2017 GW Bush League Entertainment - Week 4 (Part 1)

Ladies and Gentlewomen,

Week 4 and the month of September are in the books. We’ve played 4 matchups and we’re more than 30% of the way through our season. Time flies when you’re having fun…… I mean time flies when you’re constantly stressing about your team and hoping that Zeke’s suspension gets upheld so that Tieg doesn’t run away with the league. 

Anyways Week 4 was an interesting one. As usual we had our surprises, breakouts, busts, etc. We also had some injuries – it was a really bad week for that. This year has been pretty brutal in that regard especially when you consider the #1 pick hasn’t played since Week 1. It got me thinking….who has had it the worst? Which team in our league has had the worst injury luck? To help answer this not-important question that will not help my fantasy team I decided to rank the teams in our league. The following is the ranking of worst injury luck through best injury luck. I’ve only listed the players that have dealt with injuries, not the circumstances surrounding them or the impact on the team. As a guide:

-        An asterisk* - denotes if the player is missing significant time

-        A plus-sign + indicates whether they’ve been ineffective due to their injuries

THE STAR OF LARRY DAVID JOHNSON: David Johnson*, Jordan Reed+, Cameron Meredith*

WHAT IF HE SHOT ME IN THE FACE?: Dalvin Cook*, Allen Robinson*, Rob Kelley+

Bud Lights n the Dilly Dilly’s: Greg Olsen*, Jordan Howard, Julio Jones+, Davante Adams

JABAAL PAP SHMEARD: Jay Ajayi+, DeMarco Murray+, Danny Woodhead*, Corey Davis

“Jakey-Jakey” Big Mistakey: Odell Beckham+, Marcus Mariota*

THE FOURNETTEUATE FEW: Ty Montgomery (TBD), Jordan Matthews*

CALEB’S BUKAkE PARTY: Derek Carr*, Jordy Nelson (one game), Spencer Ware* (only Tieg can actually benefit from an injury).

MIXONS HERE HYDE UR GURLEY: Carlos Hyde (nagging injuries but still very effective), Andrew Luck*

JacksON Jacks-OFF: Michael Crabtree (one week)

LeveonStuffed Kens TacoBell: No injuries, what a surprise. Rob D easily has the most fantasy providence in this league aside from Tieg.

All in all just about everyone but Kev and Rob D have dealt with some tough injuries. Frader has it the worst as he lost his best player and #1 pick. I have it the next worst as I’ve already lost my 4th and 6th round picks to ACL tears. It’s not over though, none of us are safe. All we can do is hope we're not next.

Now that this is out of the way let’s get to the Week 4 analysis. Since we’re at a natural milestone (30% done), I thought it would be good to look at each team as a whole. I’ll first look at how the team has done so far through four weeks. After that I’ll give my thoughts on their prospects going forward. As always there will be some biased predictions and gut calls, but I hope this gets the conversation going. I’ll go in order of the draft again, Frader up first.

THE STAR OF LARRY DAVID JOHNSON: 0-4

Season Headline: “The Star of Larry David Johnson That Burns Twice as Bright Burns Half as Long”

My, my, my what a difference a month makes. Four weeks ago the #1 pick was an automatic invitation to the playoffs courtesy of David Johnson. One month later and drafting David Johnson has become an automatic invitation to the bottom of your league standings. I play way too much fantasy football and am in 5 leagues. Do you wanna know the cumulative record of teams that drafted David Johnson? You probably don’t, but its 6-14. I imagine that will be worse going forward. It sucks to say, but there’s no way around it – if you drafted David Johnson this year you are fucked.

The rest of your team after DJ goes down.

I don’t need to dig much further, losing the best player (arguable) in fantasy during Week 1 is a death sentence for your season. As Luke Bryan once said – sometimes you’re the train and sometimes you’re the track.  

