Tone Deaf Men of Mentone – 153.94
Kmet the Frog – 92.88
Justin's Triple Crown
Somewhat of a spectacle last season was one of our founding fathers, Justin, floundering at the bottom of the standings from start to finish. But here in the early portion of 2023, the leader of the Tone Deaf Men of Mentone has gotten his swagger back! The Church of Gronk is currently living up to its ultra-competitive hype, with only two teams at 3-1, two teams at 1-3, and EIGHT teams carrying 2-2 records. After four weeks, the Tone Deaf Men sit atop the heap of those .500 teams, and are one of just three teams with more than 500 fantasy points scored. This is due, in large part, to the fact that they secured a triple crown of sorts in week four by being named MATCHUP OF THE WEEK and then winning with the ass kicking of the week (61.06-point margin) as the highest scoring team of the week. That’s cause for celebration! The players that led this explosive outing were rookie sensation CJ Stroud (21.84), Josh Jacobs (27.9), and the fresh trade acquisition, De’Von "Jackie" Achane (27). (That’s pronounced a-chan, by the way, not a-chain. I don’t make the rules.) This could’ve been even worse if Justin wasn’t too scared to play David Montgomery (34.10) on Thursday night. Starting Montgomery would’ve given Justin the highest score of the season so far, but as we like to say around here, “Scared money don’t make no money.” As for Knowlton, the loss of Austin Ekeler has now haunted his fantasy roster for weeks. Morale is at an all-time low. The only player worth noting is Kyren Williams (27.7) who rushed for more than 100 yards and 2 scores but is now nursing a hip injury that could limit him before an unattractive matchup with the Eagles in week five. To pour salt into the wound, Knowlton started George Kittle (1.9) over the namesake of his team, Cole Kmet (27.6). While this change wouldn’t have made a difference in the outcome of the matchup, it might’ve made the Kmet the Frog GM more confident in his management prowess. In conclusion, the week four MATCHUP OF THE WEEK did not live up to the hype we expected. Knowlton will have to lick his wounds and make a tough decision in week five on whether he should start Kittle or Kmet. The good news for him is that this league offers two FLEX spots on rosters, so he could always just start both of ‘em if he wants! (Don’t worry, we don’t charge for this kind of fantasy advice.) His 11th- ranked Kmet the Frog has to take on the #4 Mooney Toons, one of the highest-scoring teams in the league. Justin has elevated his team to #3 overall and gets a chance to dominate the bloodline in his upcoming matchup against older brother, Josh, and his 9th-ranked Back 2 Back roster in what we like to call The Yarber Bowl.
Taylor Park Boys – 130.84
Mike Vick in a Box – 124.90
#TiltKing Escapes
Serving as possibly the most entertaining matchup of the weekend, Opey’s Taylor Park Boys regained some footing after a two-game skid, beating Devarus’ Mike Vick in a Box by the tightest margin of the week (5.94 points). This one kicked off on Thursday night, when Opey’s Packer stack of Jordan Love (17.64) and Christian Watson (10.5) laid a real-life egg against the new leader of the NFC North, the Detroit Lions. With those two players combining for less than 30 fantasy points, you could tell the tilt was in full force for the #TiltKing. To be fair, he would’ve deserved any bad breaks going his way after starting a Thursday night player in a FLEX position. THIS IS A CARDINAL SIN OF FANTASY FOOTBALL. Again, I don’t make the rules, and this is fantasy advice being handed out for $FREE.99! You’d expect better from a member who’s so plugged in with fantasy experts… As the Sunday slate of games drew to a close, the Taylor Park Boys had just three starters finish with single digits and received absolutely ridiculous scores from AJ Brown (38.5) and the Cowboys D/ST (27). If you want to talk about poor luck, how about Devarus losing two weeks in a row to opponents who each had a defense go nuclear? Trevor’s defense scored 32 last week, then Opey’s scored 27 this week. Your heart just has to hurt a little bit for the guy. That being said, Devarus was still in this thing after Josh “The Stallion” Allen (36.5) slaughtered the Dolphins, AK41 (21.4) returned from suspension going 13-for-33 in the receiving game, and DJ Moore (27.1) was the recipient of Justin Fields’ first decent game of the season. Fun fact about Alvin Kamara’s performance – that’s the new record for fewest yards in a game by someone with 13 receptions. The previous low was 71 yards… Not hard to grasp though, when you consider Derek Carr’s air yards per attempt was 0.4. DISGUSTING. It all came down the Mike Vick in a Box play of the Jets D/ST (7) on Monday night. Expectations might not have been high because they were playing