WEEK 1 RECAPS - PART 1 — Protector Of The League

Welcome back to some GWBL weekly entertainment. I know you’ve all been missing this for the last 8 months and as always I will deliver. I mentioned this before, but these recaps are going to be shorter this year - TLDR is a real thing these days and I want to keep things fresh. They won’t be this short every week, but for Week 1 we’re just going to do some quick hits. These are the things that stuck out to me when combing through the box scores:

MATCHUP 1: Return of the Mack defeats Tell Sloan I Said Whatup 119.8-106.6

Frader took down the reigning champ in a fairly close Week 1 contest – a 13 point differential. This was the battle of the RB2s as it was Dalvin Cook and Marlon Mack who led their respective teams in fantasy points. Cook was a beast for Dylan and put up 32.2 against the Falcons. He took more than 20 carries for over 100 yards and proved his ACL is fully healthy. Sadly for DbD, Marlon Mack stole the show and had the most rushing yards of any RB in the NFL this week. Mack’s 25 carries tied his career high and the 174 rushing yards were a career high as well. I was brutally wrong when I said that Mack was over-drafted in the 3rd round.

Aside from that the WRs stick out most to me – neither team did very well in that regard. Frader got a combined 20 points from DJ Moore/Tyler Lockett while Dylan got 16.8 between Brandin Cooks and Dede Westbrook. Dylan made a good call by sitting Stefon Diggs (you won’t hear me say that very often), but Cooks’ 4.9 points were crushing for his chances.

Almost doesn’t count: If Dylan had started TJ Hockenson over Vance McDonald at TE he would have beat Frader 125.7-119.8.

PS: Frader had TB12 on his bench and I doubt that’ll ever happen again this season. Matt Ryan on the block?

MATCHUP 2: The Skid Row Nightcrawlers defeat sorry for everything 138.8-113.5

We were all wondering what would happen in this matchup – would Guy’s superior team (on paper) take down the auto-drafted squad, or would Pure Taige win out? In the end talent prevailed and Guy’s team won by more than 25 points.

Christian McCaffrey was the star of the show for the Nightcrawlers as he torched tieg for 44.7 points – that figure led all NFL players this week in our scoring. I voiced moderate concern about McCaffrey in Guy’s writeup, but he proved that last year was no fluke – he’s one of the best RBs in the league and his workload is going to be huge. The crazy part is his day (128 rushing, 10 for 81 receiving, 2 TDs) could have been even better – the Panthers gave their FB a 1 yard vulture-fuck touchdown on Sunday. He very nearly put up 50 points against the Rams defense.

On the other end of the spectrum, James Conner (10.5) and Kerryon Johnson (10.4) disappointed Guy in Week 1. If it weren’t for our points per carry, neither player would have eclipsed 10 points and neither looked very effective. Hopefully for Guy this was a one week lull for both players.

RB is going to be an issue for Tieg all year due to his auto-draft. He started Derrius Guice and Tevin Coleman this week and the two combined for a lowly 15.1 fantasy points. To make things worse, both were injured in their games and Tieg will have to find new RBs. His WR group may be the best in the league and Wentz is going to be money, but he really needs to figure out that RB situation.

MATCHUP 3: KingoftheNorth Shore defeats HOW’S HOOTERS? KiTTLES? 155.6-150

While there were many bad beats this week, Lamone takes the Golden Dildo award as the owner who was most ass-fucked by the fantasy football gods. Stating the obvious: scoring 150 and losing is just cruel. Going further, George Kittle had two TD catches….both called back by penalties. More? Lamone’s Kicker scored 0 while Robby D’s scored 10. More? David Johnson scored 5 points in overtime for Robby D.

Make it stop! One more……Derrick Henry had a 75 yard touchdown… CATCH.

Yes, that happened….Derrick Henry had a 75 yard TD catch at 240 pounds. This was a very bad call by me as I thought he was a bad pick in the 4th round. I was wrong Robby D was right blah blah. In fairness - this game by him was patently ridiculous, namely because of that 75 yard TD catch I mentioned. Last year Henry had 99 receiving yards TOTAL and his longest catch was 21 yards. In 2017 he had 136 receiving yards total. His rookie year he had 137 total receiving yards total. Obviously this was flukey as fuck and without that 15 point play his stat line is a much more reasonable 16-17 points.

I was also wrong on Amari Cooper so you win again Bob D. This one I actually think I was wrong on as his stats are legit and the Cowboys offense looks like it might be the Rams of this year. Cooper put up 21.6 fantasy points on 6 catches for 106 yards and a TD. In his 12 games since being traded to the Cowboys (including playoffs), Cooper has 100 yards OR a touchdown in 6 of them. 50% is pretty good, prettayyyy good. Overall in that 12 game sample he has 72 catches for 1,002 yards and 7 TDs. That’s a 16 game pace of 96 catches for 1,336 yards and 9 TDs.

Last interesting note: Robby D was projected for the highest Week 1 point total and he in fact scored the most Week 1 points. I guess projections aren’t meaningless afterall.