[League Update] Week 7: Welcome back to the morass of negativity

Written while watching soccer.

What's with all these Sunday morning games in London? Doesn't the NFL know that weekend mornings are for watching soccer? And let's be real, I'd rather watch the Premier League than a game between the Washington football team and the Bengals. (By the way, make sure to set your lineup for that one.)

Jeremy did a masterful job filling in last week, bringing an energy and bravado that the the league update hasn't seen in months. But he's gone and I'm back which means the league update will return to the morass of negativity and shame and pain.

But let's talk about people who are actually good in this league! At the top, we've still got Big Kahuna Burger at 6-1. Things are spreading out just a bit below BKB, with Watt a Girl Wants and Get Off My Dak at 5-2, and four teams (There's no 'I' in team, Blaupunkt, Theon's Deflated Balls and Muscular Mathletes) tied at 4-3. The rest of the league is at 3-4, except for Academic Probation (2-5) and ... me.

Teams who still haven't won a game through Week 7:

- Jeff Fisher's Mullet. How bad are the Mullets? They've scored a grand total of 419 points this season. The next lowest team? Muscular Mathletes and PerpetualMotionSquad both have 540. Yeah, a gap of 121 points.

You know what I'm going to start doing? I'm going to start telling you about how I'm doing in the league Off Constantly started, because at least there I can feel joy. I'm 5-2 and tied for first in that league after winning 156-107 last week. Wooooooooooooo ...

The Awards

The highest scorer in Week 7 was Theon's Deflated Balls. They beat Blaupunkt 135-81. There were a lot of high scores this week, with There's no 'I' in team, Watt A Girl Wants and Big Kahuna Burger also scoring more than 100 points this week. Maybe one day I'll know what that feels like. (Probably not.)




The Muscular Mathletes got Sad Tromboned this week, scoring 50 points in a loss to Get Off My Dak, 82-50. And I'd just like to say that I was not controlling the Mathletes team in Week 7. That was all her.

The Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions goes to Dolphins of Old. Now I have to say, I really struggled to find one this week. Seems like most people picked their best lineup, or lost so bad that it didn't actually matter (raises hand). Dolphins started Cameron Meredith in the W/R spot and he scored 1.2, while Victor Cruz scored 5.5 on the bench. Not a huge difference, but Dolphins lost to Cant Be That Hard 93-91. Oof.

This week's Grumble Grumble Award goes to Academic Probation, mostly because of this Facebook post after losing 123-91 to Big Kahuna Burger.

Pretty good weekend in fantasy - on track to be over my projected - and I'm getting waxed.
-AcademicProbation

:(

New random award I came up with: Most ridiculous headline written by an NFL.com computer. This is where I pick the dumbest of those headlines on the recaps you can find in the Game Center. This week:

heh heh heh heh

Other scores from the week: 

- SugaLumps 81, Jeff Fisher's Mullet 60. In a matchup of this year's worst team and last year's worst team ... last year's won easily. Quick Mullet Grumble: I got Jamaal Charles in that trade with Get Off My Dak and I thought, "Finally, a starting RB!" Yeah, he didn't score any points, reaggravated an injury and is out this week. BECAUSE OF COURSE.

- Watt A Girl Wants 111, Off Constantly 61. I'll just use WAGW's Facebook post to recap this one: "Ahh, beating Off Constantly- how I like to spend a Sunday evening at home."

- There's no 'I' in team 128, PerpetualMotionSquad 53. PMS nearly got Sad Tromboned mostly because Sam Bradford reverted back to Sammy Brad of old. Also, Sports Cliche has Jay Ajayi, who is just freakin' crushing it right now. 27 points this week, 32 last.

Morgan Hates Everything 

Matt Ryan nearly lost Cant Be That Hard the game after throwing a late pick.

Here are the texts I got from him:

"Matt Ryan is going to cost me another football game" 

"I was up, then the fucker threw a pick" 

"As a Panthers fan, my constant reliance on Matt Ryan to win fantasy football games is enough to make me want to vomit."