the Chiefs, but the Jets defense is not one to be taken light and they had homefield advantage. What they did not have was NFL favoritism because Patrick Mahomes is the new Tom Brady when it comes to “golden boy” status, and for some reason, the NFL cares more about Taylor Swift being happy in her stadium suite than the actual integrity of the game happening on the field. This became especially apparent in the middle of the fourth quarter, when the Chiefs converted multiple 3rd-and-long situations where the officials were ignoring offensive hold calls like I ignore COVID vaccine recommendations, and then made one of the worst defensive holding calls in history after the Jets intercepted Mahomes for the third time. If you think back to this past Super Bowl, where a very ticky-tack holding call was made against the Eagles defense on a Chiefs’ JuJu Smith-Schuster route late in the game, this call was worse than that one. It was a brutal night for everyone except Chiefs fans and Swifties. Apparently, both of those things could headline Roger Goodell’s Bumble bio. We should also send our condolences to Zach Wilson, who truly out-dueled Patrick Mahomes in primetime, only to have a chance at victory torn from his grasp by guys who are accountants in the offseason. The good news for Devarus is that he’s still in the top half of the league standings and now gets a chance to rebound from consecutive losses when the bottom-dwelling Burrows Before Hoes come to town. The Taylor Park Boys are still in the driver’s seat of the Tilt-A-Whirl division but could face a tough test this coming weekend when they face off with the #6 Sons of AnArchie, a team coming off a disappointing loss. This should make for a good one!
Deshaun Wantsome – 127.56
Burrows Before Hoes – 78.40
One Calf in the Grave
In the 2023 installment of The Weems Engineering Bowl, Dustin absolutely mopped the floor with his beloved coworker, Brandon, defeating him by nearly 50 points. It wasn’t close; it was never close. The suggestion was recently made in our group chat that Brandon should change the name of his team to Hoes before Burrow, and it’s starting to feel more and more like a solid idea. It’s not superstition, just a littlestition, the idea that it’s time to shake things up a tad bit when the losses start collecting. Not only is Brandon currently sitting at the bottom of the barrel in the Church of Gronk standings as one of two teams with 1-3 records, but his team is the only one which has yet to reach 400 points scored after four weeks. I’m no arithmetician, but that doesn’t seem like a strong weekly average. If you go back to the previous recap where Opey had just three starters finish in the single digits, the opposite was true for Brandon. The Burrows Before Hoes lineup had just three starters finish with double-digit performances, with only one of them breaking 15 points - Old Man Thielen (15.2). Typically, we’d give someone hell for not starting the player that is their fantasy team’s namesake, much like Knowlton not starting Cole Kmet this week. Again, the opposite is true for Brandon. He’s continued to give Joe Burrow (4.7) chances, but Joe just needs to sit. Burrow needs to be shut down in real life, as well as fantasy, for the foreseeable future. His calf is not okay. The Tennessee Titans have one of the worst secondaries in all of football and Burrow only managed 165 yards passing and his team scored 3 points. Meanwhile, Mr. Unliiimmmiiittted himself, Russell Wilson (22.22), feasted on the Bears on Brandon’s bench. One wishes they could offer Brandon a reprieve, but the light at the end of the tunnel just doesn’t seem very bright. It’s time to see if Cooper Kupp and Jonathan Taylor can or will come off the IR and PUP, but neither of those prospects seem too promising. Maybe Dustin will show his good heart by buying Brandon lunch every day this week or something… The Deshaun Wantsome lineup, overall, produced a fairly average fantasy day. What really sent them over the top were the performances of Jalen Hurts (24.16) and Nico Collins (35.8). Talk about a day for the Houston Texans! Dustin can also hold his head high with the moral victory of having the highest scoring bench of the week with 64.82 points in reserve. Week five offers up a potential MATCHUP OF THE WEEK bout when Co-Commissioner, Dustin, faces off with front office partner and Commissioner, Tyler, in the 2023 Headquarters Bowl. Fate has favored Dustin in this matchup over the past couple of years and appears to be doing so again, as the Great Locker Room Guys will have a couple of starters on BYE this weekend, including QB1, Justin Herbert. The battered Burrows Before Hoes won’t find any relief with their upcoming matching, where they’ll line up against a Mike Vick in a Box roster that is at full strength and looking for vengeance.
