Week 3, or a middling week after two big ones

Hardcore Sacks 2.0 (148, 3-0) vs. Scrote Squad (103.5, 0-3)

The week Scrote Squad attempts to make your Commish look silly after calling his team not good, he breaks 100 for the first time and would have beaten more than half of the league’s teams. Unfortunately, he went up against the week’s highest scorer in Hardcore. Scrote stacked Deshaun Watson and Will Fuller to the tune of 41.5 combined points, and Run CMC scored another 21 points this week, but it just wasn’t enough to compete with the highest score in the league so far. I mean, how do you compete with a Drew Brees who has both 1) an extra quarter to rack up stats and 2) gets two rushing TDs (including the game winner)? The answer: you probably can’t.

Death Valley Driver (117.5, 2-1) vs. Iron Ryan (85.5, 0-3)

Iron Ryan, man….he’s gotta change his name to Brittle Ryan. His guys just can’t seem to stay healthy. Two injured guys on his bench (Baldwin, Fournette), one “injured” guy on his bench (Josh Gordon), and then an injury in the first quarter to Evan Engram and….damn. Also doesn’t help that Tom Brady has looked damn near mortal this year. (See the “Somewhat Random Thought” below.) Driver, meanwhile, has very few injuries, and a bench stacked with talent: literally every guy on his bench scored double digit points this week. Ryan Fitzmagic tried like hell to become Fitztragic Monday night, but dug himself out of that hole. But it didn’t matter against the Not-Goodness (and bad luck) of Brittle Ryan.

Panic Time Squad (111, 2-1) vs. Released Dix On Boobies (68, 1-2)

Tale of Two Teams: Panic Time thought his season was over when his team underperformed in Week 1. Boobies (heh) thought they were sitting pretty after dropping 143.5 points in Week 1. Now the situation has reversed. For Boobies (heh), it starts with the Brady/Gronk Connection that hasn’t been there for the last two weeks, and an injury to Jay Ajayi. Plus, he’s still got DJ Chark on his bench and his -0.5 fantasy points on the season. For PTSD, the injury to Devonta Freeman seems to not have mattered, and neither has the basic ineffectiveness of Kenyan Drake. He had a solid day all around.

Pedro Pickles (95.5, 1-2) vs. Team Provost (93.5, 1-2)

Now we get to the games that were most directly affected by the Monday Night Shootout. Pickles trailed going into the matchup, but then Fitzmagic pulled out his magic wand, and expelliarmus-ed the Steelers awful secondary, Mike Evans had a big night, and gave Pickles the two-point victory. Provost got a total of 11 points from his WR slots, which certainly didn’t help. And speaking of guys on one’s bench that should have been dropped long ago: Cordarrelle Patterson and his 5.5 fantasy points.

Dancin’ Dennis Nedry (99.5, 3-0) vs. The Jeff Fisher Effect (98.5, 2-1)

Talk about a way to ruin your night: wake up with your 1-month old son, check your fantasy score to learn you’ve lost by 1 point because of bad JuJu. Or good JuJu from the point of view of Dancin’ Dennis. Each team had a reasonably solid day, and could have made a change or two to boost their score but…. Sometimes it just works out this way. DDN is sitting pretty at 3-0 with good starters, a decent bench and squeezed out a win with a bad day from his wideouts. JFE is 2-1, and starting to hit the panic button a little bit with Joe Mixon out.

Show Him The Money!

Hardcore Sacks 2.0 is this week’s Tidwell Award winner. It’s Tim’s second ever Tidwell Award.

Shoulda Started That Guy

Death Valley Driver’s BENCH scored 102.5 points this week. That would have beaten 6 teams this week. Maybe he shouldn’t have started those guys (I mean, he won anyway), but his team be deep, yo. (I know I have the ability to remove that ridiculous sentence, but I’m gonna leave it in.)

