[League Update] Week 9: Finally, a new avatar

SugaLumps hasn't been at the top of the league for weeks, yet that beautiful, cherubic face has served as our Twitter avatar since Week 4. No longer, because we finally have a new team atop the league standings.

KB's Belly Shirts and Muscular Mathletes have been matching each other win for win for the past few weeks, but one team finally blinked. Academic Probation took down the Mathletes 85-68 while KB took care of business against Something witty 76-46, which means ...

NEW AVATAR ALERT

I had to scroll past so. many. wedding photos to get to that.

Now, it's worth noting that after a nearly-record-breaking performance in Week 8, KB didn't exactly blow out the winless Something. As he admitted to me, "at one point seriously thought I may lose to something shitty." But then Something didn't start a flex and, well, you know how this ends.

So KB sits alone at 8-1, the Mathletes and Academic Probation (a fitting duo, there) follow at 7-2, SugaLumps is alone in fourth at 6-3, then there are four teams at 5-4, four at 4-5, two at 3-6, one at 2-7 and then ... Something.

It's probably time to start talking about playoffs, huh?

The playoffs start Week 14 and run through Week 16, single elimination. The top eight teams make the championship playoffs and the bottom eight play in the consolation tournament. The tiebreaker, as always, is points for.

Right now, the 5-4 and better teams are in, everyone else is out. But there's a lot that can change over the final four weeks of the season. It's crunch time, y'all.

Awards

The highest scorer in Week 9 was WattCanISayExceptYou'reWelcome with 108 in a win over PerpetualMotionSquad. It was a surprisingly low-scoring week, with just one other team (Dolphins of Old with 102) hitting triple digits. Bye weeks suck, huh?


The Sad Trombone Award goes to the one, the only – Something witty, with 46 points in his loss to KB. At 0-9, Something witty has surpassed my streak of futility from last season, when I started 0-7. Will he win a game this year? Or will he be the 2008 Lions?

Fun fact: No team has ever gone winless in Royale With Cheese history. The most losses for a team in a season is 11, an honor held by two teams: SugaLumps and Something. (I finished last season 4-2 and avoided double-digit losses, thank you very much.) I believe that Something returned to Royale With Cheese this season to make a mark on this league, to do something that's never been done before. I believe in you, Something. You can do it.

I should also take a second to apologize to SugaLumps and Off Constantly —the two teams that won't get a chance to play Something witty this year. The scheduling was random, guys. I'm sorry.

I'm not giving out a Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions this week because, well, everyone no one made any huge lineup mistakes. Instead, I won't to point out the frustration Blaupunkt must be feeling right now. He set his best possible lineup – the bench literally scored zero points – while his opponent, Bueller, started three players on bye. And Bueller won by almost 30. Ouch. A for effort, Blaupunkt. Here, have an orange slice and a Capri Sun.

This week's Grumble Grumble Award goes to There's no 'I' in team, which has the longest losing streak (five) of any team not named Something and sits at 2-7. There's no 'I' in team on Facebook:

There's been a lot of grumbling on the Facebook and, yes, I know this season has been hard with 16 teams. But it's tests like this that make us stronger, and show us what we're made of. It's not how you get knocked down, it's how you get back up. You have to look through the rain to see the rainbow. It takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile. It's like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife. You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take. YOLO. Shoot your shot. Keep calm and carry on.

This week

I actually wrote this early enough to remind you that the Seahawks and Cardinals play Thursday night, so set your lineups accordingly. You know who else plays Thursday night? The Tar Heels and Pitt, who have a combined 5 wins. You know ESPN is pumped to have that marquee ACC matchup in primetime.

As for Sunday, you've got the Ravens, Chiefs, Raiders and Eagles on bye.

You know what else is this week? INSCOE HOUSEHOLD BOWL. (Not to be confused with Inscoe Bowl, when Dolphins of Old kicks my butt to start every single season.) Poor Eleanor's going to be stuck in the middle of some vicious trash talking, like "Hey, who am I playing this week?" and "I'm heading to Lowe's to buy a taller ladder so I can clean the gutters." It's gonna be intense.

