GW Bush League - Week 9 (Part 1)

Fantasy football just sucks sometimes. It’s one of the most frustrating, inexplicable, infuriating and baffling things in the world. It’s got me pretty down right about now. I’ve basically spent the last 3 days going through the 5 Stages of Grief…..

Denial – "no fuckin way I’m actually gonna lose to Guy"

Anger – "are you fucking kidding me Marshawn Lynch??!?!?"

Bargaining – "maybe Aaron Jones will outscore Golden Tate.... that's happened 3-4 times this season...."

Depression – "I never want to play fantasy football again"

Acceptance – "set my lineup for next week and look at waivers"

It happens to everyone though, we all have bad weeks. Sometimes though……. sometimes you just have a REALLY BAD WEEK. A weekend of fantasy football that tarnishes the ensuing work-week. Week 9 was one of those weeks for your beloved Commish and here is the list of reasons why.

- I have 5 leagues and I went 1-4 this week. Fucking terrible.

- I was projected to win in 4 of those leagues and projected to lose in 1 of them. I lost every game I was projected to win and won the only game I was projected to lose. Srsly?

- Of the five teams I played, four of them had a losing record (3-5 or worse). I lost to all four of those teams. The only team I did beat was a 7-1 team. Srsly?

- I lost one game by .2 points this week. TWO TENTHS OF A FUCKING POINT. It’s .25 ppr in that league, so one more catch and I win. Derek Carr also had -3 rushing yards which was the difference. Doug Martin had .7 points in that league. I literally just needed him to score 1 point.

- As with any bad week, a number of notable players let me down. What do Mike Evans, AJ Green and Doug Martin all have in common? They all scored fewer than 2 points.

- As with any bad week, a number of notable players went off against me. Jared Cook had 20, Jared Goff had 28, Josh McCown had 20, Tyrod Taylor had 27……. you get the picture.

- Continuing on the above - here is the list of really talented players who had 2 touchdown games vs my teams this week: Cole Beasley, Robert Woods, Marshawn Lynch, Matt Forte. Nice!

As you can tell I am at rock bottom in terms of fantasy this year. As a result, this is going to get negative. For this week’s entertainment I’m going to look at each matchup from Week 9. For the winner, I’ll point to 2 reasons they won this week and 1 reason they shouldn’t feel so good about it. We’ll call it the Yeah’s and the Yeah But’s. For the loser, I’ll point out 2 reasons they lost and 1 reason they should be really concerned. We’ll call them the NO’s and the FUCK NO’s. Let’s get this shit over with.

“Jakey-Jakey” Big Mistakey: (2-7) wins 95.2 to 81.7

YEAH: Let’s get this one out of the way – Marshawn Lynch. What a fuckin joke. Lynch put up 22 points this week, which is his season high and 8 higher than his next highest output. He hadn’t scored a TD since Week 5 and scored a total of 10.2 points combined in his last two games. Guy is livin in fuckin rainbow land.

YEAH: Josh McCown is having a good year and Guy’s QB situation is in good shape between McCown and Marcus Mariota. That being said, 8.3 of McCowns 20 points came on rushing yards and a rushing TD. That’s dumb. Without the rushing McCown woulda put up like 11 points.

YEAH, BUT: This win was obviously big for Guy, but how big was it? He only scored 95 points, so it was purely luck and was more a representation of how bad my team is. Further, he’s still in dead-last and is more than 70 points behind the 9th place team. He’s gotta outscore Frader and Kev by at least 70 points the rest of the way, and/or beat them in record. Unfortunately he also has a pretty tough schedule over the last 4 weeks. Two of Guy’s last 4 games come against Keetz and Robby D – top 3 teams. He also plays the underrated Ken and Kev’s team. The Gabriel is still calling.