Somewhat random thought

You guys remember years ago (not sure you’re all Red Sox fans?) when the world was convinced that David Ortiz was washed up when he started slow for the first couple months, and then he became David Ortiz again? I’m wondering if that’s happening to Tom Brady. Boston Media thinking the guy is done, and then toward the end of the season, he’s the guy we’ve always known. Or maybe, Alex Guerrero is full of shit and the TB12 Method is a total crock.

Week 2, or The One That Should Have Been Week 1

Ahh, Week 1. The start of the fifth season of Smarter Than Phil Simms. The one week when everyone thinks they have a chance (even though everyone else knows Crobi doesn't).

Wait a minute… this is Week 2? Right. Sleep deprivation kicking in. I guess since it's Week 2 (heading into Week 3), now even Crobi knows he doesn't have a chance.

Actually, it's Cusick who doesn't have a chance.

Let's do some long awaited recaps, shall we? We shall!

Panic Time Squad (129, 1-1) vs. Pedro Pickles (121, 0-2)

Well, perhaps Panic Time Squad (PTS) changed his name too early, because this week offered very little reason to panic. It's a major tough break for Pedro, who sat there as Patrick Mahomes was throwing 6 TDs, "No way my QB gets outscored!" and then his QB was outscored. By the other QB in the same game (Ben Roethlisberger). Interesting tidbit: both of their defenses lost points this week. Pickles is the most consistent team in the league, scoring 122 and 121 points, but he’s been a hard luck loser twice. His team is much better than his 0-2 record.

The Jeff Fisher Effect (118.5, 2-0) vs. Scrote Squad (90, 0-2)

This one came down to the lack of strength at wide receiver for Scrote. It's going to be hard to compete with teams trotting out Robert Woods and Marvin Jones. It's also a stroke of bad luck when your kicker goes down in pre-game warm-ups (Greg Zeuerlin). JFE caught a break with Melvin Gordon who had about 50 total yards in the game, but scored three touchdowns. JFE might be in trouble with the injury to Joe Mixon.

Hardcore Sacks 2.0 (83.5, 2-0) vs. Released Dix On Boobies (65.5, 1-1)

This game looked a lot like the Sunday Night Giants-Cowboys game: shitty. Not ONE of the starters in this matchup reached 100 scrimmage yards (QBs not included), which explains the insanely low scores. Hardcore had a big week last week, but this week beat the only team he could have. David Johnson could be lost in that putrid Cardinals offense, but if he and Antonio Brown have days, look out. Boobies (heh) got some TDs from his RBs, but Gronk was virtually shut out by the Jags defense. I’m not sure what he’s going to do when (if?) Lev Bell comes back and James Conner becomes superfluous.

Dancin' Dennis Nedry (147, 2-0) vs. Death Valley Driver (126, 1-1)

It's funny what happens when you have the same team as the previous year's champion: you win. Tyreek Hill, Stefon Diggs and Todd Gurley carried DDN for the second straight week. Now, this is not disparaging to DDN; you draft good players, you win games, and score lots of points. Death Valley is just a hard luck loser this week, since they would have beaten almost any other team this week. Make no mistake, if you're looking for the top teams to this point, I'd be looking at this matchup.

Team Provost (118.5, 1-1) vs. Iron Ryan (85, 0-2)

It’s a different year, but once again, Iron Ryan is more like Brittle Ryan. His team just can’t seem to stay healthy. With no Doug Baldwin or Leonard Fournette, his team is not very deep. Plus he’s got that Irish Dancer Alex Collins, who’s just...well….not good. Provost will be able to go as far as Saquon and Zeke will carry him. This week felt like the ceiling for his guys, with all his skill position guys achieving double digits. It’s a nice ceiling and will get him a lot of wins, but may not carry him far into the playoffs.

Rod Tidwell Award

Dancin’ Dennis Nedry is the Tidwell Award winner for the second straight week. In Week 1, he won the prize by half a point.

