Week 8: Gerhart of a Lion

This week shows the importance have having strong managers that put in the time and effort. Well, it will show that after I recap what happened.

Let's start with Thursday night. My meticulous preparation has me occasionally remembering to check if we have anyone playing on Thursdays. That reminds me to check that for tomorrow. Hold on a sec. No, but holy fuck our whole team is on a bye. Uh, we'll deal with that later. So we had no one playing on Thursday, but our opponent did. Some running back from Tampa. 5 points only. No big deal, but we went into Sunday down 5.

So Saturday night I remember that we have two tight ends, and I quickly set up a conference call with Victor. We hash out the relevant options, pouring over statistics and game tape. Wait, I think it's easier if I just post the transcript that I hired some old lady to keep:

 

 

That includes some follow up minutes from Sunday's pregame meeting. So as you can see we went with Jordy and benched Cameron.

So onto the early games we went. I must say, things did not look good. We only had two active players in the early games, Gronk and Dawson. Dawson is our kicker, so you may not know who I was talking about. Gronk was coming off a strong week but was weak this week (#poetry (#soldoutwithhastagusage)). He only managed 27 yards and no TDs. Just 2 points. Meanwhile, benched Cameron had over 80 yards for 8 points. OOPS.

San Fran scored a lot which is normally good for kickers. But, having played Jacksonville, they only managed to score touchdowns. This is less good for kickers. So six successful kicks for 6 points.

Meanwhile, our opponent also benefited slightly from the San Fran game. His QB was Colin Kapapereoransick. He didn't have a great game, but he did managed two rushing TDs to go with one passing. All in all, 27 points. We played Manning again, and he had a late game, but Drew Brees played early and had a monster day with 5 TDs and 33 points. Go bench team! So that made me not happy.

When the late games started we had scraped together 8 points with our opponent having 39. Now we both had a lot of players left, but let's just say it looked possible that the Devil's three game winning streak was at risk.

As you know by now, we are heavily invested in Denver. So when I got a chance to check scores this was the game of most interest. I looked in during the 3rd quarter with Denver losing 21 to 7. Luckily the 7 was from a TD pass to Welker, so we had some points from that. But we needed much more out of Manning and Co. to pull even.

At the same time our opponent was getting contributions up and down his lineup. No one stood out, but he got 10, 12 and 9 from various players in the late games.

So then I check back later in the Denver game. Denver managed to squeak out 38 more points in that time. Hm, that might help. Manning ended up with 4 TDs, but also 3 INTs. This gave him 22 points. Welker had 14 and Decker had 4. So decent in the end, but not great.

We also had Peyton Hillis in a late game. He didn't score this week, but he had over 80 yards and got us 8 points.

Going into the Sunday Night Game (caps required) we were losing 68 to 56. We still had carefully selected Jordy Nelson as well as Packers Defense and Toby Gerhart (more on Gerhart to come). Our opponent had Mason Crosby, kicker, and Jarret Boykin, RB, both for the Packers.

The Packers managed to gain a large lead in this game. This meant Mason Crosby kicked a lot. Five extra points and three field goals actually. This was worth 15 points. Also, his running back managed over 80 yards but did not score. So that was 23 more points from his players. But it also meant Jordy Nelson had 123 yards and 2 TDs for 24 points. BOOM. SUCK IT. Wait, we're still losing. But seriously, good managing us. Well, except for the Drew Brees and Jordan Cameron thing.

Ok, hold on, we still had Packers D and, uh, Toby Gerhart. Well the Packers were playing Minnesota. They aren't so good, so the defense had a good shot here. Unfortunately the Vikings put up a bunch of meaningless late points. The Packers managed some sacks and defensive TD though. The TD was big, giving us 10 points there. BUT WE WERE STILL LOSING BY ONE.

So this left us with dear old Toby. Toby had 3 points going into this game, and never more than 1 a game. This is what ESPN's fantasy news said about him going into this week:

"Adrian Peterson's backup has three carries and nine receptions on the season. Given the Vikings' ongoing issues at quarterback, Gerhart is not even a realistic handcuff play."

He had three TDs in three full years in the league. Could he manage 2 points for us???

