Nonames don't use no dice. After 3 straight wins we're pretty much running on...
That's right, remote control, bitches.
Week 8 saw my nonames go up against LOBO's Predator Press. We came away with an 87-82 victory. We pretty much led out of the gate, Thursday night and through to Sunday night. We led going into Monday night but my Arizona D was going up against LOBO's Larry Fitzgerald. Both sucked, but Arizona a little less, preserving our win.
Stand outs on the nonames squad included Tampa Bay rookie Doug Martin who racked up 39 fantasy points, the best RB score of the week.
And kicker Sebastien Janikowski booted 14 points for our nonames, the second highest K points in the league in Week 8.
Now my nonames had some challenges this week. A.J. Green was on a bye. Victor Cruz was virtually invisible with 2 points. And Mr. Rodgers limited himself to 16 points. Shit, that's not even half of Martin's 39.
So let's see. What the Canuck in Week 6. Purple Drank in Week 7. And now Predator Press in Week 8.
Week 9 sees us up against Bald Spots who stands firmly in last spot with 1-7-0.
I'm thinking a league record 4 game winning streak's in the cards.
Welcome to Tuesday Morning Quarterback, where I take a look back at what I (and sometimes others) would have (could have/should have) done differently with my (their) fantasy football teams for that previous week's games.
Well, this week I'm not going to look back at what I could have done differently, because to put it quite bluntly, I FUCKING ROCK!
With my 129-75 victory over Delusion of Adequacy, I vaulted into first place.
Instead, I'm going to look at what one of the other peons could have done differently to help himself to victory, namely one LOBO whose team Predator Press lost 87-82 to nonames.
LOBO played Larry Fitzgerald who had a measly 5 fantasy points instead of going with the gamble Titus Young but who all the fantasy football pundits had been hyping all week so why the hell not roll the dice?
Young had 29 points and would have given LOBO an overwhelming 106-87 win...
...but he had to be a PUSSY (nope, not just a lowercase non-bolded pussy, but uppercase bold PUSSY) and not take the chance on Young, who was second on the receiving depth chart after Nate Burleson broke a leg.
And LOBO knew better because during a Facebook conversation Monday night, he said this:
"L Fitz is always double-teamed and SF doesn't give up sh*t to WR. Barring an act of God, John Bray [nonames actually does have a name] should have this all wrapped up already."
Damned by his own words...all because he wouldn't roll the dice or to mix metaphors, "know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away and know when to run."
Well crap. With this week's matchup -Preds v nonames- already under way, I've got a sinking feeling that my Sunday is going to be disappointing. In fact you can say I've been in a fantasy sulk since Friday morning; with only Doug Martin at play, I didn't even watch Thursday's game.
As a consequence, Doug Martin -apparently offended my my general apathy- met his projected seven points. And then proceeded to add thirty two more. That's an Aaron Rodgers-esque score.
Oh and speaking of Aaron Rodgers, I'm up against him this week too. Tack on Victor Cruz for good measure. While I'm convinced the Preds will meet or exceed our projections, the three afore mentioned players alone could, in theory, produce over ... like, um ... one million points.
But are the mighty Preds scared?
Fuck yes we are.
Please, please, please don't hurt us John! We don't want to be cast down into the abyss of mediocrity! Have you seen the rest of our schedule? We like it up here in dizzying, nosebleed second place, throwing litter down on eight other teams while trying to stick a shiv in first place Delusion of Adequacy's ankles.
And don't we all hate Delusion of Adequacy's ankles?
We're at the halfway point of the 2012 season, and the People are very ambivalent about where we stand so far in the HBFFL. We're 3-4 this season, which is better than the 2-5 we were at after seven weeks in 2010, but worse than the 4-3 we were last year. At this point in 2011 we had scored an impressive 718 points, but this year we're 2nd-to-last in scoring with 592 points. Yes, we won our Week 7 game vs. Bald Spots 76-74, but we barely held on to win when Megatron shat the bed and only got 3 points (on top of Kyle Randolph's goose-egg for the Vikings). And we only had that lead because of Shaun Suisham's 10-point game Sunday night. It is Renal Failure tradition to get lots of points from the kicker position, but it's not a good sign for your fantasy team when your kicker is your most dependable player.