Prospects Going Forward:

So when will Frader break the losing streak? Lucky for him his next three matchups come against 1-3 teams (Ken, Guy, Kev). Each of those teams have their own issues to deal with and Frader could definitely pull a miracle and be 3-4 coming out of this stretch. While I don’t think that will happen, it is a possibility. He gets Doug Martin back this week which will help and he did a nice job of avoiding any major bye weeks. All in all this might be a long year for the former champ.

LeveonStuffed Kens TacoBell: 3-1

Season Headline: “Changing of the Guard: Is Robby D More Blessed Than Tieg?”

That’s of course a joke, but is it? Robby D is a very capable fantasy owner, no doubt. Having said that he might be the luckiest fantasy player I know right now. I’ve already pounded the table for his lofty draft picks every year, so there’s that. Also - is anyone more fortunate than the person who had the #2 pick in any draft? The first guy took David Johnson and you got Le’Veon. You dodged a HUGE bullet and ended up with the best player in fantasy (my vote). As for the game-action: Bob D has the fewest points against and not one of his opponents have eclipsed the 100 points against him. That’s four leaf clover lucky.

Robby D setting his fantasy lineup

Ignoring the good fortune, Robby D did build a good team. He’s got the 3rd most points in the league and he scored 173 points this week. That is incredible and I believe it’s the highest this season. Robby D has done a really good job of switching up his lineup every week and getting the best matchups he can.  Every time I look at his roster he switches it up. It’s worked for him and he’s ripped off three straight wins. I won't mention many players, but Chris Hogan was a great draft pick. He's a top 10 WR after being a 10th round draft pick.

Prospects Going Forward:

Robby D is 3-1 and firmly entrenched in third place. I think that’s how the rest of his season will go and I fully expect him to be a top 4 team heading into the playoffs. His team is just a really good playoff-caliber team. Le’Veon has finally broken out (42 in Wk4) which is terrible news for the rest of us. Although he cheated to get him, he’s got a top 3 tight end in Kelce. He’s also got one of the best WR trios in the league with TY Hilton, Michael Thomas and Chris Hogan. All in all I expect LeVeon to Stuff Ken’s TacoBell all year long.

THE FOURNETTEUATE FEW: 1-3

Season Headline: “A Fournetteuate Few? More Like the Unfournettuate Few”

Ken’s season has been odd and I’m kinda surprised to find him at 1-3. Leonard Fournette has been a monster (RB3), Ty Montgomery was one of the biggest surprises in Weeks 1-3 (RB14) and he’s got good WRs in Antonio/Dez (WR 2 and WR24). While his bench is pretty weak, his starters are good – he’s scored the 5th most points in our league. So why does he find himself at 1-3 and outside of the playoffs?

First things first, he got screwed in Week 2. If you score 124 points you expect to win. Sadly for him he faced the league leader that week (Kev and his 130 - also Kev's season high). He would have beat 7 of 10 teams that week, but it’s all about your head to head matchup in this league. Had he won that he’d be sitting at 2-2 and the story would look a lot different. Unfortunately for him it doesn’t. Unfortunately after that week, his team grew disheartened…

Ken looking at the Week 2 scoreboard. 

The Fournettuate few have not reached well to the tough loss. Ken has scored 92 and 90 the last two weeks and his team has lost heart. Those numbers are just not enough to get you a win. Hopefully for his sake his team will bounce back this week.   

Prospects Going Forward:

It will be tough to bounce back if Ty Montgomery is seriously hurt, but the jury’s still out on that one. He might not miss any time or he might miss a month – these injury reports haven’t been great. He gets a favorable matchup vs Frader this week, but follows that up with a visit to Caleb’s Bukake Party. He has one bad bye week in Week 8 where he loses Fournette, Montgomery and Delanie Walker, but other than that he’s pretty clean. Overall I expect Ken to do a little bit better than .250 going forward.

“Jakey-Jakey” Big Mistakey: 1-3

Season Headline: “Running Backs Running the Wrong Way”

“Guy’s RBs kinda suck, there I said it. I know Gronk will make up for some of it, but I wouldn’t feel very good going into the season with Marshawn and Gillislee as my two starters.” Sometimes I’m right, sometimes I’m wrong. I was very right when I said that about Guy’s RB situation coming into the season. All in all, Guy’s RB situation is the major reason why he’s 1-3.

