I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide.
-Ian McKellen, homo superior
You know what, let's just start early with the visual approximations, the clip is too cool not to share.
So like Gandalf up there, I'm back.Missed you guys.I didn't get to see much of week 3 s games, but from what I could tell it was pretty nuts.Chang, Stu, and Boone all earned their first victories by close margins.Nick and Victoria asserted their dominance to remain undefeated.And somehow, someway, I won with a pretty pathetic score to also go to 3-0.
Speaking of nuts, I wake up this morning to see we have our first trade, and it's a big one.Connie and Nick essentially play musical tight ends, with three of the six players playing at that position.Personally I think Connie wins this trade, she's getting all the known quantities while Nick is taking on most of the risk.However, if Gronk returns soon and returns to true Gronk form, he'll be just fine.I don't see a compelling reason to veto it, but I'll wait til Thursday morning to approve in case someone wants to air some grievances about it.
With that little bit of business out of the way, here are this week's matchups!
MATCHUP OF THE WEEK: SCREACHING NOISES (3-1) OVER VICKY CHRISTINA BARCEROMO (2-2)
Visual Approximation:
(Matt RyanMatty IceVanilla Ice.That's really all I got on this one.They can't all be winners, ok.If you can come up with a better VA for this matchup please post it in the comments)
Both of these teams were 2-0, then suffered their first loss this week.Matt bounces back and makes it to 3-1 while Mahoney falls to .500.Matt's big score comes from Antonio Gates, who is having a sort of resurgent year.Because this is 2013, I'm going to assume it's because of HGH.YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST FOLKS!Or, just maybe, the Cowboys pass defense is just awful.They've now given up major yardage to both Eli Manning and Philip Rivers after all.Matt Ryan threw for over four hundred yards (mostly to Tony Gonzalezmore on him later) and a pair of scores (both of which toTony Gonzalez).The Colts beat up on the Jaguars, to no one's surprise.What was a bit surprising was all the defensive scoring this week.Among just our league we started teams that put up 23, 23 again, 19, 17, and 16 points on defense.That means almost half the league got as much out of their defense as they'd like to get out of a starting RB or WR, pretty significant. The best news for Matt is that LeSean McCoy appeared to go down with an injury against the Broncos, but it looks like he was not serious as he isn't even listed on the injury report.
Going into Monday night, I thought this matchup would be closer than it ended up.Mahoney was facing a 10-point deficit with home run hitter Mike Wallace on deck, while Matt had only Marques Colston remaining.Colston is talented but there's a giant of a tight end taking away all the touchdowns in the Saints' passing game these days.Sure enough Graham took away all the touchdowns, but Colston still easily outscored Wallace and suddenly this isn't even the closest game anymore.Mahoney did get big numbers out of Peterson (no surprise there) and Thompkins (a bit of a surprise there, but I guess Brady has to throw to somebody right now ).Past those two and Romo, no one else could find the end zone. McFadden got hurt (hey look, another occasion to not be surprised), and Chris Johnson was disappointing (you know where I'm going with this by now).
Depressing Sidenote: Some of the deficit here might have been made up by Ahmad Bradshaw, who ran extremely well against the 49ers usually stout defense in week 3, but he was sidelined with a neck injury.
RED PANDA ESCAPE ARTIST (4-0) OVER CLAYTON'S TEAM (1-3)
Visual Approximation:
Peyton and Eli obviously, of course Eli is the one crying a lot more.
Victoria looked vulnerable this week, but Clayton's team (coincidentally named ClAyTon's team ) couldn't capitalize.She had only four positions break 10 points, but it certainly helped that three of those made it over 20, including Peyton Fucking Manning who was just shy of 30.Jamaal Charles hit 23.7 despite suffering from what his coach described as "extensive blisters".Antonio Brown barely made it to half of his score from last week but still broke 20.Even though her RB depth is leaving a whole lot to be desired, Victoria remains undefeated and still holds the 2nd highest overall score.
This was supposed to be a rout, but Monday night turned it into our closest matchup this week (congrats on the Lando btw Victoria).The reason?Darren Sproles.Sproles was well on his way to the greatest fantasy game ever, with an astounding 30.9 points in the first half.But, the Saints took their foot off the gas and ran the ball often in the second half, taking touches away from Sproles.There was one chance for a late TD that might've given Clayton the lead, but instead Sproles fumbled (his first in his 3 years with New Orleans) that sealed his fate. When all was said and done, Sproles didn't even match 1% of his first half production in the second and Clayton couldn't pull off the improbably victory. What made this so improbable was the Packers' bye week.Without Rodgers or Jordy Nelson available Clayton had to start turnover savant Eli Manning and chose to start healthy scratch Isiah Pead.That's right, healthy scratch.Jeff Fisher decided Pead sucked so much that even though he was completely healthy and not suspended, he wouldn't be allowed to get on the field.A giant "fuck you" to Pead and to Clayton.Reggie Wayne and Anquan Boldin were bright spots, but they couldn't overcome that ugly 0 that Pead put up.