Toby Gerhart: 1 rush, 2 recpetions. 13 yards rushing, 15 yards receiving, ONE TOUCHDOWN.
BOOM. WINNING STREAK ALIVE.

And why was Gerhart playing, you ask? You probably didn't ask, but I ask for you. Well let's let our late-night emergency meeting transcript explain:

Yes, because Danny Woodhead was on a bye, and I remembered to check that. Oh, and we actually ended up with the most points again. So now we lead the league in scoring, though we are still two back in our division. But with our managing skillz that won't be the case for long.

And our superior managation (that's managing and imagination) will be needed next week. As noted before, we have a fuckload of people on a bye next week. Here's a list:

Peyton Manning
Wes Welker
Eric Decker
Peyton Hillis
Phil Dawson

What will we do without the top QB in the league? Oh right, play the 2nd best QB in the league. As for the rest? Leave it to the masters.

Week 7: A Devil of a Week

Welcome followers. This is week featured something we haven't seen since week one: a chance to claim a winning record. Would the Devils continue on their march to glory, or do the opposite of whatever a march to glory is?

First some roster notes. The Gronk made his return this week, and we were faced with the choice of benching Cameron, Gronk, or playing both tight ends in place of a receiver. Victor did some scouting, reporting this to me:

I benched jordy
Haden on him and no other wr on pack

Someone is not feeling great about his team. Then again, they haven't lost in weeks, and they were playing Cleveland. At least your team isn't Cleveland. So the answer was play two tight ends. Of course, one of them is on Cleveland. Oh what a tangled web.

Also of note was the triumphant (maybe) return of a former Brown, Peyton Hillis. The biding-their-time 0-6 Giants picked up Hillis this week to replace the running back that gets injured every week. Hillis is an important piece of this puzzle if no other reason than he was basically the inspiration for this team. We were watching a preseason game at Victor's house one year, and Victor was discussing an upcoming draft. Then this random white guy came on the field to run the ball for Denver, and the rest is history. That random white guy? Peyton Hillis. Hillis would go on to sort of star for Cleveland, even making it onto a Madden cover one year. Of course, he was out of the league a couple years after that. And now he's back for the Giants. And us.

Well I have good news to report. This was essential a perfect week for the Devils. Let's get the regulars out of the way first.

Peyton Manning was ok but not great this week. But for us he was fine. Three TDs and a pick. Almost 400 yards. Came out to 25 points. Brandon Weeden, not so good. I think we can put the QB controversy to rest now.

We went with Decker and Welker this week. Welker had over 90 yards, but no TDs, so 9 points. Decker looked to be the weak link but had a late surge during the Broncos' attempted comeback.  He ended with 150 yards and a TD giving him 21 fantasy points.

Our double tight end attack worked out pretty well. Cleveland put up a garbage TD that happened to go to our guy, so Cameron came away with 11. Gronk basically had the exact same day, and he also produced 11 points. Nelson actually did manage to score a TD and had 10 points so we could have slightly improved by swapping out Welker. I guess we'll have to see if we lose by one this week!!!

As mentioned, the Packers played really good defense. This mostly consisted of them getting scheduled to play the Browns. They gave up 13 points, had a few sacks and an INT, and contributed 10 points.

Phil Dawson kicked some stuff. Mostly extra points, but there was a moderately long field goal in there too, so 8 points.

Danny Woodhead seems to have settled into a groove. He's obviously not the primary runner, but he's a pass catching threat. he had his typical week of 20 to 40 yards rushing, 30 to 50 yards receiving, and one TD. 12 points for Danny.

Surprisingly, Mr.Hillis had a nearly identical day. In fact, he had a few more yards to go with his TD, so he actually contributed 13 points. And the Giants won a game. I smell two championships for Hillis this year. Running back is getting a little crazy for the Devils. Earlier in the year we had a record high score by Danny Woodhead, and this week we have our first ever double double-digit scoring by running backs.

So what does it all mean? We simply crushed everyone this week. Forget the guy we played. We beat the second best score by 32. Here, I can prove it:

So now we sit at 4-3. We are in second in our division (two games back). We are currently fourth place overall, so we'd make the playoffs if the season ended now. We have the second most points on the season and are only 4 behind the top guy. I'd say you can book your hotel rooms for the big game.

