The Week In Review! (Fantasy Football Edition)
Express Busts Brain’s Team
The kiss of death was laid down on Brain’s Best Team by Thunderlips as five players scored above their projection for the Express, while five players were busts for Brain. The Thunderlips Express was one point away from the Freak of the Week. Tu Nosi caught up up with the winning coach.
Tu: {Sigh} Solid win coach.
Dman: Oh yeah! Very solid play across the board. Nothing to complain about.
Tu: Really? You are not worried about the poor play of the Chief’s defense when they were playing the Titans? They are not an offensive powerhouse team like the Broncos next week.
Dman: There always a storm cloud in my silver lining with you Tu.
Tu: Just stating the facts. Are you worried about your defense for next week?
Dman: Fine, yes, I am. Hopefully I can remedy that problem.
Freak of the Week
The Partisan Warriors Levelled the Levellers with only two players not meeting or beating their projected points. And one of those players was Peyton Manning!!! The Levellers on the other hand had two players that scored a total of 4 points. It looks like another long season for Doug Martin owners.
Meek of the Week
The Analysts players were Contumelious of the projections and tried to prove that Nostradamus knew nothing. Slated for an easy victory, the players for the ContumeliousAnalysts had five score under half of what was projected. This lead to the upset by the DownSouth Dragons, even with five players scoring south of there projected amounts. This was thanks to the Holy Cow Trinity of the Johnson, Bell, and San Francisco. Tu Nosi caught up with Coach Jaybird after the loss.
Tu: Ouch, tough loss coach.
Jaybird: 23 points. That’s how many were left on the bench.
Tu: That’s enough to make the difference. Did you do that to yourself?
Jaybird: Pretty much. I sat down and said “Well, this team is playing that one, this other team is playing that one, and even though Arizona is playing San Diego, the Bears are playing the Bills.
Tu: And so you went out of your way to lose that game even as your opponent left 19 points on his own bench.
Jaybird: I’m going back to following the advice of the machine and forget about the whole “how does this defense do against running backs vs wides” and all that.
Tu: So you’re just going to sit back and ignore reality?
Jaybird: I’m just going to sit back and ignore *FANTASY*.
The Quatrains of Nostradamus
The first week is always an easy one for the seers and this week was no different. Only the Analysts flew away from his predictions, but many inside the Week in Review believe Nostradamus was just misinterpreted for that matchup.
Remember dear reader that the records listed below are the number of wins and losses still needed for Nostradamus to be proven right.
ContumeliousAnalysts: 10-3
Team Pooh Bear: 9-3-1 AKA: The Anointed Ones
Thunderlips Express: 7-4-2
Waynesport Wildcats: 8-4-1
Partisan Warrior’s: 6-7
DownSouth Dragons: 6-7
The Levellers: 2-11
Brian’s Best Team: 2-11
There’s a couple dimensions to the Ray Rice thing that are sorta irking me. For those that don’t know, he was suspended by the NFL for domestic violence (among other things he hit his wife), then had his suspension increased after a video of him landing a knockout punch was released to the public.
Might sound fair enough, by some standard, but the whole situation really sticks in my craw. Fact is, there are all sorts of things that could stick on a whole bunch of craws about this. One is that RIce was only suspended for two games for engaging in some pretty barbaric behavior with his then fiance. Another is that the DA and the courts treated him with kid gloves and entered him into some sort of program (can’t remember the name right now) in lieu of charging him with a crime, a program which only something like 1% of all people charged with crimes are admitted to.
As bad as those things might be (and they are) the thing that really sticks in my craw is that the best evidence we have right now suggests that when Rice was called before the NFL prior to a decision regarding his punishment, he was apparently entirely truthful with Roger Goodell about what transpired in that Vegas elevator. That is, he told Goodell that his wife was hitting him, that he then took a swing at her knocking her out and subsequently lied to the security staff as he drug her out of the elevator. And it was based upon that complete recounting of the incident that Goodell and the NFL handed down a two game suspension.
