Saints touchdowns were defensive scores, and they had INT return TD and a punt return TD to score a respectable 17 fantasy pts. Not bad for a team that, as I mentioned, surrendered 7+7+7+7+7+7+7+3 actual points this week.

On the “bad but not quite bad enough” scale, three starting QBs — Brian Hoyer, Jameis Winston and Aaron Rodgers — combined to score 4.52 pts this week. Rodgers broke his collarbone and Winston was also injured, so that’s their excuse. Hoyer got benched for incompetence, and his backup nearly pulled off an upset on Sunday. Twice this year he has scored more than 25 fantasy pts in a game, and three times he has scored fewer than 4 fantasy pts. In the business, we call that “inconsistent.”


** During Thursday night’s special edition of Thursday night football, CBS announcer listed his keys to the game for the Eagles defense. Among them was “eye discipline,” described as “they really need to watch how plays develop and where the ball is going.”

So, they need to play defense. Got it.

** My favorite headline of the weekend, from ESPN: “Rumor Central: Jorge Velandia in contention for Phillies' managerial job?”

I’m confused. Are you asking me if that’s a rumor? Why the question mark? Either it should say “Velandia in contention for the job?” or “Rumor: Velandia in contention for the job.” Or “Who the hell is Jorge Velandia?” But don’t make me wonder if it’s a real rumor.

** My new favorite commercial is the Bud Light one where they make fun of craft beers, showing mugs of weird-colored liquids with umbrellas and other zany add-ons. “Some beers have a lot of ingredients,” they announce. “Ours has four: barley, rice, water and hops.”

Or, to put it another way, “our beer has the legal minimum requirements to be called beer. Buy it!”

Actual tickets for sale for this weekend’s NFL games:

** Jaguars at Colts, Section 609 — $10 per seat
Three teams are tied at 3-3 for the lead in the AFC South, making this game potentially crucial to the playoff hunt. But that doesn’t mean it will be exciting to watch.

** Patriots at Falcons, Section 132 — $1830 per seat
Remember the huge New England comeback in last year’s Super Bowl? Want to relive it again up close, but without any of the same gravity of the moment? For the price of a used car, you can!

** Racial Slurs at Eagles, standing room — $86 per seat
The cheapest seats available for this week 1 NFC East rematch aren’t seats at all. You’ll have to dish out triple digits after taxes and fees to not sit and watch the game.

** Saints at Packers, Section 740S — $125 per seat
A pair of tickets to see the Packers play without Aaron Rodgers will cost you as much as one round-trip ticket from New Orleans to Milwaukee.

** Titans at Browns, Section 539 — $10 per seat
A 3-3 Tennessee team versus the worst squad of the last 10 years? Honestly, this is probably overpriced.

The big news out of the Cowboys bye week was a court ruling (OK, that’s not that unusual) that upheld the suspension of running back Ezekiel Elliott. So he’ll sit on the sideline for the next six weeks, barring another court intervention … which happened Tuesday night. So now he’s playing again. Unless another court overturns that. (Checks NFL.com). No, not yet? OK, lets try and move ahead.

Why is Dallas fighting this so hard? It’s pretty obvious once you look at it:

Ezekiel Elliott serves six-game suspension
** Loser exits, liege sees zip. Vile team sunk, son!

The Cowboys are only 2-3 with Elliot this year, so maybe an absence will help the team. After all, the Giants got better by losing Odell Beckham last week.

** I picked up another game on Dad in our weekly showdown, putting me up five after six weeks. There’s no greater indictment on how screwy this season is than me having a comfortable lead over him, since he usually trounces me by double digits by the end of the year.

** Phillies run from 2007-2011: Five division titles, one World Series win, 6-4 playoff series record.

Natinals run from 2012-2017: Four division titles, zero World Series wins, 0-4 playoff series record.

But, yes, please keep telling me what a winning organization they are now.

** Boy, it seems like a really long time between Eagles games.

Week 6 standings

1 — Gronky Tonk Man (Joel), 742.47 pts
2 — For Who? For Wentz? (Ant), 708.41 pts
3 — Foles me Wentz (Capt. Awesome), 703.48 pts
4 — Animal Crackers (Mom D), 668.68 pts
5 — ThePigskin Predators (Dad), 615.46 pts
6 — Foles v. Sproles (Jo), 612.94 pts
7 — Dat CTE Lyfe (Sam), 600.58 pts
8 — Cosby's Sleepers (Mike), 579.92 pts
9 — Tiny Trump Gloves (Jim), 577.60 pts
10 — Blue Collar Killers (Jeff), 555.85 pts
11 — SmartyPants on Fire (Paul), 530.07 pts
12 — Last Exit 2 Kutztown (Bob), 527.98 pts

A huge week from my team throws me into third place, a huge week from Dad’s squad throws him into fifth, a huge week from Sam’s team pulls him up into seventh. Basically, the odd numbers are where all the cool kids are at this week.

Meanwhile, Joel is starting to pull away. We’ve only had back-to-back championships once in the 15 previous years of this league, and that was just in 2015. Let’s not let it happen again so quickly.