Eleanor's Pick of the Week 

6-3 on the season

*...................................................Stares intently at own fists for 5 minutes....................................................*

(She was focusing so hard because she's calling an upset: Academic Probation 100, KB's Belly Shirts 95. Sorry Uncle Bryan.)

The Book of Faces

"My goals this season have shifted, and now I’m just hoping to disrupt the playoff contenders. Sugalumps.... you will be my first victim." -PerpetualMotionSquad

Some part of me wanted N.C. State to beat Clemson last week, just so UNC could beat the Wolfpack the last week of the season and ruin their chances at an ACC Championship. So I'm feeling this from PMS.

Bonus, from the Twitter:

@CoreyInscoe made me stop my streaking ways, now in fantasy football, as well as life. I hate you dad. @RoyaleWCheeseFB #parentingwin

— Benjamin Keely (@blkeely) November 7, 2017

True. True.

Because I got Haiku

Miss Inscoe’s record
Beats most of League Royale, yet
Last week’s forecast failed

Pretty sure that's referring to Miss Eleanor. You show that baby, Eve!

[League Update] Week 8: Another one gone ... and another one gone

Keith Johnston/Unsplash.com

As if playing with 16 teams wasn't already hard enough, the injury bug has become an infestation this year. Maybe I'm blocking it out, but I don't remember a RWC as injury-plagued as this one. It started Week 1, with the loss of No. 1 overall pick and Mullet savior David Johnson. And it continued: Greg Olsen, OBJ, Aaron Rodgers ...

Then this week:

Deshaun Watson is finished for 2017, so the #Texans now turn to Tom Savage.

3⃣: https://t.co/AwBUb6AHri pic.twitter.com/Wv60opCAfG

— Houston Texans (@HoustonTexans) November 4, 2017

and

Colts announced Andrew Luck on IR. Out for year. No more mystery.

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 2, 2017

and

#AZCardinals coach Bruce Arians tells reporters that he doubts RB David Johnson (wrist) plays this season (h/t @kentsomers)

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 31, 2017

and, well, yeah, this pretty much covers it:

This season's Injury all star team! pic.twitter.com/Vduav0hYpR

— The Fake ESPN (@TheFakeESPN) November 4, 2017

Then you have the three big trades of Kelvin Benjamin, Jay Ajayi and Jimmy Garoppolo. How will those players be used at their new teams? Who knows.

But one team clearly wasn't hurting this week. Let's get right to it.

Awards

The highest scorer this week — and nearly the highest scorer in league history — was newcomer KB's Belly Shirts with ... wait for it ... 163.58 points. In a league with 16 teams, in a season with so many injuries, that number is straight bonkers. Bravo, sir.

Get Off My Dak actually had a decent 86-point game, but he almost got doubled up. And get this: KB actually didn't set his best possible line up. Had he switched out his running backs in the flex, he would have gotten three more points. And that would have given him the record for the highest weekly score in Royale With Cheese history, beating out belmont83unc80 164.52.

Needless to say, KB is still at the top of the league. But he doesn't get the avatar yet, because Muscular Mathletes are right there with him after a 114-40 win over Something witty. Those two 7-1 teams are followed closely by Academic Probation at 6-2, though he has his own set of problems this week with that Deshaun Watson injury at Tom Brady on bye.

SugaLumps and Off Constantly follow at 5-3, and behind them are six teams at 4-4, two at 3-5, two at 2-6 and you-know-who at 0-8.



Speaking of you-know-who, Something witty wins the Sad Trombone Award this week with his 40-point performance. This is what happens when your quarterback, wide receiver and defense are on bye. Not great.

The Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions goes to WattCanISayExceptYou'reWelcome. This is a minor one, but 87-84 loss to One McCaffrey Latte Please was also the only close matchup of the week. The bad decision? Not starting Golden Tate (6.6 points) and starting Vernon Davis (2 points).