The Book of Faces

Top post, from Get Off My Dak:

Other good stuff: 

- i'm shitting my pants knowing i'm up against Mullet - no one wants to be the first against an "0h-fer" fearing the Mullet for vastly different than normal reasons. -Academic Probation. (Really hope we get to bust out the trophy y'all are coming up with.)

- How do I go from losing by 60 one week, and winning by 60 the next?! I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! -Theon's Deflated Balls

Alright, that's it. No poem this week. A bit of an anticlimactic end.

Oh, Happy Halloween! I should have played up a Halloween theme in this post! Oh well, too late now. I'm not redoing it.

[League Update] Week 6: Make Fantasy Football Great Again!

This is the first League Update guest post! Jeremy from Get Off My Dak wrote this week's post. But first, a quick order of business: NEW AVATAR ALERT!! You'll see why below, but this face will be the face of our Twitter account until someone overtakes her. 

OK, take it away, Jeremy!

---

Well that debate was about as exciting as a high school class president debate. I am glad that is over and I can move on to more exciting topics…FANTASY FOOTBALL! With week 6 in the books we finally have a team in the #1 spot, Big Kahuna Burger, but more on that later. Watt a Girl Wants, Blaupunkt, Muscular Mathletes, and (yours truly) Get Off My Dak are all tied at 4-2.

The rest of the league is tied at 3-3 or 2-4 … except for one.

Guys, we need to have an intervention or something. Our poor, sad Commissioner is 0-6…0-6! He hasn’t even come close to a win yet this season. I think at this point we all feel a little sad for him.
This game used to bring joy to all of our faces, but for one sad Commissioner it is safe to say, “The thrill is gone.” I for one want to make fantasy football great again for Corey, which is why I proposed a trade to hopefully help him out.

Enough feeling bad for Corey, he should have drafted a better team. Now onto the good stuff!

GAME RECAPS

Big Kahuna Burger vs. Jeff Fisher’s Mullet

Well here in the Williams’ house the thrill is real! (Don’t worry I will keep this PG). Big Kahuna Burger crushed fantasy football again this week by crushing Jeff Fisher’s Mullet by almost 62 points. It is crushing defeats like this that lead the Mullet’s to quotes like, “Stupid game.”

Get Off My Dak vs. Academic Probation

The other team in the Williams’ house was able to squeak out a 73.78-70.26 victory over Academic Probation. Your reigning champ is looking to make another playoff run. Will Fuller laid a big goose egg to basically solidify a win for GOMD.

Watt a Girl Wants vs. SugaLumps

The NFL.com recap said, “Watt a Girl Wants goes crazy on SugaLumps for 4th straight win.” Yeah that pretty much sums it up …

Blaupunkt vs. Off Constantly

It is safe to say Blaupunkt did not beat Off Constantly. Off Constantly strolled to a 127.36-70 victory over Blaupunkt. To make matters worse Blaupunkt’s bench scored 84 points! Someone should make better life decisions when setting their lineup.

There’s No “I” in Team vs. Muscular Mathletes

There is no “I” in team but there is an “I” in SHIT!!!! First let’s all marvel at Courtney doing this amazingness:
 


Courtney (Muscular Mathletes) also took care of fantasy football business with a 93-83 win this week. Who would have thought Andrew Luck would have a good game, but since he sat on the bench No “I” went down in a blaze of glory this week.

Dolphins of Old vs. Theon’s Deflated Balls

Let’s just describe this game as a curb stomp … yeah that sounds good. It wasn’t even close as the Dolphins of Old cruised to a 119-61 win on the backs of Drew Brees and Rob Gronkowski. If the Dolphins of Old didn’t beat up the Deflated Balls enough, their own bench beat them by 15.

Can’t Be That Hard vs. Perpetual Motion Squad

I said it once and I will say it again … it CAN be that hard.  PMS rode a 32 point performance by Odell Beckham Jr. to a close 80-75 win over Can’t Be That Hard.

