BaDoBuKiBro - Week 2 Review

"I said that to say this: If you wouldna did what you woulda did, 

we wouldna been where we woulda been to get what we got."

-Michael Johnson to Robert Geathers, Bengals sideline

For anyone watching halftime of the Monday Night Football game last night, these words of wisdom came floating down from heaven during ESPN's cavalcade of clips from mic'd players. Amazed by their sagacity, I rewound three times just to get the transcription exactly right. Like some sort of Zen koan, it may seem like a bunch of nonsense, but deep truth lies within Mr. Johnson's words. Read through this week's recaps, and the meaning should become clear.

Tumblin' Dice (108) over Dobis (P)Pr (74)
Could there be a worse outcome for a Skins fan than this? You have Eli Manning, and are playing against Robert Griffin III. Eli throws three early picks, but recovers in the second half and ends up with a strong fantasy performance (26) that results in a win for the Giants. RGIII has an even better fantasy performance (30), but loses the actual game on a bonehead penalty by Josh Morgan and sees two of our defensive starters go down for the season. Fuck! Not that the four-point differential in the Manning-Griffin battle was decisive; Dobis also saw two of its top options, running back Matt Forte (10) and tight end Aaron Hernandez (0) go down with serious ankle injuries. With no other standouts on my roster this week, an easy victory was served up to the Tumblin' Dice, who saw fine put unspectacular perfomances from Frank Gore (18), AJ Green (15), and Calvin Johnson (13) give them their first victory of the season and, if I'm not mistaken, of Wilson's fantasy career. 30 years old and enjoying the first fantasy success of your life? You'd think that this guy spent his twenties building a career, getting married, and impregnating his wife instead of maintaining a fantasy football blog, losing his job for a year, and briefly moving in with his parents! What a dummy.

Colonel Red Beard (128) over Team Pinhead (119) 
I'll admit it, I totally thought Victor Cruz was going to be a one-year wonder, deriving 2011's success from his role as an unknown quantity working out of the slot in a successful offense. But an off-season in which the Giants unloaded one of their top receiving options (Mario Manningham) and for opponents to game-plan for Cruz? That should have shut him down, right? a 29-point performance in Week 2 proves my fantasy wisdom woefully wrong again. Cruz was joined by Miles Austin (15), and the combo of Philip Rivers (22) to Malcom Floyd (14) in overwhelming Team Pinhead this week. Bost pinned his hopes in the draft on one running back returning miraculously soon from an injury and another who didn't play a snap of pre-season football. Although both were shockingly good in Week 1, 14 from MJD and 10 from Adrian Peterson were far more pedestrian performances. Amazingly, though, Bost got production from the RB position anyway, thanks to Willis McGahee's biggest fantasy performance (25) since he helped me win a BIFL championship back in '07. His unexpected explosion, combined with Drew Brees' 19-point day, kept Team Pinhead's score respectable, even as they fell to 1-1.

Fire Al Groh (117) over Dagobah System Silent Partner (87)
Starting a single quarterback (Jay Cutler) who scores 2 points in a league that allows two QBs and featuring a top receiver (Larry Fitzgerald) who catches one pass for less than a point hardly seems like a recipe for fantasy success. Having a wide receiver (Hakeem Nicks) who has nearly 200 receiving yards a touchdown (good for 31 points) seems much smarter. And yet Bardey, whose team took the former strategy, scored a convincing win over Cody, who took the latter, here in Week 2. Bardey's triumph came largely on the shoulders of previously unproven fantasy talent, specifically Danny Amendola (28), who Skins fans will tell you was seemingly uncovered for most of the day on Sunday, and Trent Richardson (29), who may be the rare modern- era workhouse back to outplay the shortcomings of his terrible offense. The Dagobans might have seen this upset coming, considering their heavy reliance on an under-performing trio of Packers on Thursday night. Aaron Rodgers, Jordy Nelson, and Jermichael Finley combined for a mere 24 points, making it very difficult for a squad reliant on an underwhelming RB combo of Doug Martin (13) and Donald Brown (5) to put up much significant scoring on Sunday.

