Week 9 Recap

Look, I have a stressful job and I’m dealing with the grief of a significant breakup. You don’t have to be a dick about it. I KNOW I haven’t made any of these for the first eight weeks of the season. I KNOW I talked a big game about how I would finally have time for these again and I haven’t followed through. That does not give you the right to keep hounding me about getting these damn things done. I’m not talking to all of you, just one. You know who the fuck you are.

Just kidding, you all have been wonderful and haven’t put pressure on me to publish. It’s wonderful that you see them as a bonus to my presence in the league and not a prerequisite. It means even more because I know you all care about fantasy football. I mean, I’m relatively certain that Derek cares so much about his fantasy teams that he thinks about Justin Jefferson when he masturbates. Let’s hope that I continue to have time to send these out; I’ll do my best to, especially in the playoffs.

For now, though, let’s all bask in the glory of Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s 37-point performance en route to FUGU’s ass-kicking of yours truly.

Game 1 - I’m going to play in traffic (114.7) def. Circleback’s Circlebacks (86.1)

We’re starting off with a bang here. This matchup included a team whose name is an honest to god cry for help and the whole performance sure felt like one. This season we expanded our roster to have room for two flex spots, but someone needs to remind TRAF and CIRCL of that fact. Each of them failed to score any points at all in one of their two flex spots, reminding the rest of the league why they were each rocking a 3-game losing streak coming into Week 9.

I’m going to play in traffic had some decent performances by Josh Allen and Bijan Robinson, but not much else was clicking this week. Scoring 15 points below projected doesn’t help, but you know what does? When your opponent scores 32 points below projected. TRAF, we hope that this win, however ugly, keeps you out of traffic for at least another week. Fight the good fight, brother.

“Hahaha honestly it doesn’t matter anyway the Circlebacks are a second half team” - Mark Rhind, Oct 21 @ 10:28 PM Central

This week’s election (no, I don’t want to talk about it) wrapped up the long political season of 2024. If you’re Jon Stewart, John Oliver or some other Jo(h)n with a comedy show about politics, late October in an election year is peak season for gaffes on the campaign trail and mis-statements that politicians wish they never made. Trump talking about how Puerto Ricans are trash may or may not fit in this category, because my read is that he doesn’t generally regret his casual racism. With old-man Joe out of the race, however, this cycle was regrettably less gaffe-filled than it could have been. Luckily, Mark the Shark picked up old Joe’s slack with this absolute gem of a quote. Since hitting send on this text, Mark’s squad has lost every game (extending his losing streak to 4). Week 9 was Mark’s worst performance to date, with 60% of his starters unable to break into double digits.

Game 2 - First of all, fug u Chris (197.6) def. Bob’s Buttfumbles (155.8)

Somebody had to pick up the slack from that shitstorm above, and this matchup had all the scoring that was lacking in TRAF v CIRCL. Hell, Fug u Chris was 3 points away from scoring as much as both of those teams combined. There is plenty to highlight in the second-highest scoring matchup of the season and I desperately want to get the taste of TRAF v CIRCL out of my mouth, so let’s just get into it.

FUGU absolutely lit up the scoreboard with Smith-Njigba, De’Von Achane, and Chase Brown all scoring season highs. Think about how ludicrous this is; if FUGU had started Zay Flowers instead of Ja’Marr Chase this week, he’d have scored 216. TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTEEN. I get it, that’s not an obvious substitution considering the season that Chase is having, but suffice to say FUGU is a man that feels like he has options right now. He’s peaking at the right time of the season, winning 5 of his last 6 after starting the season 0-3 and making a strong case for the playoffs.

BOBS has relied on his hometown 49ers more than any other fantasy team this year. With two WRs and a Defense on bye this week, he put up a strong enough performance to win against most teams. Sadly for him, a Week 9 FUGU is a far different beast than most teams. Buoyed by Eagles teammates Hurts and Barkley, BOBS put up enough points for bragging rights but not enough to put a “W” in the win/loss column. With Pacheco injured early in the season and Tyreek as good as injured when it comes to fantasy output, BOB is picking up the pieces to stay in the playoff hunt.

*6 of the 8 top scoring performances came from this matchup*

Game 3 - Cult of Da Lamb (156.2) def. Kung Koo Fighting (134.4)

**looks around** Is… is Chris actually good? To this point, I’d just figured that Chris was in first because his opponents seem to shit the bed or have a bye week when they play him. After earning a resounding win against a decent opponent, it looks like I might have to start actually respecting our GM.

When you’ve got four players scoring above 20, you know you’re doing something right. CULT sailed to a league-leading 8-1 this week, scoring an easy victory over a middle-of-the-road team. It seems (and trust me that nobody is as disappointed as I am) that Chris is actually good. I’m not trying to be mean here; I love Chris. I just can’t help but compare him to little bro Anthony. Coming into the week, CULT had scored fewer points than 36ACT and was sitting at 7-1 while the latter was at 2-6. Now, at least Chris can say he’s outscoring little bro, and I can finally give up on fuming over how lucky he is. It’s a win-win.

