Week 2/3: Double the Excitement

What we have here is a twofer. This has nothing to do with me being lazy. I just thought about how exciting it would be to wait in suspense for two whole weeks and then receive not one, but two weeks worth of recaps. Then I thought about how much MORE exciting it would be to get two weeks worth of recaps in the same amount of space that one recap usually takes. You're welcome.

Week 2 saw our team significantly improve on our Week 1 scoring total. Whereas we only put up 65 points the first time out, we nearly 150 percented that in Week 2 with 94 points. This was the week of the wide receiver. Julian Edelman managed a solid 80+ yards with a TD for 14 points. But he would be topped by Jordy Nelson. Things looked bleak for the Packers that Sunday afternoon. It seemed they had run into the buzz saw known as Rex. But then the Jets went ahead and acted like the Jets. Nelson would only score one TD, but it would come on an 80 yard play. He would supplement that catch with another 129 yards, giving him 26 fantasy points. 40 from two receivers is usually a good sign.

Peyton and the GOST did their normal thing. Good idea for a Saturday morning kids' show. Peyton had 3 TD passes, but under 300 yards. Good for 21 points. Gosti kicked some balls and scored 14 points. Victor had his doubts about the Gostbuster. WHO'S LAUGHING NOW BUDDY. I mean, if anyone cared enough about this to feel emotions.

Defense, running back, tight end blah blah, 19 points from those. So 94 was good for third highest score that week. Sadly, our dick opponent had the most points with 130. He got a ridiculous 27 from his defense. Probably going to be the highest score for a defense all year. Here's what you need for your defense to score 27 points: 1 TD, 4 INTs, 6 sacks, 1 block, 7 points or less allowed. What, no fumble recoveries or safeties?

So, in the spirit of overreacting to every week in the NFL, week 3 WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT WEEK OF OUR SEASON. Would we lose and end up with the same record as the Jets, Giants, Packers, and Browns??? Or would we win and be on the championship path with the Cowboys at 2-1?

This week ended up being a bit strange in terms of scheduling. All but one player between the two teams played in the early Sunday games. So at around 4:30 pm our situation became extremely clear. Our opponent had 61 points and we only had 52. If the lone remaining player was his, this story would be over. But that's too boring, so let's proceed on the assumption that it's our player. And let's just nickname this player Peyton. It could be Peyton Manning or Peyton Hillis. No one knows.

I happened to be in Boston that weekend. We departed at 4, and, knowing my team's situation, thought it might be nice to listen to the Broncos play the Seahawks on the radio. Also, that would likely be the most interesting game. So my copilot (you know who you are, Jew) began hunting for the game. Yet all the stations offering an NFL game decided we wanted to hear the Dolphins play the Chiefs. So we went with music. But my copilot kept me updated with his intelligent phone. Things were looking grim. At the half Denver had only managed 3 points. This made it unlikely Manning had thrown a touchdown. He also only had about 80 yards. This meant we only had 3 of the necessary 9 points for a tie. In the third quarter Denver would go on to score more no touchdowns, and Manning would only add 50 yards. This put us down 4 with one quarter left. Finally, in the very last quarter, Manning would put one in the endzone. With the yardage it took to get there we had a slim 1 point lead. My research shows that this is the slimmest lead you can have. So if everyone just took a knee would be just fine. But no, Manning had to try to win. And then he throws an interception. Interceptions are -2 points. Luckily he had thrown for 50 more yards before that. This meant our lead was still 1 slim point. Surely now, with only 2:12 remaining, the game would end and we'd be safe. But nooooo, Seattle kicked a field goal and gave Denver the ball with 59 seconds remaining. And what did Peyton do this time? 80 yards, TD, 2 point conversion. So we won sort of comfortably by 11. That's right, we are on a Dallas Cowboys trajectory!!!

Draft/Week One: Aaaaand We're Back

Well hello there. It's another addition of everyone's favorite whatever-this-is. My motivation to write these is already super low. So here we go!!!

We drafted the team two weeks ago. We went with auction again. I don't remember everything that happened, but here are some things I will say happened. The tone of this draft was much different than last year. If you recall, (and I expect you to because I'm sure everyone's been rereading these recaps all summer) last year the draft started off kind of crazy. People were way overbidding early. So our strategy was to nominate players we didn't want to get some money out of the system. Well this draft was the complete opposite. Nearly every player was going for less than their expected draft value. Because we are super good at this, we quickly pivoted into nominating our players early while people were still being conservative.  We got everyone we wanted. I've very excited we were able to grab Stephen Gostkowski as our kicker. HE HAS GHOST IN HIS NAME. GHOSTS ARE WHITE!!! Anyway, the team is over there on the right. Expect Johnny Football to James Cameron hookups all year.