Quarterback Camp (129) over Big Blue (67) 
With Big Blue's massive 140-point performance last week, I was frankly a little worried that we had started this friendly little local league with a fantasy ringer. An old, bald, fantasy ringer. Fortunately, this week's output showed that that was more a result of old, bald luck than any great fantasy acumen. Peyton Manning (8), DeMarco Murray (10), Andre Johnson (4), and Shonn Greene (2) all came crashing back to fantasy earth this week, leaving Big Blue to follow up a Week 1 scoring juggernaut with the Week 2 low-scoring title. Across the field, Quarterback Camp abandoned their two-QB system to good result, with alternate OP DeSean Jackson (15) out-scoring the benched Matthew Stafford (12). Souts also benefited greatly from the injury last week to Fred Jackson, reaping 31 points from CJ Spiller, whose brilliance did not detract from the Bills' top receiving target, Steve Johnson (13). The X to Johnson's Y, Demaryious Thomas (18), managed the rare feat of vastly out- scoring the quarterback throwing him the ball, but I guess that's what happens when you throw three picks in the first eight minutes of the game. Jamaal Charles (4) was weirdly uninvolved in the Chiefs' offense, but the performance of the afore-mentioned players combined with Cam Newton's day (25) made this an easy win for Soutendijk. 

Pterodactyl Attack (107) over HollyBoneWoodJerMajestyD'Brickashaw (82) 
This result, along with Dekker's Week 1 high- scorer title, goes against everything I believe to be true about the karma of a good fantasy team name as it pertains to fantasy success. While Billy/Matt's team have managed to work both two enduring nicknames and two prefix-laden NFL players' namesinto their squad's moniker, they will head into Week 3 0 -2 thanks to some extent to a terrible performance by their defense (Broncos - 1) and special teams (Dan Bailey - 1). Dekker's Pterodactyl Attack, who merely recycled a previous team name from a now-defunct league, relied on the expected quality of top-ranked RB Arian Foster (24) and TE Jimmy Graham (17). In addition to those two points machines, we can probably expect Pterodactyl wins to be driven by the multiplier combos of Matt Ryan- to-Julio Jones TDs (as they did last week). When they manage wins in weeks like this, where that duo underwhelms (19 from Ryan but only 4 from Julio), we all lose.

Joe's Fightin' Blue Hens (146) over Uncle Jerry's Shower (94)
I have known Jesse for about 13 years now. We were friends in Charlottesville for three years; became closer in the subsequent eight years as we both lived in New York; and have lived together for 17 of the past 24 months. He is a fan of the Boston Red Sox, New York Giants, and Tottenham Hotspurs, teams that have won four championships over that time span. And yet, I have never seen him as excited or ebullient about an athlete as he is about Joe Flacco, who is his team's namesake. And so it is shocking to see that Flacco did not get the start for the Blue Hens this week, and equally shocking that they got the win without him in high-scoring fashion. The decision to bench Crazy Joe (9) proved providential, as he was greatly out-scored by both Jesse's other Flex option, Dwayne Bowe (26), who had a monstrous day, and quarterback counterpart (Tony Romo, 12). Instead, the Hens were paced by the surprising Reggie Bush (33), who has taken a mere six years to capitalize on the promise he showed coming out of USC, now second in the league in fantasy points by a running back (48). Joined in the scoring bonanza by Vernon Davis (22) and Mike Wallace (16), the Blue Hens might have done enough to make Jesse forget about the neck injury suffered by Ahmad Bradshaw (2). Jong's squad had some decent days by Ray Rice (18) and Percy Harvin (18), but nothing in the realm that would threaten the Egg-Layers' dominance. A late scratch by Antonio Gates (0), who was supposedly entering his first healthy season in recent memory, was both damning and frustrating for Uncle Jerry.

So, clearly, if you guys wouldna did what you woulda did in Week 2, we wouldna been where we woulda been to get what we got. I leave you with a few more words of wisdom: