Week 4: Who is Watching the BOOKWATCHERS?

LOBO -Predator Press

After a lot of bootstrapping, the Preds detonated Bourbon Blasters in Week 3 -sadly, our first victory of the season.  I figured Aaron Rogers and the entire Bourbon Blaster WR corps were expected to get at least thirty points collectively, but as a consequence, our beloved Preds squeaked though by scarcely doubling their score.

*!whew!*

Now I'm beset with a mediocre draft, a cascade of injuries, arrests, and bye weeks.  Thank God for Mason Crosby!  My roster is so full of waiver wire handcuffs that the most seasoned dominatrix I know uttered my 'safe word' [harder] on sight.*

And with this motley crew, I get the Championship rematch with the Future Ex-Cons:



Artist's Rendering

My strategy will be straight out of the first three Rocky movies.  Just like Apollo Creed, I'm gonna dazzle the HBFFL with some trash talk, flashy antics, fancy footwork, and inexplicable reckless underestimation of all my opponents.

I might even celebrate my victories by finally watching Rocky IV this weekend.

*Whatever you do, don't tell her Kirk Cousins is not really my cousin.  Holy crap would she be pissed.

Week 3: We'll take it

by Renal Failure


Beast Mode saves Week 3 for the People...

The People's Champ brings the People their first win of the season with a 103-94 win over Meaty Clackers.  Victory seemed out of reach for Renal Failure until Marshawn Lynch went full Beast Mode against the Broncos, putting up 24 points including that all-important OT TD in the late Sunday night game.  Jeremy Maclin beasted a cool 26 points against the 'Skins, and Cody Parkey is becoming the new Billy Cundiff with 14 big points coming off his foot.

Having your kicker as your 4th leading scorer, however, is not the best of news for Renal Failure. Things are definitely not as good as they should be.  We hit the waiver wire for a RB and grabbed Bobby Rainey instead of Knile Davis because we were more confident on Doug Martin being out than Jamaal Charles, plus we thought Rainey could duplicate his Week 2 performance against a weak Atlanta defense.  Yeah... did not work out. Rainey got 8 points, Davis got 23 for the Dreamcatchers.  Still, Rainey did better than our usual FLEX starter CJ Spiller.


If you get Renal Failure down, you'd better keep them down...

Enough of the sugar, time for the vinegar...

Meaty Clackers made the fatal mistake of starting two players who didn't play - Doug Martin and Roddy White.  Their substitutes in the lineup would have given them the victory this week and forced us down to 0-3. But they didn't, so we'll graciously accept this gift seeing how bad the last two weeks have been for us, being that we're fifth in scoring but have had the most points scored against us in the league.

We didn't do ourselves any favors with Tom Brady not being Tom Brady for a third consecutive week (15 pts).  Alfred Morris put up a meh 8pts while Demaryius Thomas did fuck-all until that 2-point conversation to send the Broncos/Seahawks game to OT (5pts for one of our top two picks).  Zach Ertz took the week off with 1pt as did the Houston D with 3pts. 


Chris C. thinks his DreamCrushers are the kings of the HBFFL...

We're going to be without Beast Mode and Demaryius Thomas for Week 4 because of bye weeks, but we just traded WR Brian Quick(also on bye week) to the Bourbon Blasters for Chris Ivory who has seen his workload increase with the Jets so that gives us some options. Do we start Ivory and one of our Bills RB? Do we not start Ivory and start both Fred Jackson and CJ Spiller? Do we start Ivory and WR Sammy Watkins in the FLEX spot and hope that EJ Manuel remembers how to quarterback (or gets pulled for Kyle Orton in a blow-out game)?  We've got some decisions to make before Thursday night rolls around. 

One decision we can declare: Tom Brady, you're dead to us.  Jay Cutler's our starter. 

DreamCrushers are going to be missing WR Michael Floyd, and while that might sting a bit he's still starting Andrew Luck and Julio Jones who have been monstrous with chucking bears into orbit this season. They could be due for a letdown, or at least we hope so.  Jamaal Charles returns to the lineup, reducing Knile Davis's effectiveness. Does he go with Reggie Bush or Joquie Bell? Who gets the call for that open WR spot? Streaky Kelvin Benjamin? The veteran Steve Smith getting revenge on the Panthers? Fantasy mirage Brian Hartline who only scores when he's on your bench?

