In case you’re new to the party, every Tuesday during the NFL season, I like to open the floor in this Fantasy Football Support Group to everyone to talk about their fantasy football losses and failures, because I’m the rare person who likes hearing about your fantasy football teams. Winning or losing poker hands? Go f*ck yourselves. But fantasy football is something I enjoy and because I’m so terribly addicted to it, there’s a chance that we were both screwed over by the same player(s) this week and we can use this forum to mend our broken hearts.
Week 1 of the 2013 NFL season was a strange one, as one of the things that I predicted came true – there are enough good QBs now for everyone to reap the benefits – and one thing that nobody predicted probably left a lot of people scratching their heads. I’m talking, of course, about the crappy running back play on Thursday, Sunday and Monday, and especially all of the morons with their fumbles.
Gather, friends. Let’s see if we can’t make the bad people stop hurting us.
You Probably Kicked Everyone’s Ass If You Had This QB: Peyton Manning
I saw a mildly prominent NFL writer – I’d call him a D-lister if he was a celebrity – bragging on Twitter last Friday that he totally predicted that Peyton would be a monster this season. Wow, what a prediction. I would have never guessed that the guy who was an absolute revelation last season would have also been amazing this season, especially after the Broncos added Wes Welker. You see, folks, this is why I’m not a real sports writer – because I’m too scared to make the bold picks.
Depending on your league’s scoring, you had close to or more than 60 points from Peyton’s ridiculous 7 touchdown game, and that was probably good enough to win your week, so long as your RBs weren’t fumbling all over town. Hell, I have a friend who has Peyton and Demaryius Thomas, so his week was over on Thursday night. But if you do have Peyton, I don’t care about you. This is for the people who played against him. Fortunately, I dodged that bullet in three leagues, but only the people lucky enough to play against whomever has Peyton in Week 9 will be able to sleep at night.
Here’s the problem with that – there are still enough QBs for that person to have a competent backup. This week, there were 22 QBs that would have scored you at least 19 points (depending on your league’s scoring) and that’s fine if you have a team filled with quality guys scoring 10+ points each.
That leaves the letdowns or…
The QBs That Probably Broke Your Hearts This Week: Cam Newton (14 points) and Russell Wilson (16 points)
The thing is that you should have expected that from Newton against Seattle’s defense, but Wilson against the Panthers? That’s a bit more head-scratching. But enough about the QBs, because I don’t think those were your real problems this week.
The RBs That Probably Broke Your Hearts This Week: *takes a deep breath* David Wilson (-3!!!), Stevan Ridley, Isaac Redman, Lamar Miller, Giovani Bernard, Ahmad Bradshaw, CJ Spiller, Maurice Jones-Drew, Marshawn Lynch, DeAngelo Williams, Chris Johnson, Trent Richardson, Arian Foster, Alfred Morris
And I’m stopping there, even though I could probably add Darren Sproles, Doug Martin, Steven Jackson and Ray Rice to the list for their underwhelming efforts, but they were actually in the Top 10 of RB scoring this week. This was just a flat out strange week for RBs, like they were all asleep until right before the game, but I also think that a lot of teams were f*cking around a little and still tweaking their offenses.
Still, that’s no excuse for David Wilson’s two fumbles and Stevan Ridley’s one lost fumble that had him benched for the rest of the game. Wilson is lucky as hell that Tom Coughlin and the Giants don’t have another option, let alone a better one, and Ridley should increase his weekly tithing to 1,000% following Shane Vereen’s wrist injury.
If you’re already in Chicken Little mode after Week 1 – I was admittedly freaking out over Wilson and Ridley, as I have them in separate leagues – take a deep breath and chill, bros. It’s going to be fine, and all of the guys we expected to be huge will bounce right back. Except maybe Chris Johnson. I’m starting to think my gut was wrong on that dude.
The WRs That Probably Broke Your Hearts This Week: Roddy White, Mike Wallace, Kenny Britt, Lance Moore, TY Hilton, Dez Bryant, Greg Jennings, Eric Decker, Calvin Johnson, Dwayne Bowe, Cecil Shorts, Golden Tate, Pierre Garcon, Antonio Brown
All of these guys finished with 7 or fewer points, and I think you can scratch Roddy White from the list because he was injured and probably only in as a distraction, Mike Wallace because he was too busy having hissy fits on the sideline and Cecil Shorts because his QB is still Blaine Gabbert, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but put in Chad Henne already so Justin Blackmon has some value when he returns from suspension!
The big surprises were Calvin and Dez, obviously, as both of them should have been monsters this week, and I think Garcon will be fine moving forward now that RG3 took three quarters to knock the rust off last night. So if you’re scrambling for Leonard Hankerson, Julian Edelman or Jerome Simpson… just chill. Don’t panic.
Let’s Talk About The Sudden Rise Of The Tight End For A Second
First of all, if you’re like me and you started Julius Thomas on Thursday because you have Rob Gronkowski on the bench and just said, “F*ck it, why not?” then this is for you:
Sixteen tight ends scored touchdowns in Week 1 and five of those guys had two. That’s ridiculous! The TE is supposed to be the spot that you only care about if you can grab Jimmy Graham at value in the third round, because you don’t want to be the sucker that takes him in the second. He was outscored by 11 other TEs this week! And it wasn’t even, “Jimmy had a bad week with one point and these other guys scored between 2 and 10 points.” These TEs all looked like monsters, from Jared Cook to Jordan Cameron, and with the exception of Thomas and probably Kellen Winslow, none of these guys should have gone undrafted.
So good luck trying to scoop one up to get in one the crazy, ass-backwards action of valuable TEs and worthless RBs in Week 2. In the meantime, leave your brutal sob stories in the comments and I’m going to get rid of these remaining With Leather t-shirts to the worst of them.
