WEEK 8 RECAPS - PART 1

WEEK 8

Death, taxes and the high scorer of the week will be my opponent. Those are the only certainties in life. I guess there are a few more certainties - the sun will rise, the sun will set and Boston is the best sports town in the country. Those 6 pretty much cover it. Anyways we’re through another week in the 2018 season and things are starting to take shape. The top teams are separating themselves and the bottom teams are starting to see their seasons slip away. I don’t think anyone is technically out as of now, but the playoff field looks to be taking shape.

This week I’m going to keep it simple and just write some thoughts about each team. Some will be good, some will be bad, some will be positive, negative, you name it (most will be negative, you've seen my scores the last few weeks). Regardless I’ll try to point out some interesting stats or circumstances. From the most assholey to the least assholey:

Kens African Safari: 6-2

Fuck you Ken. Fuck you. You wait until our Week 8 matchup when I desperately need a win to have your biggest week of the season? I wish you had been eaten by a rhinoceros or poisoned by an insulted tribesman while in Africa. Fuck you. 

Just for fun let’s look at the trade Ken and I made earlier this year. On Wednesday, September 26 I traded him AP for Emmanuel Sanders straight up. I needed a WR, he needed an RB. It was a fair trade. Since that time Sanders has scored 9, 11.7, 23, 26.5 and 7.3 points – total of 77.5 points in 5 weeks. He’s WR6. In that same time frame, AP has scored BYE, 6, 13.1, 16 and 34.3 – total of 69.4 points. He’s RB9. So fair trade right? I’d say so. Except for the fact that AP decided to have his best fucking game of the season the week I play dickface, while Emmanuel Sanders decided to have his worst. Unfuckingbelievable.

Kenny’s team is killing it, we all know that. He’s 1st in the league, second in points (behind me obviously) and he hasn’t lost since week 3. Week 9 is a tough test though – he plays Kev’s 5-3 squad.

Thanos anal snap: 6-2

Tieg lost for the first time since Week 1 and finds himself in 2nd place. All good things must come to an end and the 6 game winning streak was undone when the Anal Snaps put up a season low 103 points. In Week 7 Tieg put up 166 against me. In Week 8 the total dropped by 63 points. LOL LOL LOL

Last week I said James White would be Tieg’s second half breakout and for once I was right about something fantasy football related. Even though it was an ugly Patriots win, White managed to put up a very solid 22 fantasy points. He tied his season high with 10 catches and had a season high 79 receiving yards. Just to round out his day he added 8 carries for 15 yards and a short TD. He’s even being used as a goal line back now which is just unfair. As an 11th round pick, James White might be the best pick of the draft – currently RB7 in our scoring.

Another high profile matchup as Tieg takes on the 5-3 Deangelo Vickers in Week 9.

DeAngelo Vickers: 5-3

From a busted winning streak to a still-in-tact winning streak – let’s talk about Guy’s team. Guy had a pretty tough start to the season and started out at 2-3 through 5 weeks. He was suffering from some of the same bad luck I am right now - 3 of his first 5 opponents put up 153 points or more. There is literally nothing you can do when that happens and I feel your pain.

Since then however, the luck has turned around. Over the last 3 games Guy’s opponents have averaged 112 points per week with a high of 115. Those are winnable games and Guy has done just that. This is not to say Guy hasn’t deserved it – his team has. In that same 3 games he’s averaged 155 points per week with a high of 165.7.

Looking at it now, my bad luck has coincided with some bad luck on Guy’s end. While my luck is jump off a bridge type bad luck, Guy’s is more champagne problems bad luck. I’ll explain. In Weeks 6, 7 and 8 Guy has scored 165.7, 136.8 and 162.2 points. In most leagues and in most weeks, those 160+ point games are enough to get you the league high. Unfortunately for Guy, he’s been outscored by the team that played me in both weeks. Overall he’s a combined 18 fantasy points from being $50 richer. 

The defender is Guy trying to get the league high points….