Early on, it seemed like we had an obvious pick for the Johnny Football Award when Dolphins of Old started Kirk Cousins (10 points) over Russell Wilson (35) points, but he managed to still beat Bueller 63-54.

The Grumble Grumble Award goes to Academic Probation, who's having a rough week. From Facebook: "Academic Probation loses Deshaun Watson and Pierre Garçon in 24 hours. Can anyone spell Jimmy Garoppolo?" And:

"Yeah, think I’d like to start over...."

This week

No weird early games Sunday, but the Bears, Browns, Chargers, Vikings, Patriots and Steelers don't play this week. Good luck setting your lineups.

Eleanor's pick of the week

6-2 on the season — killing it.

GAHHH GAHHH GAHHH GAHHHH *wails* *parent shoves pacifier back in mouth* MMMM MMM GUUUHHH *falls asleep*

(PerpetualMotionSquad 90, WattCanISayExceptYou'reWelcome 87)

The Book of Faces

Get Off My Dak: "Commish...Imma need you to check Bryan’s team for PEDs."

KB's Belly Shirts:

Haikuna matata 

Eve's back:

Injuries and trades
Run rampant throughout the league.
Season Mulligan?

[League Update] Week 7: Football is stupid and life has no meaning

Martin Reisch/Unsplash

Let's talk about how not fun football was last weekend. Tar Heel football hasn't been fun ... well ... at all this season. (I just knew they were gonna upset Miami Saturday. That would be such a UNC football thing to do. But alas.) That Virginia Tech game is one of the ugliest games I've seen, and I was in college during the John Bunting era. Those were not good days.

And then the schizophrenic Panthers decided to have a bad day and look straight up awful against the hapless Bears. Ugly, ugly football. Mitchell "Don't Call Me Mitch" Trubisky completed like four passes and the Bears got like five first downs and, despite all that, it felt like the Panthers had no chance of coming back. And they didn't. Sad.

And for half of the league — including me — the weekend ended with a fantasy football loss. Think about the hours wasted watching losing football last weekend. Think about all of the things you could have done instead: Watched a movie, read a book, had positive interactions with family, raked the leaves. Instead we watched awful, horrible, no good football and got blindingly drunk to numb the pain. 'Merica.

It looks like we're going to have to wait at least one more week to award a new avatar. KB's Belly Shirts and Muscular Mathletes both won last weekend to move to 6-1 on the season. The Mathletes play Something witty this week (just go ahead and mark that as a W) and KB plays Get Off My Dak, which could prove to be a very interesting match up.

Below those two, SugaLumps, who regained his winning form against the hapless Mullets, and Academic Probation sit at 5-2. Three teams sit at 4-3, six are 3-4, two come in at 2-5 and one — guess who! — is 0-7. And yes, if you did the math, that means more than half the league it below .500 just over halfway through the season. Hashtag parity.

Awards

The highest scorer from Week 7 — by less than .8 points — was SugaLumps with 127.86. Not that he needed it, considering the Mullets put up a whopping 63 poings. KB's Belly Shirts followed close behind with 127.08 in an even more lopsided win over There's no 'I' in team (38 points).


via GIPHY


Surely that 38 is the Sad Trombone this week, right? Wrong. There was a tight race to the bottom last week and One McCaffrey Latte Please won it with 34 points in a loss to Blaupunkt (70). That's probably one of the lowest scores we've ever seen, but I'm pretty sure it's not the lowest. If someone wants to research that, go for it.

The Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions was awarded super early this week. Amari Cooper went ham in the Thursday night game, racking up 210 receiving yards and two touchdowns. That's good for 33 points. And he did it all on Dolphins of Old's bench. Oh, and Dolphins of Old lost to PerpetualMotionSquad by two. Ouch. To Dolphins' credit, Cooper hadn't scored more than 3.3 points since Week 1. But it still hurts.