Of course, people went crazy about this. Shitstorm crazy, in fact. Two games didn’t – and doesn’t – seem appropriate for the type of behavior exhibited by Rice. In just the last week or so, tho, additional video made it to the innertubes showing him actually swinging at his girlfriend, and in light of that evidence – which led to a shitstorm on PEDs – the NFL has revised the suspension to “indefinite”. And it’s that revision of the sentence that really gets my goat. Apparently, Goodell not only had accurate, honestly presented testimony from Rice upon which to base his initial suspension, he also had (or at least the NFL offices had) the even more incriminating video of him throwing the knockout punch. In other words, way back when, Goodell had every bit of evidence he needed to come to a fair assessment of Rice’s actions and what would constitute an appropriate response by the NFL. Which he did. Two games.
Now that I’m warmed up to all this again, here’s my beef. Whether or not anyone thinks two games is sufficient to send a message regarding how seriously the NFL takes domestic violence, the fact is that the suspension was determined and agreed to by Rice based on exactly the same evidence upon which Goodell now justifies a longer sentence. Indefinitely long, in fact. And that’s just bullshit, it seems to me.
And just to be clear here, the thing that’s pissing me off has nothing to do with domestic violence per se. It has to do with Goodell reneging on a deal he made with Rice. Jaynee, his fiance at the time (and now wife) took to the invaluable Twitter to complain about Rice being a victim here (on a bunch of levels, actually), and frankly, I tend to agree with her in one important respect: Rice is a victim of Roger Goodell and the NFL’s gargantuan incompetence.
THe other day I read that Rice is suing (or thinking about suing) the NFL for violating the terms of his suspension based on evidence they already possessed. I hope he does, and I hope he wins.
First, the best evidence we have at this point is that when Rice went before the NFLReport
This is a pretty great round-up, Still, and I think it’s pretty spot-on.Report
Yeah Goddell completely screwed it up. No argument.
Regarding the charges for Rice that is actually a lot more difficult. In the DV field the current belief is that there are three types of of domestic violence, what punishment is appropriate depends , or it should, based on what type of abuser Rice is. Not every abuser needs the same type of treatment.Report
This sounds right, though it has been kind of weird the amount of anger I have seen directed to the NFL* compared to the prosecutors’ office, when the responsibility of the latter to provide justice is more indisputably on the latter than the former.
* – This was before the duplicity of Goodell became as absolutely clear as it is.Report
Will,
My guess is that folks who are inordinately pissed at the NFL rather than the courts are football fans. Also, the NFL-led shenanigans which resulted in Rice not being charged with a crime are part and parcel (in my view, anyway) of the larger shenanigans Goodell’s specific actions embody. I think the guys a hack. But so are a bunch of the owners.Report
I’m thinking about my job and wondering exactly what they’re allowed to have opinions on in my personal life… and I’m not sure I’d agree that they do. I mean, sure, I peed in a cup when I got hired and saw that as a fair trade to have made at the time. But how far into my business should they be allowed to get into?
I suppose I can see the argument that the NFL is trying to put out a family product that can be watched by the whole family and the biggest argument that people should be having in relationship to this product is the whole “this team vs. that team” thing and insofar as any player creates any arguments more controversial than those that centered around Joe Namath’s guarantee then they are doing the League as a whole a serious disservice…
But then I’m back to thinking “what should *MY* employer be allowed to do to me with regards to *MY* private life?” and I’m not sure that I’m coming up with a whole lotta answers (that aren’t related to stuff like school bus drivers testing positive for barbiturates or whatever).Report
Another stray thought: Stuff like this probably happened in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s… but TMZ didn’t exist. There was no way for the tape to really be made public outside of taking it to a local news outlet and they probably wouldn’t have paid for it (and certainly not as much as the NFL would have paid).
The internet makes making this sort of thing public more potentially lucrative than accepting hush money.
I think that’s a good thing. I hope it remains being a good thing.Report
I get that, Jaybird. As is obvious to anyone paying attention, the NFL’s decision-making in these and similar situations are entirely determined by the bottom line. IF they think wiping the Ray Rice incident under the rug benefits the bottom line, they’ll do it. Two game suspension. If they think changing the suspension to indefinite benefits the bottom line, they’ll do it. No principles, no consistency, no integrity. Just the bottom line.
ANd that’s why the NFL or any other league (see the NCAA as an example) gets mixed up with all this stuff which really isn’t their concern on any level. Except the bottom line. And that seems like a pretty thin reason to go messin with people’s lives, if ya ask me. It’s all justified by “protecting the brand”, which is just a big ole fat mess exploding all over Goodell’s and the NFL’s lap right now.Report