Week 3
Our 5th official season of blaming Cole Walters for Jay Z's music not being on Spotify.
Current Standings (with regular season won-loss streaks)
Steven Nett Division
Team ChowHounds (Darrin Aschebrook) 3-0 W3
Colieveland 96ers (Cole Walters) 1-2 L2
Rise From The Asches (Scott Aschebrook) 1-2 W1
Team Easy Breesy (Ryan Dougherty) 0-3 L5
Shooter McGavin Division
30 to 50 Feral Hogs (Andy Todd) 3-0 W4
SNEEN MACHINE (Tyler Sneen) 2-1 L1
Tax Paying Homeowner (Alec Swanson) 1-2 L1
Is It Pronounced Navy (Nick Zurawski) 1-2 W1
ANDY 151 - ALEC 150
NICK 119 - RYAN 106
SCOTT 140 - COLE 134
DARRIN 152 - SNEEN 106
Heroes of the Week: WR Mike Evans (45 points), WR Keenan Allen (43), QB Russell Wilson (41)
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| Michael Reaves/Getty Images Hero of the Week: WR Mike Evans (Rise From The Asches) |
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| AP/Mark LoMoglio Waiver Wonder: QB Daniel Jones (26/40, 353 Yards Passing, 2 Passing TDs, 2 Lost Fumbles, 5 Carries, 33 Yards, 2 Rushing TDs) |
Alec vs. Ryan
Andy vs. Nick
Cole vs. Sneen
Scott vs. Darrin
Andy vs. Nick
Cole vs. Sneen
Scott vs. Darrin
Thursday Night Football: Philadelphia @ Green Bay 7:20 PM
Sunday NOON: Tennessee @ Atlanta
Cleveland @ Baltimore
Cleveland @ Baltimore
New England @ Buffalo
Kansas City @ Detroit
Kansas City @ Detroit
Carolina @ Houston
Oakland @ Indianapolis
Oakland @ Indianapolis
LA Chargers @ Miami
Washington @ NY Giants
Washington @ NY Giants
3:05 PM: Seattle @ Arizona
Tampa Bay @ LA Rams
Tampa Bay @ LA Rams
3:25 PM: Minnesota @ Chicago
Jacksonville @ Denver
Sunday Night Football: Dallas @ New Orleans 7:20 PM
Monday Night Football: Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh 7:15 PM
Bro...
I just clicked on stat corrections, turns out I'm 100% 3-0. Holy Shelby, this was a memorable week with three matchups that were closer than the relationship between Sneen and the Sacko. Not only did the WRBL weekend live up to the hype but, Kansas City vs. Baltimore was all it should have been, the backup quarterbacks were either awesome or terrible, there were a few unfortunate injuries and the fantasy points were flying left and right with Ryan and Sneen scoring a mediocre-but-not-terrible 106 points for the WRBL league-LOWS for the week. This Hot Girl Summer is over and Fantasy Football Fall has kicked off stronger than Sebastian Janikowski trying to get a touchback for his special teams unit.
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| Joe Robbins/Getty Images Speaking of kicking, Adam Vinatieri has bounced (literally, off the uprights and through the goal posts) back after two of the worst games of his career had him contemplating retirement. |
Another sign of the seasonal shift is just how crucial and exciting every BASEBALL game suddenly seems (That's right, this one isn't just going to be about football). With the Yankees, Astros, Braves and Dodgers virtually locked into their playoff seeding, the last of the two divisional winners and the wildcard races for each league are somehow closing in tighter with under a week of games left. The AL wildcard is supper intense with the Cleveland Indians, Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays all within two games of each other for the the final play-in game, it's looking like their might be a decisive game before THE decisive game featuring a team with no fans (Tampa), a team with no star-power (Oakland, sorry Matt Chapman) and a team coming off many injuries with no real luck to speak of (Cleveland). In other words, the American League is looking to end the 2019 season on a fun note. In the National League, the Dodgers and Braves are 100% in with the Nationals playing either at home or on the road in the wildcard game and the Cardinals holding on to a 1.5 game lead (as of Thursday morning) in the NL Central over the Milwaukee Brewers, who have been on an insanely hot run this September, winning 17 of their last 19 games, including separate games that Cole and I attended.
