Livin on a Prayer

We’re halfway through the fantasy regular season. half of us sit about 0.500, half below. The highest chance of a “have not” cracking playoffs ESPN ranks at 27% which seems a bit low. That ranks with the NFL’s 20th highest post season probability (Saints - 32%). If you start winless, you can finish loseless. A new season begins.

Matchups

The Buzzsaw (145.16) returned to form this week against Team Jeff (94.64). Team Jeff is having a rough year and even by his standards had a rough week thanks to byes for Mixon, Pollard, and Lamb. Their replacements combined for a paltry 19.6 points combined (Brian Robinson Jr., Jeff Wilson Jr., Elijah Moore). The rest of the squad (sans the QBs Mahomes - 34.86; Mac Jones - 19.98) were relative duds. The Buzzsaw had a hot start to Sunday as their Ravens stack combined for 56.18 (Jackson - 33.88; Andrews - 22.3). Everyone else actually had a mediocre game, but everyone contributed to help the Buzzsaw crack 140 points yet again. Special thank you to Sam Howell who is a fantastic stream against QB thanks to his 40 sacks across the season’s first 7 games (Giants this week for 15 points).

Fields of Dreams (131.28) are heating up, this week besting Cmac at #9? (114.2). Without their namesake, replacement Joshua Dobbs (16.14) stepped up for FoD thanks to a 25 yard TD run early in his game (on 1st and goal from the 25…). All FoD’s WRs cracked 13.4 points (Moore, Pittman Jr, Evans), and their RBs combined for 3 TDs and 171 scrimmage yards (Etienne Jr., Ford). Cmac at #9? though solid at RB1 (CMC - 22.6) likely needs a second as Jaleel McLaughlin (5.6) was only good enough for RB 40 on the week despite 6 NFL teams having bye weeks. Strong belief in Puka Nacua (23.4) paid off, but a false trust in the return of Deshaun Watson, and therefore start of Amari Cooper (4.2), backfired when the starter left in the first quarter. The Tua (11.34) Waddle (12.3) stack fell victim to the Eagles’ stout defense and with it fell Cody’s hopes of a W.

The Zach White Commanders (170.3) exploded this week, defeating Token Female (111.42) in his aftermath. ZWC started the week with two of Thursday night’s three highest fantasy scorers (Dumpoff King Kamara - 29.3; Christian “WR1” Kirk - 19). Josh Allen (25.3), despite losing to the Patriots, had a solid fantasy day. A smattering of bye weeks led ZWC to start two TEs which paid off to the tune of 38.3 fatnasy points (Goedert/Hockenson). They did get -0.8 points for the aforementioned Watson injury though they deserve to lose points for starting that POS. Token Female decided three buffalo Bills might be the answer this week (Cook, Diggs, Davis) which might have worked out as the Patriots were a putrid team headed into the matchup. Its hard to predict division games (or any game for that matter) in the NFL and the Patriots held Davis to only 1.6 points. Justin Herbert’s (12.86) non-throwing hand injury seems to be affecting him and his fantasy production. I don’t think Token Female should feel too bad about playing the week’s highest scorer as she still sits comfortably at 5-2.

Bidet or Be Gay (153.6) put down PP Hurts (96.56) this week. BBG continue to benefit from the Chiefs high powered offense (Pacheco - 16; Rice - 17; Kelce - 35.9) and received a good bit of garbage time production from Jahmyr Gibbs (27.6). 153.6 is quite a nice score when you’re without your top 2 draft picks (Burrow/Chase), and Cooper Kupp scores 6.9 (… nice). PP Hurts for once didn’t suffer any injury issues but were ripe with underperformance issues. No one beat their projection by > 2 points. The RB fantasy production wells of Zack Moss (7.2) and Raheem Mostert (6.1) were pretty dry this week as well. I felt PP Hurts was pretty sharp in trading Jerome Ford for Scary Terry (15) then picking up Kareem Hunt (15.1), but couldn’t find a way to sneak Hunt into the lineup. Regardless it was tough to overcome 153.6 points and it will be tough to overcome a 1-6 first half of the fantasy regular season for PP Hurts.

