Our matchups were all decided before the Sunday night game even started. Sure, there was a fraction-of-a-percent chance that Aaron Rodgers scored 70 points and delivered Tim a victory over Brian, but no, actually, no there wasn’t unless Aaron Jones caught all the touchdowns and even then…
Shit, I’m wrong. Kennedy is down 69 with Mason Rudolph, Juju, and Vance McDonald left to play. Against Miami. If Rudolph throws three touchdowns and they all go to Juju or Vance, that’s 36 points, so let’s say Mason gets 250 yards, we’re at 46 points, and 150 of those yards are split between Juju and Vance, so we’re at 61 and all we need are four combined first downs between those two pass-catchers and boom, win-town. Sorry, Oliver, because this is definitely happening now. (Whether or not I post the note before tomorrow’s game, I’m leaving this in, not for, like, posterity but just because I don’t edit the note ever).
After eight weeks of football, Corey is in the lead all by himself and is almost guaranteed to make the playoffs. His Week 8 score wasn’t great, but it was still better than half the league. And there wasn’t anything he could have done to screw it up. Ebron and Olsen did basically equal amounts of nothing, and Jarvis Landry is a legitimate weekly starter who actually outscored T.Y. this week. Brady had a modest day, which you always like because it feels like he has a high total-point threshold he’ll cross each season, so 20-point games feel like his version of edging. Tom Brady definitely spends most if not all of football season edging. You gotta be pleased that Joe Mixon hit the high teens for the third time this season. Volume is king, so even bad volume occasionally turns into first downs and touchdowns and gives you reason to keep playing him, which you always should have but I know it can be frustrating to get six and seven points from a runningback from week to week. But so overall at six wins, Corey could afford to make a move that nets him a great player. With all the talent on this roster, there really isn’t one guy who can break the game. Being well-rounded is good, but it’s also dull. It’s Patriots football through and through, though, so maybe it’s how you win it all.
I made another trade I feel great about. Is it too easy to feel good about trades when it’s barely been possible for there to be consequences? Doesn’t matter. I love being right about the David Montgomery breakout game. It was the perfect storm: Nagy was so embarrassed about the 51:7 pass:run ratio from last week’s game, and the Chargers are so lacking in even run-stopping body types, much less talents, that Nagy was going to pound the rock, and Montgomery is the only RB on the roster with the body type to pound it more than seven times without limping out of the pile. It was perfection, so even though I didn’t need the points, I like to remember that I could have needed the points, so it was worth it to trade away Monopoly money to get the points. Actually, the sixth round was surprisingly potent this summer, but I can’t afford to know that right now. My focus is on 2019. It’s not on the part of 2019 where Brian outscores my super team with his normal team, just on the part where my super team is a super team and football players don’t get injured that often, right, so I can expect my super team to stay a super team all the way up to the championship, even though this game is still mostly luck and so… well, if the game is mostly luck, then do I need draft capital to win? Oliver and Kennedy had draft capital and look at them. Corey’s first three picks were Joe Mixon, Antonio Brown, and Sony Michel, and he’s in first place halfway through the year. If it’s all luck, then we gotta have fun, right, so stay away, darkness! I don’t want to think about you!
I’m the only person I know who can tilt coming off a massive victory, a victory so massive I got to dump two of my starters for stashes before the afternoon games even ended.
Speaking of staches, Gardner Minshew was basically the best QB of the week, trailing points-leader Deshaun Watson by just 2.3 at Sunday’s end. With JJ Watt out for the year and Lamar going against the Pats defense, Minshew may have justified a second start next week. MAY have.
Full disclosure before we get any further: I watched the least amount of football today that I’ve watched any Sunday. I caught glimpses of the first half of SEA-ATL while out at breakfast, then I caught most of the second half of TB-TEN (my mistake) on my laptop while getting periodically sucked into the RedZone and looking at my fantasy team and contemplating which stashes to add in exchange for Jimmy Graham and Chris Boswell. I played Madden and did dishes and watched SNL during the afternoon games. Here’s what I picked up on:
The Broncos’ defense is at least respectable if not good. The Colts are just too blessed to stress. Joe Flacco was quoted after the game saying something about how the coaching staff needed to call more aggressive plays. This is the same Joe Flacco who moves like Lurch and might need his linemen to start screaming his name when defenders are closing in. On the final play of the game, when, okay, things were way over without a defensive penalty, Joe Flacco appeared to slow up and take a vicious sack from behind on purpose. Joe Flacco is like a barista in 100K student debt just wandering his bike in and out of the bus line just hoping he gets just hurt enough to get a massive settlement. The Broncos would’ve pastured him by now, but they need Drew Lock to get healthy before they can do that, especially if it appears that Flacco is keeping them in games against the one of the best teams in the conference. The Broncos lost again, if that wasn’t obvious, but Vic Fangio is in no danger of losing his job.