WHAT IF HE SHOT ME IN THE FACE? (5-3) loses wins 81.7 to 95.2

NO: AJ Green COMEEOOONNNNN MANNNNNN

Are you kidding me dude? One catch for 6 yards and then you get ejected? I know you got cheap-shotted, but now you look like an ass. You got me 1.1 points in Week 9, will miss week 10 with suspension and plays vs. the Vikings in Week 11. Ultimately you will be worthless for me for these three weeks. Sad to say but AJ is going to end up a bust this year.

NO: Aaron Jones……LOL. I don’t know if one guy has fucked me over more this season. When I played Tieg I lost by 3 and Aaron Jones had 27 points. He then had a 28 point game before going into his bye week. I traded Derek Carr to Tieg straight up for him, hoping he could be a usable RB. In his first game on my team, he puts up 3.1 points. He only got 5 carries and it seems like Ty Montgomery will regain the starting role. What a joke.

FUCK NO: My team is on a serious slide. I’ve lost 3 of my last 5 and I just lost to the worst team in the league. I went from 3-1 to 5-4 over that time period and one of my losses was by 3 points. I was holding on to third for most of the season, but have dropped back down to 5th place. I lose Zach Ertz to a bye this week and Cam Newton next week – my two best players. As for my schedule, I play Robby D and Lamone during the last 4 weeks - both will be L’s. I do play two teams with losing records, but that didn’t go well for me this week (see the intro). My team stinks stinks stinks.

JABAAL PAP SHMEARD: 5-4 wins 106.5 to 68.7

YEAH: Lamone got a humongous output from Alvin Kamara in Week 9 and was the major reason he won. The rookie third round pick put up 30.2 points on 152 total yards and two TDs. He’s firmly taken the #1 job on the Saints and his passing game usage gives him a ridiculously high floor. Once Ajayi is back from his bye Lamone will have a really good 1-2 punch with Ajayi/Kamara at RB1/RB2.

YEAH: Lamone had two really lucky spot-starts this week. He picked up Jared Goff to fill in during TB12’s bye week. The Giants are a pathetic joke of a franchise and allowed Goff to put up a 32 point ass-fucking on them. I lost in two leagues because of that. Luma also picked up Robbie Anderson to replace Kelvin Benjamin and was rewarded with 13 points.

YEAH, BUT: Lamone is firmly in the playoffs right now and put an end to a two game losing streak. He should feel pretty good about his team right? Yeah…..BUT, he’s got some bad karma headed his way. Lamone currently has the 8th most points against with 913 on the year. That’s only 10 more than the 9th place team and 28 more than 10th place. Regression is coming. The weekly results look even more fortunate. In all 5 of his wins his opponent has failed to score more than 90 points. His points against in the 5 wins are 84.7, 90, 81.3, 72.8 and 68.7. I think the luck will catch up to him and his remaining schedule would indicate tough times are ahead. In the last four weeks he plays Tieg, Dylan, Ken and my shit team. Only one of those looks like a win right now (my shit team duh). It’ll be an interesting finish to the season.

THE STAR OF LARRY DAVID JOHNSON: 2-7 loses 68.7 to 106.5

NO: I gotta let some more hate out for Doug Martin. FUCK THIS GUY.

Martin got 8 carries this week and gained 7 yards (2.3 points). When you get more points for your carries (1.6) than you do for your yardage totals (.7) – that’s BADDDD MMKAY. Martin has been usable in our league due to points per carry, but his yardage and touchdown totals have been downright dreadful lately. Over the last three games, Martin has 46 carries for 127 yards – 2.7 yards per carry. That’s 12.7 points based on yards and 9.2 points based on carries. I don’t care what your team looks like you cannot feel comfortable starting Martin going forward.

NO: The injury to Deshaun Watson was really bad. T’s and P’s to him and his fam and we hope he comes back strong next year. Before we finish putting dirt on Watson’s fantasy grave however, we should dig a hole for Will Fuller’s fantasy grave. No one will suffer more from Watson’s loss than Will Fuller and that was on full display this week – 2 catches, 32 yards, 4.2 points. At this point Fuller is not even startable and arguably could be dropped. 