The GOAT and His Kids: 5-3

Goodness gracious James Conner is good. Or it’s just really easy to be an RB in Pittsburgh, I can’t tell anymore. Regardless James Conner continues to be the MVP of Kev’s team after putting up a season high 43.5 points in Week 8. Fun fact: In two games against Cleveland, Conner has 55 carries for 281 yards and 4 rushing TDs. Good enough? Not quite. He also has a combined for 10 catches and 123 yards receiving in those two games. 65 touches, 404 yards and 4 TDs in two games against the same team (84.5 fantasy points). Wow.

I’ll point this out because I have Jarvis Landry in another league, but he’s been pretty disappointing this year. Despite the fact they were getting smoked by the Steelers, Landry had just 39 receiving yards in Week 8 (7.9 points). Sure he had 8 catches, but that actually makes it more frustrating. Regardless he’s scored 9.4 points or fewer in 4 of 8 games and has 11.4 or fewer in 5 of the 8 games. Maybe he’ll turn it around this week against the Chiefs D, but we’ll see.

Because I’m in a complaining about points mood, let’s complain about points. Kev scored 99.9 in Week 7 and won his game. It is the only time this year someone has scored less than 100 points and won. I guess I’m the new Kev in this league.

You Done Messed Up A A Ron!: 4-4

At one point it looked like RB was a weakness on Frader’s team. I could absolutely pull a quote from these writeups that says his RBs suck. Even going back to last week I was trying to trade him one of mine for a WR (if anyone needs an RB I have 5 pretty good ones). RBs don’t appear to be a weakness anymore though – he got 48.9 combined points from his two starting RBs in Week 8.

Tarik Cohen has been a revelation and finds himself at RB15 despite only having 43 carries on the year (6 per game). What he lacks in rushing he makes up for in receiving, compiling 30 catches for 400 yards on the season. While he got off to a slow start, he’s put up 20 or more points in 4 straight games. In those 4 games he’s scored a combined 95 fantasy points.

The thunder to Cohen’s lighting is not Jordan Howard, but Chris Carson. The Seahawks back had 25 carries for 105 yards and a TD on Sunday – 27 points. While he’s put up a few duds this season, he also has three games with 100 yards rushing and three games with 20 or more fantasy points. He’s the clear bell-cow back on a run-first team which is a great thing for fantasy.

Frader got a huge win this week over Tieg and finds himself in the playoffs if the season ended today. While his team didn’t explode in Week 8, he scored enough to win. He now goes on the road to cupcake city, so he’ll put up 150+.

skErtz skErtz w Mahomiez: 4-4

Dylan’s season has been an anomaly this year in terms of points against and points for. He’s 4-4 which is a solid record and gives him the last seed in the playoffs. Here’s where it gets weird: Dylan has the second most points against, but has scored the 3rd fewest points this season. How does that work? Close to the bottom in points for and close to the top in points against…. Leads to the playoffs? For now it does at least.

I’m going to talk about some randos here, but what happened to Kenny Golladay? The Lions WR was breaking out the first 5 weeks of the season and was a top 20 WR going into their week 6 bye. His numbers weren’t insane (27 for 430 and 3 TDs), but he was averaging north of 15 fantasy points a game. In the two games since the bye however, he’s combined to score 6.4 fantasy points on 3 catches for 49 yards. Concerned? Not so fast – Golladay may have gotten a big boost today since Golden Tate was traded to the Eagles.

Another WR that disappointed for Dyl this week was TY Hilton. Aside from the two weeks he missed, he put up a season low 3.9 fantasy points on 1 catch for 34 yards. That being said, it was more about gameflow as the Colts destroyed the hapless Raiders. Hilton goes on a bye this week, but he should be fine going forward right? Ehhhh, I don’t know about that. Two of his last 4 regular season games come against the Jaguars which doesn’t bode well. Then again the Jags suck so who knows. Hard to tell how Hilton will be the rest of the way, but Dylan needs a lot more than 3.9 points if he wants to make noise late in the season.