Until Chris makes those decisions, Yahoo! says we're evenly matched. We'll see if the People's Champ can continue our streak of 100+ point games, and whether averaging 100 points a game will be enough this week. Getting to 2-2 would do wonders for our chances of hitting the magical 9-win mark which has always guaranteed a playoff spot.

Renal Failure is your People's Champion and the holder of a 2-1 record in the FTWL with a 130-114 over SO ILL Jayhawks, and we're the top scoring team in that league (averaging a smidgen over 119 points a game). We have Andrew Luck in the FTWL so one way or another he's going to make us happy or piss us off in Week 4.

Good-ell Hunting

-LOBO, Predator Press

*beep*

"Hello, Mister Goodell?  Goddamn it that bitch keeps sending me to voicemail.  Sir, I realize this is a bad time with the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson situation and all, but I really need Aaron Hernandez to be activated this week to defeat the scourge known as Joe Ohlstein. No, not the cool Joel Osteen, but the godless Joe Ohlstein that dresses like a woman in pagan ceremonies to win fantasy championships.  I think activating Aaron Hernandez can repair your perceived lack of commitment to football.  [*clinky*]  Hey man, I just found seventy-five cents in this payphone -now I can call you back later this morning if I need to!  Anyways, about that 'Redskins' controversy ... would it kill you to spot Kirk Cousins three hundred yards and two touchdowns and settle the whole thing?  And hey ... why don't any players in the NFL know karate?  I think the NKFL would be a-"

*beep*

Week 2 - Averaging 100 points a game and going 0-2?

by Renal Failure


Some say it's like punching the very face of God...

The People's Champion find themselves in a 0-2 hole to start the season, thanks to running into the team who scored the most point that week, this time newbies Mile High Club put up a Week 2 high 144 points. But on the bright side we avoided being victims of the Biggest Blowout of the Week by just 4 points (thanks Chris and your Dreamcrushers! for being really bad). Also we put up a decent 100 points, even with Tom Brady shitting the bed again while Jay Cutler puts up actual numbers, and that would have beat 6 of the other teams in the HBFFL that week. Hell, even Yahoo! gave us a C-grade for our week while no losing team got above a D. So apparently we're the James Marsden's of fantasy football this season, where you know he's not going to win but damn it he tries hard and it's not really his fault and why can't someone put him in a movie where he gets the girl instead of that other guy?


We're still #1 in the hearts of the American people...

But it's not panic mode yet for the People.  Sure, the only other time we started 0-2 was back in 2008 but we were rookies then. Fledglings trying to find our way, and we almost found our way into the playoffs with an 8-6 record that year.  Now we're savvy fantasy football veterans with a reputation for going on long winning streaks and pulling out clutch wins. Future Ex-Cons started their 2012 championship season 0-2 so it's not a death sentence. In our glorious 2010 championship season, we started off 2-5. So 0-2 is not the time to panic.  That comes later.


We're gearing up for Week Three with healthy food and fiber...

We get Meaty Clackers (1-1) in Week 3 who squeaked out a weak win vs. Future Ex-Cons seeing as Troi's squad is the only team in the HBFFL that scores less than the Clackers (Renal Failure is 4th in the league in Points Scored but dead last in Points Against).  Aside from Nick Foles, no one really scares the People.  Dez Bryant and Roddy White are unreliable.  Are we to be afraid of Montee Ball and Travis Kelce?  Maybe, since we never saw TE Delaine Walker putting up 27 points coming (outscoring everyone else on the team including Arian Foster and the New England D's 25 point orbital bears).  We haven't been fucked over by a TE since Dallas Clark in '08 so this probably means we'll be drafting Delaine Walker for the next three seasons to prevent future instances of getting fucked.

So what do we got going for us in Week Three? Tom Brady is up against the Raiders, which means either he's going to throw a bear into orbit or all hope is lost and it's the Jay Cutler show the rest of the way.  Jeremy Maclin and Zach Ertz can neutralize Nick Foles' numbers. Marshawn Lynch and Alfred Morris are consistent performers. Demaryius Thomas is back on track, despite Wes Welker returning.  And Cody Parkey is the new Billy Cundiff (the old Billy Cundiff is kicking for Cleveland so he might as well exist), so we like our chances of getting our first win of the season.

