AFFL Week 8 Review

Sigh.


TIMMY DOESN'T HAVE ANY FRIENDS 124.1 - THE DUDE HAS GOT NO MERCY 70.4
The irony of putting up one of the worst scores of the week after spending October railing against my ill fortune is not lost of me. But that's precisely why I was so agitated the last few weeks. I knew that eventually I, like all teams, would put up a C/D score and I needed to have a good enough record to eat the loss.

But since I've lost 3 times when I've scored 100+, I'm now 3-5 instead of 6-2 and next week I have a must-win, season-saving matchup with The Night Boys, and Barkley and Beckham have a bye and Hill might have groin problems.

Scott was giving me some stick about benching Fuller and starting Brees over Rodgers, but really, that just helps prove my point about randomness and luck. Brees and Brown have outscored Rodgers and Fuller on the season. They all had decent matchups. But even if I got this week's lineup right, so what? So I score 86 points and still lose because another opponent posted his best score of the season? What I do carries about half the weight of what an opponent does in a given week.

You know, even with 70 points, I would've beaten Chris this week if we played instead of in Week 4. I would've beaten Scott last week. I would've beaten Bri last week. But I guess I'm just not good at timing my schedule properly, the most important thing a fantasy football GM can do.

So what are we really trying to do here? Are we trying to identify the best team(s)? It seems more like we're trying to find out who can be on the right side of coincidence the most times, and then we give extra emphasis to those coincidences in Weeks 14-16.

Scott has a better record than me, but I'm averaging 10 more points a week. Who has the better team? Barker is TWO games up on me, but I outscore him by 20 a week. Who's better? I have one more win than Chris and 100 more points, but he beat me head-to-head. Who's better?

In the same week that I fell out of the top spot for points for, I gained the top spot in points against. Despite that, I'm still +15 in point differential. The 5-3 Night Boys are -10 in differential.

In my last 4 losses, my opponents have put up 492.2 points. That's 1 point more than Russellmania has scored all season.


THAT KANGAROO STOLE MY BALL 120.6 - FLYNN 78.8
The best name gag Gary has come up, by far, is renaming his Flynn from Heisenberg because his grand plans fell apart and it turns out he's totally inept. Highlight of the season and maybe of the decade for Gary. At least one positive came from a season that is slipping out of his fingers.

Bri has a really good team without question, and when he loses in the playoffs it won't matter one goddamn bit.


THE NIGHT BOYS 111.4 - LITTLE BABY JESUS 73.8
Now this is interesting. The Night Boys went up over 100 points for only the second time this season (2-0 record in such games). Dalton and Boyd combined for 36 points as Boyd continues his breakout season, Cohen had a long TD catch, the Vikes made sure Thielen kept his 100-yard streak alive. All in all, a pretty great week. The last time the Boys put up 100+, they scored 61 the following week, and I really hope that's a trend we see more of next week.

I said last week that Marlon Mack wasn't going to score 30 points in a game for a while and I was right. He merely had 27 this week. Speaking of Mack, I give myself credit for a nice late signing on him last season, but since I traded him away in camp this year when he was hurt, I guess I take the credit away. Semi technically could've won this game if he started Fitz and Marvin Jones and going on a 3-game winning streak after trading your stars away to tank would be hilarious and wild, but I'm guess he's happy to lose and boost up those lottery odds.


WTTK? 91 - RUSSELLMANIA 46.2
Brian had two players going in the London game at 930am and he finished the morning session with a grand total of 1.4 points. So before the majority of games kicked off at 1pm, the score of this game was 1.4 to -7. It only got more ridiculous from there.


ANIMAL HOUSE 93.4 - ASSTANNER 58.9
James Conner is currently outperforming Le'Veon Bell in every running back measurement, advanced or otherwise. I really am not sure what to make of that.

Chris didn't have Zeke this week due to the bye, in case you're wondering why he didn't crack 60 points.


SIGMUND AND THE SEAMONSTER 93.2 - THE WHITECHAPEL RIPPERS 92.3
I have to admit, I wasn't really paying attention to the fantasy scoreboard Sunday night, so I totally overlooked how back and forth this game was between Murray and Allison and Jones and Diggs.

Larry was back and forth on starting Kenyan Drake Thursday night and ended up pulling him and that turned out to be the difference in this one. The Cards finally started using David Johnson semi-properly, but he suffered a concussion and missed enough carries that maybe that cost Larry the game. I mean, you could really look at one thing every player did plus a thing Larry did and blame the loss on that.

Conversely, Tim got every lineup decision correct, which allowed him to withstand -4.5 points from the Ravens defense and squeak out this win.