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| Kevin Jairaj - USA TODAY Sports COMING NEXT WEEK: Updated All-Time WRBL Scoring Leaderboards |
Bro...
In case it wasn't already obvious, there have been some changes going into the eighth official season of our fantasy football league that has been around in some iteration since the early 2010s at least (though I'm sure Nick would argue otherwise). First, the formatting on these weekly blog posts needed a bit of a less eye-violating layout and though I'm sure this is still font overload, I really don't care! fonts are fun! It's the small things, man! In addition to that, I'm now leading off with a slightly neutered weekly recap/preview section (AKA: This "Bro..." section that I'm so glad you have currently decided to read). It's always easiest to put a whole big story together the first couple of weeks when everybody's odds seem to link up to the same general 12.5% chance at winning. As the middle of the season hits (picture Halloween through WRBL playoff time), things just go off the rails a bit and with the NBA season starting, MLB season ending and college football heating up with inter-conference play, my interests wane a bit and it becomes harder to continually trash the 0-8 Noah Bakunowicz team as he faces 6-2 Darrin Aschebrook. There's little hype for all that, unlike the hype we might feel now after one week of fairly even play with the new roster of team owners.
Oh yeah, we went through a major overhaul this offseason for a variety of reasons nobody truly comprehends to this day. There's no serious bad blood as far as I'm concerned but, we have had to replace the two remaining members of the Dougherty/Aschebrook clan and our cabin living Tyler Sneen and his Sneen Machine. It especially sucks to see Sneen leave since he's been a member of the league since the pre-official, blog-recap seasons of Bro-dom. Replacing Tyler Sneen is Gabe Stoltz (Why is Gabe specifically replacing Sneen? WHO CAN SAY!?), Gabe is a fantasy guru that secretly inspired me to snag RB James Robinson off waivers after the 2020 NFL preseason and despite having eyes and a brain of my own, I sort of feel like I owe him the credit for that playoff appearance since he confirmed all my personal pro-Robinson biases at the time. Since graduating a year after literally all seven of the other owners in this league, Gabe has gone on to become the Milwaukee Bucks' beat reporter for brewhoop, a subsidiary of SB Nation. In conclusion, dude knows his shit and we should all fear him unless he gets distracted by one of his other long-term leagues that he probably takes my role of recapping weekly in some alternate universe (we don't believe in remaining monogamous to just the Bro League since 7/8 of us lose every year and must make up for that with our side-hustles).
After losing Scott Aschebrook to a last-place finish that caused him to scheme another league all together since I guess the former champion couldn't hang, it was only a matter of time before Ryan and Darrin left since they're kin to Scott and I'm sure they can stick to whatever commitments they've made to some familial fantasy football league better than they can commit to this league considering how geographically spread out everyone is now. God bless Cole Walters for reuniting us with two of our other former classmates in Jaime Sparkes and Brett Weinfurter. I have no idea what Sparky has been up to but, I'm sure he and Alec will have an epic rivalry this season to decide who exactly the Best Dad Ever is. Sparky is a sports fanatic whose fantasy football acumen I am unfamiliar with but, I look forward to studying so that I may swipe his players and low-ball him in trade offers until he tires of us and leaves as quickly as he agreed to sign up. Brett Weinfurter and I go way back to the early days at Lincoln High where I was swinging around my lunchbox like a rabid animal at anybody who dared cross my path. He was cool about it, sorry for the bruising bud. I heard a rumor Brett was actually teaching now as well, meaning I am one step closer to influencing today's youth (good luck keeping a room of minors' attentions when they find out you can't even beat Cole in fantasy, they'll lose all respect) and that is concerning but not as concerning as Mr. Walters walking into your classroom and not leaving for multiple months on end. We were living in the fuck around-est of times and are truly now living in the find out-est of times. Maybe I should try censoring myself a bit more in the future? We'll leave that up for debate.
