Fantasy Football: Week 13 (and Football Season open thread)

(This is another guest post from Dman!)

Week in Review: Week 13

Tie Maker Turn Into Heart Breaker For The Return of Left Shark!!!!

Two players scoring 30+ points, 6 players scoring above projections, beating their overall projections by 20 points, scoring the second highest total for the week, this sounds like the recipe for a win yet the Return of Left Shark loses the match. Thunderlips Express pulled off their highest total of the season lead by the Biggest Quarterback on the Planet in Roethlisberger and Downtown Antonio Brown. These two alone scored more than two other entire teams. Nu talked with both coaches after the game.

Nu: Huge win coach. What do you attribute it to.
Dman: Tough love Nu.
Nu: Er… What?
Dman: See I sat Ben last week for trying to sue me and it lit a fire under him this week.
Nu: I thought you admitted to forgetting to change your lineup last week?
Dman: Was I victorious last week and this week?
Nu: Yeeeees…
Dman: Well the victors write history. So, it was brilliant coaching Nu.
Nu: I think I like you better when you lose coach.
Dman: Ouch, so do my opponents Nu.

Nu: Tough loss, coach. Any thoughts about what happened?
Burt: We were looking at 50-50 odds before that night game!
Nu: Last week you talked about trouble with the defense spot. Do you —
Burt: Defense? How does that even freaking matter? Against a team like that?
Nu: Well, maybe you should emulate what they did well.
Burt: Holy Vince Lombardi. Those guys do everything well. Dman still had more in the tank! [Stares at score sheet.] Thomas, Murray, Baldwin, Bryant… All on his bench and we get a good score like that and it’s still the bad end of the Beat of the Week.
Nu: Well, you’re a big one for looking forward rather than backwards, coach. What about preparing for next week?
Burt: Next week? Why should I even bother? I mean, you get beat like that, you’ve gotta go back and ask yourself some questions.
Nu: What questions are you going to be asking, coach?
Burt: Why do I bother doing this every year? What’s the point of getting the Best Quarterback On The Planet ™, even if he throws a walk-off touchdown like that, if this is the result?
Nu: Sounds like you’ve lost your will to compete, coach.
Burt: No. But we did just get hit real real bad. So far this season, only my lawyers have seen me this unhappy.

Meek of the Week

The Minnesota Vikings were projected to win this week in both real football and fantasy, yet they both fell short. Coach Team Johnson saw good performances by only two of his 9 players. The biggest fail for the team came from Peterson, who needed to be take out behind the woodshed, for his lack of effort. Meanwhile the ProdigalAccipitridae flew high with the four horsemen of the apocalypse Stafford, Yeldon, Walker (again?!?), and Cooks. These players made up for some poor play and pushed coach Jaybird’s team over the top this week. Nu caught up with Jaybird after the win.

Nu: Interesting win this week, Coach.
Jaybird: Man, I even left a handful of points on the bench. I picked the wrong QB, for example.
Nu: You picked the one who went up against Green Bay rather than the one going up against the expansion team? The undefeated expansion team?
Jaybird: I keep forgetting the lesson that Peyton Manning taught us all.
Nu: Which was?
Jaybird: Getting 40 or 50 points give you wiggle room to let your opponent get 30ish.
Nu: An important lesson.
Jaybird: And if you’re playing a QB going up against a team that has no problem with giving their opponents some wiggle room, you need to get to wiggling.
Nu: So are you playing Brees this week?
Jaybird: Lemme see who he’s playing… Ooooh! Tampa Bay! Sign me up! They’re totally bad.
Nu: Well, they’re 6 and 6…
Jaybird: They’re only doing that well because of the schedule. If they were playing against real teams, they’d be slaughtered.
Nu: You may wish to check how they did when playing against some of the other teams in that schedule… might be relevant.
Jaybird: Oh, they did play against the Saints this year…
Nu: And lost.
Jaybird: Well, maybe they have tape on the defense now. I don’t want to risk the Lions when they go up against the Saint Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals are doing pretty good this year. 10 and 2!
Nu: You, seriously, need to start doing a little more research.

Squeak of the Week

The Warriors squandered a 50 point outing by Cam “The Man” Newton this week and will be telling stories about the game that got away. Beckoning on the bench was Odel, who would have sealed the win for coach Jesse. For the Uffington Horsemen, Little could have been done differently, though a couple players had higher totals, still it was enough to gain the win.

Weak of the Week

The roller coaster ride for Miss Mary’s Mem is mainly moving down. The morass that make up the Men these days starts with starting two players not playing, and end with four others scoring single digits. Still Miss Mary would be sipping Martinis with a win if Doug had been playing instead of staying on the bench. Thing were not much better for Undeflatermaus as they only played seven like coach Megan.Yet second worst still beat the worst score of the week.

The Ouija Board

One more team drops off the predictions this week. Maybe it is a good thing Cecil the Ouija Board is not around to see this…

Thunderlips Express: 3 – (1) – (1) aka: The Fallen Anointed Ones
ProdigalAccipitridae: 3 – (2)
Minnesota Vikings: 0 – 0 – 1
Miss Mary’s Men: 1 – 0
Partisan Warriors: 2 – (1) – 0
Undeflatermaus: 0 – 1
Uffington Horsemen: (3) – 4
Return of Left Shark: (4) – 5 – 0

(Photo is “Rock Dennis tackles Taylor Wardlow” by John McStravick. Used under a Creative Commons License.)