Good day my HardCorps managers. I haven’t written in a bit, I could have sworn I did a Week 5 recap and skipped 6 but alas here we are, I’m doing a Week 7. Apart from Bennet’s monster 153 point game, it was a relatively quiet scoring week with only 4 people breaking 100 points, and a whopping 5 not even making it to 90. In real football, Detroit took down one of the last 2 undefeated teams. Patrick Mahomes for some gods-forsaken reason is still the favorite to win league MVP despite not being in the top ten for ANY QB statistical category. Meanwhile the Detroit Lions have more TD’s over the last four weeks than Jared Goff has incompletions. Another fun fact, going into this week’s games, the top four teams in point differential (points scored minus points allowed) were: 1. Detroit 2. Minnesota 3. Green Bay 4. Chicago. Yes, that’s the entire NFC North in the top 4 slots. This division is nasty. I had my hopes Chicago was going to continue to suck, and Minnesota was going to Sam Darnold it up, but I guess they figured their shit out, and now it’s going to be a brawl to win that division.
Let's do some game breakdowns:
Brown Eye v Captain Checkdown
Once again, WHS goes to Brown Eye dropping 153 on the board. Has anyone else even won a weekly high score? Jason had a bad case of premature ejaculation. He blew his wad in the early Sunday games and had nothing left after that. Not that it was a BAD outing with 92 points, but even if Bennet had quit after the Sunday early games he would still have won after accumulating 106 points with just 5 players before the 4 o’clock games even started. Brown Eye still had Scary Terry, Pat Friermuth, Marvin Harrison Jr, and Kareem Hunt to go. Just adding insult to injury with 47 unnecessary points. Jason is having a rough go of it this year, and can possibly already be considered out of the playoff race. When all was said and done, this week’s high score was also the biggest blow out. Bennet winning by 60 was nearly as much as JJ scored in total (69). Ooof that means if he had scored just 9 points more, Bennet could have beaten JJ and Jason COMBINED this week. That’s a helluva game Brown Eye Bennet.
Berserkers v Motown Maruaders
In a patricidal stroke of good fortune, Berserkers FINALLY tallies a W with his own father being on the receiving end. Coming off a week in which Motown posted a whopping 156 (I think that is good for the best game of the season), Larry fell victim to reliving past glory and forgot he needed to score points THIS week also. Or perhaps he underestimated Lowly Lance coming in with zero wins. Either way the Berserkers finally found a rhythm to the tune of 107 points. Berserkers had a great showing from Amon Ra, and Brock Bowers seems to be falling into a nice rhythm with double digit performances each of the last three weeks. Josh Allen did meet his projections, but let’s be honest, even when he falls short, he’s still putting up more points than most QBs. On the flip side, CJ Stroud was utterly disappointing for Motown, and he had to deal with a combined 8.9 points from Reed, Worthy, and Mostert. Hard to come back from something like that. Sometimes you’re the hammer, and sometimes you’re the nail it seems.
Heavy Betty v Chubbers Out
OK I’ve gotta get Dave on the board for being in the recap. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but despite constant slightly above average weeks, Heavy Betty continues to stack Ws. It seems that when people play him, they decide to just lay down and die as if they have already lost! To date Dave has 40 points less scored against him than the next closest contender in that category (the next one being his opponent this week, JJ). This isn’t to say he doesn’t have a good team and he has 2 weeks of 120+ points (Lamar Jackson has been beast mode this year), but the fantasy gods have been kind and every week he comes out on top. Even last week a mere 26 hundredths of a point gave him the win. But, in Fantasy Football, the schedule gods often determine outcomes more than the roster gods! As of now he his playing in the best division and is handily in the lead. That playoff spot is getting close to being secured. Can he keep up this pace for another few games?
Well folks I know it seems crazy, but we are officially halfway through the regular season!!! 7 more games remain, and the playoff picture is still clear as mud. Apart from Dave and Geoff sitting on 6-1, the rest of the playoff spots are up for grabs, and even theirs aren’t guaranteed. Either Drew or Steve is likely to make it in for the Thor division considering it has the two worst teams. Dave has 3 four-win teams champing at the bit to take the guaranteed spot for the Odin division. Geoff meanwhile only has Missy with four wins in Freya, but Motown has 3 wins and a strong team and isn’t looking to roll over after winning it all last year. Chubber has 2 wins and isn’t completely out, but he has the least amount of PF in the league, and that’s never a good sign when you’re looking to turn the season around (I should know, I’ve been there... multiple times). Geoff seems to have taken offense at being the biggest blowout in the opening game of this season, because he hasn’t lost since. I didn’t write about it last week, but had Travis not decided to get a last-minute win (quite literally), we would have had 7 teams sitting at 3-3 going in to this week. Those same 7 are now either 3-4 or 4-3. That to me says the league is at max parity. Sure, every season has teams that somehow get shit on like Jason this year who has reclaimed the title of most PA (by more than 50 points) and those teams that either get really lucky or just have legitimately dominant teams that stay at the top, but the 70% in the middle is an all-out brawl, and every win matters. If we keep this up, the last few weeks are going to be very exciting (and nerve wracking). It’s worth noting that the only two teams with more than 800 points scored against them are the two 1-6 teams. In Jason’s case it wouldn’t really have mattered because he doesn’t have a lot of PF either, but in Lance’s case, he has the 4th most PF in the league, and it took him up to this week before he got a win. All this to say: this league is very competitive, and I appreciate all you folks do to stay in it and keep your team in the mix.
ODIN: ODIN needed Bennet’s big game to remain in the lead Total- 2976.32
THOR: Thor opened the season in the lead … and has sucked ever since. Total- 2858.14
FREYA: Since I haven’t reported in a while, Freya may have briefly overtaken the lead in the interim, but not this week. They trail by 17 due to Bennet! Total- 2959.74
Final thoughts: I’m still trying to figure out a way to ensure those that don’t make the playoffs have an incentive to win the consolation bracket. I’m also considering a plan to allow some teams a “franchise tag” this will be the ability to keep ONE additional player on their roster from the current year in addition to the regularly contracted players. In a dynasty league, I think this is a better way to bring up the bad teams than draft order. Any thoughts? I’m not sure how I want to do it, but we’re halfway through the season, and I want to start the conversation. Since if everyone agrees, I wouldn’t mind implementing it this season. Either way, there is definitely going to be a new way to determine draft order this year, and it won’t involve choosing where you pick (too much of a pain).
i sent my proposal via email. however, i will go with the masses. i dont think i like the franchise tag going into effect this year but will consider it as a possibility in future years. keep thinking son it will pop into your head.