Then the first week happened also. As usual, I watched almost no games. You'd think maybe the other guy who can watch games and write posts would take care of this, but he's actually less motivated than me. Yes, motivation can go below zero Kelvin. That's a chemistry/physics joke for you kids out there. Alright, time to mail in this recap.

Our opponent jumped out to a quick lead because he had some players on Thursday night. Specifically, he had Russel Wilson and Marshawn Lynch. Typing the name Marshawn made me feel weird. Seattle went ahead and stomped Green Bay, no one's favorite team, so those guys had a bunch of points. Like 17 and 24 respectively. We had Jordy Nelson. He did acceptably in terms of yardage with over 80. Everyone should know the scoring system by now, but just this once I'll remind you that 80 yards is worth 8 points. Unfortunately, he had no touchdowns, so that's all we got from him. So a quick 41 to 8 hole for us.

In reviewing the week I've noticed we are heavily invested in New England. Also, I feel like I've written that every year we've done this. Seems right. This year we are riding Julian Edelman, Rob Gronkowksi, and Stephen GOSTkowski. Two kowskis on our team. Good omen probably. These guys all contributed. Edelman compiled 11 points worth of yardage, while Gronk had fewer yards plus a touchdown for 10 points. GOST kicked some stuff and also had 10 points. So with those three guys we almost caught up.

Now to the bad. Rams defense: bad. Give up 34 points to the Vikings. No points for us, though. Jason Witten: bad. He's a Cowboy. Seems like an oversight on our part. 1 point. Danny Woodhead: bad. 11 yards split between receptions and rushes. No points.

Toby Gerhart gets an passing grade. He only managed 5 points, but we grade on a curve when it comes to our white runningbacks. So how was our opponent doing? Luckily also bad. The rest of his team only managed to put together 22 points. So our week one comes down to Johnny Manziel. We thought for sure Hoyer would get benched early in the first quarter. No, wait. We just played Peyton Manning instead. And he's actually good. He scored 22 points, we won 65 to 63, the end.

Week Done: It's Done

Ok, so my plan to write a preview swung in the complete other direction, and I ended up not even recapping last week. I'll blame holiday craziness. Yeah, that's the ticket. Truthfully, I'm just burned out on these. I'm surprised I made it as far as I did. I deserve a round of applause. Thanks.

As for our team, let's see what they deserve. For the championship we were matched up against the best team in the league by record and point total. We were second in both regards, so what a matchup we had here, folks. The sad truth is the injuries to Gronk and Welker kind of caught up with us. Our receivers for the last two weeks were Edelman, Nelson, and Decker. Not bad really, but at tight end we were hurting. We randomly grabbed some Eagles guy, but he didn't do much either week.

So here's how it broke down. Peyton Manning was very good both weeks. In week 16 he went and beat the season TD record with 4 of those and 32 points for us. Two of those were to Decker who also compiled 130 yards and 25 points. No more TDs for us, though. Some yards here and there. Nothing from our second RB. Phil Dawson had 11. Defense sucked. Here, check for yourselves:

 

Our opponent, on the other hand, cheated for 7 TDs from position players and 2 more from Nick Foles. I'm feeling lazy, so here all that is:

 

As you can see, his team is pretty balanced. And his defense doesn't suck. So after Week 16 we were down almost 20. Certainly not impossible to overcome but not where you want to be.

 

Onto Week 17 we go! Luckily Manning had more records to break, so Denver was trying for a while against the Raiders. He had 4 TDs again and also took over the record for most passing yards in a season, but because they were up so much he sat out some in the second half and only ended up with 26 total points. Decker only had one TD this time but almost no yards, while Jordy Nelson had many yards but no TDs. 8 for Decker and 16 for Nelson. Edelman had no TDs but did have a 2 point conversion for 8 points as well. Nothing from tight end again, though. Woodhead kind of vanished these last two weeks as well, but Peyton Hillis managed 5 points. Dawson was good and the Packers defense, yet again, was terrible. In the end we managed the exact same number of points as Week 16:

 

Our opponent was not as good this week, but still had a nice spread of points. Here, look:

In fact, you could argue that we lost this championship because of the disparity in defense. So in the end we should all blame Victor and his stupid Green Bay Packers and their stupid coach who should have gone for two but got bailed out by three 4th down conversions but he's still stupid. But it's important not to feel bitter about this ending. Every year we have advanced farther than the last one. So tune in for the next exciting edition* of White Devils Football! It can only end one way now!! Peace.

* Disclaimer: No one knows when next time will be. This stuff takes years of preparation.

 

Week 15: Playoffs 1.2: Fuck Jamaal Charles

This marked the second week of the first round of the playoffs. To recap, we entered this week with a 122-96 lead.

