GWBL - Week 6 - State of the Union (Part 2)

6th Place: M O (3-3): Tieg:

On the flip side of Keetz missing the playoffs by 10 points, Tieg would currently be the 6th seed in the playoffs - by 10 points. He’s got an auto-W in Week 7 (sorry Kev), but then faces a murderers row of Rob D, Dyl and Lamone in Weeks 8-10. How he fares in that 3 game stretch should give us a glimpse of whether he’s a contender or not. For now, he’s a solid team with a .500 record.

Tieg’s roster is split into good and bad. The good - Justin Jefferson and Cooper Kupp are legitimate all stars. Kupp is on a rampage this year and is WR1 right now - on pace for 1800 yards and 18 TDs. While Jefferson is “only” WR9, he’s put up 10 or more points in every single game. Consistency is a luxury not many players provide.

On the other hand, the RB position has been a struggle so far. Tieg is the Christian McCaffrey owner in our league and he’s finding out what all of the McCaffrey owners felt like last year. Once again McCaffrey is injured with an uncertain timeline and once again, if you missed out on his handcuff then you are hurting. It’s really a shame because McCaffrey is the most versatile RB in football and fun to watch. Sadly for us he can’t stay healthy. Speaking of health, Josh Jacobs has also been banged up most of the year. He’s turned it on lately, but he’s barely inside the top30 in RB scoring.

All in all Tieg has a solid team. The WRs will be the backbone of the squad and if McCaffrey comes back soon he’ll be dangerous. If however McCaffrey continues this nonsense, things could go downhill.

I do have to complain on one item - Tieg’s Week 4 win over my squad was complete luck. He won by 6.5 points when Dawson Knox, a streaming TE, got him 18+. Meanwhile Dalvin Cook had 7 and Deandre Hopkins had 9. When your waiver wire TE outscores the combined output of arguably the best RB and best WR in football you know you caught a break. I guess that’s the other side of the coin to his McCaffrey luck.

5th Place: Covid Dak-Cine (4-2): Kenny Peabs:

I haven’t called it out yet, but Ken is one of 3 owners to not change their team name from last year. Anything is better than “M O” or whatever Tiegs name is, but I feel like it’s kinda weak. I’m not good at making team names but at least I try.

Anyways on to Ken’s team. Another playoff contender and solid all around team, but one who still has work to do in order to seal a playoff spot. At QB Ken has his boy Dak, who just lit up the Patriots and is QB6 in our scoring. It’s concerning that he got hurt in the Pats game, but his bye comes at the perfect time. At TE Ken rolls out Travis Kelce - the best TE in football and an advantage every week.

I really like Ken’s RB duo of Jonathan Taylor and Deandre Swift. Taylor has become a big play machine, with a 70 yard receiving TD in Week 5 and an 83 yard run in week 6. He’s RB4 on the year and looks like the guy the Colts drafted him to be. Deandre Swift hasn’t put up the numbers Taylor has, but he’s on pace for 1400 yards and 11 TDs. Stat of the day - Swift has more receiving yards than rushing yards. It doesn’t matter how you get the fantasy points though.

WR is the only concern on Ken’s team. Mike Evans is great and has TB12, but he seems to get phased out of the gameplan at times (2 games with under 4 points). Marvin Jones is Ken’s WR2 but he’s the model of inconsistency. Aside from Dak, Jones is another guy Ken seemingly has on his team every single season. Ken also has Odell, Allen Robinson and DeVante Parker at WR, who are themselves varying shades of talented and wildly inconsistent. If anything is going to sink this team it’ll be the WR production.

4th Place: Tickle Pitts (4-2): Chylan:

Dylan has missed the playoffs each of the past 2 seasons and finished as Gabriel (Dyl-briel) last year, but it seems like he’s turned the corner. He’s currently locked into a playoff spot and has scored the 4th most points in the league. It starts with Patrick Mahomes, who’s QB2 in our scoring. He only had to use a 4th round pick on him, which seems like a very good price given our QB-friendly scoring. He’s averaging 31 points per week and hasn’t put up fewer than 23.5 in any game.

He has another generational talent with Kyle Pitts at TE. It was a shaky start to his NFL career, but I think the 9-119-1 line he put up in Week 5 is going to be more common than the 4 for 50 he put up in Week 4.

Speaking of generational talents - Dylan’s WR group is absolutely stacked. It’s actually a problem because he’s forced to sit two of these players every week and it must be a headache deciding who. Davante Adams was his first round pick and he averages 18.5 points a game. Stefon Diggs (2nd round) has had a slow start, but he scored 19 points this week. Dylan’s 3rd WR is Ceedee Lamb, who’s WR8 in our scoring and would be the best WR on most teams in our league. Then we have the rookie of the year Jamar Chase. Chase fell during draft season due to bad practice reports, but he’s a top 5 WR and is a must-start. You think I’m done? Nope. Chylan also has Deebo Samuel, a 9th round pick who is WR9 in our scoring. Talk about an embarrassment of riches. Whiting privilege, if you will.

The only nit to pick is his RB group. He’s really reliant on injuries to fuel his RB production. Right now he has Darrel Williams and Chuba Hubbard at RB1/2, two guys who are backups and only playing due to injury. He does have both Denver RBs, but neither are valuable unless one goes down. Then he has Tony Pollard, who hasn’t quite carved out stand alone value while Zeke is there. Still, if you’re going to go zero-RB, THIS is how it’s done. Honestly if I had to do power rankings, I’d probably predict Dylan to win the league.