2017 Week 3

Week 3 Power Rankings 

League,

Week 3 was an interesting one around the league. All the 1-1 teams played each other while the top of the league and the bottom of the league had a battle for the ages.  A battle, that I might add, set the record for most points against in a loss; truly marking it as an instant classic.  Last year, I started the trophy case and I encourage everyone in the league to go check it out on a desktop version of espn.com.  It’ll give you a nice insight to the history of some of the best and worst fantasy weeks ever to occur in Da Station League.  

With that said here are your weekly Power Rankings. 

1. (0) The Redeem Team (3-0).  The rivalry between Nick and Dave is one compared to that of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady.  Even though they’re never in the same division, it is always a truly competitive contest.  This is actually only the third time these two have met, Nick previously winning both games before.  So Dave, definitely had a chip on shoulder coming into this week.  ....And he did not disappoint, putting up an astounding 131.8 and tightening his grip in the first place position.  David’s core, Todd Manly, Antonio Brown, and Marcus Mariota all produced very well. However, the game was won on one simple decision earlier in the week.  That was to sit Jeremy Maclin (0.8 points) and to play T.Y. Hilton (21.3).  Some were skeptical of Hilton’s fantasy ceiling with Jacoby Brisket under center; many trying to wait until Andrew Luck returned to start him.  Dave made a prime time decision and it paid off.  Without Hilton’s 21.3, there was no other Flex option that would’ve gotten him the win.  Looking to next week against Eric, the early projections have him winning by 12 and have all but one of his starters outscoring Eric’s comparable starter.  Projections and lineups can certainly change but look for Dave to come out again on top to be 4–0.

2. (+5) Team Buddy (2-1).  There were only three teams this past week to score over 100 and only one of them is 2-1.  I’ve recently had Eric much lower on these rankings because I felt he didn’t have much of a balanced attack on his team.  However Team Buddy turned that all around this week and showed some real start power across the board.  Hunt did his thing with 24.3, Jordan Howard rose from the grave with 26.4, and OBJ finally showed up with 19.9. This is how Eric intended his team to play when drafting.  Another thing to note is Eric’s bench of Chris Hogan (18.8) and Sammy Watkins (22.6).  Eric was able to score over 100 without these guys in his lineup.  The one area of concern for Eric is TE.  He currently has three of them on his team, one on injured reserve, one who didn’t catch a pass, and one who had negative points.  If Eric can successfully stream TE’s and QB’s this season, watch out because the rest of his team is dangerous.

3. (+7) Brady and the Champ (0-3).  Speaking of dangerous, Nick’s team came awfully close from knocking off the number one team this week.  Now Nick’s position of 3 is more determined by the lack of production from the rest of the league.   The utter emergence of key positions for Nick’s team going forward has to have him feeling good.  Tom Brady has another explosive performance with 35.7 points.  Stefon Diggs, a guy we all thought would struggle with Case Keenum QBing, had a league high 29.3 points at WR. And Chris Thompson, who I personally thought was a fluke last week, proved he wasn’t with an astonishing 150 receiving yards out of the backfield. I busted on Nick for not having receivers but it seems like these two unlikely sources, Thompson and Diggs, are proving me wrong.  Nick also is the one who set the 129.1 point record with a loss.  He has a uphill battle to get back into the divisional race but it is still very early, 10 weeks left to be played.  Do not count him out just yet.

4. (-2) Irrational Savages (2-1).  Joey Sack inched out a victory over Big Dave this week 70.9-68.4.  His team looked to have some parts working and some not.  Let’s start with what wasn’t working.  Last week I praised the Buccaneers defense and of course that was a stupid mistake by me.  I should’ve known they would come back down to Earth.  -6 they had. Amari Cooper 0.6 and Roethlisberger only 12 against Chicago.  My father needs to reevaluate these small parts of his team.  Is Amari an automatic start every week? Should he now roll with the Texans every week or start streaming defenses?  The rest of his team looked solid. Le’Veon got into the end zone for the first time this year, Tyreek Hill has another double digit performance and Gronk continues to put up WR type numbers.  My father is currently in 4th and myself in 5th.  Our one matchup is next week and having only one head to head matchup means this game could be the deciding factor if either I or Sack get in.