The Grumble Grumble Award goes to anyone who had a Panthers offensive player in their starting lineup. I'm looking at you There's no 'I' in team (Dickson 1.8 points), McCaffrey Latte (Funchess 4.1), WattCanISayExceptYou'reWelcome (Cam 7.4 points and Gano 3 points). And I'm looking at me (McCaffrey 4.6). Mee-OW.

Oh, and this from SugaLumps, who doesn't trust computers: "Does anyone else feel like expert projections and sit/start rankings are a total crock? I feel like more often than not the intuitions are based on player pedigree and reputation, not statistics. Grumble grumble."

This week

Turns out there was a game in London last week, but they played it at 1 Eastern. Huh. This week, there's an early London game: Vikings vs. Browns. (Gross.) If you have Vikings players, set your lineup early. If you have Browns players, I'm sorry.

Eleanor's Pick of the Week

(She's 5-2 on the season, a better record than her daddy.)

*chews on all four fingers of right hand for a 10 minutes straight*

(Dolphins of Old 77, Bueller 70.)

The Book of Faces

Blaupunkt: "Do I get an award for having a defense score 27pts?"

Get Off My Dak:

Haiku D2

I spent too many hours
Watching terrible football
I need a sad nap

-Corey (I forgot to ask Eve to send one this week. My bad.)

[League Update] Week 6: I get knocked down, but I get up again

Ben Hershey/Unsplash.com

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. And I'm not even talking about Aaron Rodgers. (Sorry, David.)

SugaLumps, he of avatar fame and the 4-0 start, has lost two games in a row and is now tied for third place. Let's hope this streak continues ... because he plays the Mullets this week.

SugaLumps' downfall would normally mean NEW AVATAR ALERT. But alas, as league rules (arbitrarily made up by me) stipulate, the avatar is to remain unchanged until one team has sole possession of the top spot. And we have two teams tied for first at 5-1.

(Fun fact: The only loss for both 5-1 teams was to ... SugaLumps.)

KB's Belly Shirts has had a strong showing in his first RWC season, despite missing the first half of the fantasy draft. (I'm learning more and more that autodrafting is not necessarily a bad thing ...) His only loss came to SugaLumps (107-69) in Week 2.

After losing to SugaLumps 109-92 to open the season, Muscular Mathletes has reeled off five straight wins.

Who will take the avatar? We'll see. The two don't play head to head until Week 11, but if things keep going this way that will be a HUGE matchup.

Behind those top two, four teams are tied at 4-2, four more are tied at 3-3, and five are tied at 2-4. And then, well ... yeah ... something witty is 0-6. I've said my piece on this.

Awards

The highest scorer from Week 6 was the aforementioned Muscular Mathletes with 114 points in a HUGE win over There's no 'I' in team, which ...



... won the Sad Trombone Award for this week with a pathetic 42 points.

The crazy thing is only one player in that matchup scored negative points, and it was J-Stew on the Mathletes. But she also had Ingram (25), Bell (25) and the Rams' D (20?!?!). Meanwhile, There's no 'I' in team had only one player — Ben Roethlisberger — score in double digits. He had 11. That's not great.

In an unusual twist this week, the Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions goes to two teams that played each other: Get Off My Dak and Academic Probation. So. Many. Points. Left on the bench in this one.

Get Off My Dak won 83-73 but Dak left AP (25), Palmer (20) and Crabtree (11) on his bench. In their place, he started Freeman (7), Ryan (11) and Hogan (1). By my math that's 27 points left on the bench. (I'm not messing with decimal points.)

On the other side, Academic Probation left Watson (23), Ivory (13) and Ginn (12) on the bench and started Brady (16), Murray (3) and Garcon (5). That's 24 points on the bench.

Basically, if either had made better decisions this could have been a totally different game.

