Week 3: Are we better than the Giants?

There was something gnawing on everyone's soul this week. It was a question. Would the Devils suffer the same fate as two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning's team? Or would they right the ship and pick up their first win? Ok, so maybe two questions. It really depends on how your soul chooses to construct sentences.

This is so much more suspenseful when done in semi-chronological order, and this week deserves all the suspense it can get. Neither team had players in the Thursday game, so let's look at a few key Sunday games first.

The keyest of all key games was obviously Bucs at Patriots. Our opponent somehow has Josh Freeman as his starting QB in a 12 team league. God, we better win this week. Anyway, Freeman was solidly Freemanish, putting 236 yards with an INT and no TDs. Only 7 points there. So far so good. Peyton Manning shits 7 points before stretching. On the other side, we played Julian Edelman again. As Brady's only current white receiver he projects to be targeted 83 times a game. Or so we thought. Only 7 catches for 44 yards this week. And only 4 points. Touche, Freeman. Our opponent also had the Patriots kicker. Somehow the Patriots managed to score points against the Bucs, so the kicker, a guy with the extremely white sounding name of Gostkowski, put up 14 points.

For our opponent, the Washington/Detriot game featured two key receivers. Calvin Johnson did what you'd expect, amassing 115 yards and a TD for 17 points. Garcon did what you'd expect also, assuming you expect anything from that dirty Frenchman. He had 73 yards but no TDs for 7 points.

For us, the Packers game was more interesting. We played Jordy Nelson again. Nelson had a nice yardage total (93) but no TDs. Still, 9 points and better than some dirty Frenchman. It appeared our recurring nightmare with the defense was going to recur, as the Packers once again gave up over 30 points. That would have been good for -1 points. But by limiting the Bengals to under 300 yards they earned 2 positive points for a total of 1 positive. Luckily this game was extremely insane, so there was also an INT, 3 fumble recoveries (one for a TD), a block, and 4 sacks. This was good for, respectively, 2, 6 (6), 2, and 4 points. Add it all up and you get 21 for our defense. The moral of the story: giving up points is something no defense should care about.

Let's stick with our team because I like it better. Over in Cleveland there was real excitement. Future hall of famer Somebody Hoyer threw three touchdown passes to Jordan Cameron in addition to 60-plus yards. This gave Cameron 24 points. This means if we win this week we quite possibly owe it to a Brown. It doesn't seem like we can sit Cameron when the Gronk comes back either, but luckily the flex position can hold a tight end. But now on to the really exciting news from this game. Toby Gerhart played! And caught 2! passes! For 14!! yards!!! That equals 1 point. Go Toby.

Rounding out our team on Sunday was Danny Woodhead and Phil Dawson.  Woodhead had a nice day with 5 rushes for 31 yards and 7 receptions for 55 yards. But he also had a fumble which knocked his total points down to 6. Apparently the 49s can't score anymore, so Dawson only managed one extra points for 1 point.

We don't care too much about our opponent, so I'll just sum up. His runningbacks put up 20 points, and with a few other points his total was 77 at the end of Sunday. Ours was only 66. But Monday night would be key. The Broncos were playing the Raiders. We still had Manning and Welker and our opponent had the Broncos defense. Seemed like advantage us.

As usual, I did not see this game, so I can't give you a play-by-play breakdown. Not that it matters since there wasn't much suspense here. Manning had another 3 TDs and 374 yards, good for 24 points. That would have been enough, but Welker had 84 yards and one of those TDs for 14 more. The defense only gave up 21 points, but since points allowed are the last thing a defense should care about, this only netted our opponent 3 fantasy points. So ultimately an easy win for the Devils. All we need is 57 fumble recoveries from our defense and 3 TDs from a Browns player and we're good every week I think.

Lest you claim we only won because we went up against Josh Freeman, it also turns out we had the top score for the week, so we would have beaten anyone. Which you probably could have figured out yourselves based on the meaning of top score. And we didn't even play our highest scoring combo. Drew Brees actually had 31 points and Eric Decker and Brian Hartline had 19 and 11 respectively. That's 24 more points if played perfectly. It just goes to show how deep a white team really is. So the Devils are now on an unstoppable run to the championship. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Week 2: So you're saying there's a chance?