I can’t fathom why Dan Quinn still has his job. The owner is quoted as saying he will evaluate Dan Quinn’s status over the team’s Week 9 bye, but like, dude, if you’re openly admitting to evaluating the head coach’s standing with the team, it’s time to move on. I mean, I could see how if it’s a private thought, you might not act on it, but once you say it out loud, let it manifest already. I think what Falcons owner Arthur Blank is really evaluating is who will coach the defense, as if anyone really needs to coach the defense in order to improve on what Quinn has done this year. The Falcons’ defense is worse than the Dolphins’ defense, and the only reason we don’t know that is because the Falcons beat the Eagles when we were pretty sure the Eagles were going to the Super Bowl. I mean, fine, the Eagles are turning a corner after beating Buffalo, I think, but I saw literally three plays from the game, two excellent runs by Sanders and Howard and one meaningless incompletion from Allen to Brown, so I have no idea whether that Eagles’ win was as fluky as the Eagles’ loss to the Falcons. But so the Falcons didn’t have the stink of the 0-2 start, much less the 0-5 that hit the league’s worst. The Falcons are now 1-7, and the only difference between them and a winless team was an impossibly effective smoke screen to Julio that he somehow took 50 yards to the house with the game almost over. They suck, but since they played the Seahawks close, and most league administrators probably think the Seahawks are good (they’re not, not on defense at all and on offense, sporadically brilliant), the Falcons owner might be thinking his team is turning a corner. They play Drew Brees coming out of the bye. They are toast and should tank for Chase Young.
Do you know yet of the wonders Chase Young will bring to one of our DL spots next season? Chase Young leads the NCAA with 14 sacks. The next guy has 10. With all this tank for Tua/Justin Herbert nonsense, some shit team is about to have the best player in the draft fall in their laps at three overall. The worst thing that could happen is the season could end tomorrow because then the 3rd overall pick would go to Washington, and they would just ruin this man’s career with their shitty cursed team. (Okay but actually, the Skins have a pretty good defense, and if they added Chase Young, they might be next year’s 49ers, which they don’t need a QB to accomplish; they can just run Peterson every play for another season but win all their games instead of losing them. Ew.)
Oh, I saw the 49ers score. They’re really good. Weeks 12-14 will be the real test of their powers, as they play at home vs. Green Bay, then at Baltimore and New Orleans right in a row. Currently ay 7-0, it would take multiple injuries for them to miss the playoffs because they are winning all these games without multiple injuries already. Both of their starting offensive tackles have been out for like three weeks, they lost fullbacks in consecutive weeks and their best blocking TE, and it just doesn’t matter. First, it appears you only need guards and blazing fast RBs to run effectively, even against a stout front seven like Carolina’s (unless I missed something crucial in the zero plays I watched). Second, you don’t have to score touchdowns if your defense doesn’t allow touchdowns.
Let’s talk about the Bears. My sole hesitation in acquiring David Montgomery was this: Matt Nagy is not long for this league as a head coach. Something you have to understand about Matt Nagy: he has more experience coaching high school football than he does coaching in the NFL. You also have to understand that he says things to reporters like, “I’m not an idiot.” Can you imagine the shift that would have to take place in Bill Belichick’s personality for him to feel compelled to tell the public that he’s “not an idiot.” News flash, dipshit: if you think saying you’re not an idiot will convince anyone, you’re probably an idiot! But look, if needing people to think you’re smart (or at least in the 85-100 IQ range) forces you to give David Montgomery 33 touches now that he’s on my team, you tell ‘em, Matt! Don’t let those mean reporters make you question your self-worth, honey! But also, if you don’t want people to think you’re an idiot, if you have 2nd down and 40 seconds, you don’t just let the clock run 35 seconds so you can take a 40-yard kick attempt. You run the ball one or two more times, preferably to the right if the wind is blowing left, and you try to get it down to a 35-yard attempt. Could you have fumbled, sure, maybe, but fumbles are way less common than missed field goals, especially from 40. Is the idea that you might have lost yards on a rush attempt? I know you don’t want Mister Biscuit throwing in that situation. You don’t want to turn it over, get sacked, or stop the clock. Fine. But if you don’t trust your offensive line or your quarterback more than your kicker, then why are your trying to win games at all? How can you expect to beat the Packers and Patriots with clock management and field goals? Fuck Matt Nagy, but I hope he keeps his job and keeps pounding that rock. I also hope that something I heard on a podcast comes true: the guy (probably Cousin Sal) was saying the Bears should use Trubisky the way Baltimore uses Lamar, which is an insanely simplistic thing to say since it can’t be done, but I know Trubisky can get loose an pick up yards on a well-designed run. He can find a lane through wide pocket. He doesn’t have to throw to covered receivers to be an effective player, and look the point is just run the ball almost every play but hopefully throw enough to keep that eighth defender out of David Montgomery’s box.
