Week 8 - Halloweek

“We have the team. We possibly have one of the best teams in the NFL, easily.”

- Aaron Lynch, 49ers Linebacker

We’re officially reaching the halfway point in the NFL season and we just passed the halfway point of our fantasy season. Congrats guys, you made it (halfway). Aaron Lynch is a reminder to all of us to always carry a positive mindset. So what, you’re last place in the division… You’re the best in the league if you believe it!

Let’s check in on the NFC West, which gave us perhaps the worst football game in the history of time:

Just kidding this was actually the worst football game in the history of time:

Eerily similar amirite?

If any of you weren’t lucky enough to stay up and watch all 5Q of action, here’s all the stuff that mattered. After an ugly 3-3 game went to OT, we witnessed the ultra rare event of both teams hitting the bare minimum field goals to push the game into actual sudden death territory. It stayed there until the 3:26 mark, when Chandler Catanzaro lined up for a 24 YARD game winner:

Hit the upright with ultimate precision. Fast forward another 3 minutes and Seattle lines up for their chance to steal the game. Hauschka sets up for the 28 YARD game winning field goal:

Pete Carroll’s reaction is the highlight of the game. If those faces weren’t enough, here’s all time legend and almost GOAT Randy Moss showing how easy it is to kick a 24-yard field goal IN MOTHAFUGGIN DRESS SHOES!!

Believe it or not, none of those take the cake for the most hilarious kicking incident of the weekend, though. That honor goes to N.C. State

The reaction Pharoah McKeever (#88 the TE) is my favorite part of this gif. Gotta love the balls of the placeholder to put that god awful hold down and then freeze like it's perfect. Let’s move on from all that bad, though. I know what everyone needs to wash that bad football taste out…. ANOTHER BIG MAN TOUCHDOWN!!!

Former Michigan Man Taylor Lewan with a nice little TD reception there. Deceptive speed to break away into the end zone. All these Big Man TDs must be that late October magic. It’s a truly wonderful time, for about one week of the year we get World Series Baseball, regular season professional and college football and the return of NHL and NBA action… What a time to be alive.

Cubs make the World Series and we got to see what Charlie would be like as a 90-year-old woman

WGN anchor takes shots with 90-year-old Cubs fan seen in post-NLCS interview

And as you all know, it's Halloween week

So I’ll try to keep the theming appropriate. If you still need a costume here is a great option:

It’s so realistic

As is tradition, this Thursday, we’ve got another unbearably bad matchup for you to watch and once again it is in FULL FUCKING COLOR BABY!!!! TITANS JAGS GET AMPED!!!

Let's just talk about these hideous awful jerseys real quick (I seem to write this a lot). We did this exact same matchup last year for one of the 4 color rush games and used the exact same jerseys (“new and fun”). We saw this exact same look a year ago and it was terrible, so the NFL set it up again and decided not to change a thing. Still gonna make Billions this year.

That Jaguars uniform, just awful. Put some goddamn respeck in my hometown team, please. So bad that Bortles complained about them in his weekly conference call.

Blake Bortles calls the Jaguars' color rush uniforms "ugly as hell"

Those Titans uniforms aren’t bad but they are literally no different from the jerseys they already wear so what’s the point? As always, plenty of talent to go to waste on another short week of rest and preparation.

Without further ado.

Week 7 Review

Winterfell Wolves 150.2 @ All White Everything 108.5

Brian followed up his big 3 for 30 performance in week 6 with 5 players going off for 20+ in week 7. QB and RB continue to be major contributors while each week the roster finds a new way to supply the rest of those over-the-top points. This week the Eagles D/ST (can’t be mad at that one) came through and led the team with 25 points. Though I managed to put up a decent 100+ point performance, consistency continues to be the biggest factor keeping this team out of the top tier of competition. Once again, although some of the roster showed up big time, not enough points were supplied by the QB or RB position to keep up with Brian massive game.

The Wolves has evolved into a point producing terror:

Genderfluid Nonbinary 144.2 @ Dick Out For Harambe 95.4

Drew Brees continues to be the star of Joe’s team, another big near 30 point day paired without Jeremy Hill’s big afternoon set Joe up nicely for a big win. T.Y. stepped it up with AB, as usual, to help round out a solid core performance. 24 points from D/ST and K helped push Joe into the upper echelon of scoring for the week. After seemingly having righted the ship for two weeks, Pat found himself back in sub 100 territory despite having almost 50 combined points from Tom Brady and Jay Ajayi. WR struggled mightily to provide any help in matching Joe’s pace.