RIP Will Fuller's Fantasy Season - Week 4-Week8

FUCK NO: Frader put up the league-low this week and has to be pretty down on his outlook. Calling back to the 5 stages of grief – that’s been Frader’s team all season. He’s lost two straight games and has failed to reach 90 points in either of them. This week was the worst of the bunch and was his lowest point total of the entire season. Things aren’t going to get much better the rest of the way – every single team he plays the last 4 weeks is currently in the playoffs. (Keetz, Tieg, Dylan, my shit team).

LeveonStuffed Kens TacoBell: 6-3 wins 139.6 to 101.8

YEAH: This was an incredible week for Robby D – one of those weeks where you just wake up with a boner on Monday morning. (That’s not every morning?) Father Bob had 5 players on bye this past week including Le’Veon, Duke Johnson and Chris Hogan. Despite that he was able to put up 139 points and nearly take the weekly high score (that honor goes to Dyl, paid him today). I’ve mentioned this before, but the thing I admire about Robby D’s fantasy acumen is his willingness to take a chance. “Don’t think, just throw” would be the most appropriate term for it? Do you want to start TY Hilton, Robert Woods and Bilal Powell? No, but if you do then you get nearly 65 points out of the three of them. Don’t think, just throw.

YEAH: This was another great game for Travis Kelce and he’s now officially TE1 in fantasy. I won't mention that he shouldn't be on Rob D's team, but I won't not mention it. Anyways the reality TV star put up 16.8 points on 7 catches for 73 yards and a TD. He’s now combined for 18 catches, 239 yards and 3 TDs over his last three games (53 fantasy points). It sucks he’s on a bye this week, but hopefully he can pick up where he left off in Week 11.

YEAH, BUT: Michael Thomas has been sorta disappointing. Robby D’s second round pick comes into Week 10 as WR20 and hasn’t scored a TD since Week 4. Over the last 5 weeks he’s had a BYE and scored 2.6, 11.7, 11.2 and 10.5 points. Those aren’t terrible numbers, but this is supposed to be Bob’s #1 WR. I’m sure he’ll pick it up a bit, but it’s been a let-down.

CALEB’S BUKAkE PARTY: 6-3 loses 101.8 to 139.6

NO: Kareem Hunt has been slumping pretty hard the last couple of weeks. Don’t get me wrong, he’s been great as a whole – he ranks as RB3 after 9 weeks. The problem is he’s trending in the WRONG direction. First of all, Hunt hasn’t scored a TD since Week 3. Week 3! That’s not good. Aside from that, his point totals have gone down each of the last three weeks – 17.3, 12.7 and 9.9. Hopefully his bye week will turn things around, but you can’t help but wonder if Hunt has hit a rookie wall.

NO: Tieg made two pretty bad decisions this week. The first was starting Seferian Jenkins over Jared Cook. Jenkins scored 3 points on Thursday Night Football, while Cook scored 18.6 on Sunday Night Football. Negative 15 points for you sir. The second was starting Jonathan Stewart over Devonta Freeman – this is the definition of “getting cute”. Freeman scored 10.6 while Jonathan Stewart scored .3 – yikes. Between the two of those, Tieg left about 25 points on his bench. Still woulda lost, but irregardless those were bad calls.

FUCK NO: If I told you Tieg sat both Jordy Nelson and Devonta Freeman this week what would you say?

Well he did….and it was actually sort of a good idea... WTF? Yeah, that’s what this season has come to. While Freeman outscored Stewart, that really doesn’t say much. Freeman has been horrible the last 5 weeks and Tieg was just sick of it. I think he’s hurt or something because he’s just been a let-down lately – “bad shoulders and a sandy vagina” as Tieg would say. He hasn’t scored a TD since week 4 and his viability as a starting RB is fading fast. Now for Jordy Nelson - Nelson is officially a bench/depth player at this point. The loss of Aaron Rodgers and Brett Hundley’s inability to do anything resembling an NFL quarterback have relegated him to WR4 status. He scored 5.5 points this week and will be on the bench for the foreseeable future. All in all, Tieg’s first and second round picks might be busts.