Week 7 Recaps - Intro and Matchup 1 — Protector Of The League

As you all know, I’ve been engaged for over a week now. I’ve basically been celebrating for 10 days straight, which has been fun. I’ve celebrated with a lot of friends and family, consumed a ton of champagne and eaten a ton of food. I haven’t been getting a lot of sleep and it’s been expensive, but it’s been worth it. Unfortunately I haven’t gotten to celebrate with any of you jagoffs, but it’ll happen in time. Overall being engaged has been enjoyable so far. Having said that, I’ve learned that it’s not all fun and games. In between all of this celebrating and catching up with people, I actually have to plan a wedding. So what goes into a wedding?

Did you know that you have to join a church together with your future wife if you want to get married in the Catholic church? All those years of CCD didn’t buy you the lee-way you thought it did. Did you know that you have to go to a “Pre-Cana” class before you get married in a Catholic church? It’s basically like CCD mixed with couple’s therapy for engaged couples. Did you know that a photographer for a wedding costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 dollars? For someone who hates taking pictures, that one hurts. Did you know that the average wedding in the United States of America costed more than 26 grand in 2015? That average is of course skewed by small weddings. Did you know that if the average wedding with over 200 guests costs an average of 36 thousand American Dollars? Neither did I, jiminy cricket.

As you can tell, I’m learning a lot of things about weddings now that I am engaged. The main thing I’m learning is how outrageously expensive they are. As a tax accountant who does math problems all day, that kills me. And it’s not just the venue, food and booze. No no no. It’s much more than that. There are so many random things that I never would have thought of, things like videographers, gifts for the bridal party, rehearsal dinner, invitations, taxes, transportation, and on and on it goes. Never-mind the time and energy spent planning.

So most of you are probably skimming this intro thinking: “Why the hell do I want to listen to all the shit Johnny C has to do before his wedding?” “What a shtable boy”, or “I swear these write-ups are getting worse and worse”. If you’re Robby D, you’re probably thinking “been there, done that”. Anyway, the whole point of the intro is that I’m learning a lot lately. Generally they are things I wouldn’t care to learn, but I’m learning them anyways.

While I’m learning a lot about weddings and such, I’m also learning a lot about fantasy football. We’re more than half-way through the fantasy regular season and as always, we learn more and more each week. We learn more about the players on our team and the teams they play for. We learn which players you can depend on week to week and which players are boom or bust. We learn who is cursed in this league and who seems to be destined for the title. And on and on it goes. So for this week’s recaps, I’m going to point out three things that I learned about each team this week. The observations may be about the team itself, the owner or individual players. Now what did we learn this week?

Matchup 1: WellJustTellUr MotherWeAteItAll lost 92.8 to 164.2:

1. Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree cannot co-exist. Oh sure, they can be on the field at the same time and both of them are capable of big games, but they cannot co-exist together in the same game. If Cooper goes off, Crabtree sucks. If Crabtree goes off, Cooper sucks. It’s actually really annoying. Through 7 weeks, they have only both scored 10+ points in the same game twice. In a league that has pretty generous scoring, that’s pretty bad. On a week per week basis, it’s even worse.

In weeks 1, 5 and 6, Cooper scored a total of 67.4 points, or 22.47 per week. In those same weeks, Crabtree combined for 28 points, or about 9 per week. Those were the best 3 weeks of the year for Cooper, where he scored 20.7, 26.8 and 19.9, respectively.

In weeks 3, 4 and 7, Crabtree scored a total of 66.1 points, or 22 per week. In those same weeks, Cooper scored just 20.4 points, or 6.8 per week. Those were the best 3 weeks for Crabtree, but the worst three weeks for Amari.

Unfortunately, that’s just how it’s going to be for me all season. Teams know if they stop Cooper, they slow down the Raiders offense. If the defenses focus more on Cooper, then Crabtree benefits. It’s not rocket science, just fact.

2. Rex Ryan is a fucking moron. That’s something I learned previously, but something I learned all over again this Sunday. LeSean McCoy got hurt last Wednesday and all of the hot takes indicated that McCoy would be out for Week 7. It was a hamstring injury and McCoy has had issues with this in the past. I added Mike Gillislee off waivers, believing he was going to get the start. If nothing else, he would split carries with McCoy. Gillislee had been great so far this season, averaging 6.9 yards per carry (nice) with 3 touchdowns. So you’d think that the Bills would give him some work, right? You would be incorrect.