Yahoo! gives us a 98-90 edge in this matchup but we're pretty sure we'll hit the magic century mark, but actually win this time.  And with one win comes two wins, and the next thing you know Renal Failure's rattling off a win streak that reestablishes us as the team to shit your pants in fear over. 

Renal Failure is the People's Champion of the HBFFL and the FTWL. Speaking of the FTWL, got beat in 97-84 by the Patroits and got a C+ grade from Yahoo! as if to say "Eh, your team's good enough for government work even in a loss." 

Week 1: The People Stumble Out of the Gate

by Renal Failure


42-point day for Matt Ryan? What? 

Your People's Champion Renal Failure lost their opening game against the HBFFL newbies The Patriots 124-101, the biggest blowout in the HBFFL this week which shows how close games were in this opening weekend).  The Patriots scored the most points in Week 1 out of any HBFFL team (even with starting suspended kicker Matt Prater), mainly due to Matt Ryan have the best game of his frickin' life, so we can't be too salty about this loss.

Matt Ryan - 42 point bear in orbit

But we can be salty about Tom Brady only bothering to play one half of football (14pts - come on, man, Jeremy Maclin got 17 and he only really did anything in the 2nd half vs. the Jags), and Jason Witten not bothering to do anything (1pt). Demaryius Thomas seemed like the only person not catching anything from Peyton Manning on Sunday night (4pts).  We had Jay Cutler (26pts) and Zac Ertz (13pts)on the Renal bench, and if we had started them we would have pulled out a win but it's a brave or crazy man who benches Tom Brady, the man who invented throwing bears into outer space.

We got Ultra Beast Mode numbers from Marshawn Lynch (29pts), along with help from CJ Spiller's 12 and Alfred Morris's 9.  Yahoo! says we had the highest scoring tandem of RB's in the HBFFL, but we were also 9th in overall scoring in the league so... meh. Still Yahoo! was nice enough to give us a B for our losing efforts, as if to say "It's okay, we know you tried your best, here's some ice cream."

"The point is... never try."

Patriots got way more out of DeMarco Murray and Vernon Davis than we thought. Serviceable days from Randall Cobb and Giovani Bernard kept the pace, along with the Carolina Defense.  The only big disappointment was Eddie Lacy with 4 points. We'll see the Patriots again in Week Nine, where we vow to make them witness an HBFFL truth: Renal Failure is a beast in revenge games.

Week 1 is always a crap shoot, where you figure out what's working and what's not.  And even then, what worked can always fall apart and what didn't work can finally start working later in the season.  The point is, no one hits the panic button after Week One.  Except for that one year when Canucklehead lost Tom Brady in the first possession of Week One.  CRISIS!!!

Shit gets mean in Fantasy Football... 

So going into Week 2 against another new team, The Mile High Club (0-1), we're confident things will turn around for us.  Historically speaking, once Renal Failure gets on a roll, it's damn hard to stop us.  We've turned seasons around before.  And though Mile High is coming at us with the RB's we had last year (McCoy and Foster), we like our three-headed RB monster of Lynch, Morris, and Spiller just a bit more (though Yahoo! disagrees, giving Mile High a projected 100-99 edge).  But Mile High's rolling with Tony Romo, and we're not losing to a team starting Tony Romo.

Renal Failure is the People's Champion of Fantasy Football. Yeah, we lost this week in the HBFFL, but we had a big win in the FTWL where we had the highest scoring WR's in the league. And we play The Patriots in the FTWL in Week 2 too.  That's not ironic, but it sure is funny how that worked out.

Tactics

Predator Press

[LOBO]

It's Saturday night, and Tarken Hawkworthy, the Predator Press Offensive Coordinator, seems fidgety.

And perhaps rightly so.  Saturday is the day he is supposed to clean out the Predator Press refrigerator, and the Predator Press refrigerator was recently discovered to contain the kidney I am saving for Kim Jong-il, and a five year old pastrami sandwich.


The Dreamcrushers! Sets Their Sights on Predator Press

My crushing of fantasy football hopes and dreams gets real this week, for rizzles even with the first matchup of the season: The Autodrafters, a.k.a. LOBO's Predator Press. 