It used to be a game with Bald Spots was a game that was sure to be full of bloodshed and bears in orbit. Now look at us. Scrapping for meager points and trying not to be in last place. What kind of world are we living in? Sure, RGIII got 25 big points but he was projected for 27 and really should have had more if he didn't do his Michael Vick impression by throwing an pick, losing a fumble, and betting on wrong pitbull in the deathmatch in his basement (Andrew Luck gets 2 rushing TD's? Andrew Luck?). Trent Richardson was supposed to have a big day against the Colts but couldn't play through the rib injury he suffered last week.
But we are too swag to cry... because our Josh Gordon pickup got us 11 points...
The People feel a little better upon seeing Fred Jackson's 17 points while splitting time with CJ Spiller. With Trent Richardson questionable, we might just start both Bills RB's and settle for steady middle-of-the-road points rather than intermittent bear-launches we've come to expect from our RB's. And Josh Gordon looks to be a steady performer at WR, which is better than we can say for our other WR's who didn't play this week because of the bye (or in Greg Jennings' case, his perpetually injured groin). This means, however, we'll be depending a lot on our QB's, specifically RGIII who we're thinking has a bigger upside than the man who invented throwing bears into outer space Tom Brady (only 20pts vs. the Jets? Come on man!).
The top of the league sits at 5-2 (Delusions of Adequacy, Purple Drank, and Predator Press). Then there's Unfinished Person at 4-3, then a log jam at 3-4 between NoNames, Bourbon Blasters, What the Canuck?, Future Ex-Cons, and us (who are ranked 9th because of our pitiful points for total). 9 wins usually gets a team into the playoffs, so we need to go 5-2 to have a chance. And to have a better chance, we need to start putting up triple-digit points on a regular basis to clear ourselves from any potential tiebreakers. Of course, things become much easier if we just go 7-0... we should just do that.
Time to get motivated, people! Time to take back the streets... and by streets we mean hopefully choose the players who score enough fantasy points so that we win our games...
Joe's Bourbon Blasters are our Week 8 opponent, and historically we have not done well against Joe, even when he's pretending to be a woman. So that is why we're bringing back Our Lady of Tight Denim Victory Ines Sainz as our good luck charm so that we may be granted yet another monster 2nd half of the season, despite not having the usual elements that make such a run possible. And we're going to need as much help as we can get because both Fred Jackson and CJ Spiller are on bye weeks, as is Owen Daniels at TE who is outperforming Jason Witten. We may have to go three WR with DJax, Dwayne Bowe, and Josh Gordon while still starting a questionable Trent Richardson at RB because our other backup RB BenJarvus Green-Ellis is also on a bye week. No, we're not putting in Jonathan Stewart. That's just silly.
Joe doesn't have any bye week issues, save for his kicker. But Frank Gore has a tough match-up vs. Arizona, as does Shonn Greene vs. Miami. Joe could always use Felix Jones at RB, if he forgot who Felix Jones was. Drew Brees will continue to be Drew Brees, and Percy Harvin and Jordy Nelson have racked up big numbers all season. Jimmy Graham is coming off an injury and may not be as productive, but having a team's weak spot be their TE position is never a comfort to the opposition.
Your People's Champ isn't projected to win, but if we want to have a chance to make it four straight years in the Humor Bowl we need to start racking up wins now. Ines Sainz, we're counting on you and your perfect denim ass to bring the People victory!
Renal Failure is The Wild Card of Fantasy Football, The People's Champion, and the only team to win the HBFFL and FTWL championships in the same year. We scored more points in all our other leagues in Week 7 but lost all of those games. Fantasy Football is a harsh mistress...who may be dyslexic.
Well, Purple Drank took his winning streak to Canada in Week 7 and encountered a cold front in the form of the over-achieving nonames. Over-achieving 4 weeks in a row according to Yahoo Sports. And he's come away with the largest margin of victory in the league 2 weeks in a row now thanks to a 110-81 crushing defeat over drunk Purple Drank. I told you not to drink the Kool-Aid, Drank.
Did I say cold front?
The nonames win comes in spite of the fact Purple Drank owns Chris Johnson who racked up 38 fantasy points this week. But that was PD's only big performer.
The big guns for nonames, apart from that guy in the picture,were Aaron Rodgers (no surprise there) with 34 points, Victor "I got it, I got it" Cruz with 26 and Sebastian Janikowski who booted 14 points our way. A.J. Green was a big disappointment this week cobbling together a measly 6 points.