The genderless finally showed some life:

Kings of Leon 106.4 @ THE BONE ZONE 91

Nick finally broke the curse and put together back-to-back wins for the first time this season. 21 points from Julio Jones and a very nice 20 points from the Giants D/ST fresh off the waivers highlighted a decent scoring day. Mid-week pickup Jizz Rodgers contributed to a total 39.3 points off the waivers for Nick. Charlie saw Aaron Rodgers fill in nicely for the injured Big Ben, but the rest of the lineup just couldn’t generate much more than a handful of double-digit scores. A pretty muted game saw Nick just able to find more points than Charlie.

Nick finally broke the curse:

Harrisonburg 21-16 76.6 @ Can I Play Baseball Now? 118

A very rough week for Jacob, as 5 player son his roster failed to reach 10 points (with 3 of those players getting <3 points (see it makes a heart, don’t be so sad). The RBs kinda sorta showed up, but too many byes and not enough backup production have Jacob on a 2 game losing skid. Sam’s squad took advantage of a second consecutive down week for Jacob with big performances form several different position types. QB, RB, WR and D/ST all provided major contributions to a very solid 118-point week for Sam.

For Jacob, things started poorly and then got worse:

Skittle Monster 126.1 @ Mister Meeseeks 101.5

Pat’s team continues to churn out the points. Melvin Gordon and LeGarrette Blount were featured as this weeks 20+ point RBs, while AJ Green continued his impressive season by once again catching literally everything thrown his way. Pat got -5 points form his Bills Defense (lol Rob Ryan) and it still didn’t matter. Phil’s team appears to be leveling back out at the 100 points mark, but he continues to run into strong opposing performances.

A rough year for Phil continues:

Power Rankings

*as of 10/27 7:30PM

Pat stays in the number 1 spot this week and will probably stay there until he loses a game or two. He’s been having a much better time in this poll than literally every other poll (unless you ask Newt Gingrich).

Brian has joined Pat at the top, separating himself from the filth and slime of the rest of us, though his record still just like ours… Joe makes the biggest rise this week, as his team decided to be whatever gender makes it/him/she play well. Maybe it’ll last, maybe tomorrow it’ll change, maybe in two weeks it’ll change who really knows.

As a result of 2 bad weeks, Jacob has fallen 2 spots because math is easy like that.

He still stands a solid shot a making a high wild card slot. In honor of the monster of a tie we got in Arizona, the Power Rankings churned out a nice big 3-way tie at 5th place this week.

Honestly, this stuff makes the playoff race all fun so I’m gonna say this tie is more ok than the previous one for first place. I suffered a bit of a set back last week but I’m gonna be honest after Saturday night I really didn’t care anymore

and Sunday around 3 or 4 I reeaaaaaaaallllyyy didn’t care.

Charlie stayed in placed this week, just kinda meditating about Steelers and maybe some jaeger or something.

Nick gains a spot for breaking his curse and maintains his pace with the rest of a loaded division. Sam finds himself in a tier of his own after nick’s jump. I’m sure he’ll find the inspiration necessary to keep believing and pushing for a playoff spot.

Tim Tebow answered Stephen A. Smith's dumb question with a riveting inspirational speech

Following a tough loss, Pat stays in 9th place but I think we need to give him some serious credit for getting his real life roster players to wear his fantasy team uniform, that’s some serious dedication.

Phil plays the role of caboose again, but the best part of being last is that there’s nowhere to go but up.

Game of the Week

Skittle Monster (6-1)

Genderfluid Nonbinary (4-3)

Line: Skittle Monster -7.8

I know what you’re thinking, this was just the game of the week 2 weeks ago, and you’re right, congrats, give yourself a big fucking high five.

Honestly, though how could the game of the week on Halloween week not feature a matchup between two terribly grotesque and mutilated monsters.

Cue the Music

JK music isn’t actually in the budget.

Pat enters this week 6 rematch riding a 5 game winning streak on the backs of three-headed monster Andrew Luck, Zeke Elliot and AJ Green.

All three have donated over 100 points to Pat’s fantasy gofundme and the result has been a first place standing at the halfway pole.

The real strength of the roster, however, has been in the big time support that has come via a rotating bench of RBs and WRs and Matt Ryan that have consistently provided big points in backing roles.

Joe returned to early season form last week putting out his single best performance of the season so far. He now looks to avenge the 32-point loss he suffered to Pat waaaayyy back in the middle of October.

Brees, Hilton, and Brown have been just as impressive as PLo’s big three, but haven’t been able to find the same level of consistent, week-to-week backing.

Hill is starting to show promise as a serviceable RB1 but there are still plenty of questions to be answered outside of the big point scorers on the team.