Finally, the Grumble Grumble Award goes to PerpetualMotionSquad, which lost to Cant Be That Hard 91-88. Sure, it's hard to complain when your kicker scores 18 points on a Monday night game, but all PMS needed was one more friggin' field goal. Ryan, you Succop. (I basically gave this award to make that lame joke. Deal with it.)

This week

I really thought there was a game in London this week but apparently I'm wrong. That's next week. So you just need to worry about bye weeks for the Lions and Texans.

(Next week is gonna be brutal: Six teams are on bye.)

Eleanor's pick of the week

(Nailed it last week, so she's 4-2 on the season.)

fjkeneiifnfndkjaaaaaa anndnkfhiellllllllkfnfnfklhlghan aguuuu aguuuu ................... akkakaa!

(Academic Probation 91, Something witty 70)

The Book of Faces

It was a little quiet this week. Is everyone OK?

Down, set ... HAIKU!

It’s been a long week
Here’s a sad haiku for you
At least there’s football

-Eve

[League Update] Week 5: Will the real league leader please stand up?

Marianne O'Leary/Flickr

For all the griping I'm hearing about how hard this league is with 16 teams, y'all are handling it pretty well. There's a four-way tie for first place at 4-1, nearly half of the league is above .500 (INCLUDING ME!) and all but two teams are within two games of first place.

Five weeks in, basically everyone has a chance to win the league this year. Except Something witty. Something witty does not have a chance to win the league this year. He's 0-5. He could come back, I guess, but his track record (see the first blog post of this season) suggests he's not going to recover from this. I could go on, but I'll save that for another time. Don't want to use all my Grade A #content in one post.

Blaupunkt gave SugaLumps his first loss of the season, winning 96-76. I would blame NFL bye weeks for SugaLumps' low point total (he only had less than 100 points one week leading into Week 5, and even that was a 97) but ... nah ... that wasn't it. Only one of his players on bye played the week before. His team just decided not to show up.

Which leaves us with a real tight race for first place and the ever-important Twitter avatar. And this is despite the fact that virtually every good player has broken himself this season.

Fun fact: None of the four teams tied for first (SugaLumps, KB's Belly Shirts, Muscular Mathletes and Academic Probation) have won the league before. Will we have a seventh different champion this season? Stay tuned. (That's called a tease. Keeps people coming back. Quality #content.)

Alright, let's get to 'em.

Awards

The highest scorer from Week 5 was Get Off My Dak with 116 in a huge win over Something wit—you know what, no. I said I was gonna hold off on the Something witty stuff but I can't. Let's go ahead and get it out of the way.



The saddest of sad trombones went to Something witty with 34 points. Thirty. Four. What a waste of a good week for Get Off My Dak. How could Something's total be so low? Because three of his players scored 0 points. Because they were hurt and not playing. This is how you become 0-5. (I know, that hurts coming from me. You don't have to remind me of last year.)

When asked about this, Andy responded with this gem on the Facebook:

Bruh. BRUH. C'mon son.

The Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions goes to WattCanISayExceptYou'reWelcome. Now usually this award is given for a decision that would have changed the outcome of the game. This one didn't. But it's a decision still worth ridiculing because who in their right mind would start Eli Manning over Cam Newton? Relieved of the burden of his Dannon endorsement, Cam Newton and his dumb, sexist comments scored 38 points (355 yards and 3 TDs) while milquetoast Manning scored 13. Sure, the mighty and powerful Mullets would have won anyway because they're awesome, but we should all have learned by now not to play the inferior Manning.

No Grumble Grumble Award this week due to the surprising lack of close games and general non-grumbliness of the Facebook page.

This week

On bye: Bills, Bengals, Cowboys and Seahawks. All games are stateside, so kickoff is 1 p.m. Eastern, 7 a.m. Hawaiian.

Eleanor's pick of the week

(Wrong last week, so she fell to 3-2 for the season.) 

aguuu aguuu aguu *bubbles foaming out of mouth* waaaaaaAAHHHaaaaaAHHH ooooo fioeionagiooianlf splurt gurgle *confused face while pooping* guuuaahhhhhhh ...

