2017 George W Bush Entertainment - Week 1 (Part 2)

#6: JacksON Jacks-OFF – LOST 93.8 to 131.8

FIRST DOWN:

Here it is, here is the MVP of our first round!! Come on down and collect your award. McCoy came as advertised against the Jets.... the REAL MCCOY shall we say. The 6th overall pick scored 25.8 fantasy points on 22 carries for 110 yards rushing and 5 catches for 49 yards receiving. He coulda had a touchdown but guess what? Mike Tolbert did his thang…

The 27 touches is what we should be able to expect from McCoy on a week-in and week-out basis. He’s literally the only good weapon they have and they have a good offensive line, so why not? What are you gonna do, throw the ball to Jordan Matthews and Zay Jones? I think not. Nope, let’s just run the ball. The Bills are gonna be so run-heavy this year they even gave the aforementioned Tolbert 12 carries. TWELVE. That’s more than Le’Veon Bell and Carlos Hyde got for those of you keeping score at home. Overall there isn’t much to say here, McCoy is a top 3 running back.

SECOND DOWN:

Lesean McCoy aside, Kev’s running back situation is in dire straights. DIRE. STRAIGHTS. Take a look at who his RB2 is….. a pretty recognizable signature…. the Super Bowl MVP James White. White is a good player no doubt and should be very useful for fantasy, but your RB2 in week 2 is James White? In a ten man league? Sheeesh. Going further, who’s his RB3? Tevin Coleman….the backup running back on the Falcons. Coleman is a good player, but he’s really touchdown dependent and would only become a major factor if/when something happens to Freeman. His only bench RB is Adrian Peterson who received just 9 snaps on Monday Night football and looked pretty old against the Vikings. If the Saints are smart they’ll make Mark Ingram their clear-cut starter. I hate to be a dick, but this is what happens when you take Aaron Rodgers in the second round.

THIRD DOWN:

I don’t like to pile on, but I will just one more time. After this week I’m done being rude about JacksON JacksOFF. Anyways I said it during the draft recaps, but if Aaron Rodgers wasn’t the biggest reach of our draft, the Patriots D/ST certainly was. Kev took the Pats D in the 8th round, while the next defense went in the 11th. We all watched on Thursday night and we all know how that went.

The Patriots D looked completely lost against the Chiefs and allowed 42 points on what seemed like 700 yards of offense. They ended up scoring -2 fantasy points on the week….the negative sign was not a typo. By the end of the game we had a guy named CASSIUS MARSH running our defense, which was not good. He was the white boy who looked like a potential cult hero as he baited Kelce into a personal foul penalty…… but that all went out the window when he got roasted by Hareem Kunt (#luma) on a seam route. Seriously though, who the FUCK is Cassius Marsh? Overall this pick might continue to haunt Kev this season, just look at the players he passed up to take the Pats D…..Bilal Powell, Doug Martin, Devante Parker, Corey Davis, Randall Cobb, Chris Hogan, Sterling Shepard, Terrance West, etc etc. Okay, no more.

#7: MIXONS HERE HYDE UR GURLEY – WON 114-82.4

FIRST DOWN:

Keetz was one of the two unfortunates who weren’t able to use their first round pick during Week 1. Unlike Guy, however, he was able to overcome the obstacle and come out with a win. Also unlike Guy, Keetz did not draft an injured player – he got screwed by the hurricanes.

How scary is Keetz’ WR group right now though? He now adds Mike Evans to his week 1 lineup that included Keenan Allen (5 catches, 1 TD) and Demaryius Thomas (5 for 67). Oh, and Stefon Diggs is on his bench…… the guy who just caught 2 touchdowns and scored 24.4 points on Monday Night football. Yeah, he’s a WR4 on Keetz’ team. Add in Danny Amendola (6 for 100 but hurt) and there is no way anyone has 5 better WRs in this league.

SECOND DOWN:

Enough about the WRs, this is an RB driven league. So how are those looking? Todd Gurley took a trip to cup-cake city, I mean Bryant University, I mean the Colts defense and came out of it with 19 fantasy points. His 19 carries for 40 yards were terrible, but 5 catches, 56 yards and a rushing TD were not. It’s clear the Rams offense is going to be better this year and Gurley is their #1 option. He's a great RB and as long as he gets a little room to work he's gonna be a big time player.

