Rapids Plungers (143.45) vs Pack Attack (133.58)
What a way to start out week 1 as Rapids Plungers (1-0) came storming back to steal the week 1 victory over Pack Attack (0-1). These are the kind of wins that make you love fantasy football and also make staying up late to watch that very last game of week 1 worth it! Rapids Plungers came into Monday nights matchup losing 125.58 – 71.50. They still had Sam Bradford yet to play who has been picked by many to have an outstanding year and in that Eagles offense could put up monster #’s so there was clearly hope going in but when their Kicker Matt Bryant (17pts) outscored Sam Bradford things were looking a bit gloomy and then came Carlos Hyde who shredded the Vikings defense for 150+ yards and 2 scores finishing with 35.90 points which was enough to lead their team to victory. Here is an interesting piece of information as earlier in the week there was quietly a trade between Rapids Plungers and Big Papa which involved mainly swapping QB’s of Teddy Bridgewater and Sam Bradford. Check this out… If that trade doesn’t happen Rapids Plungers loses this game by less than a point AND Big Papa wins his week 1 matchup by 3 points. Sometimes it is the little things that matter, well done Plungers, well done and for Big Papa… well we’ll get to you soon!
pack slayer (138.20) vs Showboat (100.26)
I don’t believe this was the way that Showboat (0-1) envisioned the start of their season and now with Dez Bryant out for some time this team is going to get tested early. Tony Romo showed up to play this week leading Showboat with 26.05 points but overall this was a dominating performance by pack slayer (1-0). pack slayer is looking to rebound from a season ago when they failed to make the playoffs for the first time and really had a down year. If week 1 is any indication they could be well on their way to another playoff berth and challenging to the end. For pack slayer they were led by Jason Witten (23.60) and Matt Forte (26.65) and then very average play from the rest of their team. Witten’s value goes up with Dez Bryant down for the next few weeks but the play of #1 overall pick D. Thomas and the entire Denver offense has got to have pack slayer concerned. However a win is a win and getting that first one out of the way always feels good.
BIGBOY! (125.43) vs U Don’t Know (99.92)
The tone was set early on in this one as Tom Brady (29.83) as expected came out firing in Thursday nights opener and from there U Don’t Know (0-1) was trying to play catchup. They did get a nice performance from Jordan Matthews (20.10) on Monday night to make this look respectable but this one wasn’t really close as BIGBOY! (1-0) dominated from start to finish despite their top pick and the #2 pick overall Adrian Peterson really struggling. It is week 1 so you don’t read to much into the bad performances the same way you don’t read too much into the good performances (hey, did you know Vernon Davis scored 2 TD’s in week 1 of last year and looked like a TE1 after that week and also did you know that he didn’t score another TD for the rest of the year?) So yes AP struggled and yes Carlos Hyde was the #28 that looked like the far superior back however it is week 1. I will say that BIGBOY! is going to need some other players to step up as they won’t always be able to count on 43.80 points from their bottom 3 in the rotation (K, DEF, D). For U Don’t Know this is not the way they wanted to start out as this team has really struggled in past years and wanted to get out of the gate quickly. They will need the risk / reward of a guy like LeSean McCoy to be much more on the reward side for this team to be able to break out of this losing pattern they have been stuck in for oh say… 7 years. It will be interesting to see what Week 2 brings for both of these teams.
Bossman (158.09) vs PackMan12 (94.89)
Can you say BLOWOUT? Well I know Bossman (1-0) can as they destroyed PackMan12 (0-1) this week thanks to some monster individual performances. They had 4 players finish with over 16 points and two of those players (Keenan Allen & Tyler Eifert) had over 30 points a piece. Bossman always seems to figure out ways to win year in and year out but typically they are the team that has to be scrappy and make sure to get just the right guys in there lineup to eek out that 5 point win but not this week and if this is any indication of how the season might go then look out league! PackMan12 is left feeling…. unLUCKy as their star QB and #1 overall pick Andrew luck was less then impressive in week 1.. I know, I know they were playing possibly the best D in the league or at least PackMan12 better hope so otherwise they could be in for a long season. It doesn’t help that Luck’s # 1 WR (TY Hilton) went down and most likely will miss some time. Like I said it is week 1 and I don’t read too much into week 1 of the season but I get the feeling this team might struggle to find offense this year and will need Luck to have big performances week in and week out for them to win games.
16hrs Ahead of You!! (84.83) vs Big Papa (77.28)
This was certainly an interesting matchup to say the least. 16hrs Ahead of You (1-0) surprisingly has been pretty good during week 1 of the regular season it has been weeks 2-13 that they have seemed to have a hard time with as of late so even though this was a less then impressive win maybe they can learn something from years past and put together a winning streak to open up the season. 16hrs was led by J. Charles and his 17 points and got just enough points from Matt Ryan (14.43) to sneak out the win. For Big Papa (0-1) this is starting to get ugly as they have now loss their 10th regular season game in a row which is the 4th longest losing streak in league history. To make matters worse they traded Sam Bradford before week 1 in exchange for Teddy Bridgewater and it will be interesting to see how this plays out over the coarse of the season but for week 1 it cost Big Papa a win. They get a date with PackMan12 next week to try and break this 10 game losing streak!
Sportsfreak (117.20) vs DaUnderdog (110.12)
If the matchup between Pack Attack and Rapids Plungers was the game of the week this was a close second as there was another big comeback and this time is was Sportsfreak (1-0) getting a monster game from their #1 overall pick in Julio Jones (33.05) on Monday night to seal the deal. This is what a #1 pick in the draft is supposed to do for your team (lead them to victory) especially in a 14 team league and Julio did just that however the play of their #2 pick in CJ Anderson was less then impressive and will be something worth watching as he got a bit banged up and was outplayed by the backup, Ronnie Hillman. Sportsfreak also has to be excited about the free agent add of James Jones and again it is week 1 but if that is all he does the rest of the year it is worth it as they helped Sportsfreak to a week 1 win. DaUnderdog (0-1) has to be discouraged with this loss as it seemed like they had this one locked up going into Monday night. In hindsight they probably wish they would have started Sproles over Alfred Blue as Sproles continues to look like a lightning rod out there on the field and seems to surprise everyone with his production week in and week out especially in PPR formats. Despite the loss though and the disappointment that it was I think DaUnderdog has to be somewhat encouraged by the play of their team and the fact that they put up 110 points without Rodgers having a monster game and AJ Green failing to score over 10 points. DaUnderdog gets 16hrs next week while Sportsfreak moves on to play HHH.
teamAlaska (138.91) vs HHH (76.19)
Blowout #2 of week 1 goes to teamAlaska (1-0) as they destroy HHH (0-1) for their first win of the season. Out of all the teams this week teamAlaska may have had the most balanced attack as they got 10 or more points from 7 of their 11 starters and they were led by… yep you guessed it Kendall Wright (20.05)! The favorite target of Mariota going into the season looked the part and has to be an encouraging sign for teamAlaska as they move into week 2. The other player that a lot of people had their eyes on was Ameer Abdullah and he too looked the part putting up 15 points and more then that he was very involved in the offense which bodes well for his season long fantasy value. For HHH this was a miserable start and if it wasn’t for Rob Gronkowski’s big 27 point night on Thursday this would have been one of the lower scoring weeks we have seen. Outside of Gronkowski it was good to see Murray get into the end zone twice but outside of that there is not too many other bright spots this week. For HHH’s sake let’s hope that this was just a one week blunder because if not.. this is going to be a VERY long season.