5. (+3) Seal Team Ricks (2-1).  I made the claim last week that Danny was cursed as a fantasy football player. There is a player that actually has the power to reserve the curse on Dan’s team, and his name is Dalvin Cook.  Dalvin‘s production was somewhat overshadowed but Digg’s big performance, but the man still had 97 yards on the ground and 72 yards receiving.  A guy with that many touches and total yards can really lead a team to victory every single week.  Dan got unlucky with Ajayi against the Jets and Semen against the Bills.  But he won despite that which shows Danny’s resiliency as a team.  He got to 2-1, let’s see if the pirate can keep the ship sailing in the right direction.

6. (-3) Certified G (1-2).  Now to the second half of the rankings.  Big Dave’s team severely underperformed and only could muster up 68.4 points against my dad.  Heartbreaking to say the least especially with Witten on Monday only needed 25 more yards to make Big Dave win.  But of all the 1-2 teams I think Big Dave’s team still has the highest upside.  AJ Green finally got started, McCaffery is still getting a ridiculous amount of touches and Abdullah was a solid flex play.  But in the end as always,  we see Big Dave beat himself. Why he decided to go with Derek Carr instead of Drew Brees? Who knows? But decisions like these are what make and break a season.  This marks two straight winnable games slipped through Big Dave’s grasp.

7. (-2) The Real James White (1-2).  Mike had all my praise week one but since then has dipped down two weeks in a row.  The players on Mike’s team look good on paper but just were not able to get it done even against an average output by Seal Team Ricks.  Let’s explore why this might be, before week one, we had the draft. Michael was not at my house but his team was drafted by the King Midas of fantasy, Dave, and he was able to win.  Week two, Mike was not at my house, lost.  Week three, Mike was not at my house, lost. This may be because Mike does not know the full extent of the league rules as described in the PowerPoint he missed.  All i know is, Dan has notoriously not been great in this league but was here Sunday, and he beat Mike.  Also the karma of missing out of the WORLD FAMOUS, ALL WORLD, VERNON DAVIS OF HOAGIE TRAYS might be why Mike finds himself at the bottom of the division.  

8. (+1) Trimarcos From Tropoja (2-1).  I constantly ripped on Eric last year for not being good and just playing bad opponents.  I feel as if I find myself in the same position.  Currently with the least amount of points scored and points against, I may be on my way to repeating his exact path to the title game.  I made some idiotic decisions in starting Cutler who just barely saved my week in the last 6 seconds of his game.  My uncertainty in Cousins and Fitzgerald is making for a stressful week to week start em sit em dilemma.  However, Devonta is killing it and without my first pick I would not be where I am today. And it seems some of the pieces I’ve scrounged together are starting to come to fruition.  Cohen with 10.2, D’Onta foreman with 9, and Chris Carson with 11.2.  Hopefully with the collapse of Isaiah Crowell and Terrelle Pryor, these guys can help continue my winning ways.

9. (-5) The 1999 NFC Championship Team (1-2).  A horrific week for Justin this week. Lost by more than 40 points, had -6 from his defense, two starters with less than 1, and sat a player with 27.1.  The one bright light on Justin’s team is Carlos Hyde because without him we may be here today talking about the least points scored ever in a week.  I’ve dropped Justin down to nine because the once really positive outlook on his players I had last week all didn’t pan out.  We learned Crabtree can’t produce against an elite corner.  Buck Allen, after having a great game last week, was cut down to just 8 rushes for 15 yards.  And McCoy continues to be an inconsistent RB, unable to get into the end zone.  Justin could be a lot worse off than he is.  He is a professional waiver wire strategist and I have no doubt he’ll be higher in the rankings later this year.  

10. (-2) The GOAT Team (1-2).  If it’s not one DiGrazio at the bottom of my rankings, it’s the other.  All I have to say is thank god Joe has the great Aaron Rodgers to make this past week somewhat competitive. Without him his team combined for 37.7 points (4.7 pts/player).  And with every game that passes like this, we are reminded on how much of a fluke pukey’s title reign was.  Joe has some really tough decisions this week on who to start.  Demarco Murray @HOU, Blount @LAC, or Gore @SEA?  I’m assuming he’s done trying to use Jacquizz.  Joe’s leader in points C.J. Anderson needs to show up against tha Raidas (Chris Berman Voice) if he wants any shot to his be beat his brother who’s team is getting hot.  This “Battle of 10 Feet Down the Hall” is this week’s game of the week.  The last two champions going at it. Should be a good one.