Personally I think Drank's loss was due to too much time spent staring at that picture of Winona Ryder's eyes.
And as The Band used to sing:
Acadian driftwood, gypsy tail wind
They call my home the land of snow
Canadian cold front movin' in
What a way to ride, oh, what a way to go
Welcome to Tuesday Morning Quarterback, where I take a look back at what I (and sometimes others) would have (could have/should have) done differently with my (their) fantasy football teams for that previous week's games.
All it takes is one mistake.
Sometimes it comes on the front end; sometimes on the back end. For me, my error happened on the front end, but just as easily could have been on the back end.
It all began Thursday night. I had just gotten out of work. It was 8:15 p.m. and I wasn't thinking. I had a cold.
If ONLY paramedics had come to my house, maybe they could have saved me from my fate.
But alas they didn't and by 8:20, I already had lost this week's HBFFL game to Joe O's Bourbon Blasters; only the score had to be determined. That score would be 119 to 117. I left Seattle wide receiver Sidney Rice in at flex when I should have switched him out for one of three players: St. Louis running back Steven Jackson, New Orleans running back Darren Sproles or Oakland wide receiver Denarius Moore.
Rice only scored three fantasy points while Jackson and Sproles each scored 11, and Moore, 9.
I had forgotten a cardinal rule of fantasy football: recheck your lineup before Thursday night's game to see if there are any changes that need to be made. With Rice going up against the San Francisco defense, that is a change that definitely should have been made. To be honest, I probably would have gone with Moore, because I haven't been getting much from Jackson or Sproles and Moore has been on a roll.
But I didn't and for my transgression I paid heavily.
In the other league in which I play I made my crucial switch on the back end, only an hour and half before the start of Sunday afternoon's games, as I dropped San Francisco quarterback Alex Smith for Tampa Bay QB Josh Freeman and then put Freeman in over Detroit QB Matthew Stafford. It paid off with Freeman rolling with 38 points; Stafford had 17.
I won there 100 to 69. I just as easily could have lost as I did here in the HBFFL.
I looked yesterday to see if Freeman was available in the HBFFL. He was.
I am here in Ontario, ready to play through the Canadian part of my schedule. This week it's nonames. Next week it's What The Canuck?.
I arrived last night, and in an effort to emerse myself in the culture of Canada I sat at a bar and played the Eh Drinking Game. I was drunk in like an hour and then I don't remember much after that. But I did wake up with a scar right where my kidney is. Maybe I hurt myself and some nice Canadians gave me first aid.
Talk about luck.
Just another day in the Purple Drank's magical season where it rains horeshoes and rabbit's feet, and wins defy logic.
Like last week, when I beat Future Ex-Cons 76-75. My 36-point lead going into the MNF game was erased by Peyton Manning and Demaryius Thomas. If it weren't for the fact I had Denver's kicker going I would have lost by four.
Hell, even the weekly Yahoo recap acknowledged my fortuitous ways. "With only 3 of their 8 starters beating their projected points, Purple Drank was still able to win."
Dep Lepard says lady luck never smiles but I disagree. She smiles on Purple Drank.
This week matchup will be no different, just colder. It's already snowing here in Canada and they've declared Martial Law. Strange country. Is it always like this?
But I digress...
So nomames will come at me this week with his three headed fantasy monster of Rodgers, Cruz, and A.J. Green and a bunch of bye week filler types. I ain't scared.
I got Dalton to go with his Green. Got CJ2K vs a Bills defense that isn't good against the run. I got Welkahhh. Got Wallace in prime time.
And Beast Mode already kicked in 16 points from the TNF game.
All that's left now is this week's secret weapon.
Originally, it was going to be a nuclear missile designed to blow up all of Canada. But then I thought wait a minute I'm in Canada. So I'll die too. And with myself, nonames, and Canuck all dead I'm not sure what that means as far as rules go. Do I get the win this week or does nonames? Do I make sure to detonate it when I have the lead? Does Canuck win his matchup?
Too many questions. And a bit of overkill for a regular season game. Nukes are probably better off used for a fantasy playoff matchup.
So pumping the brakes, I have decided on something creepy instead, more fitting with the Halloween season...
Winona Ryder's eyes.