Things are not looking good for LOBO, as we will see with the forthcoming scientific analysis...

Quarterbacks

Luck (Dreamcrushers!) vs Kaepernick (Predator Press)

Things would be a lot easier if Kaepernick would just drop that first e. He could put an end to the question he has been asked a million times: "Is it Ka-pernick or K-prnick?"

But Kaepernick didn't hear them because he has his Beats on. What did he do before Beats were invented? And before that you can tell everybody song was published?

So yeah, a push on this position.

Advantage: Even

Running Backs

Forte and Bush (Dreamcrushers!)  vs Le'Veon Bell and Toby Gerhart (Predator Press)

I had a parakeet named Toby when I was a child and it was not very intimidating. Couldn't even get it to say "pretty bird".

And Bell, well he's hanging out with Blount, who was part of the party clique in Tampa Bay a few years back. They even have a side bet during games: whoever has the least amount of all purpose yards pays for the weed. 

Advantage: The Dreamcrushers!

Wide Receivers/Flex

Julio Jones, K. Allen, M. Floyd (Dreamcatchers!) vs AJ Green, K. Britt, R. Wayne (Predator Press)
(Included the flex because both of us are starting WR in that slot.)

The present and the future against the present and 2012. Britt? Wayne? LOBO has turned his fantasy football roster into a time machine. And it isn't even a Delorean. Where his receivers are going might not need roads but they will need the luck of the fantasy gods.

Advantage: The Dreamcrushers!

Tight End

K. Rudolph (Dreamcrushers!) vs J. Graham (Predator Press)

Yeah, I got nothing.

Advantage: Clearly Predator Press

Kicker and Defense

Hahahahahaha....flip a coin.

So final tally is advantage me for RB and WR, Predator Press for TE, and a tie at QB. And you know what that means. 

Crawling Through Salted Broken Glass to Victory. And Percocets.

Predator Press

[LOBO]

So what if we drafted a giant squid because we didn't realize those pussies in the NFL will only play football on land.

Well 'lah dee da,' you fucking petite flowers .... !!!!!

Purple Drank becomes The Dreamcrushers!

What has two thumbs and is going to crush your fantasy football hopes and dreams?

Yup that guy, Chris Cameron and his Dreamcrushers! His team is so awesome the exclamation point is required. Scoring mayhem. Dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.
 
And not only will he taunt you with his witty verbal daggers of insults all season long, but he will also be referring to himself in third person for the rest of this post, or until he tires of it.

Now behold the awesomeness that is The Dreamcrushers!

Starting at QB, the soon to be elite Andrew Luck. He is about seven touchdowns and 500 passing yds away from scoring in the top 4 at his position. And he runs for 400-500 yards and a few td's too. And he doesn't have stick legs like RG3. Or hell, even a stick body. The dude is big and he will make you cry like a hooker getting beat up by the Sham Wow guy when you lose to The Dreamcrushers!

At running back is Marvelous Matt Forte and all-purpose man Reggie Bush. Chris would prefer these two for ppr but magnificent will have to do for the standard scoring format. He can't be perfect after all. 99% crushing of dreams via the running back position will have to do.

For wide receivers, who this season have 10 yard restraining orders against any corners and safeties there is the dizzying duo of Julio Jones and Keenan Allen, along with magnanimous Michael Floyd in the flex spot. Chris asks Larry Fitz-who? But no one answers.

Because Michael Floyd is busy taking all of Fitz's yards and touchdowns.

The starting tight end, well that is like one of those things where Mom and Dad sit you down one day and talk about you being "their favorite mistake".  In other words Chris lost connection and the computer autodrafted Kyle Rudolph. Yes, he shits fantasy gold. 

Chris, not Rudolph. Rudolph shits garland, tinsel or whatever it is called.

And for kicker and defense. LOL. Next...

On the bench The Dreamcrushers! have lots of lottery tickets, and well Chris just told you he is shitting fantasy gold so if you wonder how the eff you just got beat when he had four starters on a bye, you should not be surprised why.

And if you want to concede defeat now, before the season starts he will consider the request and perhaps offer leniency during your demise. He might not run up the score. Or might. Ball is in your court.