I Pickens Boogies (139.96) continues to surprise me, this week with a surprising win against Mr. Big Chest (122.58). IPB had a couple of stinkers in Jared Goff (10.36) and Ekeler (5.6). They opted to sit 2 QBs (Ridder - 13.8; Pickett - 15.2) for 4 WRs (AJ Brown - 29.7; Pickens - 15.7; London - 11.4; Meyers - 18). A huge game from Darren Waller (22.8) helped IPB secure the win. As a result of trading away Kamara, MBC was forced to start Latavius Murray (4.8), but they left Darrell Henderson (13.6) and “RB1” D’Onta Foreman (33) on the bench. Tyreek (25.8) and ARSB (23.2) performed as expected, but the other pillar of the team fell short (Allen - 9.5).

In what might be the lowest scoring match of the year, Hamas Rockets (87.96) snuck past Los Gatos Kitties (80.9). Hamas Rockets had 5 players on bye, and one injured. The remaining starters scraped together a few big performances from Saquon (18.8) and Josh Downs (23.5), though Brian Hoyer, Calvin Austin III, and Cole Kmet combined for 3.26 points, 3.16 accounted for by Hoyer alone. Los Gatos Kitties were the unfortunate bearers of the lack of Bijan news (0.3). Bijan received a single carry on Sunday due to an unreported illness. It came out at halftime, too late to substitute, that Bijan was experiencing splitting headaches the as early as the night before kickoff. DK Metcalf was also a semi-surprising inactive on Sunday and with a 4:05 kickoff, it seems Cody had better things to do on Sunday than pivot to Jerry Jeudy (11.4). The only other decent scorers on the week for the Kitties were Jordan Love (16.3) and Courtland Sutton (19.6). Still, on Monday night football it came down to Aiyuk needing to outscore Kittle by about 5 points for the Kitties to pull out a victory. Aiyuk was seeing a lot of targets early in the game, but the 49ers fell apart in the 4th quarter, leaving the Kitties well short.

Trades and Waiver Wire

We had a few trades this week.

MBC Team Jeff
Breece Hall Joe Mixon
  Calvin Ridley

Sit Your Superstar (new segment!)

Last week I called my shot against Michael Pittman Jr. It was looking great for most of the game, until the Browns decided to stop tackling and let MPJ scamper for a 75 yard TD with 5:38 to play in the game. His final scoreline? 2 catches, 83 yards, 1 TD. I think I’m going to keep this up for another few weeks before abandoning.

This week’s SYS is Michael Pittman Jr. Pittman is WR14 on the season and seems to do better with Minshew at the helm. The Browns however are a difference making defense and give up the least amount of fantasy points to WRs this season. He should be sat for Romeo Doubs who coming off the bye plays a pitiful Denver defense.

Power Rankings

Power rankings are going to be “whenever Alan starts the article early enough in the week and has time for it”.

  1. The Buzzsaw (5-2) - I am simply the best.

  2. Mr. Big Chest (5-2) - The WR trio of Hill, Allen, and ARSB are capable of 90 combined. The addition of Breece Hall and return of Kyler Murray should spell high scores.

  3. Bidet to Be Gay (4-3) - Stacking offenses is alright as long as they are good ones.

  4. Zach White Commanders (5-2) - Josh Allen? Good at football. Weak at WR but has 2 PPR kings at RB (Rachaad White / Kamara) and I think Hock is going to finish as TE2.

  5. Cmac at #9? (3-4) - CMC counts as 2 players.

  6. Token Female (5-2) - I guess JT is a hit now?

  7. I Pickens Boogies (6-1) - Idk why I don’t like this team, I’ve been objectively wrong so far but I’m sticking with it. Hope I don’t have to play against AJ Brown/ a healthy JJ in the playoffs.

  8. Los Gatos Kitties (2-5) - Good but not great players at every position. 2-5 is bad beats.

  9. Team Jeff (1-6) - Mahomes, Pollard, and Lamb were 3 great first picks.. Thats about it though.

  10. Fields of Dreams (2-5) - I want to like this team, but with Fields still out, and Kyler coming back, Derek Carr is their only QB. Derrick Henry might be traded too which should kill his fantasy production for a week plus might add a second bye week. Silver lining is only 2 more matchups against >0.500 teams the rest of the way

  11. PP Hurts (1-6) - Decent pieces and some good waiver wire hits, only 1 QB though.

  12. Hamas Rockets (3-4) - Getting Dak back will help, lets hold Adam Thielen can keep it up, but DeVonta Smith (WR29) isn’t helping the squad.

Picks

We split even again this week at 3-3 for a 24-18 total. ESPN projections agreed and sit at 26-16. This week winners will be: The Buzzsaw, Fields of Dreams, Token Female, ZWC, Bidet to Be Gay, and MBC

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