Fantasy league 2021 -- week 17 recap

Was Sunday a perfect football day for Philadelphia fans? Consider the following:

** The Eagles won.

** The Cowboys, Giants, and Nameless Maryland team all lost.

** The Eagles clinched a playoff berth.

** The Cowboys lost a chance at a first-round playoff bye.

** The Dolphins lost and missed out on the playoffs, improving their first-round draft pick (which the Eagles have via trade).

** The Colts lost and may miss out on the playoffs, improving their first-round draft pick (which the Eagles have via trade).

** The Vikings lost. I don’t have anything against Minnesota, but it feels like every time the Vikings lose, it’s good news for the Eagles.

** Nick Foles’ team won (it was the Bears, but still.).

** JJ Arcega-Whiteside didn’t do anything to infuriate the Philly fan base.

Not sure what more you could ask for out of a regular-season Sunday. Onto the postseason!

QB: Joe Burrow, 42.84 pts — on Mom D’s bench
WR: Ja'Marr Chase, 41.23 pts — started by Jo
RB: Rashaad Penny, 31.00 pts — started by Mike
TE: Noah Fant, 15.13 pts — started by Jeff
K: Jason Myers, 18.50 pts — on the wire
DEF: Chicago, 28.00 pts — started by Ant
D: Chuck Clark, 13.50 pts — on the wire

Everyone went gaga over Chase this week and his “big numbers” (11 catches, 266 yds, 3 TDs). But first off, it was only the seventh best WR fantasy performance of all time — not even top five, mind you — and, second, it wasn’t even the best WR performance of the weekend. That belonged to Ohio State’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who had 15 catches for 347 yds and 3 TDs in the Rose Bowl. That would have been good for 48.63 fantasy pts if we were playing fantasy college Bowl football, which I’ll try to remember to start next year.

Just checked to make sure that Myers' score was correct, and he did indeed have three FGs, six XPs and a tackle to end up with a non-round number. I was really hoping he had 37 tackles and no FGs.

Not for nothing, but Burrow has averaged 37.1 pts over the last four weeks, best of any player in all of fantasy. Giants QB Mike Glennon has only totaled 29.36 pts over that same span. In Glennon’s defense, however, Burrow is good, and Glennon is not.

“Players who are not good” edition

3rd place: Jalen Reagor, -0.16 pts — on Ant’s bench
2nd place: Ty Montgomery, -0.40 pts — on the wire
1st place: Mike Glennon, -5.24 pts — on the wire

Told you Glennon wasn’t good.

Glennon’s performance on Sunday wasn’t among the top 10 bad fantasy starts in NFL history, but it was close. He completed four passes in 11 tries for a whopping 24 yds, no TDs and two interceptions. He also fumbled twice. That works out to a 5.3 QB rating, which is 7.5 times worse than the 39.6 QB rating you got by dropping the remote off the couch on Sunday (1 attempt, zero completions, zero turnovers).

Special shoutout to Reagor here, who managed to be a disappointment even when everything else went right for the Eagles this weekend.


** ESPN had a story this week about the 15 Pro Football Hall of Fame finalists that included this line about S LeRoy Butler: “Butler, who is the only player to have at least 20 sacks and 20 interceptions in his career, is the only first-team selection to the All Decade team of the 1990s who has not been enshrined.”

How dare you, ESPN? In the season of “The Awesome Cup Championship #20 brought to you by NFL Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, the greatest safety of all time,” you have the nerve to forget his 37 career interceptions and 26 career sacks? Is this all a sick joke to you?

The story was updated a day later — to omit that phrase, not to mention Dawkins’ greatness — but the damage to ESPN’s reputation and to the national psyche was already done.

** On the Bill Simmons podcast this week, NFL Network’s Peter Schrager was discussing the Cardinals late-season collapse and said he sees a lack of leadership on the team. “If you watched the sidelines, the only guy getting in people’s faces was S Budda Baker, and I don’t know if you can rely on a safety to be the team’s leader like that.”

How dare you, Schrager? In the season of “The Awesome Cup Championship #20 brought to you by NFL Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, the greatest safety of all time,” you have the nerve to forget his inspirational words and emotional leadership of the Eagles throughout his Hall of Fame career? Is this all a sick joke to you?

Maybe if we all watched a little less of shirtless Antonio Brown and a little more Dawkins highlights, the country would be less lost and more united.

** Just before Christmas, in a quiet press release, the folks at EA Sports announced that they would add two new legends to the Madden 22 video game update list: Hall of Fame S Brian Dawkins, the greatest safety of all time, and … Dallas QB Tony Romo.

