GW Bush League - Week 3 Recaps - Intro & Matchup 1

What a letdown of a week. What an ugly, horrible, terrible, no good, very bad week of fantasy football. Even though 50% of us won their matchups (*NOT* including your loved Commish), this was one of the uglier and more frustrating weeks of fantasy football I’ve ever seen. Between dud performances, upsets and inexplicable outputs, I don’t think anyone saw this coming.

That was the intro I wrote last week and I just changed a few words then copy/pasted it for this week. Injuries aside, this week sucked almost as much as last week. I lost in 3 of my 5 fantasy leagues, I had to go apple picking on Saturday and Ken won the pickem pool I started. Yes, I’m in 5 fantasy football leagues. Yes, I only won in 2 of them (cumulative record of 8-7). Yes, I brought Emma apple picking on Saturday. Yes, Ken somehow picked more games correct than 9 other people this weekend.

You know I love to go on tangents, so let’s go. Number 1, Apple Picking. Is Apple Picking only a northeast New England thing? When Emma and I were figuring out what to do on Saturday, part of the reason I agreed to go apple picking (other than copious, copious amounts of brownie points) is because she said she had only been once in her life. Once!! I’ve been apple picking at least 15 times in my life and 13 of those came between the ages of 2 and 10. My parents do live right next to an orchard, but I was still shocked when she said that. I later spoke with Guy about said apple picking and he said he had never been before. Not once!!! He’s 28 years old and he’s never picked an apple from a tree and put it into a $20 dollar plastic bag. This brings me to my question – is apple picking just a northeast New England thing? Emma is from Western Mass and Guy is from CT, so maybe there is a cutoff around Worcester or something? I thought everyone in New England had been, but I could be wrong. CT isn’t exactly part of New England, but that’s a tangent for another day.

Tangent #2, let’s do this shitttt. How in the fuck did Ken win the pickem pool? Out of 16 NFL games this week, Ken correctly predicted 13 of them. The only three games he got wrong were the Redskins, Vikings and Falcons. That means he somehow, someway predicted that the 0-2 Bills would defeat the Cardinals. He also predicted that the Carson Wentz led Eagles would take down Big Ben and the Steelers. The next highest total was 9, so Ken picked 4 more games correctly than the next best person. What in the fuck.

As you can tell, this was a really bad week for your Commissioner. I’m pretty much going to bitch throughout this, so hold on tight. Last week I broke the recaps out into a few sections, but this week I’m just going to do regular recaps. I’ll touch on a few things that stuck out, make some observations and probably bitch about my teams at various points. Hope you enjoy these, here we go.

WellJustTellUr MotherWeAteItAll lost 82.5 to 88.5

Might as well start off with the worst team in the league this week - We’ll Just Tell Your Mother We Ate it All. We’ll Just Tell You’re your Mother it was a bad week. We’ll Just Tell Your Mother I was due for a loss after winning my first two games. We’ll just tell your mother things will get better next week. We’ll Just tell her anything to help me sleep at night because this week was just bad. Red Wedding bad. Hold the Door bad. Just bad.

So what went wrong? I guess I have to say the Patriots game. Even though it was an incredible game from a Patriots perspective, the game started my fantasy week off on a terrible note. Every week when our fantasy rosters reset, I look to see how many players I have on Thursday Night Football. I always get pissed when I see that I have players going, because the games are just so unpredictable. Unfortunately this week, I had three guys playing in the Thursday Night game – Lamar Miller, The Texans D and Julian Edelman.

I started Lamar Miller, as anyone who owns him did. Miller did well (16.9 points), but he didn’t look very good in doing so. He looked indecisive all night and seemed content with taking 2-3 yard gains on every run. I then made the unfortunate mistake of starting the Texans D against the Patriots vaulted offense. No, not the offense with Tom Brady and Gronk, the offense with Jacoby Brissett and no Gronk. After netting 18 fantasy points through the first two weeks, they got me just 1 damn point this week. Against a rookie QB on 3 days rest, they got me just 1 point - sweet. Julian Edelman was the third guy I had playing in the TNF game. I acquired Edelman in a trade this week and while he was a risky play due to the QB situation, I had to use my shiny new toy. What I got was 7.8 points and a dropped touchdown pass. I thought the neighbors were going to call 9-1-1 after that dropped pass - I yelled FUCK so loud I even startled myself. The throw was bad, but it still hit his hands. Ultimately I got about 25 points out of those 3 players. That’s not terrible, but I was expecting 30-35 at minimum. To make things worse, when you look at the box score between me and Rob D, that dropped touchdown pass cost me the game. If Brissett makes a slightly better throw, Edelman comes down with the touchdown for about 7-8 points. That would have won me the game, what a terrible break.