A day after our beloved Cold Waters saw the hottest team in baseball defeat the Pittsburgh Pirates 10-1, I also saw the hottest team in baseball 10-1 with home runs by my forever-keeper in my dynasty baseball league, Keston Hiura and a clutch midseason call-up Trent Grisham. Our ticket hookup drove us down for the night game, bought a ton of secret stadium sauce and got pulled over for speeding on the way back which wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that security at the ballpark made me take off my belt (WHO KNEW MY BELT BUCKLE WAS METALLIC?) earlier and led to my personal quote of the day after the daily, first-inning fireworks show at Miller Park... "Oh sure, they need to scan my buckle twice but an indoor pyrotechnics show above 40,000+ is okay. Gotcha". Brent Suter (always entertaining) was victorious, the police didn't mistake me for Sterling Brown and the Pirates are keeping Clint Hurdle (always entertaining) for some reason so all in all, it was a very good day.
Back to our lower-stakes fantasy football league, Cole couldn't carry his Milwaukee-based luck over to the WRBL as he lost by 6 thanks to Scott RISING FROM THE ASCHES (that's a team-name reference there, mkay?) with a clutch 16 point game from RB Nick Chubb. Cole's lineup faux pas? not starting Tyler Lockett over ANY of his other receivers would have done the trick but, Lockett over Chris Godwin would have been a 25-point swing that resulted in Cole being top-scorer for the week. Instead, both of our league's top trash talkers are 1-2 and playing it one week at a time. In looking at two of the most unfortunate drafters this season, Team Easy Breesy and Is It Pronounced Navy provided the excitement in the night games with four players going during Sunday's Browns-Rams battle and the final back-and-forth between Ryan's Allen Robinson and Nick's Bears Defense. One Ha Ha Clinton-Dix pick-six was all it took for Team Easy Breesy to become our league's ultimate cellar dweller at 0-3 but, Allen Robinson put up a good fight by being competent. It's just a shame that journeyman WR Taylor Gabriel couldn't share one of his three touchdowns with the former Jaguar so that Ryan could have gotten closer than 13 points. In the WRBL's most-hyped match of the season, we saw the ChowHounds advance their record to 3-0 with an easy win over Sneen and his malfunctioning Machine. This duel resulted in by far, the most overhyped match of the season as Alvin Kamara and Amari Cooper led Darrin to a 152-106 blowout win.
The scene was far different between Andy and Alec as all players from said matchup were done after the late-afternoon games and the zero hype surrounding the non-rivalry between Alec and I made our 151-150 final a shock heard 'round the league (mostly because I wouldn't shut up about it at home or in the group chat). I had a BIG lead after the noon games thanks to a random 3-touchdown Mark Ingram game producing 35 points and Adam Thielen scoring touchdowns on the ground and through the air. Once the three o'clock games started, you could have shown me that Kenny Golladay turned to dust, Vance McDonald would end the day with his arm in a sling and Saquon Barkley on crutches and I would have thought "Yikes. Poor Alec. I'm glad I won this week" but instead, here I am saying "Yikes. Poor Alec. I'm super fucking glad I won this week #blessed #freeCooperKupp". Alec spent the first half of the three o'clockers catching back up with two touchdowns from the suddenly motivated Saints' defense/special teams and a complete lack of inspiration from "Mason Whodolph?" and "That two-gloved fuck-up from Minnesota". There was a sudden rash of points coming my way thanks to a 4th-and-goal at the 1 that could have given me 3 Wil Lutz points until Sean Payton pulled out his "Look at my massive balls" playbook and threw a one-yard touchdown on a screen pass to Michael Thomas, resulting in 7 points for me and my 30-50 Feral Hogs. With the loss of both Barkley and McDonald keeping Alec's projected scoring low, my odds had greatly improved once JuJu Smith-Schuster finally showed up, doing everything he could to make Mason "Just Another Dude"olph have an even mediocre statline by taking an ordinary slant pass and turning it into a 76-yard touchdown catch-and-run. "Ok. you got this" said ESPN.com's fantasy projections, giving me a 99% chance of winning from that moment onward. Little did they know that Russell Wilson and Keenan Allen were about to ruin this whole app's career. If the points that Wilson and Allen were putting up in the fourth quarter on Sunday were a 90's band, they'd have Shirley Manson as the lead singer because, they were complete fucking GARBAGE. In what previous weekly iteration of Bro League games have we seen two fantasy players (one cut by me two weeks ago. Sorry, Russell. This QBBC -Quarterback by committee- isn't going to always look like the smartest strategy but, it hasn't blown up on me yet!) go from making overall solid games with point totals in the teens turn into 41 and 43 point games? Don't get me wrong, it was the most fun and invigorating fantasy football experience I've had in years (as my TD-only team lost because Keenan Allen couldn't score again and Tyler Lockett couldn't score without catching a TD pass from Wilson), I mean... I still won despite Keenan Allen falling seven yards short of a tie with one play left for the Chargers but, did Russell Wilson really need to outscore Patrick Mahomes (who is not Christian McCaffrey) by one touchdown when I obviously started Mahomes over Wilson on my TD-only team that lost by one point? Somebody hear me out on these first world problems so I can feel valid!