Depressing Sidenote: If Clayton had known ahead of time that Pead wasn't going to play, there's a decent chance he would've started Jacquizz Rodgers, who would've given him a narrow victory.
OPERATION PATIENCE (4-0) OVER HH HHHWATT?! (1-3)
Visual approximation:
Fun fact, the kid's singing voice sounds exactly like Stu's.
After two weeks of disappointing scores that still somehow ended in wins, my team went off for the week's top score to keep me undefeated.MJD (well, the Jaguars in general) remains a huge disappointment, and Brian Hartline was mostly shutdown by , but everyone else put up so many points that it hardly mattered.Foster put up a huge number against one of the league's top defenses.Torrey Smith and Victor Cruz were their teams only viable receiving option.Besides having good fantasy days in common, all three of these guys lost their games.Sucks for them, awesome for me.Wes Welker had no problem putting up big numbers while also winning his game, because holy shit is that Eagles defense terrible.Just those four guys put up 115.7, enough to beat Connie, Clayton, and Chang all by themselves this week.
Stu's team either went big or did nothing.Robert Woods (who?) and his impressive 19.3 points was the only position he had with a score between 10 and 3o.Brees was incredible last night, throwing for 4 TD's and over 400 yards.But he couldn't match Tony Gonzalez, who put up an otherworldly 38.9 points on 12 catches for 149 yards and 2 TD's.That's the end of the good news though.Ridley had his best game this year but still didn't make it to 10 points.DeSean Jackson has fallen off tremendously the last two weeks, falling from the top receiver statistically in fantasy to the 13th.Daniel Thomas is clearly behind Lamar Miller on the depth chart.Roddy White is clearly fighting through injury.And Santana Moss clearly disappeared in what should've been a favorable matchup against the Raiders.
Depressing Sidenote: There was no help riding the pine.Stu's bench is a sad collection of injuries, byes, non-starters, and Sam Bradford's supremely mediocre self.
HALFTIME!
I'm coming to you live from a dermatologist's office this week.My dear mother recently discovered that she has a skin cancer growth on her face, so I'm here while she's getting a part her face scraped off.The way it works is they numb her face (in this case her cheek), slice into her, cauterize the wound to prevent excess bleeding (mom mentioned that she couldn't feel anything but could definitely smell the burning flesh), freeze what they cut off, and test it for cancer cells.If they find any they numb her some more and keep cutting.Obviously cancer is a scary word, but this is supposed to be a routine procedure that will remove all of the cancer cells that have no chance of returning.The lab tech just came by and told us that they got everything with the first cut, so now mom's a few stitches away from going to bed with an ice pack on her face for 24-48 hours.So, here's hoping we're through this.
Depressing Sidenote: Like every doctor's office in Texas, Fox News is blaring in the waiting room so all the old people (SO MANY OLD PEOPLE) will be entertained. It is surprisingly difficult to write with Fox News's nonsense going on in the background.SO MANY "BUY GOLD" COMMERCIALS!
The Stupidest Thing Jon Gruden Said Last Night (featuring Mike Tirico):
Gruden: It's like a "Vin-yet". (pronounced phonetically)
Tirico, handsomely paid Gruden babysitter: It's vignette. (pronounced correctly)
Gruden: Vignette (pronounced close to correctly this time), is that what it is?
Jon Gruden is not a bright man.
PEANUT BUTTER DECKER TIME (2-2) OVER BEASTS OF THE SEATTLE WILD(3-1)
Visual Approximation:
Bold Statement: this may be the strangest thing on youtube.Some guy edited a Hannah-Barbara animated film detailing the story of David and Goliath down to about 13 minutes (from 22 presumably), took out all the sound, then dubbed in his own voice over all the characters.He claims it's for some youth group project but it's got to be some kind of performance art project.I mean why not just show the original video to the youth group, no need to crank up the strange level to infinity if it's just for kids.There are strange voice contortions, awful jokes, the whole shebang.It's long but you kind of get sucked into the bizarre and the 13 minutes just fly by.
Fun Fact: This was going to be the original visual approximation for Clayton vs. Victoria, if and only if Clayton won.Cause you know, Victoria was undefeated and Darren Sproles is crazy short.Then that didn't work out but this vid was so delightfully strange that I had to use it here, where a different Goliath falls.