Housekeeping and Hodge Podge

Matt Breida (DDN) was the Benchie Award winner this week. He had the most points, non-QB division on the bench. Kirk Cousins had 33 points on the bench as the highest scoring QB on the bench. Shockingly, he WASN'T the better play for his owner (Pickles had Mahomes and his 37).

Death Valley Driver had the highest scoring total bench of the week.

Just a reminder of our new IR roster spot. Only players with the little red "IR" next to their name are eligible to be used in that spot. Technically, ESPN allows other players to be used in that spot, but we established the spot only for IR'ed players (see: Dancin' Dennis Nedry and Panic Time Squad for proper use).

I WILL be putting together a spreadsheet like last year with week-by-week totals, positional points and all that. I'm still working on building it, so stay tuned for that. You know, in my copious amounts of free time.

Until next week, League mates!

SURPRISE!! The BIG reveal!

So I'm sure you've all been waiting like this for the big surprise...

I've thought for a while it would be awesome to have an official league logo. So I used the website Fiverr.com, and had one made....

AND HEEEEEEERRRRREEEEEE IT IS!

I'm hoping I can use it on all kinds of fun league things, like stationary, pens, coozies...you know, that kinda stuff.

I was so excited when this logo came out. I think it's hilarious, and just about perfectly captures the essence of our muse, Mr. Simms, and our league.

I'll be infusing the logo into the league history spreadsheet, and hopefully onto the background of this blog. And some other places too, I hope.

Also working on codifying our rules into one easy-to-read document. That will be coming down the pipe soon.

And let's think about when we're getting together for the Draft Order Determination Event (or DODE). Probably best to do it soon, maybe even before the end of the summer?

The One Where The Commish Procrastinated

So here's a blog post that's been waiting to be posted. And waiting.

And waiting.

<clock ticking...>

We met, oh, about 6 months ago (it seems) for our End of Season: The Gathering and discussed some rules changes and some other fun things. Here's the adjustments to the rules we agreed upon:

1. We agreed to return to the way we formerly named "The Worst," that being the loser of the Loser Bowl.
2. An IR spot will be added, with the understanding that the spot will only be used for players who are on IR, even if the ESPN rules allow for other uses.
3. We modified our keeper rule. Effective with the 2018 Draft, each player will only be allowed to be declared a keeper in two consecutive years (players who have been kept multiple years up to now don't matter; their clock resets). We will continue with our round penalty. We also added a provision that once a keeper would be kept in Round 0, he can no longer be kept.

The Commish also informed the owners of the following:

• there will be an adjustment to the schedule for 2018. Basically, if you played a team twice this year, you'll only play them once next year, and vice versa.
• A trade deadline is now formally in place (in prior years, The Commish had full veto power). Saturday at 11:59pm Eastern time, leading up to Week 13. In 2018, it appears that will be December 1, 2018.

I believe these are the only adjustments to the league this year. I love the minor adjustments that hopefully will continue to make our league a little more interesting as the season goes on.

In the offseason, let's continue to use the GroupMe. I think it's a great way to stay in touch. We should also consider getting together sometime to play some actual football, because I think it would be fun. And not at all dangerous.

And we'll try to have a Draft Order Determination Event, perhaps in the late Spring. And then the draft, probably the final weekend in August, since we probably won't want to draft on Labor Day Weekend? All this is up in the air, but keep it in mind. I would LOVE to have a 100% in-person draft this year (no more boat-drafters).

We won't be putting together a Smarter Than Tim McCarver Fantasy Baseball League any time soon, since very few of you seem interested in fantasy baseball. (Which is totally fine. I agree to join a league a few weeks ago, and I'm already regretting it, and we haven't even drafted yet.) So we'll stick with our own fantasy football things.

Anyone got any ideas to make the actual NFL draft fun? Pete? I feel like this is right up your alley.