Week 6: Manning Bowl 2013

This week we were treated to that annual gift: The Manning Bowl! Out team featured older brother Peyton with our opponent trotting out younger, handsomer, more Super Bowl MVPier Eli. The Mannings have met three times in the meaningless regular season, and Peyton has never lost. Would he win again when it matters most? As a master of suspense I will save the QB battle for last.

The Devils are really starting to gel as a team. At least one of our receivers always puts up a big week. This week it was Jordy Nelson's turn. He went for a big 113 yards and a TD for 17 fantasy points. Welker and Decker had decent weeks in terms of yardage, and Welker added a TD so together they also contributed 17 points.

As I've been saying all year, Phil Dawson is the best. This week he had three field goals and three extra points. One field goal was longish so we got 13 points there.

The Packers have ben very solid on defense in terms of points allowed since the bye week. While this is good for them the National Football League, it doesn't matter too much in Our League. They added 5 sacks and a fumble recovery at least which gave us a decent 7 points.

Jordan Cameron was alright. He had 64 yards but no TDs. But that still beats Gronk's DNP.

At running back things were fairly predictable. Victor's pickup, Tommy McBohananburg, still has no carries or receptions for no yards and no TDs. But Danny Woodhead actually plays. Hurray. This week he had his usual mix of rushes and receptions. No TDs though, so 7 fantasy points. Woodhead might be our dark horse this year. We've never had reliable production (as in more than 1 point) from the running back position before.

So on to the Mannings. On paper this was a horrible mismatch. Peyton's 6-0 Broncos were playing the Jaguars. This game was tied for the highest spread in history. Meanwhile Eli's 0-6 Giants were playing the Bears on Thursday night. Thursday night games are typically sloppy affairs. Peyton wins, forgone conclusion, right? LET'S FIND OUT!

Eli managed to win the interception battle. This was a close one. Both players had two INTs for a while, but Eli has always been more clutch in the fourth quarter, so on the Giants' final drive he managed to throw the game clinching pick. Eli up one.

Peyton countered with two fumbles lost to Eli's none. This also makes sense. Peyton is old with a broken neck. His hands probably tremor constantly as he drools and asks who's talking. Peyton ties it up.

Eli managed to go under 60% completion, but Peyton countered with -7 rushing yards to Eli's zero. This was a tight one folks.

But finally Peyton put the game away by throwing two TDs to Eli's one. Final score? Peyton 13 to Eli's 7. So all of Peyton's practice games against Eli the last few years paid off when it mattered most.

Oh, and final score for the week was us 80 opponent 41. Some solid defense this week. The Devils are back to .500 now. Start making the championship banners.

But wait! Does this mean our QB controversy was settled? As you can see, we went with experience over badness and played Manning instead of Weeden. Manning against the Jaguars should have put this to bed. But it turns out the only way we could have scored more points was to play Weeden over Manning. That's right, Weeden had 16 points to Peyton's 13. Weeden accomplished this by strategically not fumbling twice. Otherwise they basically had the same stats. So the drama continues. Let's hope our fans don't cheer if Peyton gets hurt next week.

This week as the obligatory random image I've decided to include position rankings for our team. Enjoy?

 

As expected we have the top two QBs. Also of note: two receivers in the top 10 and a top 5 tight end. Also, a running back in the top 20. Championship banner. You heard it hear first and only.

Week 5: Locker Room Turmoil

I'm going to get through the boring how-did-we-do stuff quickly this week because we have more important things to discuss.

Short answer: Nailed It. My running-the-table prediction seems like a sure thing at this point. Here's quick rundown:

QB - Peyton beats Romo! Peyton beat Romo! 414 passing yards. 5 TDs (one rushing). He did have his first INT of the year (more on this later (also, a lot of paratheses so far)). 36 fantasy points.

RB - Woodhead is actually useful. 71 total yards and a TD. He did have a fumble, but with 10 fantasy points as an encore to his 20 points week last week we can safely say we have never been stronger at runningback. Victor also picked up some guy named Tommy Bohanon. I'll give him credit for finding a really whitely named guy, but I was promised 1 point and he didn't even carry the ball. Stick to scouting Pokémon, Victor.