That is a freaky stare, and once nonames' fantasy players see that they will be too scared to produce enough points to beat Purple Drank.
So once again one of our key starters gets injured mid-game (this time Trent Richardson) and we end up losing, this time in a tough 75-71 loss to Predator Press. We rolled the dice on Vick Ballard because of the poor matchup Fred Jackson was supposed to have against Arizona, and that blew up in our faces. Even the prudent choice of going with Tom Brady over RGIII because of RGIII recovering from a concussion screwed us over (43 points by RGIII? Holy orbiting bear!). Hell, if we had started Jason Witten over Owen Daniels we would have at least tied LOBO.
Not that the rest of the Renal Roster had a stellar Week 6. Dwayne Bowe suffered because of Matt Cassel's injury (trusting Brady Quinn? Really?), and his 2pts made DeSean Jackson's 7pts look awesome by comparison. Hell, Shaun Suisham (who gets no respect from the Yahoo! fantasy football projectors schooled everyone else in our starting lineup not named Tom Brady with a 12-point day vs. Tennessee. Meanwhile, Larry Fitzgerald, Lawrence Tynes, Darren McFadden, and the Atlanta defense carried Predator Press to a fortunate victory.
Our season is turning into a slow march toward Hamburger Time...
And things don't look much better for us in Week 7 vs. the last place Bald Spots (the only team we're ranked higher than in the HBFFL). DJax and Bowe are on bye weeks and Greg Jennings is probably still out with his nagging groin injury. So we have to depend on waiver wire pickups Josh Gordon and Dominik Hixon for our wide receiving duties, but can they really do worse than what we've been getting at the wide-out position? T-Rich probably won't be at 100 percent. Maybe Fred Jackson is back to bear-tossing form.
The 1-5 Bald Spots are rolling with Megatron and Adrian Peterson, along with Andrew Luck at QB. Michael Turner is fortunately on a bye week, taking some of the edge off his lineup, but as of now Bald Spots will probably be projected to win by Sunday.
2-4 record, 9th place, and the Eagles suck. This is the only thing making us happy...
The People have reason for concern for their Champion. Our recipe for our signature late season awesomeness was a dominant run-game, a key trade, and a decent free-agent pick-up. Right now, we've got none of those things. If the trade deadline passes with both Tom Brady and RGIII on our roster, the season's tits up for us.
A win would get us to 3-4 at the midway point of the season. Not good, but better than being 2-5, which is where we were last year. But last year we were rolling with Megatron and LeSean McCoy for the bulk of our offense, the top scoring players at their positions in 2011. But 2012 is turning out to be a much leaner year for the People.
Renal Failure is the People's Champion of Fantasy Football. Uninteresting fact: we have the exact same amount of points in the FTWL as in the HBFFL, and we have the same record there too.
Well the two Canadians played each other in the HBFFL Tim Bit Bowl in week 6 and to the victor go the spoiled donuts and the coffee double-double (2 milk, 2 sugar). That would be your fearless nonames who routed What The Canuck? 145-68 - a 77 point victory resulting in the week's biggest blowout.
Last week we thought we achieved a tie against Delusion of Adequacy but a mid-week adjustment bumped nonames to a one point loss. Let's hope there's not a 78 point adjustment this week.
Someone said recently one will never win on the backs of their QBs. Well, I hate to prove them wrong but it was a great weekend in Mr. Rodgers neighbourhood with my man racking up 50 fantasy points, more than double Yahoo's projection, as the Packers downed the Texans 42-24. Rodgers threw 6 TDs to hand Houstan their first loss of the season.
Other nonames high flyers included WR AJ Green with 32 and TE Antonio Gates with 20.
nonames' win coupled with a few losses elsewhere booted us from 9th to 5th place at 2-4-0 behind 4th place Unfinished Person at 4-2-0. I guess we've come out of the weeds.
We're up against 3rd place Purple Drank in week 7. If all goes well, he's gonna be wondering what I put in the Kool-Aid.
In the meantime, we're celebrating the outcome of the Tim Bit Bowl...
Welcome to Tuesday Morning Quarterback, where I take a look back at what I (and sometimes others) would have (could have/should have) done differently with my (their) fantasy football teams for that previous week's games.
The fantasy football pundits have been praising Miami Dolphins wide receiver Brian Hartline over the last few weeks and when Indianapolis Colt running back Donald Brown underwent knee surgery, the pundits hyped Vick Ballard who was scheduled to step into Brown's spot.