(KB's Belly Shirts 77, Bueller 65 #GetInMyBellyShirt. Hashtag credit goes to Bryan.)

The Book of Faces

"Y’all know Mullett is taking a new job as a Male Pole Dancer, right? tbh, I think I’d be more interested in future updates from that occupation over Commissioner of Royale...." -Academic Probation

Darin, you got me. It's true. I start at The Bone Yard next week.

Haiku for me, Haiku for you

Forgot to play Cam
But alas, even his points
Would not have saved me.

-Eve

True.

[League Update] Week 4 (and 2 and 3) — yeah, it's been a while

Mike Hoff/Flickr

So yeah ... I missed a few weeks. But we're back with a brand spankin' new post this week full of hot taeks and stupid jokes.

Let's dive right in.

This season is like NFL "Survivor": The team with the most healthy players at the end wins. We picked one hell of a season to jump to 16 teams, huh? *ducks*

Eve's haiku from last week:

All y’all’s teams are hurt
I have ZERO injuries
And yet, I’m dead last*

*Now next to last. 

Six players that were in RWC starting lineups Week 1 are now on injured reserve. (#research) That doesn't include the random other injuries that have popped up along the way. Needless to say, some weeks it's been hard as hell to set a lineup full of legit starters.

But at least one person has it figured out: SugaLumps sits alone at the top of the league at 4-0, blowing teams out 422.54-289.54. Which means ...

NEW AVATAR ALERT!

That cat has murder in its eyes.

On the other end of the standings is ... sigh ... Something witty at 0-4. From the Facebook: "did something witty misspell their team name in the beginning? maybe something _hitty?" Burn.

Bunched in the middle we have eight teams at 2-2, three at 3-1 and three at 1-3. Off the top of my head I can't remember how many teams make it to the playoffs but the competition should be thrilling.

Awards

SugaLumps was the top scorer in Week 4, beating Dolphins of Old 107-64. (In Week 3 it was Bueller with a ridiculous 133, and in Week 2 Get Off My Dak had 122.)

This week's Sad Trombone goes to Cant Be That Hard who once again prove that, yes, yes it can. He lost to Off Constantly 95-60. (Blaupunkt womped a 56 in Week 3 and Something witty also splatted a 56 in Week 2.)

The Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions winner for Week 4 helped me out. Get Off My Dak kept Amendola and his 10 points on the bench and started Robert Woods, who scored a whopping 1.7. And I won by 7, 79-72. I'LL TAKE IT.

(I'm not going to take the time to look these up for previous weeks. My research only goes so far. Throw any suggestions in the comments.)

The Grumble Grumble Award for the past two weeks goes to One McCaffrey Latte Please. In Week 3, he lost to Muscular Mathletes by .08 points. (For the record, we have had a tie before in this league. Academic Probation and Off Constantly tied in the first week of the 2014 season). Then in Week 4 he had a nearly 40 point lead going into the Monday night game — and lost 101-95 after KB's Belly Shirts got a butt load of points from Alex Smith and Travis Kelce. Savage.

This week

The dreaded bye weeks start this week. Lord help us. (Atlanta, Denver, New Orleans and Washington are off this week.)

Eleanor's pick of the week

Let's just assume she got the last two weeks right, so she's 3-1 for the season. 

hfdkloooooomkfnnfnfnfnfnfnfaaaaaaahhhhhgggllgllglg splurt grrrrrrrjklnfioanovinveoilakin  fihoihoijkajkom vnkliahimeimne *spit up* (Dolphins of Old 87, Off Constantly 76)

The Book of Faces

"I actively hate fantasy football this season, but I have to say that our Facebook group has never been more entertaining."  -WattCanISayExceptYou'reWelcome. It's true. Y'all are killing the GIF game. Keep it up, team.

Haiku for me, Haiku for you

From Eve:

As kids say these days:
Y’all, our meme game is on fleek!
(By the way, I won.)

