BIFL - Week 3 Review

Here's the good news: after over a year of un-, under-, and semi-employment, a forced exile from my beloved Brooklyn, and a stretch of living with my parents at age 30, I am finally back in New York and back at work. Though working for the US Census, taking care of my nephews, and expediting at Danny Lee's restaurant in DC were all fun, teaching obnoxious urban kids is what I'm meant to do and now I'm back at it.
Here's the bad news: you don't really give a shit about any of that; you just want your weekly fantasy game re-capped in a witty, clever, overly verbose fashion. And due to the circumstances listed above in "the good news," my life has been super-crazy lately and I haven't been able to devote any time to Lassard. Well, it's sucked for both of us, but I feel like I'm ready to dive back in. Let's get started:


Alligator Fuckhouse (121) defeats Cholish Chachfaces (47)
Let me start this re-cap by pointing out that as I write this, Souts is right here next to me. As I mentioned above, I'm still kind of transient at the moment, and I've been staying on couches all month. Currently I'm crashing on Steve and Shelly's couch, and they've been wonderful hosts. They've fed me, drinked me, and generally been unfazed to come home each afternoon and find me sloppily napping on their couch. Really appreciated. All that said, it doesn't change the fact that I hate to see Steve have fantasy success, and this week he was nearly the league's high scorer, which just sucks. Not one, not two, but three Fuckhousers (Joe Flacco, Rashard Mendenhall, and Jeremy Maclin) went for 22 points this week, which is more than a single Chachface could manage. In fact, 22 points represents nearly half of the Chachfaces total output in Week 3, which is seriously pathetic. I mean, really Chalski? A starting running back tandem of Correll Buckhalter and Brandon Jackson (7.5 combined)? Before the bye weeks have even begun? And $100 for Jackson? The whole FAAB wad for a guy who has never topped 267 yards or two touchdowns in a season? Did you think that replacing Ryan Grant in the line-up was suddenly going to give Jackson the combined powers of Grant, Samkon Gado, DeShawn Wynn, Ahman Green, and every other Packer running back of the past five years? The sheer number of question marks I've used in the past paragraph has me re-thinking my whole perspective on Chalski, his 'big brother' status amongst our pledge class, his aptitude for presidency of the fraternity, and his competence as a parent. Shiiiiiit. Can I get a time machine to go back to 1999 and point out my young, impressionable self that this guy is maybe kind of a moron?

Cow Fister (133) defeats Pet Monkey (93)
If there's someone I hate to see have fantasy success more than Souts, it's probably Will. Actually, he was playing Billy, who I hate to see do well, too, so this was kind of a lose-lose. Now that I think about it, I kind of hate most of you and want all your teams to suck, so maybe I should just get on with the analysis. Here in the early part of the season, the Cow Fisters appear to be something of a powerhouse, boasting a perfect record and more total points than all but one BIFL franchise. Traditionally, Will has two strong players (his first- and second-round keepers) and nobody else on his team. With Bardey's new keeper rules heightening the impact of later-round draft picks, 2010 would appear to be Shoaf's last, best chance at a title. And somehow, he snaked himself a third solid point-producer in the person of Austin Collie. Collie (31) combined with the afore-mentioned top-round keepers (Peyton Manning and Adrian Peterson) for 95.5 points in Week 3. That alone would have been enough to top the Monkeys, who got strong days out of Aaron Rodgers (24, duh) and Santana Moss (19), but otherwise didn't do much. Rodgers will presumably give Billy a strong performance most weeks, but unless Maurice Jones-Drew (10) and DeAngelo Williams (6) can re-capture their 2008/2009 form, it could be a long season in Hollywood.