Carlos Hyde locks down his RB2 spot and he had a pretty solid game. Even though he had just 9 carries, he totaled 45 yards rushing which is a hell of a lot more efficient than Gurley. He was also a big factor in the passing game with 6 catches for 32 yards. Joe Mixon currently resides on the bench along with Frank Gore to give him a really solid top 4. Both will be suitable bye week fill-ins or injury replacements. Overall this is a very good team.

THIRD DOWN:

I’ll take a minute to talk about Kirk Cousins here, yet another name on the long list of Week 1 disappointments. Cousins scored 12.9 fantasy points on 240 yards passing, 1 TD and 1 pick. He also fumbled twice, which was unfortunate. This poor performance begs the question – are the Redskins gonna be any good this year? A lot of people including myself were pretty high on them coming in. They got a shiny new toy in Terrelle Pryor, Crowder was supposed to take the leap, Reed would contribute and the run game should be better. Literally none of those things happened. The entire Redskins offense looked like skylou skata and now everyone is wondering if we took the hype too far (that’s “dog shit” for you non-Greek people). Things won’t get any easier for them this week as they have to travel out to play the Rams this week – the highest scoring D in week 1. They get a bit of a reprieve after that with the Raiders in week 3, but have to play the Chiefs in week 4 before a bye in week 5. That’s a tough slate to open the year so Keetz may need to start looking at other options.

#8: WHAT IF HE SHOT ME IN THE FACE? – won 131.8-93.8

FIRST DOWN:

No one wants to hear me talk about my team, so I’ll keep this short. My first round pick Melvin Gordon scored 20 points despite a pretty unfavorable matchup against the Broncos D - Daddy like. As with many RBs this week, his rushing stats weren’t great – 18 carries for 54 yards. Like a lot of RBs this week, he was saved by his involvement in the passing game (5 for 25) and a TD. Looking at that stat-line I’m not sure how he got to 20 points, but the scoring in this league is very favorable. Speaking of which, what do people think about the “points per carry” rule? Personally I love it because it makes RBs valuable and rewards you for volume. I’m the commissioner of a much less important league at work and some people hate it. What do you guys think?

SECOND DOWN:

I really liked my WRs coming out of the draft, but they disappointed in Week 1. Or did they? AJ Green scored 9.9 points on 5 catches for 74 yards. That was a let-down, but if he does that every week he’ll end up with 80 catches for 1,200 yards. Not so bad right? My main concern is that the Bengals offense looked like Poopdick, but I’m hoping that was more indicative of the Raven’s defense. I just spent 25 of FAAB on the Ravens defense so I need that to be true. Larry Fitz was my other WR and he pretty much suffered from the same issues – bad QB play and his team sucked, but his numbers weren’t absolutely terrible (6 catches, 74 yards, 10.4 points). I’d like to think Carson Palmer will be better and that the loss of David Johnson would mean more opportunities for Larry….. but I don’t feel 100% about that. My WRs have me so confused right now.

THIRD DOWN:

Back to the positive – DALVIN COOK. Yes it was against the Saints awful defense and yes a lot of his points came when the game was out of reach, but I really liked what I saw.

Cook was involved early and often and is clearly their #1 feature back. He had 22 carries and 5 targets and turned that into 22.6 fantasy points. The best part is that the Vikings passing game looks great – this should open up more room for Cook. While I felt bad watching Adrian Peterson’s career go down the shitter on national TV, my fantasy team didn’t feel bad.

#9: CALEB’S BUKAkE PARTY – won 146.1-59.5

FIRST DOWN:

This was the biggest blow-out of the week with a point differential of 86.6 points. LOL. That point differential is more than Frader, Robby D and Lamone scored during the entire week. Tieg’s RBs combined for 87 points alone, which was also more than those three teams scored. Caleb’s Bukake Party actually came within 32 points of TRIPLING Lamone’s output. What an absolute beating…..

This begs the question – is there any way Tieg doesn’t win this league? Tieg already had a good team when we thought Zeke would miss 6 weeks. Now he gets him the whole season? I hate to be a defeatist, but I just don’t see any way that Tieg doesn’t win this league. Maybe Keetz has a shot, but it’s an outside shot.

SECOND DOWN:

Speaking of Zeke Elliot, what the fuck was everyone thinking letting him fall to the FOURTH round? I have an excuse, Frader has an excuse, but what excuse did the rest of you have?

Me: already had drafted him in one league, didn’t want to deal with a potential suspension in two leagues

Frader: same as above

Lamone: what’s your excuse?

Keetz: I really thought you’d be the one to take him, what happened?

Kev: Any thoughts?