[League Update] Week 1: Your candle burned out long before your legend ever will, David Johnson

I've never had the first pick in the Royale with Cheese draft. I studied long and hard, weighed all of the options, spent many sleepless nights on mock drafts, trying to make the perfect pick. (OK, I just Googled it about 3 hours beforehand. Close enough.)

My fantasy football draft is in like an hour and I just googled "who do I draft with the first fantasy football pick" am I doing this right?

— Corey Inscoe🐶🍻👶🏻 (@CoreyInscoe) September 3, 2017

David Johnson. He would be the Mullets savior, the man who would finally put Jeff Fisher on his back and lead him to a league championship.

That dream lasted all of two hours.

Johnson — the No. 1 pick in our fantasy draft — sprained his wrist and was placed on the Injured Reserve wrist and might — might — be back after Thanksgiving. Great. Juuuuuuust great. I already give up. I would have been better off just lighting my $10 bill on fire.

Please make me feel better, Matthew Berry.



Nope. That didn't work. I'm screwed.

Let's talk about the something more fun, like how NFL.com tried to cheat Dolphins of Old out of a first week win (over me) by taking away 15 fantasy points from the Ravens' D (and other players from the Ravens and Bengals game).

For a glorious few hours, it looked like I had won, despite my top player breaking himself, and my heart. But then NFL.com had to go and "fix" the "mistake" and Dolphins of Old won 100-72. I guess I need to pay those number crunchers more next time ...

Now for everyone's favorite part of the blog —

Awards

The highest scorer of Week 1 was KB's Belly Shirts with a whopping 114-point performance in a win over WattCanISayExceptYou'reWelcome. Look, Bryan. I invited you here because I wanted to be nice to you because you're gonna be family and all. Then you have to go and show us all up. The scary part about this is that three of his players scored 5 points or less. We'll see if Alex Smith can actually keep this up, though.

Also, the fact that SugaLumps wasn't the highest scorer of this week after he had a player score 40 — FORTY — points by himself is insane.

This week's Sad Trombone goes to There's no 'I' in team, which scored a paltry 51 points in a loss to our other newcomer, Bueller (90 points). There may not be an 'I' in team, but there is one in 'IR,' where WR Allen Robinson will be joining Johnson after tearing his ACL.

The Johnny Football Award for Poor Decisions goes to Something witty, whose bench damn near outscored his starting lineup. Let's put aside the fact that Something has 3 QBs on the roster, and look at the fact that the receiver he left on the bench scored more than his starting receivers combined, and he started a running back that didn't end up playing. And he only lost to One McCaffrey Latte Please by four points, 64-60. Welcome back, Andy!

The Grumble Grumble Award goes to One McCaffrey Latte this week for this fire take: "I'm mad that the high school senior that just belted the national anthem before the Broncos/Chargers got zero screen time! She killed it!" But were you standing or sitting while she sang it, David?!? STICK TO SPORTS.

Other scores from Week 1: 

- Cant Be That Hard 93, Blaupunkt 70. (Eleanor nailed her pick in Week 1.)
- PerpetualMotionSquad 102, Get Off My Dak 62.
- SugaLumps 109, Muscular Mathletes 92
- Academic Probation 73, Off Constantly 67

This week

Houston vs. Cincinnati is the Thursday night game, so set your lineups accordingly. No byes this week, unless another hurricane decides to show up.

Eleanor's pick of the week: 

Season record: 1-0. 

fjlghoeoiiomgiohiong ahkhakhak waaaaaaaaahslrglenkgliong blurpdedurp fjkflnfkdlannoiwenfoinlkgjkewoncgns!! (Off Constantly over Muscular Mathletes 91-85. Yeah, she picked against her mama. Bold choice.)

The Book of Faces

"Imminent rue-age for starting Dalton over Wentz...." - Off Constantly

I missed the "Twister" reference here, but OC and Latte had a cute little bonding moment over it.