In Week 1 and 2 I’ll admit that Marshawn and Gillislee were really good. They combined for 38 in Week 1 and 30 in Week 2. I looked like an idiot, Guy looked like a genius. Since then though……..

In Weeks 3 and 4, Marshawn and Gillislee combined for 9.8 points and 10.3 points respectively. While Gillislee has been bad in that span (12.8), Marshawn has been worse (7.3). The worst and most frustrating part has been LeGarrette Blount though. If you want some fantasy heartbreak, look no further. Blount is currently a top 20 RB and has scored 14, .5, 15.1 and 22.3 points in each matchup. Guy has started him just once – guess which one?? Guess……While Blount has scored 51.4 points during 3 weeks on Guy’s bench (17 per), he scored just .5 the week he was started. Cue to gifs….

Prospects Going Forward:

I think Guy will improve going forward, his team really isn’t THIS bad. He’s got Odell, Golden Tate, Gronk, Marcus Mariota (injury doesn’t seem serious) and some options at RB. If he can do a little better job of utilizing his RBs and get a little luck, he should be able to make a run at the playoffs. I’m not sure if he’s a top 6 team, but I do think he’s in the playoff conversation.

JacksON Jacks-OFF: 1-3

Season Headline: “The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same”

It’s no secret that Kev has the worst luck in this league. Year after year he gets screwed over in some frustrating way and there just doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. This year is no different. If you had to guess which team has the most points against, who would you guess? I’m pretty sure we would all guess Kev and we would all be right.

So Kev has the most points against with 515 through 4 weeks. The 515 against is an average of nearly 130 points per week!! It’s 160 points more than Robby D’s opponents have scored all year - about FORTY POINTS PER WEEK more. Let that sink in…… Kev you poor bastard.

Prospects Going Forward:

Unfortunately I don’t see things getting much better for Kev anytime soon. His WR group is on the poor-to-very-poor range and his best RB aside from Lesean McCoy is Tevin Coleman. Tevin Coleman isn’t even a starter. If he hits the waiver wire and tries to make some trades there’s a chance he could turn things around, but he’s gotta act fast.

MIXONS HERE HYDE UR GURLEY: 4-0

Season Headline: “Can Keetz Really Take Down Tieg?”

All year long I’ve said it – Tieg is going to win the league this year. I said it in the draft recaps and I’ve said it just about every week. His team is absurd and the fact he got Zeke in the 4th and Kareem Hunt in the 5th is just ridiculous. (The Zeke situation is a black mark on this fantasy season but I digress). I was very confident in that notion, but a Week 3 matchup between Keetz and Tieg gave me pause. The two titans met on the fantasy football battlefield and it was Keetz who came out on top – a 152.7 to 147.4 victory.

Keetz is the only person to beat Tieg this year and is the only person to not lose to Tieg by at least 20 points. In my opinion, he’s the only person who can give Tieg a run for his money when it's all said and done. Just look at his starting roster – every single player is a top 10 guy at their respective position.

Alex Smith and Kirk Cousins are both top 10 QBs. Todd Gurley is RB1 and Hyde is RB8. Mike Evans is WR16 despite missing Week 1, and on a per-game basis is WR #5. Keenan Allen is WR8 while Stefon Diggs is WR1. Charles Clay is TE4. Jags D is DST #2.

Prospects Going Forward:

It’s obvious he’s going to make the playoffs, but that’s not the question. The question is – can he take down Tieg? Let’s compare:

QB – Kirk/Smith vs Carr is a push

RB – Tieg has a clear advantage Zeke/Kareem/Freeman

WR – Keetz has a clear advantage with Keenan/Evans/Diggs

TE – Keetz who has Clay

Defense – Push

While I don’t think it’s all that likely, Keetz is our only hope. Maybe we’ll have yet another first time champ this year?