Bateman & Dobbins – 148.74
Mooney Toons – 101.00
Cole Farva's Himself
The league’s legal team is on a heater, winning three straight weeks and currently sitting at #1 overall in the Church of Gronk standings. To really illustrate just how dominant they’ve been, this team has scored 145 points or more in each of their last three outings and must be considered the hottest team in the league without a shadow of a doubt. Let’s take this opportunity to throw shade on Bobo, who wanted to get cute and take Austin Ekeler with the first overall pick in August’s draft. How does it feel to be so absolutely wrong? Like, the 1.01 should’ve been the easiest pick to make in the history of fantasy. Christian McCaffrey is playing for, possibly, the best team in the entire NFL. He’s got an offensive genius calling plays as his head coach. He’s been perfectly healthy. But no, you took a running back who likes to talk about fantasy football on YouTube more than he likes to actually produce for fantasy football on the field. What’s funnier is that Ekeler doesn’t even own himself in his fantasy league, and he probably ain’t sending trade offers. Now that that’s all been said, it must also be stated that Zan is one CMC injury away from falling right back down to the middle of the pack in this league. The honest truth is that the Bateman & Dobbins lineup in week four produced just four double digit performers – Lamar Jackson (28.14), CMC (48.7), Amon-Ra St. Brown (16.6), and Puka Nukem (31.3). Of the five other starters, only two scored more than 5 fantasy points, and the Steelers D/ST (-1) finished in the red. Both McCaffrey and Puka have proven in the past that they’re not invincible and can possibly miss time, so this current streak is likely just a house of cards waiting for a light breeze. And if you haven’t taken a look at the Bateman & Dobbins bench, don’t. The cupboard seems bare. Across the fantasy gridiron, terrible mismanagement led to the lowest score put up by the Mooney Toons in this young season. Only one player on the entire roster scored 20+ points, that being Anthony Richardson (29.6). For whatever reason, Cole left his best player riding pine while starting a quarterback who didn’t even play football this weekend. The Vegas Raiders benched Jimmy G for Vermont Highway Patrolman, Rodney Farva, in week four, and Cole left Jimmy in his fantasy lineup. There better be a good excuse for this, similar to the one Josh Yarber used for starting an inactive Brandon Aiyuk in week three. But I guess we’ll never know since the Mooney Toons manager has sent just three responses or so in the group chat since draft weekend in mid-August. Hate to say he had this coming, buuutttt… Bateman & Dobbins’ next witness on the stand will be Keaton, who dropped five spots in the league standings after getting humiliated this past weekend. As for Cole, will he remember to set his lineup in week five? Or will Bobo pour a liter of cola on his head for a second straight loss?
Back 2 Back – 124.02 (Back 2 Back is back on track!)
