“THE RECAP”
Week 1
“THE INTRO”: Welcome all! Football is BACK BABY! Week 1 is already behind us and
things are already crazy and all over the place just a week in. This year, as
commissioner I’ve decided to do a weekly recap to be published each Tuesday night
before the waiver period clears. Yahoo has their matchup recaps but those lack
creativity, personalization and the obvious trash talk. They also suck because all it does
is plug your players into their cookie-cutter algorithm and spit out the prewritten grades
based off of their projections, which shouldn’t serve as a baseline as the Yahoo Fantasy
Staff is pretty trash accuracy-wise. Each week I think I’m going to do a brief overall
league news section, followed by a short little recap for each matchup from the previous
week, maybe a little faux Q&A session with the weekly high scorer and concluding with
the fine-tuned customer Power Rankings that I’m debuting this season – more on that
later. If anyone else has any ideas or things they’d like to contribute, feel free – I know
this is cheesy but it’s a fun thing to keep everybody in the loop all week and make it
exciting.
“KICKOFF”:
High Scores
Not Garbage – 152.36 - $40 Payout
Childish Grahambino – 136.86
‘CHINA FOOD’ – 124.94
Not Garbage opened the season with a monstrous 152.36 point week, good for his
highest score since the start of 2017, besting his highest of 146.12 in Week 11 of last
season. Owner Jacob Lurie will take home the first $40 from the jackpot in the 2018
season, just edging out Grahambino who started two of the top 5 scoring players from
Week 1. I got the chance to speak with team owner Jacob Lurie to discuss his Week 1
success.
JM: Jacob, congratulations on your big Week 1 victory, as the highest scorer you will
receive the first $40 payment of the year. What do you plan to do with all those riches?
JL: Well the Lurie household could use a new handle of Tito’s. Easily the best corn
based Vodka for your money, in my humble opinion.
JM: Money well spent! How does coming out of the gate so strong and setting your
highest score in nearly 2 seasons affect your game plan for the rest of the season?
JL: I didn’t even notice it was my highest score in 2+ seasons. I’m happy with the team
we have but I do think depth is lacking a bit. Expect us to take a good look at waiver
wire and even explore trade options.
JM: Jacob thank you for your time, good luck in Week 2 and enjoy the corn vodka.
“WEEK 1”:
Golden Tit (1-0) def. Socks Machine (0-1)
Death, taxes, and Zach Arlen drafting Doug Baldwin. Peanut butter and jelly? Zach and
Doug Baldwin. It goes without saying that there is no duo more inseparable than the
2015 champion and the Seattle wide out. Naturally, in classic Doug Baldwin fashion he
got hurt and put up a big fat goose egg. However, this did not matter at all – as Zach
rolled out an RB trio that netted him 50.6 points amongst Saquon Barkley, Joe Mixon
and Lamar Miller. Even with this trio, Zach left James Conner on the bench who
exploded for 29.20 points including 2 rushing TD’s. Netting him for only $16 may very
well be move of the season if we see Bell holdout much longer. Zach’s RB situation is
certain to be an issue for the rest of the league going forward. Michael Thomas
impressed with a 22 point week and made up for the disappointments of Trey Burton,
Stafford and Baldwin. Socks Machine did have a decent showing, however Christian
McCaffery was a bit of a letdown only totaling 7.50 points as well as a fumble. Derek
Henry put up a measley 3.10 spot in a wash of a game that took roughly 14 hours to
play, so it’s possible the points just haven’t hit Yahoo yet. One bright spot for the
Machine is Washington RB Chris Thompson, who put up a monster 18.80 spot, putting
him at RB9 for Week 1. Andrew Luck looked very promising in his first game back
which bodes well for the Machine as well. This matchup would have been a lot closer if
OBJ got the justice he deserved – being overthrown and missed several times, if that
doesn’t happen, perhaps this one is a bit closer.
Childish Grahambino (1-0) def. “THE SHAGWONG” (0-1)
In Alvin Kamara’s first game against former owner Brian Bonner, he reminded him why
he took a flyer on him that fateful day in 2017. Kamara was a shoe-in for RB1 this
week, totaling 34.10 points with 3 TD’s. Grahambino also got huge games out of Brees
and Emmanuel Sanders with a fresh QB in Case Keenum. Gurvitz’s Saints combined
for an insane 65.66 in their shootout with Tampa Bay, which pretty much put this one
out of reach for Brian and the Shag. Despite solid games from Brady, AB, Carlos Hyde
and Greg the Leg – this was not enough to overcome Grahambino’s Saints duo.
However, not all is well for Childish as 11th overall pick Leonard Fournette was removed
from the game early due to a nagging hamstring injury and only was able to muster up
5.50 points. Grahambino better hope that the injury bug doesn’t hang around Fournette
much longer as Kamara can only do so much. At the top of their game, a RB duo of
Fournette and Kamara is possibly a league winning one. “SHAGWONG” will
unfortunately be without TE Delaine Walker for the rest of the season, so keep an eye
peeled on the waiver wire as I’m sure TE’s will be flying off the board come Wednesday
morning. Additionally, LeSean McCoy had a very worrying game as the Bills may be
worse than we all thought – not the best situation to be in moving forward. A powerful
one, two punch at WR should have owner Brian Bonner feeling confident despite the
Week 1 loss.