Kung Koo Fighting made a good choice when selecting his name. Koo is the type of player that you name a team after; you know he’s going to be good and then he’s good. You don’t want to name a team after a player who just kinda sucks because that’s just no fun (no shade intended, Xavier Leeget). As for the rest of his team, they feel like an island of misfit toys. Is Baker Mayfield really the 2nd highest scoring QB this year? Cade Otton is top 3? Is Kyren Williams really a fantasy standout for the Rams after the great Cam Akers debacle of 2022? I just find it all hard to believe, and no disrespect to KUNG. He is just getting creative in filling the great void left by Christian McCaffrey. With CMC’s return imminent, however, I expect a playoff dark horse in KUNG.

*Lamar leads all players with 18.3% of CULT’s total team points*

Game 4 - Xavier Leeget (156.8) def. 36 ACT (131.5)

XAVI v 36ACT was a game that I had my eye on this week. Interestingly enough, though they entered the game at 6-2 and 2-6 respectively, the points scored by each team entering Week 9 were almost identical (XAVI led by less than 2 points). It felt like the perfect “two sides of the same coin” situation; each team representing the extreme for how successful or unsuccessful you can be in Fantasy Football when your own scoring performance is the controlled variable.

For Xavier Leeget, it was a week where the good times rolled. No surprise that Garrett Wilson kept doing Garrett Wilson things, and Alvin Kamara continued to make his case as a near-lock for best pick in the draft. Only a fool would try to make the case that XAVI isn’t a team with knockout potential. When compared against a solid 36ACT performance, all of the differential in this one came from the FLEX positions where Wilson and Mooney teamed up for nearly 50.

Poor Xavier Worthy has lived his entire life reading shitty newspaper puns about his performance. No doubt every loss he’s suffered since his high school football days probably led with some headline: “[insert school name here] not WORTHY of a win”. I can’t imagine the victories are any easier to swallow. Even though the guy is rolling in NFL wide receiver money, I am sure he’d still give his left nut for a dollar every time he had to read some variation of the phrase “a WORTHY performance”. The sad reality is, for both Worthy and 36ACT, the flex spots and Worthy’s -1 scoring effort in particular were the downfall for this unlucky fantasy team. I just feel bad for Anthony, his team scores too much to have that kind of record. Surely, the luck has to pick up. This team is Worthy of a win.

Game 5 - Gibb’n Em The Business (116.7) def. Team try your best (116.6)

I swear I don’t pick the matchup order. I just present these in the same order that they are presented to me via the ESPN API. Each game is given a game ID and I follow that order faithfully. By some magnanimous force, we just happened to save the best for last.

Gibb’n Em The Business is exactly what GIBB did to TRY this week. Honestly, I cannot get enough of the accuracy of the names in this matchup (more on this below). It was a down-to-the-wire, absolutely WILD type of win that would make anyone feel like they just got the business. Devastating enough to make TRY tender his official resignation (I hope you’re joking about leaving, Alex, I really appreciate using you as a de-facto “bye” week in my schedule). GIBB had more consistent performances across the board than the more “streaky” nature of TRY’s scoring, which is as good a reason as any to pin the victory on. When it came down to it, though, Derek said it best in text. “If he did that extra step back it could have been -3 and I’d have lost”. But he didn’t take that extra step back. And as a result, you really GABE him the business.

Team try your best is the winner of this week’s Bill Belichik manager of the week award, meaning he left the fewest potential points on the bench. In that sense, he really did try his best. For a team that’s all about TE redundancy, refusing to use an additional roster spot, and having half the league’s QBs on his roster, TRY made the best of a tough situation. They put their best team on the field. After all, Alex has four goddamn QB’s on the roster and he picked the (obvious, but still) best one to play. However, in a twist for the ages, TRY was technically 0.4 points away from his ideal lineup, so if we are being technical about it he could have tried better. But only 0.4 points better. I doubt that would have made a difference.

*GIBB’s consistency edged TRY’s hot performances. And I mean edged in every sense of the word.*

Honorary Weekly Awards

**Bill Belichik Manager of the Week Award*: Team try your best - 0.4 Pts**

Criteria: Total Team Score closest in pts to Best Lineup Team Score (ie came closest to maximizing possible points with their lineup)

*When you don’t always have the roster, but they’ll be as damn competitive as they can possibly be

**Dug’s Cone of Shame Award*: I’m going to play in traffic - 35.1 Pts**

Criteria: Total Team Score furthest in pts to Best Lineup Team Score (ie left most points on the table)

*When you misheard the coach who said “leave it all on the field” and you thought he said “leave it all on the bench”

Team Positional Radar Charts

Note: These are sometimes hard to read, but also wildly informative. Each point on the chart will correspond to one position group, and the farther out you are from center, the more you have scored. The index is set from 0% to 100%, which corresponds to how your position group has scored in terms of % of max league score.