Juse and the Argonauts (113) defeat Iron Chef of Pounding Poon (49)
Here we come across two owners who stubbornly cling to certain players: Justin with Darren McFadden, and Dick with Brett Favre (note: it's possible Dick hasn't actually owned Favre since 2006, but this still has the ring of truthiness - also, he doesn't read this blog, so no fear of contradiction). Amazingly, Juse appears to have finally been rewarded for his ridiculous loyalty to Run-DMC, who is inexplicably averaging over 18 ppg this season and chipped in 19 this week. I am totally perplexed by this development, and fear it has something to do with me turning 30 and no longer having any idea what's going on in fantasy football. Further proof of this is Juse's high scorer of the week, Mike Vick (36). You may recall, if you've caught even one second of SportsCenter, PTI, Around the Horn, NFL Live, or Monday Night Countdown this season, that the Eagles started the season with Kevin Kolb as their quarterback. He suffered a concussion during the first half of the first game, and Vick came in to replace him to great effect. Going into Week 2, it wasn't clear whether Kolb would recover in time to play, and either way it appeared that there may be a quarterback controversy in Philadelphia. Savvy Kolb owners were bidding solid percentages of their free agent budgets to pick up Vick as an insurance policy, at the very least. Guess which Kolb owner with two thumbs sat idly by, confident that the man with all of 5 starts to his name would re-claim his spot? This guy. Guess who snatched up Vick FOR FREE after the weekly free agent auction was already over? Justin.
Fuck.

Ass-Ramming HotCocks (119) defeat I'm Fucking In (116)
I should remind myself (and you all), of course, that still there is joy in HotCockville. After all, we are one of only two undefeated teams in the league, and managed to knock off the highest-scoring team in the league in Week 3. I owe that victory to decisions I made several years ago, when I drafted Michael Turner and Chris Johnson late in the draft, and I've been riding their coattails ever since. Early on Sunday, watching Anquan Boldin (my boy! except he's Spence's boy!) go absolutely apeshit (34 pts), I was basically ready to concede victory to the Frogg. But the stellar performances of those reliable backs (46 between Johnson and Turner), combined with solid outings from Malcom Floyd (15) and Jermichael Finley (13) were enough to just eke my past I'm Fucking In. If any of the rando QBs I've been cycling through turns out to be legit, I might just have a shot at seeing Spence again somewhere down the road in the playoffs.

Lower Loudoun Tribe (109) defeats Vatican Dragons (85)
This was a game with some remarkable similarities. Two very good quarterbacks, just below that top tier of Manning-Brees-Rodgers: LLT's Tom Brady (22) and VD's Philip Rivers (28). Two top-10 wide receivers who lived up to their billing in Week 3: LLT's Brandon Marshall (24) and VD's DeSean Jackson (25). Two top-10 wide receivers who failed to live up to their billing: LLT's Andre Johnson (7) and VD's Reggie Wayne (6). Two running backs with question marks who answered those questions with a resounding "NO" in Week 3: LLT's Jonathan Stewart (7) and VD's Matt Forte (3). All in all, a pretty amazingly even match-up, right? So how'd Bardois end up with a 24 point victory, besides the fact that he's the commish and probably manipulated the numbers? One need only look at the tight end position, where Week 1's wonderful Marcedes Lewis has devolved into Week 3 woeful (1 pt), whereas the Tribe's Dustin Keller has risen every week, reaching 21 points - and icing a victory for Doit - here in Week 3.

Kurt Beran (102) defeats Your Stepdad (77)
I kind of enjoy just reading the sentence "Kurt Beran defeats your step-Dad." It makes me laugh. But that's about as entertaining as this match-up got. By all rights, Dekker should probably have taken this one. He's got a quarterback who led the league in passing yards last year (Schaub-9), a running back who exploded onto the scene as a multi-talented threat last season (Rice-9), the two most exciting - and so far, most successful - rookies of 2010 (Best-3, Bryant-5), and a Hall of Fame receiver (Moss-16). But if you were paying attention there, only one of those well-hyped players even reached double figures, whereas Chuck's squad was registering integers in the ones place and the tens place. Tony Romo (21) was the top Phonarch this week, but he was more than ably supported by Frank Gore (16), LaDainian Tomlinson (14), Louis Murphy (13), and Roddy White (12). Their combined efforts were enough to push K-Ber over the century mark, and that was more than enough to top a lame Stepdad performance.

That does it for Week 3. Sorry for the wait in kicking off the blogging season; I hope this was worth it. Hopefully, more regular posts will follow as the season progresses.