Derek won the day with diversity.He only had two players in the 20s, but more importantly he only had one player under 10, and that was Emmanuel Sanders' 9.7.Jordan Cameron is looking like he wants to join the top tier of TE's where Jimmy Graham and Gronk if he's healthy reside.Greg Jennings looked like young Greg Jennings by putting up two scores.This could be because the Steelers' defense is somehow actually older than the Vikings veteran.Knowshon Moreno got this week's for the Broncos.Fred Jackson refuses to grow old and continues to frustrate the CJ Spiller owners of the world (hi Clayton!).Stafford and Bowe both salvaged lousy days with late touchdowns. And namesake Eric Decker was actually the second lowest score on Derek's team with a still impressive 13.8 points.We would all love to have that kind of problem.
Nick has had a rough week, and fantasy football did not help one bit.Bye weeks for his QB and WR2 already got Nick off to a bad start.actually put up a decent QB total, but he also turned the ball over four times. FOUR TIMES!That's eight fantasy points gone just in turnovers, not to mention what he would've accumulated with those four drives staying alive.A monster performance from Demaryius Thomas helped, but the rest of Nick's receivers couldn't pull their weight.Demaryius teammate/$67 dollar man/non-brother Julius Thomas picked a bad week to end his TD streak.None of Nick's other receivers could find the end zone either, punctuated by Steve Johnson's lone catch for -1 yards.At least PPR rules kept him out of the negatives, but that kind of production is completely unacceptable.
Depressing Sidenote:For those that don't know, the company Nick worked for shut down in the middle of the week (I think it was Wednesday) without any prior warning.Total dick move, IMHO.So if you see Nick, give him a hug and buy him a beer.
THAT'S MY BUSH (2-2) OVER KAP TO THE FUTURE! (1-3)
Reggie was the top score finally so I can share this silly intro with everyone.The show itself was pretty funny (I mean it's South Park co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, of course it's pretty funny) but then September 11 happened and the world got a lot less funny.
After an 0-2 start, last year's champion has put together back-to-back wins and moved into my rear view mirror in the rabbit division.It took way too long, but Reggie Bush is looking like the player we expected coming out of USC in the Lions' offense.Jimmy Graham is still the #2 overall player in fantasy, even if I still hate where Boone drafted him.Danny Woodhead tore up the Cowboys' defense and is looking like the biggest steal (only $7?what were the rest of us thinking there ) from the waiver wire so far.Most hilariously though, was the Titans' defense, who benefited from the .Or as @PFTCommenter describes it
more like bandonkafumble IMO (buttfumble but Black)--
(@PFTCommenter)
Bad week for Chang, our only team that couldn't hit triple digits.Andre Johnson's even 20 was Chang's top score, and Frank Gore's 19.3 was almost as impressive. But after that, no one could even make it to 15.Russell Wilson was atrocious throwing the ball, only completing 52% of his passes for 123 yards, an interception, and no TD's.7.7 of his 10.6 points came from rushing yards, which kept his fantasy day from being completely abysmal.Alfred Morris played alright, but then brusied (thankfully just bruised) his ribs and sat out the rest of the game.Santonio Holmes was less lucky.Not only did he put up fewer points, but now he's expected to miss a few weeks with an injury.Megatron was more of a decoy in the Reggie Bush show vs. Chicago, though he did still manage to catch a TD.And all you need to know about Sidney Rice's statline can be found in the Russell Wilson statline I already gave you.
Depressing Sidenote: As bad as Wilson was for Chang, EJ Manuel was even worse, with more turnovers and somehow only one yard on 11 rushing attempts.I really hope that's a typo in the stats, because damn that's unproductive.
MUSCLE HAMSTER 2: REVENGE (1-3) OVER PASSWORD IS TACO (0-4)
Visual Approximation:
2 winless teams playing each other for the last time all season?Gotta be a pillow fight.And why not go "Super Hott" while we're at it?Be sure to watch for the surprisingly racist twist around 2:35!
Dez carried Ryan's team this week, going for two scores and 26.1 fantasy points. Larry Fitzgerald caught a late TD to win the Cardinals game, and more importantly to turn a poor fantasy day into a good one.Julian Edelman might not be worth $50 in free agent money, but he's still doing well in the injury-plagued Patriots receiving corps.And the Broncos defense just whooped the Eagles senseless with two TD's.The Muscle Hamster himself still can't get much going (27 carries for 45 yards?Oof.)Marcel Reese looked like a smart play then McFadden went down early with an injuryuntil Reese did the same shortly after. Still when you're up against a super lame (see below) 0-3 team, you can afford some ugly numbers.