How dare you, EA Sports? In the season of “The Awesome Cup Championship #20 brought to you by NFL Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, the greatest safety of all time,” you have the nerve to pair him up with a two-bit, non-playoff-winning hack like Romo? His name anagrams to “toy moron,” for the love of gawd. You know what Brian Dawkins anagrams to? “Brian Dawkins,” which translates in English as “champion and hero to the downtrodden.”

If EA Sports had any decency, they’d pair Dawkins with S Brian Dawkins, because his only peer is himself.
 

Legendary football coach/broadcaster/video game designer John Madden passed away last week just as I posted this weekly column, and I couldn’t pass up a chance for a quick tribute to one of the most colorful folks to ever grace the NFL. Any game he announced was appointment television, not just for the depth of insight he had for the game, but also for the Yogi-Berra-ish quotes that came out of them because he talked so much. 

Here’s a quick sampling of some of the best as an admiring remembrance:

** When your arm gets hit, the ball is not going to go where you want it to.

** When you're playing good football, it's good football and if you don't have good football, then you're not really playing good football.

** If this team doesn't put points on the board I don't see how they can win.

** I always used to tell my players that we are here to win! And you know what? When you don’t win, you lose.

** The offensive linemen are the biggest men on the field, they're bigger than everybody else, and that's what makes them the biggest men on the field.

** Here's a guy who when he runs, he moves faster.

** If you win a Super Bowl before you're fired, you're a genius, and everyone listens to you. But a coach is just a guy whose best class in grammar school was recess and whose best class in high school was P.E. I never thought I was anything but a guy whose best class was P.E.

** I told my dad, I'm going to drop a couple [sports] because I want to get a job to make some money. My dad said, ‘Don't work. Once you start work, you're going to have to work the rest of your life.’ I continued to play, and I have never worked a day in my life. I went from player to coach to a broadcaster, and I am the luckiest guy in the world.


Five Cowboys were named to the Pro Bowl last month, and since I’ve already done anagrams for four of them, it seemed only fitting to get the fifth one in before the end of the season. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s learn a little more about Bryan Anger (or “Ran by Anger” as his teammates like to call him) through the secrets hidden in his name:

Cowboys P Bryan Anger
** A worn, crybaby sponge
** A crabby, wry peon song
** A ropy, granny cobwebs
** A wrong baby, once spry
** A scabby, new porn orgy

If you were expecting me to work “anger” into any of those, how dare you. That kind of simplicity is beneath both me and “Gray Banner” up there.

** I swept Dad in our picks for the week, putting me up five heading into the final weekend of the season. I’d like to personally thank the Browns for rolling over and playing dead in Pittsburgh on Monday night, as they have been prone to do over the last few decades.

** No, I don’t think it’s suspicious that half of the Eagles team tested positive for covid just a few hours after they clinched a playoff spot and not a few hours before when it might have jeopardized their season, why do you ask?

** There are going to be a lot of single-season records broken next week because of the extra game added this year, and you should remember that most of them are bogus. However, if TJ Watt can break the single season sack mark next week (he’s only one behind), it should be celebrated forever because Michael Strahan only has that record because Brett Farve decided to lay down and give it to him.


Week 17 standings

1 — QB Carousel (Jo), 2,276.92 pts
2 — Honey Bunches of Goats (Jonathan), 2,210.82 pts
3 — This Is Fine (Bob), 2,034.70 pts
4 — Ouch! It Hurts (Mom D), 2,015.10 pts
5 — Murder Hornets (Mike), 1,993.04 pts
6 — Blue Collar Killers (Jeff). 1,926.13 pts
7 — Kneel Armstrong (Sam), 1,905.57 pts
8 — Came and Wentz (Capt Awesome), 1,904.35 pts
9 — Not That Four Seasons (Ant), 1,823.02 pts
10 — Patriots Secret Cam (Joel), 1,811.03 pts
11 — It's All Hurts (Dad), 1,796.17 pts
12 — Clever Team Name (Paul), 1,286.17 pts

Huge, huge week for Mike, who posted 177.57 pts — the most of any team in a single week this season. That vaults him into the fight for the final podium spot just as we enter the final week of the season.

However, it looks like only that third-place medal is up for grabs. Joanna had a mere 165 pts — the fifth highest total of any single week, and her fourth week in a row over 150 pts — to widen the gap between her team and newbie Jonathan. He has more than 66 pts to make up in the final week if he wants to make my pre-season prediction of a first-year championship true. If not, he’s sleeping in the shed.

Speaking of the championship, we’re almost there. Just one weekend left, and only two more days of regular season football are ahead. Saturday has two games, all the rest are on Sunday. Figure out who is sitting (all the Eagles) and who is filling in (hello, Garner Mishnew) and adjust your rosters accordingly one last time.