Rather than rest McCoy, they let him play. He was clearly not 100%, as he gained just 11 yards on 8 carries and didn’t have a single catch. So you think they’d pull him and get Gillislee involved? Not so fast my friend. Instead of feeding their young backup running back, they let McCoy continue to play. Surprise, surprise, he had a set back with the hamstring. Okay, so now we’ll feed Gillislee, right? NOPE. YOU SHALL NOT PASS.

Instead of giving the ball to their backup RB (who had been averaging 7.2 yards per touch this season), they completely ignored him. Tyrod Taylor threw the ball 28 times and Reggie Bush got a junk time TD run. What the fuck? Rex Ryan is a moron.

3. Julian Edelman is not going to be a top 20 receiver. He’s just not going to pan out and be the guy I thought he could be when I traded for him. He’s going to be nothing more than a low end flex option - emphasis on low end. Sure, he’s scored 10 points each of the last two weeks, but that’s only because our scoring is generous. He hasn’t had more than 80 yards receiving in any game and he STILL hasn’t scored a touchdown this year. To make matters worse, he fumbled on a punt return this week. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

At first I thought it was a timing issue. Tom was just getting back and they had to get in a rhythm. They’ve now played 3 games together and it’s not really getting better. Then I thought it was a target share issue, the Pats do have a ton of weapons. That isn’t the problem either, Edelman has 27 targets in the 3 games Brady has played. So what is it? It’s tough to say, but it seems like a combination of things. He can’t seem to get open, so maybe teams have figured him out. He can’t seem to break any tackles either, so maybe the foot issue is still bothering him. Either way, Edelman is no longer a top 20 guy.

Matchup 1: FLACCOPiAN TUBES won 164.2 to 92.8:

1. I thought Jay Ajayi would be a red herring. I thought that the 200 yard day against the Steelers was an outlier, a fluke. I thought that anyone who traded for Ajayi or spent $40 of their FAAB (27%) on him would be severely disappointed. I thought there was no way that he could have a repeat performance. I thought he was a fugayzi, a fugazi. A whazy, a woozie. I thought he was fairy dust, he didn’t exist. He never landed, he had no matter. He wasn’t on the elemental chart, he wasn’t fucking real.

Boy was I wrong and boy did I get fucked in the ass by him. Ajayi went off again this week and rushed for more than 200 yards FOR THE SECOND WEEK IN A ROW. The same Jay Ajayi who wasn’t even active for the Dolphins Week 1 opener? Yes, that same guy. What an absolute joke. Two hundred yards against a defense that had been touted as a top unit. Two hundred yards when the opposing team knew you were going to run the ball a hundred times. Two hundred mother fucking yards. Un-fucking-believable.

So what did we learn? Other than that I got screwed this week, we learned this cool stat: Jay Ajayi joins Earl Campbell, Ricky Williams and O.J. Simpson are the only players in NFL history to rush for more than 200 yards in consecutive games. Yeah, that actually happened. Jay Ajayi rushed for 200 yards in consecutive weeks. What a joke, go play the lottery lamone.

2. We learned the Cardinals are now a run-first offense. The past few years they’ve been a pass-first offense, but we’re seeing a shift in philosophy. In 2015, they ranked 2nd in passing offense and 8th in rushing offense. In 2014, they were 14th in passing offense and 31st in rushing offense. In 2013, they were 13th in passing offense and 23rd in rushing offense.

In 2015, we’ve seen the opposite. The Cardinals are currently ranked as the 5th rushing offense in football, with 125 yards per game. Conversely, they’re only 13th in passing yards per game. For the first time since Bruce Arians became the Cardinals head coach, they rank better in rushing than they do in passing. That’s all due to David Johnson, who is arguably the best RB in the NFL. It’s tough to put him in front of Le’Veon, but it’s definitely close.

3. DeAndre Hopkins is no longer a must-start in fantasy football. In a REALLY bold move, Lamone benched DeAndre Hopkins this week. I get it, he had a tough matchup against the Broncos D and he has been horrible this year. Still, I didn't think he'd sunk that far. Like with a number of things this week, I was wrong on that one.

Lamone sat DeAndre Hopkins on his bench and still won. The decision had nothing to do with the win and the guy he played actually scored less than Hopkins, but the point remains - you can win with DeAndre Hopkins on your bench. Hopkins managed just 6 points this week, so it was technically a good call. In conclusion - DeAndre hopkins is a bust this year, it's time to call a spade a spade.