Connie almost ran away with the whole league last year, but oh how the mighty have fallen.She's now 0-4 and looking for answers in that trade with Nick.For the sake of parity let's hope it does her some good.Brady, Clay, and Forte all played well, but after that things take an ugly turn.Powell is looking good, but he's stuck on an awful offense.Trent Richardson just joined a good offense, but one with a timeshare at RB.But with his RB partner (Ahmad Bradshaw) out with an injury and a trip to the joke that is Jacksonville on the schedule, Richardson was in prime position to go off.Granted, he did have his best game of the year fantasy-wise, but he still only averaged a troubling 3 yards per carry and only managed 13.6 fantasy points.Vincent Jackson's troubling decline (his first four games this season? 22.4, 12.7, 6.4, 4.7) continues.Hakeem Nicks has clearly lost a step, or is just super depressed about being on the Giants this year.Even her defense disappointed, suddenly the Browns don't look like the attractive fantasy opponent they appeared to be two weeks ago.
Depressing Sidenote: Injuries remain a huge part of Connie's woes.Three potential starters all sat out for Connie last week.
THE LAME CLUB
A history lesson for everyone.Last year we also had a team that stubbornly kept itself in the lame club through four weeks.That was Charlie's team, who at the time was 1-3, with his only win coming in a 117.4-117.4 game that he won by going to the second decimal place.Then he changed his team name and immediately beat our two-time repeating champion the next week.Then he lost 9 of the last 11 games but let's not focus on that.WE HAVE SCIENTIFIC PROOF THAT STAYING IN THE LAME CLUB IS DETRIMENTAL TO YOUR FANTASY SUCCESS.Connie seems aware of this but brazenly remains in the lame club anyways.I fear she will continue to suffer the wrath of the Fantasy Gods (TM) until she changes her team name.
A LOOK AHEAD
Me vs. Nick
I know you're having a rough go of things Nick, but I must crush you.I just hope RG3 spends his bye week learning how to run again.And I'm stuck with MJD for another week
My byes: RG3, Le'Veon Bell, Heath Miller, Leonard Hankerson.
Nick's byes: None
Derek vs. Mahoney
Derek lucks out and gets Mahoney during AP's bye week.
Derek's byes: Emmanuel Sanders, Greg Jennings
Mahoney's byes: Adrian Peterson, Buccaneers D/ST
Clayton vs. Ryan King
One of our two matchups between 1-3 teams.THE LONG MARCH TO MEDIOCRITY.Of note, Muscle Hamster 2 is without the Muscle Hamster
Clayton's byes: Vikings D/ST
Ryan's byes: Doug Martin
Connie vs. Victoria
Spoiler alert, this visual approximation is going to be a cat fight.I mean come on. Plus can 0-4 beat 4-0?Connie at least wins the battle of the byes.
Connie's byes: Vincent Jackson
Victoria's byes: Antonio Brown, Pierre Garcon, Kyle Rudolph, Ben Roethlisberger, Jerome Simpson.
Chang vs. Stu
That other 1-3 vs. 1-3, 2-3 means you're alive, 1-4 meansbetter luck next year.
Chang's byes: Alfred Morris
Stu's byes: Santana Moss
Matt F vs. Matt Boone
Matt-off!
Matt F's byes: None
Matt Boone's byes: Mike Williams, Cordarrelle Peterson
ABOUT THAT SURPRISE
Another history lesson.Way back in our inaugural season I decided that we needed a suitable trophy.At the time was by far the best network on television, and myself along with at least half of the league watched unhealthy amounts of it.So, working in secret, Stu (who wasn't even in the league at the time) and myself (mostly Stu though, I'm no craftsman) bought some plexiglass, sawed some 2 4 s, applied copious amounts of spray paint, and created our own rendition of a aka the prize from all GUTS (TM) competitions.It was glorious, it even had a light in it that really made it glow. Then our beloved Matt F won the league and wanted the thing shipped to him.It sadly did not survive the trip, and what little remains of the trophy still sits in his closet last I checked.Anyways, this year I discovered with a little searching that some awesome person on eBay will make you a glowing piece of that radical rock (I toyed with calling it the GPPR or "The Gipper" but never really committed to it, thoughts?) for a very low fee.It is obviously made with 100% less love, but it's also made of 100% styrofoam, which makes it so much more likely to survive a cross country shipping trip.So as our current champion, Boone, I ask you if you want me to ship it to you.Or since you never seem to have a fixed address, I can just hold onto it and use my MS Paint skills to add it to some facebook pic of you. Your choice.
Good luck next week everybody!
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