This week will be best served by being reviewed in a mostly chronological order. So that's what will happen.

The first game of the week was the Patriots versus the Jets on Thursday night. As hinted at last week, we picked up Julian Edelman and dropped Riley Cooper. Danny Amendola was hurt this week, so we expected Brady to turn to the next white guy on the team for most of his passes. That would be Edelman. This is pretty much how it went. Edelman caught 13 balls, but only for 78 yards. He was helped by the fact that other receivers on his team were trying to make Tom Brady kill himself. He was hurt by the constant rain and general lack of scoring. So one TD and a total of 7 points for us. No one in this game for our opponent, so early lead for us. Sure to hold up.

I missed all of the Sunday day games, so I'm just going to lump them all together in whatever order I desire. For us the Packer game was important. Aaron Rodgers had quite the day, which was good for us since we played Jordy Nelson this week. Only three catches, but they totaled 66 yards and produced 2 TDs. Good for 18 points. We also have the Packer's defense. They seem to have trouble defending, though. They gave up 20 points, had one interception, and one sack. Apparently this totals out to zero points. We're trending the right way I guess.

For the opponent, the Bears game was crucial. He had Brandon Marshall and the Bear's defense. Marshall had 113 yards and a TD for 17 points. Hah, we win top receiver. Suck it. Unfortunately the defense bested our effort with 2 fumble recoveries and a TD. Even though they gave up 30 points this totaled out to 11 fantasy points.

The Denver game was also important because this week we played Peyton Manning over Drew Brees. It wasn't a 7 TD performance but it was solid. Manning threw for 307 yards and 2 TDs. That was worth 20 points. One of those TDs was to Wes Welker as well. That plus his 39 yards gave him 9 points.  Unfortunately, the Broncos scored many more times than that and our opponent had their kicker. With 2 field goals and 5 extra points the kicker put up 13.

Some other random stuff from the Sunday games: Woodhead had 5 points with mixture of running and pass catching. No points for Gerhart but he did carry the ball once. Jordan Cameron continues to produce with 95 yards this week.

On to the Sunday night game. This was Niners versus Seahawks. The only player in this game for either team was our kicker, Phil Dawson of the SF49s. Dawson was perfect, making the only kick he attempted that night and scoring all 3 of San Francisco's points.

So heading into the Monday night game we were up 71 to 65. We had no more players left, and our opponent had two. Tight end Tyler Eifert for the Bengals and motorcycle rapist Ben Rothlisberger for the Steelers. Keeping them under 6 points would be a tall order. I won't milk the suspense any longer because if you were watching the game you know we were done by half time. Eifert had 6 by himself, and even though Rothlisberger didn't have a great game, he did toss a TD and managed 12 fantasy points.

So another lose for the Devils. We are starting off slow this year, but I'm a really positive fellow, and I can find some silver linings. First, we would have beaten 4 teams and tied another, so the wins are out there. Second, we left essentially no points on the board this week. Decker for Edelman would have given one extra but that's it. That clearly means we have a feel for our team and know what buttons to push now. And finally, sources say Gronk is 50-50 to play next week. Who doesn't love Gronk? Oh, one more. I noticed there's a team called Arabian Bomb Squad in the league. So that's a plus. I even have proof:

Week 1: The First Week

Another year has begun. And it has begun with a win or a lose. You have to finish reading to find out. As a reminder, I basically miss every game due to work. That and the fact that Victor is too lazy makes me the most qualified to do these recaps.

Let's do this one by position. Up first: QB! So exciting. Our team started Drew Brees. Theirs, Aaron Rodgers. Both quarterbacks were competent, throwing multiple TDs and over 300 yards with one interception. Since I didn't watch I can't tell you much more. Brees ended with 20 points and Rodgers had 24. The real story at QB was the guy we didn't play. Yes, that's right. Brand Weeden had an historic week. Wait, no, not Weeden. He sucked. Oh right, Peyton Manning did it. As I mentioned in the draft recap, Manning had 7 TDs and over 400 yards. This translated to 46 fantasy points. Is it possible that a lose of 26 points would hurt us? Let's find out.