The Awards

This week’s Sad Trombone Award goes to SugaLumps, which scored a sad 41.26 points against Watt a Girl Wants.  Honorable mention goes to Jeff Fisher’s Mullet which only scored 42.66 … you got lucky this week.  Here’s to you SugaLumps!


The Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions goes to two teams: Blaupunkt and There’s No “I” in Team.

If No “I” in Team would have started Andrew Luck over Carson Palmer this week he would have won by 1 point! Although Blaupunkt lost by 57.36 points, had he put Terrell Pryor, Chris Michael, and Bradin Cooks in the starting line up he would have won. Poor decisions my friends…

Last but not least the Grumble Grumble Award has to go to Jeff Fisher’s Mullet because 0-6 …that’s why.

It has been six weeks Corey, win a damn game!

Well folks I am winding down this update but I will get you out of here with some highlights from Facebook:

- “Corey Inscoe I will trade you Kelvin Benjamin for a ham sandwich...think about it.” –Get Off My Dak

- “Just need a point to keep from getting Sad Tromboned ...” –Jeff Fisher’s Mullet

- “I'd like to thank Corey Inscoe and his steaming hot pile of shit team (did I get all the adjectives right?) for securing my 1st place standing 👏🏻”  –Big Kahuna Burger 

Thanks for letting me write the post this week Corey. Maybe we should start a rule that whoever is in last place each week has to write the post? HAHA it’s funny because that would be you!

Signing off …

[League Update] Week 5: The Best of the Worst

Written while drinking coffee and watching soccer, since football is stupid.

Once again, I'm writing this update mere hours before the Sunday games kick off. I could make a bunch of excuses, but I won't. I just had meetings Wednesday and Thursday nights, and spent Saturday watching college football (Go Heels). Were those excuses? Oh well.

Like I said, let me know if you want to write this thing one week. I have Morgan marked down for Week 10. Every other week is wide open. Make it your own. Have fun. Use GIFs.

I've gotten to the point in this NFL season where I don't even get mad anymore, I just laugh. I transitioned in the middle of the Monday night Panthers game. Instead of getting mad, I started wondering how they would manage to blow the game. And blow it they did.

I actually set my lineup with the assumption that the Panthers D would be trash, and I was right, and it almost worked. More on that below. Have 1-4 teams made the playoffs? Yes. Do I think this Panthers team will? Not they way it's playing right now.

But here's the upside -- cheap tickets late in the season.

And hey, Stoke City finally won a match in the English Premier League! Things are looking up.

Not that it actually matters, but I just want y'all to know that I've won three straight games in the other league I'm in. So I'm not a total fantasy football idiot.

On to the good stuff.

As I reported last week, we don't have any undefeated teams left in the league, and we still don't have a team alone in first place. This week, Big Kahuna Burger and Blaupunkt are tied for first at 4-1. Five teams are one game back at 3-2: Watt a Girl Wants, There's no "I" in team, Theon's Deflated Balls, Get Off My Dak and Muscular Mathletes (sorry Courtney).

Who will get the first Twitter avatar of the season? Big Kahuna Burger plays Jeff Fisher's Mullet this week (sigh) and Blaupunkt faces Off Constantly.

The rest of the league* is sitting at 2-3, just two games back from first. There's a lot that can still happen.

Oh, what's that asterisk you ask? Let's take a look at the teams that still haven't won after five games.

- Jeff Fisher's Mullet

OK guys, this isn't funny anymore. I want to win. I really want to win. I'm trying, I promise. Anyone want to trade? I'll literally take any starting running back and any No. 1 or No. 2 receiver. I'm not kidding.

We'll talk more about my struggles this week below, in the awards.

The awards

The highest scorer this week was Big Kahuna Burger, which scored 121 points to beat Get Off My Dak in the Williams Bowl 2016. This is the second time BKB has been the highest scorer, also getting that honor in Week 1. And this 121-point performance come just after a 57-point performance in Week 4. But, you see, BKB scored 57 points and won. Remember this when I start ranting below.


via GIPHY


This week's Sad Trombone Award goes to Off Constantly, who scored 48 points in a loss to Dolphins of Old. Wait, let me rephrase that: Dolphins of Old beat Off Constantly 64-48.