This week we actually had some important people play on Thursday night. The game featured the Broncos and San Diego, meaning we had Manning, Decker, and Woodhead all in play. Unfortunately none of them had a great game. Manning managed 2 TDs, but was under 300 yards and had an INT as well. He totaled 17 points. Decker only had 42 yards for 4 points, and Woodhead was even worse with 3 points. Not what we were hoping for from those particular players, but with our lead it should be enough.

Unless fuck head Jamaal Charles does something stupid like score 5 TDs and have over 200 yards. Charles had a great week last week when he contributed 27 points. But this week he cheated and scored 51 points. Yes, a two-week total of 78 points from a running back. Totally fair. So that basically wiped out our lead.

Luckily, at the same time Julian Edelman was putting up 19 points with 139 yards and a TD. Brady likes his white guys. Phil Dawson was also doing kicker things a lot. Four field goals and three etra points totaled 17 for us. Jordan Cameron and Peyton Hills, however, did not do much for us. Two points each actually. That's four total.

Luckily our opponent's other players didn't do much either. Cobb was still out and Pryor was still benched, though he did come in for one series and managed an INT for us to give him -1 points. Thanks Terrelle. Denarius Moore had 4 points and LeSean McCoy only had 9. The Patriots defense gave up some late points and contributed 5 points.

Then came the Dallas-Green Bay game. Important for us because we have the GB defense and Jordy Neslon. Important for him because he had the Dallas kicker. Now this promised to be a low-scoring affair since both defenses are quite goo....Oh, 37 to 36 you say? Oh that's right. Both defenses are good....at giving up points. LOL guys, LOL. Well, at least Jordy scored a TD and had 61 yards for 12 points. But Dan Bailey, the aforementioned kicker, had just 5 field goals and 3 extra points for a measly 24 points. That means his kicker outscored any individual on our team this week. That's good, right? Well, we still had the GB defense to save us. And they sort of did even while giving up 36 points. With just minutes left in the game the defense had produced -5 points. But then good old Tony came through with not one but two picks. This gave our defense 4 more points.

So we were left with one game on Monday night. We had no one in this game, but our opponent had Joique Bell. Thankfully, Reggie Bush returned for this game, relegating Bell back to second string. We had a lead of 197 to 188 going into this game. Bell wasn't much of a factor, tallying 20+ yards passing and receiving, giving him 4 for the game.

For those of you that can't add, that means we were victorious and we proceed to the championship round. Like last round, this will be a two week round. We're against the only team to score more points than us, but they don't have our heart. No Thursday games this week, so I'll try to throw up a little preview on Friday. Try not to flip over too man cars in celebration this week.

Week Playoffs: Round 1: Week 1: Which Is Really Week 14

Our playoffs have begun. Four teams made, and there are two rounds consisting of two weeks each. I think that pretty much explains everything. On to the action.

The schedule made this a rather exciting week for us. Our opponent was the Arabian Bomb Squad. Of his nine players, eight were playing in the one o'clock games. On the other hand, we had 6 of our nine in the 4:30 games. Our opponent got some huge games. He had Jamaal Charles and LeSean McCoy. Charles ran for over 150 yards and had 2 TDs while McCoy had over 200 yards and 2 TDs. Together they put up a decent 60 points. He also got some quality points from Joique Bell with 15 and Charles Clay with 21. Luckily the Patriots defense ranks somewhere between poor and poor, so they managed to remove 4 of his points. Also, he got zeros from Randall Cobb (understandable due to his not playing), Terrelle Pryor (understandable due to his coach not wanting him to play), and Demarius Moore (see note about Cobb). With only his kicker left to play, he had 92 points. Here's how his scoreboard looked:

Note: At the time of this publication, his kicker is still playing. For the bad Cowboys.

On our end we had the Green Bay defense, Edelman, and Gronk playing in the early games. Green Bay played with my heart for a while, but managed to hold at 21 points allowed while picking up an INT and a fumble recovery for 7 decent points. The Patriots managed to piss me off until the last second. Somehow they could not score against the Browns. To add injury to worthlessness, Gronk went down with season-ending ACL explosions. He only had 30 yards at the time. Also, since the Patriots couldn't score, Edelman had almost nothing for most of the game. But then God or Jesus or whoever really hates the Browns stepped in. First, Edelman picked up a 2 point conversion, and later he grabbed a TD as the Patriots came back in improbable fashion. Edelman's final tally was 14. This put us down quite a bit, but we still had most of our big guns left.

