The NFL is back, baby. Starting off with two gangbuster matchups that may preview the AFC/NFC Championships, Week 1 was a sloppy, slippy, Brazilian, reptilian, insane, and anything but mundane slate of football to yank us back to our comfort-red-zone. Let’s get started with the weekly recap.
Highest Scorer: Scrantonicity 6 (146.96)
It’s not frequent that us lowly Commissioners actually get to traipse around the league as the top dog. Still, Matthew found early success with his squad against newcomer and divisional rival ‘SemperSometimes’. However, Matthew’s near-150 point total was not found at a K-Mart or Dollar Store; no, this roster was made with sticker prices. Stroud, Kamara, Conner, and Njoku were all top 10 at their positions this week. This is frustrating for SemperSometimes, who is joining this league format for the first time. Their roster was also highly priced, using studs like Amon-Ra, Ja’Marr, Olave, and Kamara too. But Maria simply could not have prepared for the battering Ram of Cooper Kupp’s staggering 21(!) targets. That’s a 40% target share on Stafford’s 49 attempts. Matthew has done better than he’s done poorly in Big League, so keep an eye on this Week 1 victory for things to come.
Biggest Blowout: SaquON & On & On & On vs. Gamecocks (64 point difference)
The School-Spirited Gamecocks were one of the few teams forced to submit an all-afternoon lineup after snoozing through the first medley of football games, but this did not prevent them from walloping on the curiously named SaquON & On & On & On. While both teams neutralized the savvy play of Baker Mayfield against a sputtering Washington D, Gamecocks doubled down on the only Brownʻs players worth a lick. The bargain bin hunting didnʻt stop there though, Jakobi Meyers and the Bucs kicker rallied for 24.4 points too! 139.06 points wouldʻve beaten all teams but two this week, but this effort was made easy when Joe & the ʻOnsʻ laid out the red carpet. Only three players from this losing team scored double-digit points, and two scored zero. This league is certainly a marathon, not a sprint. But still, you donʻt plan on fumbling the opening stretch this bad, right? Right?!
Closest Matchup: Bad at This vs. Puck the Fackers (0.66 point margin)
When Matloff submitted his team name as ‘Bad at This‘, I chuckled at this nod to his overall performance in Big League history. But surely, this couldn’t be an omen of a season to come. Alas, Flom only barely scraped by to secure a Week One Dub. It’s always worthwhile to perform the autopsy on a matchup and see where it all went wrong. For this one, the afternoon games performed some heavy lifting, hoisting Bad at This to a respectable point tally with swashbuckling Baker, Godwin, and White. Godwin would neutralize for both teams, while DK Metcalf radically underperformed for Puck. The Flom-Favorite Vikings showed up in a big way to seat Puck in a roughly 9-point lead. Matloff meanwhile had a thread of hope personified by Demarcus Robinson. Here’s where it gets heartbreaking. I’d never count on 29-year-old Robinson to nab me 9 points. But then Puka goes down, and D-Rob starts nabbing balls. But it’s not enough — JUST WAIT. We’re going to overtime! But we know the ending to this story. The Lions won the coin toss and won the game. Demarcus Robinson was 6 yards or just one catch away from turning a loss into a win.
Best Find: Jake Moody (26 points)
Four teams played the 49-er to the tune of 26 points on SIX field goals, and two extra points. Going 8-8 on kicks is an astonishing feat for the 3rd round draft pick last year. However, Chris Boswell also scored 26 points, and two other kickers actually went 20+ too. In fact, there has been a quiet kicking revolution in the past few years that you can probably pinpoint to Justin Tuckerʻs record 66-yard field goal against the Lions in 2021. (Fun article to check out by the way: https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/38689386/ravens-lions-revisit-justin-tucker-longest-record-field-goal). In any case, since then kickers like Brandon Aubrey, the Carlson brothers, and now Moody have taken the league by storm, recontextualizing how teams accumulate points! I heard this thought recently that if a team can get two first downs off of a long punt, they are guaranteed to score a field goal at minimum. These are free points! In fantasy land, this means that even normal scoring formats are rewarding kickers and launching their value even higher. In our league, Moodyʻs NFC Special Team Player of the Week performance helped rocket Cooper DeJean is not my lover to a rock-solid first place in the Boston Cream division, definitively handed Drew Crew & Who’s Nailin’ Jalen a win, and made for a high-priced neutralization in bastards vs. Street Smarts. In fact, Moody only didn’t win in the case of Pay Day Gray, where the 26 points saved the team from total ignominy.
Biggest Bust: The Tight End Position (no one cracked 10 points)
This will be brief. Five Tight Ends scored 10 points or more. Their names: Isaiah Likely, Foster Moreau, Brock Bowers, Kyle Pitts, and Juwan Johnson. However, no one rostered these specks of gold in the coal mine. Instead, we all decided to play people like Evan Engram (1.5 points), Mark Andrews (3.4), Ferguson (4.5), or Conklin (1.6). I think we all recognize the creeping decline of the mega Tight End tier of Kelce, Kittle, and Andrews; and we heralded a new phase where Tight End point differences will be more equitable. But, no. Tight End is broken and always will be.
That’s all for the write-up! I hope you enjoyed it and have a great week!