WR - Welka, Decka, and Nelsona. Good job by these guys. It helps two of them play with Manning. Welker and Decker each had a TD and some yards for 10 and 12 points. For Nelson, no TD but over 80 yards for 8 points. They all bested our bench receivers meaning we achieved maximum scorage this week.

Defense - Well, the Packers didn't give up many points this week. 9 actually. But for some reason I still can't understand, points and yardage are basically meaningless for defenses. So the 9 points was worth only 3 points, and the under 300 yards was worth 2. And the 5 sacks I have not yet mentioned were worth another 5. That's 10. Hm, what other seemingly random numbers can I add to make this more clear?

Kicker - Finally Dawson kicked some G-d (for the Jews) Damned field goals. Two field goals and four XPs means 10 for our kicker.

So our total was 99. Quite respectable. We were the fourth highest score, though the high scores were all clustered near 100. We are clearly the class of the league. Or clustered near the class of the league. Our opponent never really threatened this week. He had Vick who got hurt and only produced 11 points. He played two RBs that didn't play as well as Chris Johnson, so we actually won the RB battle in an alternate world where we had 4 more points from out runningbacks. Blah blah, we won 99 to 69.

Ok, now to more important matters. First, Clay Matthews is hurt. Due to a broken thumb he will likely be out for a month. As the face of our defense this obviously hurts locker room morale. But I think I've seen some other white guy on the Packers do a commercial with him about soup so we're ok.

Also threatening to tear the locker room in twain is a burgeoning quarterback controversy. As mentioned, Payton Manning threw an interception this week. And in one of those quirky twists of fate (actually, I think it's a commandment since it involves the Browns and bad things) Somebody Hoyer was lost for the year. This meant Brandon Weeden made his triumphant return. Advanced statistical analysis shows that while Manning had one interception, Weeden had NONE interceptions. That's right, NONE. Now I was a math major, and what this means is that Manning threw INFINITEY TIMES MORE INTERCEPTIONS. Look, there are some other stats that are still inconclusive, so we're not ready to declare Weeden the starter, but let's just say the defense is grumbling about always have to clean up Feyton Hanning's mistakes. So we will track this development and try not to lose the locker room. Our faithful readers can help us decide who should start next week. I've included relevant season stats below. Goodnight and G-dbless.

Week 4: Woodhead Rising

Let's get right to the most exciting news of the year. Danny Woodhead put up 20 points!exclaim! This is easily the highest amount ever for one of our runningbacks. Woodhead managed 86 yards running and receiving and scored 2 TDs. This bodes well for our future.

In addition, Jordan Cameron continues to contribute every week. This week he put up 15 points with 1 TD and 91 yards. This Somebody Hoyer guy that's throwing to him may be a real keeper. If there was anyone in the league that was good and white that we didn't already have it might be worth trading Gronk. But there is no one else good and white so we'll probably just keep both.

Peyton Manning continues to be a good decision. Another 4 TDs and no INTs to go with 300+ yards. Good for 29 points. Drew Brees was actually slightly better with 4 TDs and over 400 yards, but the point difference was only 3.

Speaking of Manning, people he throws to are doing quite well. Welker had 2 TDs and 76 yards and Eric Decker actually had more yards (91), but no TDs.

Our kicker remains an issue. Even though the 49ers scored 35 points, Dawson only managed 3. This is because he missed a couple field goals. We are looking into a new kicker. I hope we can find a white one.

I can't complain about our defense this week since the Packers were on a bye. Not wanting to complain about another defense, I simply forgot to pick one up. So we went defenseless this week. Looking back, I'm not even sure which defense we could take. There are not many defenses with a white guy as the top dog.

So with all the positives from this week, how did we do? Well, the good news is we outscored 10 of the other 11 teams. The bad news is we played against the other one. This guy had Frank Gore, Dez Bryant, and Tony Gonzalez. They scored 19, 20, and 26 respectively. His QB (Stafford) only put up 15, but his kicker scored 12. He has our desired defense, the Texans, and they scored 11 for him. He didn't even play a second runningback because of a bye week, and he still outscored us 121 to 97.

So the Devils sit at 1-3 for the year so far. Better than the Giants. Not as good as the Browns. The league page says we are in 6th place in our division. I don't trust it. We are actually 5th in points scored. Just like the Giants, I think we are poised to run the table. See you in the playoffs.