Gardner Minshew was the ghost Sam Darnold saw last Monday night. Also, the Dolphins are going to beat the Jets next week.
Oliver didn’t believe me about Drew Brees, and it might come back to bite him if all that stuff I posited about the Steeler’s offense comes to fruition tomorrow. If Drew Brees is starting, how do you play Philip Rivers? You think Sean Payton just wants the figure of Drew Brees there when the backup has been excellent in his stead? No, he played Drew Brees because the Arizona Cardinals defense is basically a preseason game for someone of Drew Brees’s ilk. It was a game that allowed Brees to get up to speed, so especially once you saw Kamara wouldn’t play, you had to know: 1) the Saints were willing to rest key players in this one; and 2) the Saints would probably be throwing the ball a decent amount, at least to get started. This isn’t about Drew Brees, though, except that Drew Brees and the Saints are just too good. They used Taysom Hill as a legit wide receiver this game, and he was good. The Saints now get to rest up for a week before getting a full month of shitting all over their divisional underlings before they get that title bout against San Fran in Week 14.
OH BY THE WAY, Sleeper grants bye weeks to the top two teams in the consolation bracket, meaning you have to win all your postseason games in order to get the #1 pick. In the past, the 7 and 8 seeds could afford to lose Week 14 and then win Week 15 to get back in the Saquon Bowl. This isn’t relevant, but I thought it was worth mentioning before more people start tanking. There is a good reason to at least try to win some regular season games, unless your confident you can win out in the postseason. Oh, I remember why it’s relevant: Drew Brees plays the league’s best defense in a game Oliver will probably need to win unless he’s satisfied tanking his way to the 5th or 6th overall pick.
The Bucs are bad at football. They’re basically the same as they were last year in terms of overall record and the kinds of teams they lose to, so I wonder what it’s worth that it’s slightly different. The offensive line sucks, and the secondary sucks. It is a hopeless situation, no matter how many fantasy points Mike Evans and Chris Godwin score. I don’t think it’s fair for Bruce Arians to call out the secondary for blowing the game, though. I don’t think coaches should be calling out players to the media. I don’t think behavior like that motivates millennials the way it might have motivated the generations of Americans at war. Public opinion is fucking toxic. Why would you feed it? In what practical way does tell a bunch of microphones that your secondary needs to “get their head out of their asses” provide meaningful feedback that fosters growth? Look, I know it’s hippy shit, but that’s what millennials have been fed in school, that they’re supposed to be treated with kindness and have confidence, so when they’re boss curses them out in front of a bunch of people who don’t care about them, what’s supposed to be the next step? I know in the 80s the guy could just rail an 8-ball and forget about it, but now all the players do is maybe get covertly stoned and play video games or browse Twitter before bed, where they can’t help but be reminded that, oh yeah, their leader basically just called them an asshole and fucked off for the night and now expects them to just get over it even though the season’s basically hopeless and all they have is each other, just get over it, Carlton. (Carlton had a poised response about getting back at it tomorrow and on to the next game, but you could tell when he started his statement, “I don’t want to get into a back-and-forth,” that he had some opinions about BA’s opinions.) Anyway, I am going to see the Bucs live in Seattle next Sunday, and I’m real nervous to wear my Jameis jersey in a game where he might throw four picks. Luckily, Seattle’s defense is really bad, but the Bucs will definitely lose because however good Ryan Tannehill is at anything, Russell Wilson is maxed out in all those categories and then can also do other shit super well. Either way, I’m weirdly optimistic. The season isn’t over until we lose seven games. We’ve still got to lose two more games before I can say it’s all the way over. Luckily for my soul, that should only take two weeks—yes, that means I think we’ll lose to Arizona after we lose to Seattle, and then we’ll definitely lose to New Orleans before we finally mercifully get to win on the road in Atlanta.