Two owners in the HBFFL can tell you that neither lived up to their hype this past weekend.
Joe O. relied on Hartline, who had 0 points. He didn't play either Green Bay's Jordy Nelson, with 37 points, or Philadelphia's Jeremy Maclin, with 26 points.
With Maclin alone, Joe's Bourbon Blasters would have at least come close 103-110 against Delusion of Adequacy. However, I would have chosen Nelson over Maclin this past weekend since Maclin hasn't been doing that great so far this season. That would have given Joe the win too.
Renal Failure, meanwhile, put Ballard, 3 fantasy points, in over either Fred Jackson, 13 points, or C.J. Spiller, 16 points, both from the Buffalo Bills. In RF's defense, if you were going to play Ballard, you might as well gamble now with neither Jackson or Spiller being particularly spectacular this year and playing against each other. However, I still probably would have flipped a coin and gone with either one of them over the unproven Ballard.
4-1 with the third-lowest points for and the second-least points against? Talk about lucky...
Hell yeah I overlooked that four leaf clover. Looks like Renal Failure isn't the only one playing with house money.
I'll admit it. I'm riding the luck train this season. And the old negative me would expect it to derail at some point. Eff that the new me says. Let's ride this train.
No, that crappy video wasn't my secret weapon by the way.
This crappy video is. Well, a crappy song that is.
This thing is so awful it will be an unavoidable earworm for Bald Spots' team, to the point where they won't be able to produce enough fantasy points to beat the Purple Drank, the horseshoe team of the HBFFL.
Don't believe me? I'm already up 28 points.
Yeah that's right. I don't drive by, I'm a wise guy. I just stop by with a couple of guys. And I take your eyes.
by the People's Champion of Fantasy Football Renal Failure
Star players on the Renal Roster tend not to last very long in their games this season...
Chris got his revenge on us, but he got it because our chief bear-thrower in-resident RGIII left the Redskins' game vs. Atlanta early with a concussion. We lost in Week 1 when Fred Jackson went down. We lost in Week 3 when CJ Spiller got injured. And now Week 5 sees us lose 76-64 when RGIII got hurt. The People do not like this pattern one bit. At least we didn't start Greg Jennings in Week Four when he re-aggravated his groin injury. 1-4 is much worse than 2-3.
Side note: And this is totally messing with RGIII's trade value, unless everyone in the league has concluded that no one should trade with Renal Failure ever. Our ability to make awesome trades is a major part of our late-season heroics.
What the People don't like even more is anemic weeks from Dwayne Bowe (6pts), Fred Jackson (2pts), and DeSean Jackson (5pts). Come on, guys! Shaun Suisham got 10pts and was the most interesting thing in that Steelers/Eagles game (beside wondering why Michael Vick's hands were allergic to the football). At least Trent Richardson tried to keep things close with his solid 18-point day vs. the Giants and Owen Daniels cut into Matt Schaub's point-total at 13pts. Even Tom Brady underperformed on our bench (21pts) and he was supposed to be in a classic shootout vs. Peyton Manning. When it rains, it pours razor blades.
Adversity, we know you all too well in Fantasy Football, so here's a cheerful affirmation to keep the People's spirits up...
Chris was right about Tony Gonzalez blowing up, but we were right about Chris Johnson continuing to suck, and Chris Johnson sucking will happen more often than Tony Gonzalez throwing bears into space so... yeah, think about that, Purple Drank! Your depth at running back is bad and you should feel bad!
The People have reason to be concerned going forward, though. Matt Cassel's injury has a chance of eating into Dwayne Bowe's prolific garbage time production (am I to put my trust in Brady Quinn?). Greg Jennings is still out with groin issues. Our backup plan for a WR crisis was Danny Amendola until he injured himself for the next month. We had been hoping for Ryan Williams to bloom as running back in Arizona to give us some more depth/trade bait, but then his season ended on Thursday night. Then there's Fred Jackson and CJ Spiller being on the Bills...
We have been getting fucked this season by way too many unknown unknowns...