The runningback battle featured Danny Woodhead and Toby Gerhart on our side versus Vick Ballard and Bryce Brown for the enemy. His two backs only put up 8 total points giving us a real chance to win the runningback position for maybe the first time ever. Then again, our backs were Danny Woodhead and Toby Gerhart. In what is surely a good sign, neither had any actual rushing attempts. But at least our backup, Brian Leonard, also had no rushes. Woodhead at least had 2 receptions for 16 yards. Final total: us 1 point, them 8.

Wide receiver may pose an interesting (relative to the rest of our team of course) dilemma most weeks. We seems to have five or six good but not super great receivers to pick from each week. It may end up being a real crap shoot. This week we went with Welker, Decker, and Amendola. Decker had a very poor game, but was much better last year. Welker had a good game, netting 16 points. Amendola also had a decent game with 10 points. However, it appears he may be hurt and miss the next game. But on our bench Jordy Nelson had 19 and Brian Hartline had 17. So this week our bench receivers topped our scoring. Riley Cooper was underwhelming. We will likely be picking up Julian Edelman with Amendola going down. Cooper may get the axe. As for our opponent, he had AJ Green, Larry Fitzgerald, and Golden Tate. Green and Fitzgerald crushed us with 48 points between them.

Tight end was actually a positive development. Mike's suggestion of Jordan Cameron did well. 108 yards and TD for 16 points. Our opponent had Jimmy Graham and got 10 points, so we win that position.

No one cares about kickers, but ours won 9 to 7.

Defense. Or the lack of defense. The Packers did not really stop much. By giving up 34 points with no turnovers they managed to remove 4 points from our total. Our desired choice, the Texans, put up 11 points. But looking through the defenses, most give up over 20 points. It seems it's the turnovers and defensive scores that really make the difference. So if the Packers can start getting lucky we should be fine. The Rams defense managed 7 positive points, so we lose there.

So what's the final tally. Our team has had some suspenseful, close weeks in the past. This was not one of them. We lose 109 to 71. It's actually comforting to know that playing Manning would not have been enough for us to win. Manning plus one of our better receivers in place of Decker would have won us the week. We would have actually beaten three teams with our score, though, and our opponent had the second highest total this week. So if Manning can just average six TDs a week we should be fine.

Draft Recap

This turned out to a be a year where Victor and I were together at the end of August. That's pretty much all it takes for the Devils to happen. This time we were in Colorado visiting Mike and Judy. Mike's input ensured the Browns were represented. So on our last day we fired up the ESPN fantasy football lobby and picked a random league with a draft starting in the next five minutes. We opted for auction again. It fits our needs better, allowing us to way overbid on a few key players if needed while picking up players no one will take anyway for one dollar. But this was not your typical auction draft...

Things started off as expected. Adrian Peterson was nominated first and went for $88. Teams have $200 to spend in total, so this seemed a bit high, but I'm sure crazier things have happened. Next up was Matt Forte. Running backs are valued most, so when Forte went for $57 no one was surprised. The third player nominated was also a running back. His name is Marshawn Lynch of the Seattle Seahawks. Obviously not white, so of little interest to us. Yet for som reason none of us could determine, Mr. Lynch went for $105. Yes, more than half of a team's budget spent on one player. At this point we were starting to suspect that people were going a little crazy here in the early rounds. The next seven picks went as follows:

$63 Colin Kaepernick
$42 Cam Newton
$57 Arian Foster
$86 Aaron Rodgers   (Our first white player up for auction)
$65 Julio Jones
$55 Ray Rice
$42 Jimmy Graham

Now I'd label most of these prices as high to ridiculously high. Rodgers was our top choice for QB for three reasons. He's good, Victor is a Green Bay fan, and he's white. But even we couldn't manage to bring ourselves to spend that much on him. Also interesting is the fact that about half the teams were on autodraft. When on autodraft the system will not bid much past the expected value of a player. All of these players were well above their expected values, so it was basically only four or five people bidding like this. In fact, one guy got three of the top ten players chosen. The value of his other 16 players? $18. So we were actually feeling good here. We should have enough of a dollar advantage to get the players we needed to get. I stress needed to get, since there's not exactly a huge selection of white players at certain positions. We were number 10 out of 12 in the nomination order, so Graham was our nomination. The idea for us early on was to nomination non-whites in positions we would need later in order to fill rosters and drain some money. So basically early on we are just biding our time.