First up was Peyton "I Love Cold Weather" Manning. Well this time the cold was not an issue for the old man. Manning had nearly 400 yards, no INTs, and 4 TDs. He didn't even fumble. 31 points for him. Then there was Danny "I'm Playing the Giants!!!" Woodhead. He had his usual Woodheadian performance with 42, 52, and 1 TD for 15 points. Alert scouting on our part imformed us that Peyton "I'm on the Giants??" Hillis was going to suit up this week, so even though AP went down and Gerhart got some quality time, Hillis made us not feel too bad about it by scoring a TD and grabbing 7 points. Wes "I'm Running Out of These" Welker managed 60 yards and a TD before being concussed again. He'll probably be out next week, but this week he got us 12 points. Eric "I Score 4 TDs a Week" Decker had 1 TD, but 117 yards for 17 points. And finally, Phil "Dawson" had 4 field goals and blah blah for 15 points. This put our final tally at 122. Here's some evidence:

So we enter the second week in a good place, up roughly 30. We will have to replace Gronk and probably Welker, but we have enough random white receivers I think. That's all for now. On to next week.

Week 13: Playoffs!?

This will be a short one because it's been an oddly busy week. This is in addition to the fact that I'm lazy. Bad combo.

Luckily I can basically just talk about Eric Decker this week. It seemed early in the week we were going to lose the receiver roulette game because we played Jordy Nelson. Green Bay did not do well on Thanksgiving, and Jordy could only muster 14 yards for 1 point. But we also randomly selected Welker and Decker. Welker didn't do much, but that's probably because Decker was busy having the game of his life. He amassed 174 yards and 4! touchdowns. This came out to 41 points. I think this is the highest single game total for us yet by one player (we didn't play Manning for his Week 1 7 TD performance).

As a bonus, all those TDs were thrown by Peyton Manning. He actually had a 5th, but also a couple INTs. Manning tallied 32 points for us. Between him and Decker we had 73. Our opponent only ended up with 82. With our 12 kicker points we didn't need anyone else.

On Tuesday I was perusing the standings to see if we had managed to take over first place yet. The answer is no because the one guy ahead of us won as well. When I checked the schedule to see if we played him again I was in for a shock. Wait, that needs something. Try again. When I checked the schedule to see if we played him again I was in for a shock!! The schedule ended!!! What could it mean?? Playoffs?! That's right, I didn't even realize it, but week 13 was the final regular season week. With our win we maintained 3rd place and are officially in the playoffs.

These playoffs are structured as two rounds each of which is two weeks long. I will attempt to give more frequent updates about our status during this time. We are playing the Arabian Bomb Squad. Only one offensive team may advance! We beat the Arabs in Week 10 in an ugly 63-37 affair. It appears this guy is not actually paying attention. He still has Terrelle Pryor and Randall Cobb starting. That seems good for us. Then again he somehow won his division with Terrelle Pryor and Randall Cobb hurt. Who can figure this crazy, kooky game, am I right???

Week 12: Receiver Roulette

This week was going to be an odd one. The Patriots and Broncos played each other on Sunday night. With our kicker playing Monday we had more than half our players going in the final two games of the week.

As expected we entered Sunday night losing. Our opponent managed to rack up 74 points, mostly on the strength of Eddy Lacy (21), Jason Witten (15), and Sebastian Janikowski??? (15). The last guy is a kicker, and that would be a lot for a kicker.

We had 28 going into the big game, 18 of which was from Danny Woodhead. Thank Jeebus for him. Another 5 from Jordy and 5 from the defense to compliment zero from random running back number 78 and we were at our number.

But with Peyton Manning, Wes Welker, Gronk, Amendola, and Dawson still to play ESPN was projecting us to win. So was I. Unfortunately we ran into two problems.

First, Manning played basically his worst game of the year. If you are a Denver fan I'd be concerned about Manning apparently freezing to death in cold weather. Then again, a Super Bowl in New York in February should be pleasant enough. Manning did squeeze in two TDs, but he only had 150 yards to go with it. Compounding our usual top scorer sucking, his crapitude meant Welker didn't get much action. Then again he sucked enough on his own in this one. Final total: 31 yards, no TDS, 3 points. Still beats Eric Decker's 5 yards and no points I guess.

At least Gronk showed up. He managed 90 yards and TD for 15 points. But Amendola's production is a good example of our other problem. He only had 3 catches for 17 yards. Meanwhile, Julian Edelman had 110 yards and two TDs. Let's see, 1 point versus 23. Hmmm. Basically we have 3 receivers on the bench each week, and any one of them could have a huge game. Ok, maybe not Brian Hartline. But with two receivers on the Patriots and two on the Broncos it's highly unlikely both from the same team will have a big game. So there's only one solution. I'm making Victor choose receivers. If we lose it's his fault.

Anyway, back to the results. After the Sunday games we were down 77 to 59. We just needed 5 or 6 field goals from Phil Dawson. He did not kick that many field goals. After a nice little run a few weeks ago we seem to have fallen into the Jets mode of alternating wins and loses. Yet again no team tied with or ahead of us managed to win this week. We are still one back in the division and third overall. Except now there's about 15 out of 12 teams with the same record as us. Here, look:

 

That's all I got.