But what we do know is that Week 6 gives us our revenge rematch game vs. Predator Press - who beat us in the championship game when our QB Tony Romo fell to injury in the first quarter of Week 16. He whooped up on Unfinished Person this past week and is riding high with a solid lineup. Larry Fitzgerald (the People's MVP back in 2008) and Brandon Marshall are always a threat for big WR points. Jamaal Charles will see more runs with Matt Cassel out. And Matty Ice knows how to sling the rock around.
The People are going to depend a lot of Tom Brady vs. Seattle (don't like that matchup) and Trent Richardson vs. Cincinnati (a better matchup). Detroit's D is shaky so DJax might be able to put up points. Fred Jackson's going to have trouble turning things around against a tough Arizona defense, but after two humiliating losses by the Bills they could be due to break loose on someone like an abusive, frustrated husband.
Yahoo!'s picking Predator Press to win the rematch of Humor Bowl IV, and it's hard to argue against that notion. But it's when Renal Failure is down that you really have to watch out for us.
Renal Failure is the 2010 HBFFL and FTWL champion, as well as the 2009 and 2011 HBFFL runner-up. We went 1-3 this week in our four leagues, so it's been an extra salty couple days for your People's Champion.
Another week and your faithful nonames escape another win. But we didn't lose. What does that leave?
Right. A tie.
We were up against Delusion of Adequacy who went into the week at 3-1-0. Your trusty nonames were holding steady at 1-3-0...or else I was dyslexic. Yeah, dream on.
Prior to Sunday night's game I was cruising nicely into winning territory, 34 points ahead of DOA. I was even toying with my competition's acronym calling him Dead On Arrival in my head. So I skipped Sunday night's game and watched the Amazing Race. I learned Monday morning that thanks to San Diego's Malcom Ford and Ryan Mathews DOA had caught up to me. Even steven as they say at 96-96.
DOA's Chicago defence picked up 21 frakin' points last week against my Philadelphia D who picked up squat. My man Rodgers raked in a respectable 27 points and NYG WR Victor Cruz (not the gay guy, the other one - not that there's anything wrong with that) pulled in a decent 23 points.
I'm telling you, this waiting in the weeds business in 9th spot is starting to get to me. This week we go up against fellow Canadian What The Canuck? at 2-3-0.The winner gets a dozen maple Tim Bits and a poutine. I'm stoked.
Welcome to Tuesday Morning Quarterback, where I take a look back at what I (and sometimes others) would have (could have/should have) done differently with my (their) fantasy football teams for that previous week's games.
While I could pick on Joe O's choice of Brian Hartline (5 fantasy points) over Percy Harvin (27 fantasy points, read them and weep, Texas cowboy) this week, I won't. Instead I have to single out one particular owner's QB choice. The owner is Renal Failure; his choice at QB, Robert Griffin III, who had an abysmal four fantasy points.
And who did RF leave on the bench?
Tom Fucking Brady, with 21 fantasy points, that's who.
So instead of winning 81-76 over Chris Cameron's Purple Drank squad, RF's squad lost 76-64.
I admit RGIII has been looking good, but after Brady rolled last week with 40 fantasy points, I don't see how one could bench him. Not to mention that Brady is an elite quarterback and RGIII, as a rookie QB, is nowhere near that status.
Also if RF had played Brady and won, it would have been adding insult to injury because Chris is a huge Pats fan.
It would have been like:
and at the hands of Tom Fucking Brady. Take that, biotch!"
Alas, because of RF's piss-poor QB decision-making, it wasn't to be.
The lesson here: Always play Tom Fucking Brady, no questions.
Week Five was circled on the calendar before the ink was dry on the schedule. Purple Drank vs. Renal Failure. A re-match of last year's first round playoff game in which I was utterly defeated 135-68. A chance to avenge the three losses to him in 2011.
RF says he is in a deal sealing mood. Well so am I. And by deal sealing I mean giving him another notch in the loss column, and putting the pressure on him to once again luck out with a second half comeback.
You can only play with house money for so long. Eventually it runs out. And RF is due.
Speaking of gambling let's talk starting lineups....
I'll see his RGIII vs Atlanta and raise him Schaub vs a depleted Jets defense. I'm all in for Lynch going beast mode, and CJ2K exploiting the matchups vs the Minn defense. The weak spot of the Vikings defense is where Johnson likes to run.
I'll see his Bowe/ D Jax combo with my own of Welker and Decker or Wallace. (Still undecided on who I'm playing.)