Also Pete: where's my money from our playoff pool? If memory serves, I had the Eagles, who won the Super Bowl. And I've got some charities that are anxiously awaiting my prize money.

The Champ is HERE!

Congratulations to The Jeff Fisher Effect for going against its namesake's legacy, and winning his first Smarter Than Phil Simms Fantasy Football Championship.

Todd Gurley. That's pretty much all you have to say. He scored 46 points this week (and 90.5 in the playoffs) to lead the Effect to the title. And there wasn't much doubt (despite what the GroupMe chat might have lead you to believe). The triumvirate of Gurley, Melvin Gordon and Kareem Hunt was monstrous in these two playoff weeks. The Effect becomes the first team to break 300 points in the playoffs.

Grim Reaper didn't stand much of a chance this week; his players simply didn't show up. After a huge week in the first round of the playoffs, he couldn't break 100 points in the finals. That's fantasy football; some weeks your players go crazy, and some weeks your players do nothing.

And also, for the first time in league history, our bottom seed going into the Loser Bowl won BOTH of his games in the Loser Bowl, moving Boobies (heh) up to what is technically a 7th place finish. He scored the most points of any team in the Loser Bowl (206) and more points than the #1 seed going into the playoffs (Hooper's Heroes scored 177 in his two contests). Perhaps he didn't deserve the title of The Worst after all...

Final standings (final record in parentheses)

1. The Jeff Fisher Effect (10-6)
2. Grim Reaper (8-8)
3. Pedro Pickles (10-6)
4. Hooper's Heroes (9-7)
5. Scrote Squad (9-7)
6. Team Provost (7-9)
7. Released Dix On Boobies (7-9)
8. Jameis Winston Zeddemore (7-9)
9. Outta Luck (8-8)
10. Iron Ryan (5-11)

The final standings don't mean much, but it's interesting to see. Despite our #9 team having a better record than the 3 teams ahead of him, he scored fewer points than 2 of them (though he beat Boobies (heh) head to head on the season). Iron Ryan finished 5-11 so... yep. Finishing 10th makes sense.

There will be more highlights, lowlights and analysis at our upcoming End of Season: The Gathering. Recall this event will take place at the Rumbleseat in Chicopee on January 6 (you probably received a Google Calendar invite from your Commish). I hope all owners on the East Coast can attend for some fun and frivolity. And a couple fun surprises.

I also have to say thanks for making the season fun. I've recently started reading the r/ffcommish subreddit, and man, some of those guys have some shitty leaguemates: guys who don't pay, guys who abuse the rules. I'm happy we have a league where that doesn't really happen, and where we all respect each other (most of the time). I'm grateful that you guys don't make this league any more stressful than it has to be (which isn't much because c'mon...it's fantasy football!)

See you guys in a week, and Merry Christmas!

-The Commish

Playoffs, Round 1, or The Tale of Two Blowouts

For the third straight year, the top seed won’t be around for the finals, as Grim Reaper got just about all he could get from his team, and toppled the mighty Hooper’s Heroes. Because of the dominance of Reaper’s squad, Antonio Brown’s calf injury made only a small difference in this matchup. Despite his 138 points, Reaper only had one guy who topped 20 points. But aside from Carlos Hyde and his kicker, everyone was in double digits, making for a very tough team to beat.

In fact, the only team that even had a shot to beat that this week was The Jeff Fisher Effect. Holy cow. Melvin Gordon and Kareem Hunt combined for 61.5 points on Saturday night, and then Todd Gurley was all like “Hold my beer,” and dropped 4 TDs on the Seahawks defense, and Pedro Pickles never had a shot. The Effect’s 173 were the second highest total in the league this year.

So we’ve got two teams who just put up their highest season point totals in round 1 of the playoffs set to meet for the title. So what’s going to happen? Obviously, we’re going to have a finals matchup where neither team breaks 100 points.

So, Kyle: just kickers or….