Haiku for me, Haiku for you

From Eve: 

Football is the best. 
Sadly, Fantasy Football
Sucks a bag of dicks.

Preach.

Photo: COD Newsroom/Flickr. I have no idea who those kids are. 

Look what you just made me do: Royale With Cheese Season 7

I'm sorry, the old Royale With Cheese can't come to the phone right now. Why? Oh, 'cause it's dead.

Welcome everyone to Season 7 of the Royale With Cheese fantasy football league. We're back, people. And it's about to get real.

Why? Because we've added two more teams to this already absurdly hard league just for giggles. Sixteen teams! Get ready for games to be won by third string running backs and junk touchdowns!

It's gonna be great.

Before we get to the new players, let's talk about last season.

Watt A Girl Wants dominated us all last year, winning the regular season and the championship, becoming the sixth different league champion in six seasons.

Meanwhile, the Inscoe household ... well, let's just say that I apparently blocked out last season and didn't remember we finished last until I set the draft order for this season.

Will we have a seventh different champion? I hope so, because that means I have a chance.

The draft

The draft is set for Sept. 3 at 7:30 p.m. If you're in the Charlotte area (which is only like five of us now) you're welcome to come over to our house to draft. Otherwise, jump online and draft there.

The set up is the same as previous seasons: The order was determined by the reverse order of last season's finish with the three new teams placed in the middle, and it's a snake format, meaning the order reverses each round. Thirty seconds per pick. If you don't join the online draft, the computer will draft for you, but you can pre-rank your players to try to influence the computer.

Here's the order:

(1) Jeff Fisher's Mullet
(2) Muscular Mathletes
(3) PerpetualMotionSquad
(4) Blaupunkt
(5) Dolphins of Old
(6) Off Constantly
(7) SugaLumps
(8) KB's Belly Shirts
(9) Bueller
(10) Something witty
(11) Academic Probation
(12) Theon's Deflated Balls
(13) There's no "I" in team
(14) Cant Be That Hard
(15) Get Off My Dak
(16) WattCanISayExceptYou'reWelcome

Not sure who I'm going to select with the top pick. Right now it's between Roberto Aguayo and Colin Kaepernick.

The new guys

If you're mad about the league going to 16 teams, blame these people. (Actually, it's my fault, but it's easier on me if you blame them.)

First, we have Bryan aka KB's Belly Shirts hailing from Wilmington.

Up next, Devin aka Bueller from Durham.

And finally, an old face and name you might recognize: Andy aka Something witty from Honolulu.

Since we have a history with Andy, let's take a look back at how he's done in the league previously:

- In 2012 he finished 7th with a 7-7 record.
- In 2013 he finished 14th with a 5-9 record.
- In 2014 he finished ... jeez ... 14th with a 3-11 record.

No wonder he quit after that season. With that stellar history of success, I know you are all shaking in your boots at the prospect of Andy returning to the league.

In memoriam

Unfortunately, Katie aka Big Kahuna Burger will be taking this season off. Let's have a moment of silence.

We hope she will join us again next season — probably to replace Andy after he quits again. (Just kidding Andy. Don't leave. We love you.)

The schedule

I randomized it, so only God (and the computer) knows who you're playing — or, more importantly, not playing — this season. Because there will be two teams you don't get to play this season. Direct your excitement/anger to the 1s and 0s.

Dues!

As per usual, direct your league dues to me via Venmo (preferably) or PayPal (if you'd rather) or by throwing me cash when you see me (least preferred because I'll probably lose it).

Administrative duties

I'm still planning to write the blog post each week, but if you don't believe me (Morgan) or just want to contribute, I am open to guest columnists. Shoot me a message if you want to write the League Update one week and I'm happy to let you do it.

Also, my main mode of communication will be the secret Facebook group mostly because I hate email. We also have the Twitter account, which will occasionally blast out info.

That's it for now. You have 8 hours until draft time. Use it wisely — i.e. start drinking and get ready to make poor decisions.