I don’t know much about the Lions game, other than a guy named Tra Carson (who I’m pretty sure played for the Packers two weeks ago) led the team in carries, meaning I can drop Ty Johnson so I don’t have to root for the Lions anymore. Mercy!
I’m just now realizing that Aarons Rodgers and Jones combined for 75 points, and still he didn’t come close to threatening Brian’s 212 points on the week, second on the season to only Coleman’s 217 in Week 3 (which was against me, awesome memories). Maybe if you had a real TE, Brian, you could have set that high score. Ryan Griffin, Darren Fells, Jonnu Smith, Charles Clay, Tyler Eifert, Demetrius Harris, Dallas Goedert, or Jack Doyle woulda got you there.
In terms of our team stocks, the risers are Corey, Brian, me, Spencer, Coleman and Tim. The fallers are Shelby and Sean. I think Oliver and Kennedy and Cameron’s values are where they are. That leaves Evan. He had a pretty bad scoring week, but it was expected, so I’d say he’s in that standstill group, too.
As I mentioned before, Corey’s scoring doesn’t raise his stock, but the sixth win makes it so that he can win just one more game and reasonably expect to sneak in to the playoffs.
Spencer has a win without Mahomes, which has to make you believe. Add in that his next two games are against Sean and Oliver, and you’ve really gotta believe Spencer can find his way to 5-5 when he gets Mahomes back. (Ignore the fact that Mahomes’ bye is Week 12; just don’t think about it.) I can already see that final melee week crushing some people. Just taking a glance forward, I see that in Week 13 Lamar plays SF and Minshew plays TB (insert skull emoji).
Brian’s team is good enough to win every week, but it’s inconsistent. This is thanks in part to his QB, especially since his best WR is tied to that QB, but it’s also because Brian is streaming at least three positions, granted they’re the ones you want to stream (TE, K, DST).
Coleman and Tim can just flat out score with those big dogs every week. Watson, McCaffrey, and Lockett seems to combined for 80+ every week for Coleman, and Tim has too many consistent producers to name in one clean sentence. It should come as no surprise that they are numbers one and two in scoring this season. Brian is close. Now that I’m looking at this, I kind of wish I played a full lineup this week. No, that’s stupid.
For Sean and Shelby, it’s business as usual. Shelby scored 99, and she doesn’t normally do that, but her score has fluctuated so wildly from week to week that it seemed to me like that happened more often. Since Week 3, she’s scored 92, 198, 110, 147, and now 99. Just because it’s stock down right now, there’s no reason it can’t be stock up next week. Shelby sits at 4-4, and she averages 138 ppg. Sean sits at 3-5 and averages 121. This week, he scored 120.77. In his three wins, he’s scored 160, 135, and 130, which are his three highest point totals. It seems like pretty simple logic that you’ll win when you do your best, but just ask Coleman and Spencer and Kennedy about that.
Oliver had an explosive week. It’s hard to imagine Tevin Coleman getting 40 again, but it’s also hard to imagine Oliver getting a combined 10 points from three WRs again. While I don’t think it’ll balance out to 160 often, it should keep Oliver just clean enough to say he’s not tanking, which is worthless since we all know he’s tanking. Just kidding, no one’s tanking. We have too much integrity.
I’m tempted to say Kennedy has a bad team, but he has quality RBs and great depth at WR. His Juju-Vance play got screwed by the Roethlisberger injury, but what actually derailed Kennedy’s season was too much scoring from his opponents. Kennedy’s 0-2 start was despite scoring 154 and 160. In every other loss, he’s barely cleared 110, but still that’s the difference between 1-7 and 3-5. (I’m assuming his Steel trio doesn’t come through with the 69.)
Cameron’s team is good, not great. He’s getting decent production from some rando replacement players, but without looting one of the desperate teams sooner or later, I don’t think he’s going to end up competing with the Brians and Tims of the world. Let’s stay tempered though and remember he just scored 135 without Dak, Zeke, or Kamara.
I might do like a midseason recap thing this week, but I’m not sure if I’ll have the time. I want to, though, since sleeper’s display makes it difficult to see the big picture. No promises.