I can double down with T Gon at TE and the fact any output from Daniels will help Schaub.
I like my odds.
That said you know what coming next...the secret weapon. Last week, Taylor from Terra Nova chipped in to give Unfinished Person their first loss of the season. This week I got another bad-ass weapon....
That's right, Honey Boo Boo. The annoyance force is strong with this one and will distract RF's fantasy team to the point it will under-produce. That can only mean one thing for Renal Failure....
Little is known about Nathaniel James Kaeding previous to his adoption by the hard-working Norwegians that found him naked save for swaddling, floating down river in a grog cask. But Kaeding's new loving parents -having left from some perfectly good country on numerous maps to "pursue the American Dream"- were brutally slain by a rouge group of wandering Amish in effort to rescue the boy within moments of arriving on American soil.
"Kaeding" is Amish for Him kick ball better than Billy Cundiff. "Nate" is derived from something probably important in Amish history as well. "James" is, well, James. James doesn't mean anything significant -it is widely believed Kaeding got branded with the plain old defunct "James" as a consequence of being found naked save for swaddling, floating down river in a grog cask by immigrant Norwegians. Charges were never filed against Kaeding who was twenty three years old at the time. Still, dogged by Billy Cundiff's Wikipedia updates, "James" was a scarlet shame that would haunt Kaeding his entire life.
"He kicked the shit out of everything," the Amish recalled in a recent interview. "Dishes, butter churns, pets ... that little son of a bitch was a real asshole, and we wanted him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." In 2005, now a wanted fugitive, Kaeding was recruited by Rodger Goodell. Goodell, the inventor of football, apparently had a lot of shit he needed kicked, and Kaeding was given, like, a million dollars the Amish could sue him for.
Things went pretty smoothly until 2012 when Kaeding received a season-ending injury, effectively derailing a long-negotiated trade between Predator Press and nonamedufus for Aaron Rodgers. But despite the injury Kaeding played, and he got so many points the nonames record would have changed to 4-0-0 going into Week Five. [Renal Failure documented the kicker's incredible Week Four heroics here. As of October 5, 2012, Billy Cundiff has not as of yet been charged.]
"We're not giving up hope on nonamedufus," commented one Predator Press manager on condition of anonymity. "We can't just let Kaeding waste away at home making unflattering edits on the Amish Wikipedia page. He is an athlete by definition. Even on crutches, Kaeding will go to nonames games to mooch free Gatorade cheer on the team with his infectious spirit," I explain. "The positive net effect on morale is like a dragon breathing fire on your opponents -with the tenacity and speed of a lion on a shark's back. Yes. When is the last time you saw Aaron Rogers resemble anything like a Dragoliark? And more importantly, when's the last time you saw him split the uprights?"
Still, Predator Press remains optimistic. "It's not too late for nonamedufus to come to his senses, claim Kaeding from waivers, and give us Aaron Rodgers," I continue in this anonymous interview. "But he's Canadian. It's really hard to talk sense into those people sometimes. That's why they have free medical care."
The cold truth: big numbers equal big wins... and big pain!
We're not losing twice to Canada, so your People's Champion came out swinging Thor's hammer against What the Canuck? How hard did we bring Mjolnir down in our 121-85 victory, you ask? Not only was it tied for biggest blowout of HBFFL Week Four (but we scored the most points out of any HBFFL team this week), but Tom Brady had 40 points sitting on our bench. Funny thing, if RGIII (awesome 31-point day) doesn't fumble the ball at the goal line for Pierre Garcon to pick up, RGIII would have had 37 or 38 points, which ain't too shabby.
Renal Failure rolled high with our WR's with DeSean Jackson's 15pts (and he was 1 yard away from the 5-point bonus) and Dwayne Bowe's 21pts. Jason Witten finally broke out with 22 points (with a garbage time TD). Trent Richardson is starting to pay off as our first-round pick with a solid 15pts. Even fill-in kicker Mike Nugent beat his projected score with a 9pt effort for the Bengals (according the Yahoo! recap, that's the most he's scored all season). Other than that, the rest of the lineup was very much meh. Fred Jackson rushed back from injury to get 6pts and the formerly-proficient Green Bay Defense seems to have disappeared (2pts? Come on, man!).
Forget Call Me Maybe or Gangnam Style... THIS was the true jam of Summer 2012!
