Well seeing as Mr. Ries began his clearly misguided formulas and rankings for the season, I figured it was time to awaken myself from my hibernation on Da Commish's Thoughts (more on the name later). This week we pretty much saw a continuation of last season, with virtually all the same teams winning and almost all the same teams losing as usual. And of course we had a tie this week...thank you Jamarcus Russell for giving us such an unlikely occurence.
As for the name of the blog, I will gladly change the name but I have not thought of a different one. If there are any suggestions please let me know. I would prefer a humorous one if possible, so hopefully our resident comedians Jack or Mike can come up with one.
Now back to analyzing this week's matchups, and let's not forget the refuting of Mr. Ries's poor rankings. First off with the rankings. If all we did were take the scores from last week and see what our record would be against the entire league, we are completely ignoring the fact that scores and points from players can change so dramatically from week to week. For instance, I am not planning on Drew Brees scoring me 30 points per week (although I wouldn't turn it down). At the same time, I am not expecting the rest of my team to only score me 20 points (if they do, I might as well quit playing fantasy football). Same with Andy somehow getting 16 points from John Carlson (P.S. what are the odds Schneider had no idea who Carlson was when he drafted him anyways?). Also, a team could pick up or start a completely different lineup that may have won them that week or improved their ranking. In order for any formula to be accurate, you would have to put in some measure of a managers tendency to start the guys who score that week. As another example, aside from Brees, I pretty much had a complete inability to start the right guys this week, with my bench outscoring my starters (minus Brees). So there's my two cents on that...now onto the Week 1 Recap, as always in order of ass kicking.
Duke Football 68, Team Rihanna 25
Tmac starts right where he left off in fantasy baseball...in last place. To put things in perspective for how bad Team Rihanna was this week, Luke could have only started AP this week....and he still would have won. I expect Duke Football to ride the All-Day train as hard as Brett Favre this year, but we'll see how the rest of his team performs. I'm not all too concerned about Romo, but the only receiver I am sold on is Santonio Holmes. As for Tony's team, is there any hope? Believe it or not, there might be. The Johnson brothers are two of the best receivers in the league, Ryan should be a serviceable QB, and Slaton and Ronnie Brown should be average also. Even with Crabtree set to sit out this season, I'd be willing to bet he's on Team Rihanna the whole year, if past history in fantasy baseball is any predictor, there's always got to be a NA on Tony Mac's squad.
Boston TD Party 61, Super Consistency 38
Not a good start for team Oatmeal (why the new name, Riles?), and I don't know if there is much hope for a team with Schaub and Cutler as his QB's. That position might hold this team back, even though they have some decent other position players, but not much of a bench after Roy Williams. As for the TD Party, Tom Brady was as consistent as ever, but don't expect Thomas Jones to continue scoring 17 points a week. Not too sold on BTDP's number 2 WR either. I am a little salty towards JP's team solely because I had the one Baltimore RB who didn't score, and he has the two that did. I expect TD Party to be middle of the pack this year because I just don't see DeAngelo Williams playing as well as he did last hear, especially when his team has an excuse for a quarterback in Jake Delhomme.
The Moops 60, Team Chris Brown 49
Who would have guessed The Moops TE, DEF, and K would outscore the rest of his team? That probably doesn't bode well for Schneider, because like I said earlier, if John Carlson scores 16 a week, I would be amazed. There's not too much support on this team besides Turner the Burner, Fitzy and Cry Me a Rivers, so we'll see if he can continue being a force in the league. As for Team Wife-Beater, all players were relatively consistent, and I actually like Caff's team a lot. The only downside is having the ever-aging Kurt Warner at the QB slot. I'm not too convinced about him there, but other than that, The Cafferty's of Tiffany Lane have a very solid team.
Deep Throw It 50, Bulldogs 39
Da Commish is relatively pleased with the Week 1 win, but with that being said, I sincerely hope I don't have to depend on Drew Brees every single week. My wide receivers may also have bad-quarterback syndrome, with both Broncos and Steve Smith having terrible guys to get them the ball. As for my opponent, it feels good to beat baby bro and win the Battle of the Olson's this week. The Bulldogs have a decent team, but the McNabb injury definitely hurts his chances. Tom will have Lynch coming back in Week 3, and so his lineup will be even stronger.
Primus Inter Pares 61, Greek gods 61
Zeus and his boys upstairs must have had some hand in that Oakland-San Diego game, because Joey J definitely got a little luck to scrape up a tie this week. Jack had a very solid week, but I think that this might be the peak for his team. Every one of his starters, minus Jason Witten, recorded a touchdown, and that is not going to happen every single week. It's pretty clear that LT's coaching staff might not even consider him the best running back on his team anymore, so that'll hurt down the road. As far as Poseidon and the gang goes, once again the team's manager has fielder an extremely strong team, but I've done enough blowing smoke up Joe's ass before, so I'm not going to spend a ton of time on it.
Transaction of the Week
Primus Inter Pares trades Drew Brees, Brandon Marshall, and Ray Rice to Deep Throw It in exchange for Ladanian Tominlinson, Dwayne Bowe, and Vincent Jackson.
Since it happened before Week 1, I decided to feature it here. We'll see how the trade ends up in the long run, but the way I see it, Week 1 goes to me with Drew Brees scoring 30 points. Hard to argue that I think, even if Bowe and Jackson both scored TD's this week.
Oly's Rankings
1. Duke Football
2. Greek gods
3. The Moops
4. Primus Inter Pares
5. Boston TD Party
6. Deep Throw It
7. Team Chris Brown
8. Bulldogs
9. Super Consistency
10. Team Rihanna
Da Commish's Hot Clicks of the Week
4 Awkward Moments in Facebook Like History
The 10 Most Explosive Press Conference Blowups in Sports History
These make my farmer's tan look pretty tame.
Gotta have Michael Jordan's induction speech up on here...
Gus Johnson is one of the most ridiculous sports announcers in history
Two tennis clips to round it out...Serena and Rog
Finally the song of the week!
Penn Station by the Felice Brothers