As part of out JPFL Global program, this game is being played in Taiwan at 9:30AM ET which means if you’re a fan on the west coast guess what…. Fuck you

Hunger Foul

Mister Meeseeks : 74.3 Points

Poor Phil, As if being in last isn’t enough, the hunger foul is just like a little scratch of an insult to the season of an injury that is a double patellar tendon tear. This hunger foul is really just a byproduct of Phil being deeper than average at RB. Sure, Murray’s 19.3 would’ve been more fun to have than Terrance West’s 1 single point. But most of the points Phil left on his bench were there because there just wasn’t a starting roster spot for them to plug into.

Waiver Move of the Week

Can I Play Baseball Now?

Drop Titans D/ST, Add Ravens D/ST

SCALE 1 to 10:

Not many waiver moves ended up making as big a swing as this. The Titans D, though playing well overall on the year, stumbled last week, giving up 422 yards and 34 points to the Colts, tallying a score of -2 for the week. Meanwhile, the Ravens stout defense amassed 5 sacks, 2 turnovers, a block and a touchdown en route to a very nice 17-point day, despite losing. Sam’s Sunday morning decision netted him 19 points, solidifying a rout of Jacob. Serious bullet dodging skills.

Bad Luck of the Week

Harrisonburg 21-16

Brian Hoyer’s Broken Arm

SCALE 1 to 10:

A truly somber reminder of what the Thursday slot can do to a team. Unintentionally leaving him in, expecting to have 3 days to make a QB decision, Jacob was stuck with Brian Hoyer for week 7. Initially, This didn’t seem like too big of an issue; Hoyer has multiple 20 points games on the season and GBs defense isn’t anything too ferocious. That all changed when Hoyer attempted his 11th pass of the night and ended the play with a broken left arm. He left the game having scored only 2.5 points, dooming Jacob’s team to a slow and agonizing defeat for the week before Thursday was even over.

Week 8 At A Glance

Skittle Monster (6-1) @ Genderfluid Nonbinary (4-3)

Joe gets hit a shot at revenge.

Harrisonburg 21-16 (4-3) @ Winterfell Wolves (4-3)

Another big matchup in the Wubbalubbadubdub division that I accidentally scheduled two weeks apart from its prequel; Jacob’s team has struggled (mostly due to crap luck) in the past two games.

The return of SuperCam, Olsen and Stewart could be the shot of life the roster needs to get going.

Allen Robinson has struggled with Blake Bortles forgetting how to football,

but Cole Beasley will likely get his usually 10 yards per catch against Philly like he has for the past 4 years.

Meanwhile, Brian can almost pencil in 80-90 points from 3-4 of his players,

maybe this week it’s Eifert or Dez’s turn, I dunno. Andy Dalton owns the 1:00PM time slot, but it’s 1:00PM London time and scientists haven’t yet been able to prognosticate what type of effect that could have.

I Haven’t even mentioned the best player on Brian’s team yet: the Eagles D/ST (told you PBut)

Dave Fipp is still a god and Jim Schwartz is a lifetime DC who inherited a loaded DL. This game could go a long way in determining who get the auto playoff spot with the division 2-spot and who has to vie for the wildcard.

Can I Play Baseball Now? (3-4) @ THE BONE ZONE (4-3)

Sam looks to get back to .500 on the season this week and complete a nice two on two off pattern for the season. He faces some minor obstacles this week as Odell Beckham goes on bye

and it remains to be seen if Jamal Charles will actually do something. DeMarco Murray might have to keep the Tebow train moving.

Chuck is searching for answers after two straight < 100-point losses. Injuries have finally started to have an effect on the team’s output. Aaron Rodgers provides a hell of a backup plan, though,

and there’s plenty of breakout potential lingering on the roster. Big Schwifty division implication in this game as the winner could claim first place.

Kings of Leon (4-3) @ Dicks Out For Harambe (2-5)

Nick finally strung together consecutive wins and now he’s getting greedy thinkin about 3 in a row.

Jizz Rodgers provides a nice short-term answer at running back, but the return of Forte to fantasy beast mode would help the lineup even more. This week he faces the man the brought him into the league (which makes it funnier if he wins).

The most telling stat of Pat’s team this year is that his top two scorers so far have been Tom Brady and Christine Michael. Pat looks to have a player cross the “100 points scored for” threshold for the first time this season,

but will have to wait a week to give Special Weapon J another test run.

Mister Meeseeks (1-6) @ All White Everything (3-4)

Things may not have been smooth for Phil this year,

but he can rest easy knowing that he gets to play the one team he can beat this year. Things could be very tough the second time around, though, as all three of Phil’s starting RBs will likely be out this week (2 on bye and 1 to injury).

Phil, however, is one of the few teams deep enough at RB to handle a situation like this. I’m just gonna aim for my average of “barely over 100” this week. Lamar Miller and Todd Gurley are ruined by astoundingly inept play at QB.