Renal Failure came fresh out of the water with more big numbers than Canucklehead's crew. Matt Stafford's 27 points, Willis MacGahee's 24, and Mike Williams' 16pts were dragged down by Pierre Thomas's single point offering, Vernon Davis' 2pts, and Andre Johnson's fiver (was he the only Texan not scoring?).
The People are back at .500 with this victory, allowing Renal Failure to remain within striking distance of the 3-1 logjam above them in the standings, a position no one wants Renal Failure to be in because of our propensity to get hot in the second half of the season, make the playoffs, and smash our way to the championship game like we've done in the 2009, 2010, and 2011.
Note: To be fair, we did start the 2009 season 9-0 and finished 12-2, but we still made the championship game.
Are you in Renal Failure's way? That's not where you should be... because this is America!
Standing in the People's way to a 3-2 record in Week 5 is league-founder Purple Drank who ruined Unfinished Person's quest for a perfect season in Week 4. Since the league's inception in 2008, Renal Failure and Chris C.'s teams have split their previous ten meetings 5-5, but Renal Failure went 3-0 vs. Purple Drank last season (winning twice in the regular season and once in the playoffs), so momentum is on the People's side. And though Purple Drank is currently 3-1, one of their wins was a lucky 68-64 escape vs. the last place Bald Spots. Renal Failure's two losses came in games where their starting running back from the Bills went down with first quarter injuries, and according to Yahoo! recap your People's Champ is 2-0 this season when they beat their projected score.
Early Yahoo! projections favor Renal Failure, especially with our dominant QB's. Trent Richardson is starting to bloom on the Renal Roster, and Purple Drank's Chris Johnson is due to go back to shitting the bed for Purple Drank, despite his brief outburst of production in Week 4 (he did that to us last year when we had him - one good week, six bad weeks).
Chris needs a win to keep up with Predator Press, Unfinished Person, and Delusions of Adequacy at the top of the standings. Renal Failure needs a win to get in a favorable position for one of our infamous late-season runs (we're 20-7-1 over the past four years in the 2nd half of the season). 8 wins with a lot of "points for" can get you in the playoffs (we've done it twice), but 9 wins usually seals the deal. And Renal Failure is in a deal sealing mood.
Renal Failure is the People's Champion in every fantasy football league we play in, except for that one league where the guy called his team The People's Champions. But we are still The Wild Card because no one can anticipate what we'll do next. Not even us.
Week Four's come and gone and your faithful nonames are 1-3-0 after last week's 111-100 loss to the 2-2-0 Future Ex-Cons. If I'm to look for the silver lining in this it's the smallest margin loss I've experienced all year. Yeah, big deal, eh?
I can't blame my guys. Rodgers gave me 35 fantasy points, Green 22 and Cruz 21.
But who knew FEC's Peyton Manning would stick his neck out (get it?) for a respectable 33? That's what did me in.
But this is all part of my plan. I'm holding back now, at the start of the season, waiting in the weeds. I'm keeping under the radar (in 9th place I'm almost off it) until that magic moment I choose to shine. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, to all my nonames fans, who like to call me Captain Canada, for the moment all I can say is...
Welcome to Tuesday Morning QB (TMQB), the post that looks back each week at what could have been done differently to win the matchups in the HBFFL. What could have turned those losses into wins? I'm Chris Cameron filling in for Unfinished Person and I'm here to answer that question.
This was a crazy stats week in the NFL. How crazy? 14 QB's had 300 points or more, and 7 of them had at least 3 TD's. 9 RB's with 100+. 16 WR's with 100+. 6 WR's had yds in the 79-99 yd range along with a TD each.
With so many players blowing up there had to be fantasy hopes for victory dashed by points left on the benches. And it was that way. But first, we have to address the also-rans.
What The Canuck could have fielded their optimal lineup and still would not have beaten Renal Failure. Predator Press had the win no matter what players Bourbon Blasters offered up as starters.
Now time for the meat and potatoes...
Bald Spots goes with Smith for Moore, Turner in the flex, and SF def and they beat Delusion of Adequacy. Nonames plays James Jones instead of Doug Martin and they notch a W.
And then there is my game against UP. He started Mikel LeShoure at the flex while Dez Bryant's 17 points languished on the bench. That was good enough for the win. Hell, if he had gone with Sproles he would have tied.
.jpg)