OH YEAH, THE DRAFT! With WRBL commissioner Nick Zurawski in Dublin, Ireland (possibly on a side-mission involving royalty???), it was looking incredibly sketchy that we'd even get this draft to take place on such a tight schedule. Incredibly, Nick and others pulled it off with Alec drafting at an abandoned truck stop with shoddy wi-fi. I told Nick we had to get this draft going whether he was in the States or not because Father Todd "BACK IN MY DAY"-ed the hell out of this scheduling conflict by bringing up the fact that his college friends' league drafted with their commissioner stationed in the Soviet Union, doing missionary work. That's how deep the fantasy sports connection goes for my family. This season's draft saw me (Andy, btw) drafting the oldest fantasy team I've ever picked (in terms of mileage) in any sport. Brady being 45 won my team the title of oldest team based on his anomalous age in comparison to all these other flashier young pups. He may have been the lowest-scoring Quarterback of week one but, he's still got that dawg in him.
An x-ray of Tom Brady's chest after defeating Dallas 19-3 on Sunday Night Football.
The Cowboys' lack of an offensive attack Sunday night meant the game script for Tampa was severely heavy on the running (something Brady no longer does) and as a reaction to that, WR Mike Evans' ceiling was also limited in a league-worst effort from my The Rule of Law squad, Z rejoiced with a victory of anti-climactic proportions. Alec Swanson tended to re-draft players from his past (QB Joe Burrow, RB David Montgomery & WR Justin Jefferson) and they were mostly another year older, another year wiser in their defeat over the debut of Jaime's Here Dad Weights (led by QB Patrick Mahomes' 5 TDs). Next week, Alec will probably fix his lineup by pulling the game-time decision of RB J.K. Dobbins for someone with a heavier workload as he looks to send me to an 0-2 start despite my greatest RB trio in terms of name value that I've probably ever had here (Henry, Elliott, McCaffrey). Nick will play Sparky with or without Tee Higgins (concussion-like symptoms) in the Here Dad Weights lineup as Mr. Goodell's protege looks to turn his 1-0 start into another epic run like last season's 12-game head start en route to his first official championship. Gabe won his introductory match over Nathaniel Hoefs's Yeezy Taught Me, with all three of Stoltz's starting Running Backs (Jonathan Taylor, Joe Mixon and Antonio Gibson in the flex) dropping 20+ on Hoefs' head. In case nobody else was aware, Gabe is (or maybe "was" considering their 16-17 Monday night loss to the Seahawks) super high on the Broncos and showed his hand by taking their new QB Russell Wilson along with top-target WR Courtland Sutton in multiple leagues this season. I know nobody wants to hear about other leagues creeping into our pure, uninterrupted Bro League coverage but I just thought I'd point this out and share that I too am high on Denver, though through sheer luck Father Todd and I acquired Sutton (along with since-cut QB Baker Mayfield) for QB Jordan Love in our TD-only league last season and have had Mr. "Let's Ride" Wilson since his rookie season in 2012 and I will take every chance to brag about that and our three non-WRBL titles since. Gabe faces Cole next week and I'm sure they'll make some side-bet or trophy to accompany this battle as I've been told they already do that in other leagues. It helps fuel their tension that they are both of the 1-0 teams in the Steven Nett Division. Cole seriously EARNED his win this week by dropping a league-high 165.58 on poor Brett and Kyler's Study Buddies. Brett can take solace in knowing his effort will not go unnoticed in our Hypothetical Standings at the very bottom of the page, where on a weekly basis I reward the four highest scoring teams with a win and hand out losses to the four lowest scoring teams, regardless of matchup or division. For now, he must avenge his fallen Charger (WR Keenan Allen) with QB Justin Herbert still finding a way to ball out on Thursday Night Football in Kansas City. He's supposed to be a league MVP candidate so he should be able to manage a 20-point fantasy performance at least if that is indeed the case. Brett will play Hoefs, still looking for his first playoff appearance after two flame-outs courtesy of just pure bad luck. Look on the bright side Hoefs, you didn't have to keep anybody from last season's team since there was too much turnover among ownership and too few keepers for it to really bother anyone if say... I couldn't draft TE Travis Kelce again.
With all of that out of the way, the NFL season is off to a fun start and the Cowboys (who lost QB Dak Prescott indefinitely to a broken bone in his throwing hand) are going to suck which will be fun to laugh at so here's to another year of making this league spicy! Oh look, my kicker (Rodrigo Blankenship) just got cut after one game... TO THE WAIVER WIRE!!!
Official WRBL Standings (now ft. seasonal point totals!)
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| AP Photo/Abbie Parr Hero of the Week: WR Justin Jefferson (Tax Paying Homeowner) |
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