LAST WEEK: 5-1
SEASON: 50-22
I've spent the past week centering myself about fantasy football's place in the world. I've come to realize that it's not worth getting upset about something that's just make believe.
THE WHITECHAPEL RIPPERS v. TIMMY DOESN'T HAVE ANY FRIENDS
Congrats to Scott for winning a middling division on the strength of the 2nd-fewest points against. Not sure what his great defensive secret is, but it must be something. Larry, who only had the 5th-fewest points against this year will certainly need to tighten up his defense in order to advance in the playoffs.
Both men will be able to keep their opponents' quarterbacks down, as Mahomes faces a good Baltimore defense and Ben goes into the Black Hole, where the Steelers find ways to put up 450 yards and lose 12-6. That also means that Larry will find a way to make Antonio Brown have a below-average game, though Scott will fight back by keeping Jaylen Samuels under 10 points. But then Larry will counter-counter-punch by holding James White down in Miami, where the Pats traditionally struggle.
Scott probably has no way of preventing David Johnson from having a decent game against the cratering Lions. He should've tried to face Larry in a week when Johnson was going up against the Bears or something. Big mistake there. Not sure how you overlook that at playoff time.
Larry is going to need Cook and Janikowski to put up some points on Monday and it says right here that they will. Wait no, it says they will not. I guess I can make it say whatever I want it to. Scott will do a terrific job of limiting Cook's carries on Monday night and having Seattle go for 2 at least one to seal his win.
THE PICK: TDHAF 72 - TWR 67
THE NIGHT BOYS - ANIMAL HOUSE
Let me tell how I'm going to feel when all 4 Wild Cards have terrible games while I score 97 points.
Bad. Bad is how I'm going to feel.
A true master stroke by Barker this week having James Conner get hurt late last week right before he played Animal House. Those are the types of crafty moves that deliver titles to fantasy owners. Terrific, terrific stuff. And getting Tom Brady to play in Miami the same week? This guy is the real deal when it comes to smarts! But look, when you're only the 8th-best offense in the league, you need to pull out the crafty moves. It's like if a slow 40-something played some pickup hoops. (Say, Mike Barker). You're going to get a lot of back door bounce passes, some 17-foot bank shots, rebounds that somehow bounce right to him...that kind of thing. You look up and think, how did we just lose? Well, you lost because JuJu scored 6 points in Oakland. That's why.
Meyers fell asleep at the switch this week when it came to managing his opponent's matchups, though. It's something he worked on all season, as you can tell by his 3rd-fewest points against total, but I don't know why he skipped it this week. Cohen, Thielen, and Hopkins all have great matchups, and if Barker goes with Cooks instead of hoping Tyler Boyd catches passes from Jeff Driskell (Jess Drifkell?), it'll be another mistake on Meyers' part.
Meyers scored 100+ points this season 7 times. Remarkably, he was only 6-2 in those games. (He did it in the double week, don't complain about my math.) He was under 100 points only 5 times and went 1-4 there. He only scored under 80 once, when he put up an anemic 58 points in a Week 4 loss. Barker, a true Moneyball type, realized his best shot of beating a team that outscored him by 200 points during the regular season is to set up the schedule so he faces Meyers in what will be Meyers' 2nd-worst week of the season. You can only tip your hat to guys like Barker who crunch the numbers like that and find an edge. Great stuff. Great timing.
THE PICK: TNB 84 - AH 71
It is kinda neat that both matchups this week feature 2018 division rivals since the divisions are so important to this league. Double week in the division, 6 total games within the division, a lot of division tiebreakers...doing well in your division is very important.
I mean, sure, I went 5-1 in my division this year, the highest-scoring division in the league. That was the best division record of any team in the league, by the way. But yeah, divisions are important.
Thus ends my football rant. As for the political rant, we're only a month away from pickle heads like Chuck Todd and Wolf Blitzer insisting that the newly-elected Democratic House reach across the aisle to compromise with Republicans, despite the fact that a record number of people turned out to vote for Democrats in the largest midterms voting margin ever since in the face of an authoritarian oligarchy. This is because Todd and Blitzer especially are complete morons who still fantasize about powerful men compromising on the best way to pay for the interstate highway system over scotch in a wood-paneled room.
But nowadays we have a party that doesn't even believe we should have a highway system. I mean, literally. A bumblefuck Utah Senator said highways should be abolished before Civil War 2 starts. I am not a crackpot. Senator Mike Lee is.
And as dirty tricks in Michigan and Wisconsin and literal ballot stealing in North Carolina show, Republicans don't even believe in representative democracy. Republicans cannot be engaged with or brought to the table. They can only be defeated and shamed.
Keep this in mind next year when it's revealed that Russia used the NRA as a filter to make massive donations to the Trump campaign and that's only one of the dirty tricks and 30% of the country tries to talk themselves into why that's a good thing.