The Jameis Winston Award for Poor -- wait, you know what? I've been thinking that we need to change that award. Sure, Jameis made some bad decisions in his past, but he's moved past them and become a pretty good NFL quarterback. So let me see ... who should we replace him with ...

Yep, that makes more sense.

The Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions goes to me, Jeff Fisher's Mullet. Y'all, I legitimately could have won this week. Other weeks, I deserved to lose, but this was my week to pull it off. Then I started the wrong Panthers running back. I had been starting Cameron Artis-Payne over Fozzy Whitaker, but in Week 5 I decided to switch it up and start Fozzy, who had been more productive. Fozzy scored 5 points. CAP scored 20. I lost by 13 to Watt A Girl Wants (90-77). Do the math. I'm so angry.

This week's Grumble Grumble Award goes to Off Constantly, whose bench -- really, just four players -- outscored his starting lineup by more than 20 points. It also outscored his opponent, Dolphins of Old. I don't normally give two awards to the same team, but this one's deserving -- and the other candidate for this one was the Mullets, which I'll get to in a minute.

Martellus Bennett (24.7), Marcus Mariota (30.5), DeAndre Hopkins (11.6) and Derrick Henry (5.4) combined to score 72.2 points. In Week 4, those same four players combined for like 19 points, so you can't blame Off Constantly for benching them. But you also can't blame him for grumbling.

And while we're grumbling: Look, I know my team is a festering pile of garbage waste lit on fire on a hot, humid day, but I've actually been outscoring teams the past few weeks -- just never the team I'm playing. Which is kind of the point.

But no team that I've played has scored less than 82 points this season. Can't someone pick a bad day to have a bad day when they play me? Please? Big Kahuna Burger? Anyone?

The book of faces

Not as much chatter on the F Book this week, but one little dig stood out, from Academic Probation:

"There's no I in Team" but there is an I in "Carson Palmer was Inactive"

BURN. Academic Probation beat There's no I in team 85-60.

Some other gems: 

- "It's 1:26 on Sunday, and Big Kahuna Burger has already scored more points than Jeff Fishers Mullet probably will." -SugaLumps.
- "Idea: next season we do 2 leagues - 1) normal 2) everyone goes Auto Draft." -Academic Probation. (I actually kind of like this idea ... but then I'd have to manage a third team and I don't know if my brain can handle that.)
- "I drafted 4 running backs, including one by accident in the last round. Guess which one is starting for me for the 3rd week in a row? #injuryluck" -Cant Be That Hard. Morgan, still hating his team.

Other scores from Week 5

- Blaupunkt beat SugaLumps 111-80
- Cant Be That Hard beat Muscular Mathletes 97-68
- PerpetualMotionSquad beat Theon's Deflated Balls 89-72

And now, we'll sign off as we always do with a haiku from Eve.

"The Best of The Worst" 

How can it be that
Just two teams broke 100
And Cor still can't win?

...sigh...

[League Update] Week 4: Football is stupid

Written while trying to forget Saturday's Carolina game.

Football is stupid. There, I said it. It's dumb. The Panthers are bad for some reason this season, the Tar Heels played a turd of a game yesterday and my fantasy team is a steaming hot pile of garbage waste on a hot day.

But here we are again, on the eve of another Sunday full of football, and it's time to write the league update. Yeah, it's a little late. The week got away from me. The offer for anyone else to write the update stands, as always. Just let me know.

Now on to the crap.

First let's take a look at who's undefeated after Week 4: 

(crickets)

YEP. That's right. All three undefeated teams lost last week. Ain't that something? That means we have a six-way tie for first place right now, with all of these teams at 3-1:

- Big Kahuna Burger
- There's no "I" in team
- Blaupunkt
- Theon's Deflated Balls
- Muscular Mathletes
- Get Off My Dak (Great team name. This might be my new favorite)

That's nearly half the league tied for first. Parity, man. This is anyone's league. Well except mine, probably. Because now let's take a look at the teams that are still winless after Week 4.