Week four is supposed to be the last of the post-preseason weeks where inconsistent teams work out their final kinks and start to show steadier progress towards their futures as postseason teams or playoff hopefuls turned rotten. Unfortunately for those of us watching Monday Night Football, we might have to witness two teams that are just plain rotten to the core with the 0-3 Bengals playing the 0-3 Steelers. There is fantasy relevancy there though as JuJu Smith-Schuster tries to prove that the new QB isn't just making him JuishJuish Smithish-Schusterish for my 3-0 Feral Hogs might need his electric YAC again to take down 1-2 Nick and newly-minted every-week starting QB Lamar Jackson. Also playing in that game will be Joe Mixon for the 1-2 Colieveland 96ers and James Conner for the 2-1 SNEEN MACHINE and what a coincidence as those two take each other on this week! The Sunday night game looks like a ton of fun as 3-0 Dallas plays the 2-1 Saints in a game Dak Prescott kind of needs to win if he wants to start getting thrown into "ELITE" conversations after one month of high-quality play. Thursday's primetimer sees the Eagles trying to claw (or is it talon?) their way back into the NFC East's division battle with a win over Green Bay and their Jekyll and Hyde offense. Another highlight from Sunday includes the Chargers taking on the tanking Dolphins, which means Ryan is obviously revving up the Chargers' defense as he looks for his first win against a downtrodden 1-2 Tax Paying Homeowner. Okay, that may only be a highlight for fantasy purposes but, there are some legitimately entertaining divisional battles between the Vikings and Bears (both at 2-1) and the Patriots versus the Bills (both 3-0), the latter of which sees four players from the most tense of all rivalries, father versus son. Yes indeed, 3-0, three-time championship league host Darrin Aschebrook takes on Scott and his suddenly-risen team that is still looking to climb the next rung on the wins ladder at 1-2. It's going to be one hell of a week as the young QBs continue to take over and oh yeah, here comes the drama of bye weeks. We might not feel the reverberations of a 49ers or Jets' week off but, the weekly waiver wire is about to heat up despite the temperature dropping outdoors. Fall just started, Winter is coming.
A day after our beloved Cold Waters saw the hottest team in baseball defeat the Pittsburgh Pirates 10-1, I also saw the hottest team in baseball 10-1 with home runs by my forever-keeper in my dynasty baseball league, Keston Hiura and a clutch midseason call-up Trent Grisham. Our ticket hookup drove us down for the night game, bought a ton of secret stadium sauce and got pulled over for speeding on the way back which wouldn't have been so bad except for the fact that security at the ballpark made me take off my belt (WHO KNEW MY BELT BUCKLE WAS METALLIC?) earlier and led to my personal quote of the day after the daily, first-inning fireworks show at Miller Park... "Oh sure, they need to scan my buckle twice but an indoor pyrotechnics show above 40,000+ is okay. Gotcha". Brent Suter (always entertaining) was victorious, the police didn't mistake me for Sterling Brown and the Pirates are keeping Clint Hurdle (always entertaining) for some reason so all in all, it was a very good day.