In our consolation bracket, Team Provost made his case that he should have been a playoff team, scoring more points that two of the playoff teams, while the rest of the consolation teams had lackluster weeks. Only one other broke 100, and one got almost one-third of his point total from his kicker (thank you, Robbie Gould and Outta Luck).

So it’s Scrote Squad and Team Provost for the Loser Bowl title. Rumor is that Ezekiel Elliott bet Eric Dickerson that he was going to run for 200 yards in his first game back. So if that happens, I don’t know how Provost loses (provided he plays Zeke, I guess).

Week 14, or the Regular Season Goes The Way of Rudolph...Down In History

The regular season has come to an end and we’ve got two firsts. Congratulations to Grim Reaper, who will make his first ever playoff appearance, and congrats (?) to Released Dix On Boobies, who becomes the first franchise in league history with multiple The Worst titles.

Grim Reaper’s week got off to a rough start when Alvin Kamara left the Thursday night game during the Saints first possession. But he got enormous weeks from Michael Thomas and DeAndre Hopkins, which clinched the win and his playoff berth

Reaper had to win to make the playoffs, but if Scrote Squad was able to win, he’d have owned the spot. Instead, he put up the third 48 point week in the league this year (Boobies (heh) and Iron Ryan), in a week where he absolutely needed a victory. In the final two weeks, when wins were almost required for Scrote, he put up 75.5 and 48 points. Those are incredible numbers for a team that had a shot at a playoff spot.

Four teams finished the season 7-7, but Reaper had the most points, giving him the playoff nod. His advantage ended as exactly 100 points over Scrote. Luckless and Zeddemore did everything they could, putting up the second and third highest point totals of the week. But they had too big a hole to climb out of.

There was also a shakeup at the top. Pedro Pickles couldn’t beat Team Provost (who probably deserved to finish better than 6-8, as he actually finished with more points than Reaper) which dropped him to the #2 seed, after Hooper’s Heroes put up another money-winning week in his victory over The Jeff Fisher Effect.

But honestly, I’m burying the lede here (and yes, that is the proper spelling). We have our first two-time The Worst. Our two serious contenders, Iron Ryan and Boobies (heh), both lost this week, so it came down to the points. They wound up separated by only 28.5 points over the season, and are the only two who failed to eclipse 1200 fantasy points on the year.

Playoff Preview

Hooper’s Heroes will face off against Grim Reaper, while The Jeff Fisher Effect will face off against Pedro Pickles. I’d like to point out that the top seed is 1-2 all-time in the semifinals. Heroes has that Big Ben/AB stack I can’t shut up about, but that’s because they have basically carried him the last few weeks. That stack faces off against the Patriots this week, so I don’t really know what that means. The Effect is going to hope that last week’s Kareem Hunt re-breakout wasn’t a fluke, and hope he can ride that to a championship. Honestly, it really seems there is no clear cut favorite this year. Any of these teams has a chance to win.

Loser Bowl Preview

I’d like to propose the following: Since The Worst has already been crowned, the loser of the Loser Bowl becomes the owner on the hook to provide the extra $5 in scratch tickets to the winner of the Loser Bowl. It keeps our Loser Bowl incentivized, since Crobi already knows he’ll be wearing the T-shirt again.

Eligible to win those extra tickets are Scrote, Zeddemore, Luckless and Provost (the 5-8 seeds). Scrote and Zeddemore won’t have to provide the extras (because of the way our Loser Bowl bracket is set up) but they will certainly want to win them. I’m gonna say Provost is the “favorite” here for two reasons: 1) he’s got the most points of the group by far, and 2) he’s got Zeke coming back in Week 16 (granted, he has to win in Week 15 against a guy who just put up his biggest week of the season for that to matter).

Money Winner

Hooper’s Heroes topped the league scoring this week, his fourth time this season.

The Playoffs start on Thursday night, and continue on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. (Well done, NFL). Good luck to you all!

Except Pete.