As I mentioned above, I picked the Texans to beat the Patriots in the pickem pool. I also played the Texans D against the Patriots in our league. I lost the pickem pool, had to endure a ton of shit and got 1 point from the Texans D. You know what? I’d do it again. I do not care, I would do the exact same thing again. The Patriots were using their #3 quarterback, a rookie taken in the third round of the 2016 NFL Draft. The Texans were 2-0 and coming off an impressive win over the Chiefs. Their offense was doing well and the defense had only allowed 26 points in two games. Every ESPN analyst and just about every analyst period had the Texans winning. I’m also a Pats fan, so I hedged the bet. If the Pats win, I’m happy. If the Texans win, I at least get the satisfaction of doing well in pickem/fantasy.

At the end of the day, I look like a fool for betting against the Patriots. I don’t care though, I made the safe decision. If you take away those two fumbled kickoff returns, we have a much different looking game. Overall I made the safe/smart decision and put my guys in a position to win. We didn’t pull it out this week, but I’m not doubting the process. On to Cincinnati.

Kens 20 Min Backroad Brisket wins 88.5 to 82.5

Robby D got a big win this week, but I lost this game more than he won it. He had the better team this week, but if you score under 90 points then you don’t deserve to win. Irregahhdless, huge win for Bob D. The most interesting part of Robby D’s week was his receivers. Let’s start with Jordy Nelson and move on to Julio Jones and Brandin Cooks after that.

Jordy Nelson was Robby D’s second round pick, number 18 overall. I thought this was a little high given the ACL injury, but not a bad pick by any means. Like with the Texans, I was wrong wrong wrong on this one. Through three weeks, Jordy has delivered 17 catches for 206 yards and 4 TDs. Not only that, but he’s improved his point total every week, scoring 12.2 in week 1, 15.8 in week 2 and 27.1 in week 3. I won’t mention that Jordy scored as many points against me this week than he had in the first 2 weeks combined, but I won’t not mention it either……. Through 2 weeks, Jordy had 11 catches for 105 yards and 2 TDs. Against me this week he had 6 catches for 101 yards and 2 TDs. Gotta love it. Overall, it looks like he’s fully past the ACL injury and firmly in the top 12-15 WR range – great pick by Robby D.

I told you I hated having players in the TNF games and I also dislike having players in the Monday Night Football games. It’s just a personal preference, but I’d rather be done with fantasy on Sunday so I don’t have to stress about it all day Monday. I digress. On Monday night, Bob’s first pick faced off against his third round pick in what was supposed to be a high scoring affair. Instead of a high scoring affair, we got a shitty ass game. Oh, it wasn’t shitty for all players, but it was horrible for Robby D’s team. Julio Jones and Brandin Cooks combined for just 5.2 points in a game that ended with a cumulative score of 77 points. What the hell….. I don’t really know what happened because I didn’t watch the game (watched Narcos instead), but these outputs are inexplicable. I can’t tell you the number of people who lost their fantasy matchups because of Julio.

Moving on. Andre Andrew Luck had a nice day, but it wasn’t exactly as big as we thought it’d be. He still threw for 300 yards, but he lost a fumble and threw a pick for the second straight week. Still, 18 points is better than the 13.7 that Derek Carr got for me this week.

Last but not least, I think I'm officially on "Team Kev" when it comes to the Justin Tucker hate. Robby D got 10.5 fucking points from his kicker in a game he won by 6. After all the effort I put in to ensure that kickers wouldn't have a large impact, Justin Tucker outscored 5 players on my team and SIX players on Robby D's team. Justin Tucker Must Die.