Guy: who’s Zeke Elliot?

Dylan: too risky

Ken: I prefer Darren McFadden

Robby D: I auto-drafted and missed him

Tieg: live look at Tieg when Zeke fell to him in the 4th round.

I hate to point fingers, but we all let each other down. Letting Zeke fall to the 4th round ensured that none of us have a chance to win this league.

THIRD DOWN:

Despite my diatribe on Zeke, he was actually not the highest scorer for Tieg’s team. That honor goes to Kareem Hunt, the next Ladanian Tomlinson….. or at least the Pats defense made him look that way. The rookie RB class came as advertised in week 1 and we had some great performances. Let’s see how they did by order of draft position:

Leonard Fournette (3rd rd): 26 carries, 100 yards, 1 TD. 3 catches, 24 yards – 28.1 fantasy points.

Christian McCaffrey (3rd rd): 13 carries, 47 yards (1 fmbl). 5 catches, 38 yards – 11.6 fantasy points.

Dalvin Cook (4th rd): 22 carries, 127 yards. 3 catches, 10 yards – 22.6 fantasy points. (I would have taken Zeke here if Tieg let him drop to me in rd 4).

Kareem Hunt (5th rd): 17 carries, 148 yards, 1 TD. 5 catches, 98 yards, 2 TDs – 49.5 fantasy points. Caleb’s Bukake Party Indeed.

Joe Mixon (6th rd): 8 carries, 9 yards. 3 catches, 15 yards – 5.5 fantasy points.

Joe Mixon is the only one who disappointed, but it was expected. He was drafted the latest of these 5 and everyone knew the Bengals backfield would be a mess early on. Overall it was an absurd week for Rookie RBs and it’ll be interesting to see how they fare going forward.

#10: JABAAL PAP SHMEARD – LOSS 59.5-146.1

FIRST DOWN:

Yikes, what a week to forget for Lamone. Call it a Super Bowl hangover, call it a fluke, call it whatever you want. There’s no other way to put this, this was the worst defeat Lamone has suffered in this league. Honestly it may be the biggest blowout of the entire league’s history. The only loss that coulda came close was Dylan’s 20 point fiasco, but did his opponent put up 106? That’s the only way this wasn’t the worst defeat in the history of the league. (Unfortunately the pic only shows Dylan’s score)

So what happened? Lamone’s draft strategy courtesy of Dave Richard was pretty straightforward – start with two workhorse RBs, grab a top 3 QB, a top 5 TE and fill in the rest of your roster with depth/upside at flex. When I was looking at his team it looked like a great strategy and I have him a high grade. Study High, Draft High, Get High Scores. Instead it was a disaster. TB12 had his worst game in years, Jimmy Graham didn’t even surpass 10 yards receiving, DeMarco Murray had his worst game since being a member of the Eagles and Jay Ajayi didn’t even play. When your whole draft strategy falls apart at the same time this is what happens.

SECOND DOWN:

Back to the Ajayi situation – Lamone got FUCKED. Fucked in the way that people in San Francisco like to get fucked. Not in the way that normal people like to get - fucked.

Jay Ajayi was supposed to be a workhorse for him – a 15-20 points per week stud. Regrettably for Lamone, Ajayi took the week off with the rest of the players impacted by the hurricanes. Instead of 15-20, Lamone got 5 from Danny Woodhead before he got injured. PURE TAIGE. The second stroke of Pure Tieg was the Zeke Elliot suspension. In the days leading up to the season we discovered that Zeke was going to play in week 1, if not for the whole season. Instead of getting zero from Zeke, Tieg got 24.3. Between the 24.3 Zeke scored and the 10-15 points Lamone lost on Ajayi, that’s potentially a 40 point swing.

THIRD DOWN:

So is Lamone’s team any good? This is what I wrote about in his recap….

“I give this draft an A-. It was really really good, the only thing that holds it back is the question marks with his WRs.”

Good thing no one’s keeping count because my recaps have been TERRIBLE so far. Aside from predicting Tieg’s eventual championship, Keetz’s good team and Lamone’s shitty WRs, I’ve basically got everything wrong. But back to Lamone – was I really that wrong? Did I really put the worst team (based on points) as a top 3 draft? I don’t think so and I can’t completely throw my prediction out the window after one week. As I said at the start, this was a ridiculous week and one of the worst in recent memory. Lamone even said it in a text to me on Sunday:

“This is undoubtedly the WORST week of football I’ve watched in years.”

Yes it was Lamone, yes it was.