Unfortunately, the next team nominated Drew Brees, so a decision had to be made. Our list of four QBs before we started was Rodgers, Brees, Manning, and Brady. We weren't too set on the order, but we wanted to make sure we got at least two of them. With Rodgers gone and some big money already spent we decided to go for Brees. As before, the bidding was crazy and he quickly shot above $50. We debating letting him go, but ultimately got him for $69. We would soon slightly regret this, and in a few days we would greatly regret this.

Prices were still a bit crazy for the next ten or so picks, but then things swung the other way. Without money people had to go low on players. Our next pick up was Peyton Manning for $42. Brady went two picks later to another team for just $35. So we could have had Manning and Brady for just a bit more than the cost of Brees if we had been more patient. But at this point we still had $89 and the players we needed to get were relatively cheap.

After the QBs our focus became wide receivers and tight ends. We wanted Gronkowski even though he was hurt to start the season. We had to get Wes Welker and Danny Amendola. After that we wanted to pick up between two and four other receivers and another tight end. We continued our strategy by nominating players at these positions for others to bid on. Gronkowski was nominated at number 45 and we scooped him up for $15. Welker came in at 49 for $19. Amendola followed ten spots later and went for $16. We picked up two more receivers, Eric Decker for $12 and Jordy Nelson for $10, at 64 and 70 respectively.

Nelson marked the point where we began to nominate the players we wanted. This was because the only way to get a player for $1 is to nominate them and then have no one else bid. So we started nominating our runningbacks next. First was Danny Woodhead. Remarkably we had to go $5 to get him. But he's the only white runningback that is likely to get significant playing time, so we were going as high as necessary. Next was Toby Gerhart. Gerhart is the backup to that first guy chosen, so he's unlikely to do much. That makes him our second best runningback.

After Gerhart was locked up we set our sights on the Texans defense. Our rule for choosing a defense is that the face of the defense must be a prominent white player. We also allow the Patriots defense because they are just a really white organization. The Texans were perfect. Not only do they have two well-known white players in Brian Cushing and J.J. Watt, but they are also actually good. At this point we had $11 dollars to spend with seven slots to fill. This meant our max bid was $4. The Texans got nominated (not by us) and we went all the way up to $4. Unfortunately someone bid $5 and that was that. This was when we really felt the Drew Brees overbid. Our defense ended up being the Packers, represented by Clay Matthews.We rounded out our draft as follows:

121 Phil Dawson, SF K               $2
130 Jordan Cameron, Cle TE      $1
142 Riley Cooper, Phi WR          $1
151 Brandon Weeden, Cle QB    $1
160 Brian Hartline, Mia WR        $1
169 Peyton Hillis, TB RB            $4

Some final notes. We threw Mike a bone with our Weeden pick. He's unlikely to play. He just adds a general whiteness to the squad. Our random selection of second tight end also went to a Cleveland guy. Though this team is about the challenge of fielding an all-white fantasy team and any perceived racism is merely an unfortunate side-effect, we do tend to fill our bench spots with people that personify being super white. Thus, we felt obligated to grab Riley Cooper. After spending our final pick on Peyton Hillis we discovered he is likely the fourth string running back, so we immediately dropped him for a backup runningback, Brian Leonard.

Oh, and that big regret about Drew Brees? Well, since we spent so much on him we decided to start him in Week 1. He hasn't played yet, so he might still be great. But that guy on our bench? The one named Manning? He did alright on Thursday night. Only 450 yards with 7 TDs and no INTs. I've heard that hasn't happened since the 60s. That would be 42 points. Probably would have started him if we had passed on Brees and taken Manning and Brady. OOPS. GO DEVILS!!

And So It Begins...For The Third Time

That's right. We're back with an all new edition of America's favorite team. I'll get into a draft recap and some other stuff over the weekend, but since there's a game tomorrow I thought it was important for everyone to know who to root for. So without further ado, here is the roster for your 2013-2014 White Devils:

Let the celebrating commence.