- Jeff Fisher's Mullet.

YEP. IT'S JUST ME DOWN HERE. IT'S FINE, REALLY. I'M OK.

Cant Be That Hard had to go and win a freakin' game last week, leaving me alone at the bottom. The only real consolation here is that right above me there are four teams at 1-3 -- Dolphins of Old, PerpetualMotionSquad, Academic Probation and CBTH -- so it's not like I'm miles behind the pack. But still -- my team sucks.

Morgan, though: Still not jazzed about his team CBTH:

I got my first win last week, and I still have zero faith in my team. They suck! You want proof? I've left less than 26 points on the bench this season, and 3 or less for the past 3 weeks. Even if I had set a perfect lineup every week, I'd still be 1-3. My team is full of sad sacks! Is it too early to fire my head coach?

I am managing the Muscular Mathletes for the next two weekends while Courtney is out of the country, so I'll at least get a taste of what it's like to have a talented team. Or I'll ruin her season. We'll see.

Awards

This week's Sad Trombone goes to, once again, not me! It's There's no "I" in team with 46 points in a loss to Big Kahuna Burger, who scored just 57.

I think we're gonna keep this GIF around for a while.




It's really distracting to write with that on the screen, by the way.

The highest scorer of the week was Watt A Girl Wants with 134 in a win over Blaupunkt.


Man I had forgotten about that video ... hello, middle school.

This really was a week of haves and have nots, though. Five teams scored 100 or more points, and five scored 57 or less.

This week's Jameis Winston Award for Poor Decisions goes to Blaupunkt, whose bench scored 75 points. That bench would have beaten six teams last week. Instead, they did nothing and Blaupunkt lost to Watt A Girl Wants 134-94. What a waste of Julio Jones absolutely torching the Panthers.

But let's talk about how stacked that lineup was. The bench and team scored a combined 169 points. I don't think my starters have scored 75 points in a game yet this year. Yep, just checked. That's a fact. Share the wealth, Blaupunkt!

This week's Grumble Grumble Award goes to Dolphins of Old, which lost to SugaLumps 102-53. Here's why that's gotta be annoying, other than the fact that SugaLumps was awful last year. Dolphins only had one player score in double digits -- and it wasn't the quarterback. And SugaLumps started a still scored more than 100 points.

Look, y'all make it seem like this game is easy and just fall ass backwards into a 100-point game and I'm over here working my tail off and I can't do anything.

Football is stupid.

Other scores from Week 4: 

Cant Be That Hard beat Academic Probation 128-114.
Off Constantly beat PerpetualMotionSquad 123-53
Theon's Deflated Balls beat Muscular Mathletes 95-62
Get Off My Dak beat Jeff Fisher's Mullet 81-52

This week's Facebook comment of the week goes to Off Constantly for this gem:

"PerpetualMotionSquad just doesn't have what it takes to beat Off Constantly.."
Thank you NFL.com!

Some honorable mentions: 

- The good news for Steven is that I likely won't still be triple his score by tomorrow morning. The bad news is I will likely still be double B-) -Off Constantly
- Corey I found an upside to your lost last week. Your starters beat my bench by 5. Yay! -Get Off My Dak
- My auto-draft team has done better than anytime I picked myself. -Blaupunkt

And this from Big Kahuna Burger:

Gems I found from the Game Center recaps last week...
Blaupunkt actually averages more per game in losses (94.72) than wins (94.69)
Jeff Fisher's Mullet is watching the season slip away and is winless.

Sigh ...

And now we're going to close it out with TWO poems. Y'all really brought the heat this week.

First, a limerick from Katie:

There was a young girl with a wish
Fantasy victories each week to dish
She followed her dream
The other teams scream
Big Kahuna is the top fish

And our weekly haiku from Eve. This one's titled "How We Stand."

Six teams tied for first
No one is undefeated
Poor Corey is last

Football is stupid.