| Jeff Curry - USA TODAY Sports Ryan Braun's September 15th, 9th-inning, 2-out, 2-strike grand slam against Junior Fernandez of the Cardinals is THE highlight of the baseball season for Brewer fans. |
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| AP Photo/Luis Cortez Case Keenum flopping around like he was in a Freaky Friday-type scenario with myself playing the role of an NFL Quarterback helped Nick ride that vaunted Bears' defense to his first win of 2019. |
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| Dean Rutz/The Seattle Times Bend me, Break me, Any way you need me, All I need is a win. |
Scoring Leaders
QB
Patrick Mahomes 84 (Cole)
Russell Wilson 56 (Andy/Alec)
DeShaun Watson 42 (Darrin)
Carson Wentz 62 (Scott)
Lamar Jackson 50 (Nick)
Tom Brady 44 (Andy)DeShaun Watson 42 (Darrin)
Aaron Rodgers 39 (Sneen)
Drew Brees 19 (Ryan)
Matt Ryan 18 (Nick)
Josh Allen 17 (Ryan)
Josh Allen 17 (Ryan)
Cam Newton 16 (Alec)
RB
Dalvin Cook 76 (Sneen)
Mark Ingram 66 (Andy)
Alvin Kamara 65 (Darrin)
Le'Veon Bell 52 (Darrin)
David Johnson 50 (Nick)
Marlon Mack 49 (Alec)
Ezekiel Elliott 47 (Ryan)
Nick Chubb 46 (Scott)
Josh Jacobs 32 (Nick)
James Conner 30 (Sneen)
Joe Mixon 25 (Cole)
Leonard Fournette 24 (Nick)
Devonta Freeman 23 (Scott)
Chris Thompson 9 (Cole)
Kerryon Johnson 7 (Andy)
Kenyan Drake 4 (Cole)
WR
Keenan Allen 86 (Alec)
Julio Jones 68 (Alec)
T.Y. Hilton 62 (Cole)
Michael Thomas 56 (Andy)
Chris Godwin 47 (Cole)
JuJu Smith-Schuster 43 (Andy)
Sammy Watkins 21 (Nick)
Allen Robinson 20 (Ryan)
Marvin Jones Jr. 18 (Ryan)DJ Chark 17 (Cole)
Antonio Brown 15 (Darrin)
Stefon Diggs 14 (Alec)
Sterling Shepard 10 (Darrin)
John Brown 9 (Darrin)
Robert Woods 8 (Sneen)
Jarvis Landry 6 (Scott)
Kenny Golladay 3 (Alec)
Kenny Golladay 3 (Alec)
Tyreek Hill 3 (Ryan)
TE
Evan Engram 61 (Darrin)
Travis Kelce 49 (Andy)
Zach Ertz 37 (Sneen)
David Njoku 12 (Nick)
Hunter Henry 10 (Ryan)
Darren Waller 10 (Nick)
Mark Andrews 4 (Nick)
T.J. Hockenson 1 (Scott)
Jared Cook 9 (Scott)
T.J. Hockenson 1 (Scott)
PK
Greg Zuerlein 32 (Ryan)
Harrison Butker 31 (Nick)
Justin Tucker 28 (Alec)
Stephen Gostkowski 28 (Darrin)
Jake Elliott 19 (Sneen)
Ka'imi Fairbairn 13 (Scott)
DF
New England Patriots 49 (Scott)
Baltimore Ravens 18 (Andy)
Chicago Bears 34 (Nick)
Los Angeles Rams 28 (Sneen)
Buffalo Bills 27 (Darrin)
Buffalo Bills 27 (Darrin)
New Orleans Saints 16 (Alec)
Los Angeles Chargers 11 (Ryan)
Jacksonville Jaguars 6 (Scott/Cole)
Hypothetical Standings
30 to 50 Feral Hogs 3-0
Team ChowHounds 2-1
Tax Paying Homeowner 2-1
Rise From The Asches 1-2
Team Easy Breesy 0-3
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