Pat JJ’s Broken Chubb – 97.02
Back 2 Back Gets Back On Track
After consecutive losses for the first time in recent memory, our reigning champion found the win column again in week four. In doing so, Josh was able to even his record back out at 2-2 but remains stagnant at #9 in the overall standings. Leading his victorious efforts were recent trade acquisition, Derrick Henry (24.38), top draft pick, Stefon Diggs (36), and Brandon Aiyuk (20.8). The confidence in Aiyuk was beautiful to see after he was inactive with an injury in the previous week. Josh didn’t even move him from FLEX to a WR spot, just left him in there while he was taking care of business in week three, then said, “to hell with it” and kept him there for week four. And boys, it paid off. THAT’S BELIEVING IN YOUR PEOPLE. Ya love to see it. Keaton’s fifteen seconds in the fantasy limelight quickly drew to a cold, dark close this weekend, as his team failed to score 100 points for the first time this season. Aside from Jettas (26.5), no other player on the roster even sniffed 15 fantasy points. Was this just a down week? Or a sign of things to come? Raheem Mostert has been on an absolute tear through the first three weeks, but is suddenly ceding more and more touches to the rookie, De’Von “Jackie” Achane. James Conner finally found a matchup where he couldn’t just volume his way to a satisfactory fantasy day. Calvin Ridley has been on a significant target decline since week one. Tyler Higbee is dealing with an Achilles injury. Jakobi Meyers has a Vermont State Trooper starting as a rookie expected to throw him the ball. Popcorn Sutton scored just 11 points in his team’s best offensive game of the season thus far. This is not a hit piece on Pat JJ’s Broken Chubb, but it could be an indicator that there are possibly more questions on this roster than answers. Guess we’ll get to see in week five when Keaton takes the stand against top-ranked Bateman & Dobbins. For Josh, he’ll have to fight off baby brother in the 2023 Yarber Bowl against Justin’s #3 Tone Deaf Men of Mentone. The smack talk leading up to this matchup will be something you don’t want to miss!
Great Locker Room Guys – 129.18 (Commish is back from the dead)
Sons of AnArchie – 103.86
Back from the Dead
Coming into this weekend, your beloved Commissioner had little faith in his fantasy team getting the job done. That lack of faith seemed solid as the Lions showed, for the fourth straight outing, that they don’t care about giving touches to potentially the most talented player on their offense. Jahmyr Gibbs (9.1) was given just eight carries and five targets in a game that the Lions had complete control of from the very beginning. This is disheartening for Gibbs managers, as Gibbs has clearly shown with almost every touch that he’s the more explosive back when compared to David Montgomery. All we can do is hope for more as the weeks roll on. Despite the slow start on Thursday night, the rest of the Locker Room Guys lineup produced only three other single-digit performances. Terry McLaurin (22.6) had himself a day, Mark Andrews (25) finally decided to show up, and J-Herb (23.38) showed us he doesn’t need all ten fingers intact to throw for a touchdown and then pick up two more with his legs. #ThatsMyQuarterback. While this victory was HUGE for the Locker Room Guys, it feels like a lot of it came on the back of bad luck for the Sons of AnArchie. Kirko Chainz was on an absolute tear to start the season but mustered just 9.56 fantasy points in the Vikings’ first win. Aaron Jones was held to, essentially, no points on Thursday night. Jordan Addison was targeted zero times, resulting in a fantasy doughnut. Compact Disk Lamb (14.8) scored 10 of his fantasy points in the first quarter of his game against the Patriots on Sunday, then apparently got some popcorn and chilled on the sideline after halftime. Even Travis Kelce (12) put up pedestrian numbers compared to what you’d expect from a player of his caliber. Is that skinny blonde sucking the football life out of him? You know, there’s a conspiracy theory floating around that she holds an awfully uncanny resemblance to Zeena LaVey, former high priestess of the Church of Satan… Look it up. The only really good fantasy outings for the Sons this past weekend were Isaiah Pacheco (24.8) with his unique running style, and the Vikings D/ST (17). All of this led to the first score of less than 120 fantasy points for Trevor’s team and drops them right into the middle of the 2-2 soup we have in the the standings. The Sons of AnArchie will have a chance to get back on track this coming weekend, where they’ll take a seat on the tilt-a-whirl with the #TiltKing himself, Jaime “Opey” Jones. As for the Commissioner, his Great Locker Room Guys will try to build onto this small winning streak they’ve found in the 2023 Headquarters Bowl against Co-Commissioner, Slick Willy Watkins.
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