A Week Two Push Present
First off, let’s be clear that to set up a 14-week schedule for 14 teams, where every team plays every opponent once, is not fucking easy. If we left it to ESPN, Fredo and I would play every other week while Larry and his intern played guys who forgot to start running backs, or kept Matt Ryan. ESPN sucks like that.
Instead, your Commish developed a system (ie Googled “creating a 14-team fantasy football schedule”) and found some fairly straight-forward resolutions. Unfortunately, the system didn’t offer a ton of variety, so when I created it, it sort of looked like this:
Now, you can say its coincidence, but the Asterik/Carlos/Markezy back-to-back occurs for seven teams this season — read below for why it matters but if you’re jockeying for playoff position and this Juicy Lucy of a schedule is on the backend of the calendar, look out!
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, ok?
Week Two — yes, the second week of the season — is wrapped up. Before you start writing obituaries on any players, before you start confirming that sneaking suspicion of regression with a limited sampling of data, or believing the current Seattle WR1remains a top-three wide receiver in December, take a step back and breath.
We have twelve more weeks of this to go. A lot can change, one injury, or a COVID outbreak in Charlotte, for example, could alter the playoffs like Thanos snapping his fingers.
Rest assured, Week Two mattered, but not because of the obvious regression of Stefon Diggs (ie a low-end WR2) and Derek Henry. It mattered for a lot of big picture items, three of which I’m excited to talk about. (What’s that? There’s four sections below? Yes, that’s right, I said I was excited to talk about three of them — let’s get the abhorrent stuff out of the way first)
The Battle of the Big Stacks
What a curb stomping! Beyond the mutual respect shared between both owners (that is, until Fredo approached doubling me up and then the panties come off and he trash talks), this was a huge win. No, I’m confident Aaron Jones can not be counted on to add four touchdowns per week, or Lamar Jackson dropping 36 each game, or the inevitable Tyler Lockett 40 point game one week after scoring four. Instead, its all about seedings for the playoffs. Fredo not only gets a huge score to make him the prohibitive scoring leader (ie divisional tiebreakers you putz) but also the early season head-to-head tie breaker over a potential division champion on the other side of the bracket.
Its safe to say there are five to six teams considered legitimate contenders. With apologies to Smeet and Mark, it’s the following: Fredo, Larry, Unicorn, the Commish, Garcia, TG, and maybe Coop. Right now, Fredo’s curb stomping means that rather than facing a team with three pre-season RB1s, a top 5 quarterback and two potential WR1s in the first round, he gets the guy praying Graham Gano drops 20+ in Week 15.
Anyone writing obituaries on the 11th best running back of the weekend, or commenting on how two wide receivers on the same team went from 40 to five in a week, are more or less missing the point here. Fredo’s decisive win has a much larger impact come December…
Speaking of Favorites
I’m not here to press the panic button this week for most teams, especially not Garcia’s formidable squad. On paper, a team featuring three pre-season RB1s, two very good wide receivers, and a quarterback averaging 40+ throws per game with a 75% completion rate, there’s a ton to like with Garcia’s roster. In reality, its been a tougher start than anyone would have guessed.
With an exception of the suddenly not regressing Derek Henry’s Week Two, the team has been sort of a letdown, averaging 11th in scoring. Its early, but Garcia’s scoring is only better than a guy running the Ryan/Ridley stack, a guy who traded away King Henry for a low-end WR2, and a guy who forgot to start a running back “because he had a friend in town.” (Hey Carlos, its Week Two; hold off on the roster miscues until at least October.
Garcia is facing the 2–0 Unicorn this week in a big match-up before facing the bottom three in scoring (including two rival match-ups with Markezy and the Asterik!!!). Its completely within reason that Garcia is 3–3 or 4–2 come mid-October before facing a brutal five game schedule. The two early hiccups against — let’s face it — lesser competitors may haunt Garcia in postseason standings. Not only did two potential Ws get thrown away, but the best case postseason scenario may no longer be a top two seed; instead, like the Commish, sneaking in to the playoffs might lead to monster first round match-ups against Fredo or Larry.
FIL & Stabs
Its not often I’ll spend much time discussing either of these guys, especially in a positive light but FIL’s win this weekend was pretty important. Few reasons here…
Let’s be honest that we’d all written FIL off as recently as just now minutes ago, but his wide receiver play is nothing short of stellar. Deebo Samuel and Brandin Cooks are averaging 46.5 points per week. By comparison, the Tyreek/Amari stack is averaging 45.7 through two weeks and Fredo’s Keenan Allen/Tyler Lockett stack is at 49.8. All of this is obviously just through two weeks with monster games from some of players skewing numbers, but the point is FIL’s wide receivers (plus Cincy’s top WR Ja’maar Chase at Flex) is pretty damn good.
Throw that WR threeway in with Patrick Mahomes and the foundation for a competitive team is there. While we can all agree RoJo isn’t the answer and Damian Harris needs to perform, FIL’s a sneaky low seed playoff team (Also, please note this isn’t an advertisement for he and I to trade; if I had any faith he read this, maybe it would be.)
FIL’s had two back-to-back good weeks scoring, right around 133 points, and his win over Stabs was pretty important for him. His next four are all potentially winnable (Galen/Smeet/Mark/Unicorn) and before he gets the newly-crowned LB6 Push Present, Asterik/Carlos/Markezy trifecta three straight weeks. By Week Nine, FIL could be 6–3 (or even better). You know what gets you in the playoffs? Seven wins…
I Forgot About Stabs!
If the Asterik/Carlos/Markezy trifecta back-to-back-to-back on your schedule is now the LB6 Push Present, what should you call the Commish/Fredo/Tito Galen back-to-back schedule? What’s worse, what’s it called if you’re 0–2 beforehand? (I’d call it “The Back of a Volkswagen” but that’s a mouthful)
Stabs was unfairly panned for the Chubb trade but he’d still be winless even with the elite running back, ultimately selling off now instead of three weeks ago where essentially lit the league-wide powder keg that led to the term missionary fantasy football (Still right, btw). Now, he gets three of the best teams in the league and, if he wins two, that would be shocking. In reality, he wins this weekend and heads in to Week Six 1–4, undoubtedly loses to Smeet despite the unbelievably undefeated PDR scoring a paltry 76 points, and Stabs quickly organizes a fire sale.
Unfortunately for Stabs, the LB6 Push Present doesn’t show up until Week Nine, and is he still holding out hope to snag the eighth seed before Fredo brutalizes him like its Trenton State Penitentiary in the first round of the playoffs?
Sorry to disappoint, but all this talk about push presents and Volkswagens makes me want to end this quick write-up (“Quick” referring to 1,200 words about a fake football league — you bitches are spoiled). Week Three is right around the corner and will undoubtedly lead to many more outrageous claims next Monday, for which I am truly excited. Good game to all of you, except the Asterik of course.