Not Garbage (1-0) def. North Pat Nebraska (0-1)
In the biggest blowout of the week, top scorer Not Garbage blew the Cornhuskers all
the way back to North Platte. Where to even begin? Tyreek Hill was WR1, as well as
the complete top scorer this week with 35.30 points – 2 TD’s, a return TD and 169
yards. First overall pick Todd Gurley delivered the goods as well, throwing 20.70 on the
board good for RB5 of the week. Minnesota’s new QB impressed with a 20+ point
game and some incredible throws on a dime, Not Garbage smiles as Giant and NFCE
fans still grasp at the “Kirk Cousins is overrated” straws. Even Marshawn Lynch
impressed and looks more like Beast Mode than ever as of late, running hard and
putting up a nice 10.90 spot and looking good doing it. Pat had a disappointing showing
all around unfortunately. Deshaun Watson was unimpressive in his first game back
from injury and could only get 12 points in a tough matchup at New England. NPN’s
WR corps were underwhelming as well, being outscored by solely Tyreek Hill. Travis
Kelce was only able to grab a 6 yard reception, and Kerryon Johnson looked decent at
times, but got rolled by the Jets and a crowded backfield including Riddick and Blount
as well. Melvin Gordon was a bright spot for the Pat’s as he was RB11 for the week,
just missing RB1 status. In a matchup where your opponent puts up 150+, it’s going to
be tough to finagle a win no matter what.
‘CHINA FOOD’ (1-0) def. Probation Nation (0-1)
This matchup was the closest of the week, coming down to roughly a 7.5 point
differential. ‘FOOD’ got some insane production out of his main skill positions, having 3
of his 5 skill position players put up over 20. Keenan Allen just missed the mark still
having a great game with 108 yards and a TD good for 16.80 points. Probation Nation
was able to keep pace in the WR department for the most part, getting solid games from
both Devante Adams – 14.80 points and Julio Jones – 18 points. Matt Ryan missed
several throws that could have been the swing of this game, I’m sure that anyone would
be happy with 18 from a WR, but when you’re talking about Julio his ceiling being
limited by Matt Ryan it’s unfortunate. Matt Ryan was the snakebite that ended up giving
‘FOOD’ the win, only reaching 9.84 points, the worst QB score in Week 1. It must be
frustrating for owner Nick Waldron as ‘FOOD’ got a goose egg from Marquis Goodwin
and was heavily outscored by Nick’s TE, FLEX and Special Team positions. Owner
Dan Janis had RB6 and RB7 in the likes of Adrian Peterson and Jay Ajayi – a great
showing but one has to wonder how much longevity that has especially for AP, Chris
Thompson looked great and father time is here for the old man. All in all, this was a fun
matchup and one that I’d probably give matchup of the week to – close game that
featured some exciting plays and even came down to the wire Monday night as Robby
Anderson had a long TD, but a bit too little too late.
Back2Back (1-0) def. Mr. Johnson (0-1)
What a mess this game was, until Monday Night Football both teams were way under
100 and Back2Back pulled out the win only scoring 100, owner Brian Masten would
have lost to any team this week not named Mr. Johnson or based in Nebraska. Mr.
Johnson’s only productivity came from the man himself, David Johnson who was able to
get 12.70 points in garbage time getting destroyed by Washington. Addionally, Russel
Wilson had a promising game and continues to prove he is a fantastic fantasy QB by
being able to make something out of nothing. What really stung in this matchup was
Mr. Johnson starting NO DEF, totaling a repulsive -4 spot, Johnson would have been
better off starting that slot empty. Back2Back looks to defend his championship a bit
more strong throughout the season than this. However, there were certainly some
bright spots. Aaron Rodgers was nearly gone with another injury scare but came back
to dominate as per usual and put up a very respectable 24.94. Isiah Crowell also ran
over Detroit for 2 TD’s and 102 yards good for a sneaky 22.20 from the FLEX spot.
There isn’t much to say about this matchup, pretty weak one from both sides. To put it
in perspective, Mr. Johnson scored 67.12 total across 10 roster positions – Tyreek Hill
scored more than half of that, touching the ball only 8 times across one three hour
game.
“POWER RANKINGS”:
So just to explain how these work quickly, it’s all done through an Excel spreadsheet
with formulas that calculate them. Take Week 1’s with a slight grain of salt because
firstly; FantasyPros does not have their ECR ROS rankings yet, so ignore the “ROS”
column as those are still relevant to draft day, not post Week 1. All of the data is
derived directly from FantasyPros ECR data for the most accuracy. PO% is also
derived from FantasyPros ROS rankings, which are accurate right now so that is
calculating every team and player’s matchups for the rest of the season and giving the
% from that. “Overall” is if you played every team every weak, the column after that is
consistency, which will take about 3 weeks to actually build and make sense. It will
probably take like 2-3 weeks for these to get exciting, but it still serves as a good
measure showing that a team like Probation Nation should probably be “Power Ranked”
ahead of B2B despite not having won. These will make sense over time.
