2016 Week 8

Da Station League,

Week 8 Power Rankings

1. 6-1 (+1) Mediocre ClarinetPlayers. Some say its luck, some say its skill, I personally think its both with a little divine intervention mixed in.  My team has now had over 130 for three straight weeks and 4/7 total weeks. My team has been decimating the opposition every when they put up great numbers which is the ideal situation in fantasy.  My team is the only team to score over 800 points (115/game) and one of three teams to have over 700 points against.  Dave tried his best and scored well, but the ClarinetPlayers all scored touchdowns and that's hard to beat.  Looking at my teams matchup next week, I may have some trouble putting up that many points again, especially with my new star Jay Ajayi out on bye, but I get to play Joe D so I'm not too nervous. 

2. 6-1 (-1) Four Falls of Buffalo.  Justin squeaked out a win against my father in a thrilling matchup that had to be decided in overtime in the Sunday Night Game.  His team performed well and all he need was was just for a pedestrian defensive outing by the Bills to blow out my father.  The Bills -5 really hurt him, but thank god it didn't cost him his matchup.  Next week he plays Nick and should be able to win easily as Arizona Cardinal's workhorse, David Johnson, is going up against the Panthers porous defense.  Justin's only flaw is his bench situation and that may wind up costing him when more of his guys go on bye, but when his starting are all going, he's as strong as ever.

3. 6-1 (0) Team Buddy.  Easily the worse and luckiest 6-1 team.  Sack gets another win handed to him as he moves to 6-1 with Justin and me.  An abysmal 540 points against may be the lowest I've ever seen in a 7 week stretch.  He basically gets lucky enough to play a "Dan" every week.  Looking at his lineup, it's average and Sack could easily be closer to .500 given different matchups.  A true test to Sacko this upcoming week is against the red hot Joey Burton, who currently has the final playoff spot.  If Sack can pull out this win, with Burton scoring over 90, I will change my mind about him actually having a chance to do something in the playoffs.

4. 3-4 (+1) My Ball Zach Ertz.  Button's team is looking good as he was one of the 4 teams to score over 100 this past week. LeGarrette "Smoke That" Blount proves to be a great flex play week to week.  Randell Cobb is also coming into his own and having good back to back weeks.  Button has some byes next week so we'll see if he can keep his small streak going against Sack.  Devonta Freeman will have the backfield all to himself so look for a huge game by him.  The All-World, All-Earth, the Global entity Vernon Davis also has finally shown up out of nowhere for Button so we'll how he pans out in the weeks to come.

5. 3-4 (+2) Time 4 Trump.  Big Dave really started looking stronger than I expected this past week.  I mean we knew he would win against Dan but his players from top to bottom had an ideal fantasy week.  Murray/Crowell continues to be a force and in the scenario where Big Dave makes the playoffs, these backs will still put up big numbers.  Julio is a solid 20 point player and with the trade deadline around the corner, I'd advise Big Dave to ignore the desperate attempts of the bottom of the league to snatch him up.  The battle of the fathers is this week and barring anything crazy, look for Big Dave to move to 4-4. 

6. 2-5 (0) Timmy O's.  Dave's team actually looked good this week and he could easily be 4, 5 or 6 in this list, but I decided to keep him at 6 because of record and how he lost.  This past lost was a demoralizing one when he was given no real opportunity to win against me.  Despite that, he has the opportunity to make a playoff run.  Winning out sure is in the realm of possibility with his schedule and will probably guarantee him that last spot. The only problem is that he only has $36 left in his budget so he'll be limited in who he can get going forward.  At least he gets the Sack leaders, Dan and Joe the next 2 weeks look for Dave to string some games together in preparation of his week 10 Button matchup. 

7. 2-5 (+1) Pure Evil.  My father's team actually looked good this week.  If it wasn't for Matt Jones screwing him and getting only 0.7 we may have seen my dad higher up this list.  Aaron Rodgers is getting back to form and Jeremy Hill looked strong.  He has some pieces to work with, which is good for him.  Stefon Diggs should be back fully from injury this week and is playing the trash Chicago Bears.  Getting a win on Antonio Brown's bye week against Big Dave will surely be the defining moment for my dad.  It'll determine whether he wants to stay down in the depths of the standings or actually try and do something.

8. 3-4 (-4) Drake's New Favorite Team.  I'm sorry, which Digrazio is this scoring 57.5? Who would have thought Nick would have such a terrible week?  It somewhat proved what everyone was thinking though, Nick's team is not as good as it seems.  For someone who had the final playoff spot at 3-1 Nick's season is slowly slipping away from him as he is now 3-4.   His team has one player Elliott, and a scrum of seemingly good players which Nick can't get to perform for him on game day.  When you have too many options, you really have no options.  Nick has a tough game against the one of the titans of our league, Justin, and unless Elliott out-scores DJ by 15 look for Nick to be 3-5.

9. 3-4 (0) A Team Has No Name. I don't even know how to describe the disaster of these bottom two teams have been.  I was so close to making Danny's team 10th but for his sake, he does (impossibly) have a good record.  Looking at Dan's lineup we can see no powerful whatsoever.  Putrid starters all around consisting of subpar running backs, below average receivers, and inconsistency all around.  That trade with Joe may have been the final dagger in both of their coffins.  I once said in these power rankings to look for Dan to have an upset. I take that back. I can't see this man winning another game this season. He averages 71.8 points a game. Next week may dip him into the 60's.  How pitiful.

10. 1-6 (0) Morgan Top Dave Bottom.  NEWSFLASH, this just in, Joe Digrazio's title reign is a fluke.  A sick joke that we all have to live with.  He and Dan both almost scored under the league record of 46.2 points this week.  The cherry on top for Joe this year was the news last night of Arian Foster retiring from football. He fourth round pick and first round pick have proved to produce absolutely nothing for him.  His lineup consisting of Eifert, McKinnon, Maclin, Bortles is depressing to look at. I just hope Joe can take this loss of a season with grace, keep his mouth shut, be happy he has McCoy, and be there to willingly hand the belt over after the season.