Week 1 is now complete and it is now time for evaluation, scouting, head scratching, overreacting and anything else that you might be feeling after week 1. It is always a great week because there will always be the guys that come out of nowhere in week 1 and look like fantasy stars only to look back at the end of the year and find that they didn’t come close to that production the remainder of the season. You also however have guys that legitimately were under estimated (P. Lindsay last year) who are stars from the beginning and become pro bowlers at their position at the end of the season. Good luck identifying them! Lots to get to so here are the recaps.
Rapids Plungers (161.12) vs Pack Attack (118.92)
QB and RB’s.. overrated! Rapids Plungers just showed you the blueprint of how a draft strategy can come together and work almost perfectly. I say almost because I don’t think anywhere in the strategy did they project their starting QB to be the lowest scoring player on their team. Their WR’s and TE were the strong points that carried this team not to mention 22 points from their defense. It’s only week 1 but the overreaction here is that Rapids Plungers cruises to one of the top spots in the league and loses yet again in the first round of the playoffs! I guess maybe that isn’t much of an overreaction but a trend that I am sticking with again this year!
PackerFANatic7 (107.46) vs 16hrs Ahead of You!! (106.80)
What a game this turned out to be! It took until the last game of the week to decide the winner. 16hrs took what seemed to be a commanding lead heading into the 2nd Monday night game thanks to a 30pt performance by D. Watson and another 17 pts from Kamara. PackerFANatic7 had to rely on Tyrell Williams in the late game and he came through with a 22 point effort leading them to the narrow 0.66 point win. For 16 hrs they have to have liked the competitiveness of their team and will be looking to get in the win column next week. For PackerFANatic7 these narrow kind of wins or “stealing” a win are huge in this league and have historically been difference makers come playoff time.
DaUnderdog (123.89) vs Big Papa (118.38)
This was another game that came down to the wire with DaUnderdog coming away with the victory. DaUnderdog was led by their first round pick in D. Cook (26.85 pts) as well their other RB C. Carson (20.82 pts). They also got double digit numbers from their DEF and D player which helped to seal this win. For Big Papa, this is a tough one to swallow as their WR group scored a grand total of 9.97 points and their DEF failed to score a point. When all that happens and you still only lost by 5 points… that doesn’t sit real well. DaUnderdog is excited about this win and is looking forward to a meeting with HHH next week!
teamAlaska (199.26) vs BIGBOY! (130.17)
Wow! It’s not often that you score 130 points and lose by 69 points! I knew that teamAlaska was serious about not wanting whatever the last place team will be getting this year but I guess I didn’t know just how serious! They were led this week by the guy who outside of Barkley was my #2 player in fantasy and that is C. McCaffrey. He could very well end up the top back in fantasy this year and his 39 pts from this week are a good start! To go along with that you add in the top WR from week 1 in Sammy Watkins (46pts) and another WR who had 14 catches and you can start seeing how this team dominated in week 1. For BIGBOY! nothing is going to come easy this year as everyone is gunning for the two time defending champ. Despite the loss, they actually played relatively well and you can see the pieces they have in place are there. I talked about in the preview that they would likely have the top RB group in the league and that held true as Jacobs (20pts), Bell (19pts), and D. Johnson (20pts) came through with strong week 1 efforts. I went back to the archives to check and I found that teamAlaska’s 199 point effort is the third highest scoring Week 1 in our league history. Only pack slayer (208.76 in 2013) and Rapids Plungers (207.47 in 2010) had higher scoring week 1’s. Both of those teams went on to #1 and #2 seeds for the year so teamAlaska is off to a great start!
PackMan12 (121.11) vs Bossman (94.03)
PackMan12 comes away with the week 1 win against a Bossman team that comes out of the gate slow! PackMan12 was led by two of the older players in the league in P. Rivers (28pts) and Fitzgerald (24pts). I am not sure they will be able to count on these players every week so they are going to have to get better production elsewhere come week 2. For Bossman, they start off their season with a dud and really this is kind of how things have been looking for them the past couple of seasons. They did get a huge game from Ekeler (33pts) so that is something to build on but overall the rest of their starters failed to show up! I say starters because every week we as fantasy GM’s have decisions to make. Who to start and who not to start. If you were listening to any of the fantasy guru’s you may have made the same decision to start Winston over Prescott this week. That decision cost Bossman 38.15 points and a win. I am not sure if there was any debating going into week 1 of who to start but
pack slayer (106.35) vs HHH (82.00)
A win is a win and pack slayer is going to take this one but they can’t feel very good about their team after they struggled to get over that 100 point mark in week 1. They did get some quality performances from Gordan, M. Thomas and Kittle which these three guys are going to need to perform for this time to compete this year. 106 points won’t win you many games so despite the win I am feeling a little down on this team after week 1. ***Remember*** this is the week that we all overreact good or bad so pack slayer can prove me wrong in week 2! HHH… well if pack slayer had a bad week then HHH is in really tough shape as they only had two starting positions score in double digits and that was Mark Ingram (24pts) and NE DEF (10pts). Everyone else on their team really struggled. It didn’t help that D. Adams and A. Jones of the Packers played against the Bears D but they have some work to do in Week 2 to get this bad taste out of their mouth!
U Don’t Know (147.14) vs Sportsfreak (144.78)
It seems every week we have at least one “tough luck” loser and this week that mantle goes to Sportsfreak! Sportsfreak had a really solid week scoring the 4th most points in the league thanks to a crazy 5 TD game from L. Jackson (41pts) and another huge game from their RB, Marlon Mack (29pts). In addition, they also had a guy by the name of John Ross (37pts) on their bench! So in case you are wondering, Sportsfreak had the 2nd highest scoring QB, 3rd highest scoring RB and 3rd highest scoring WR in week 1 and they still lost! That goes to show that U Don’t Know had a monster game and it really was a team effort. They were led by an unlikely candidate in D. Jackson who put up 37 points and from there they had 6 positions score in double figures! This was a good start for U Don’t Know as they look to build on their success from a year ago!
That’s all folks! I am looking forward to another great week ahead! Is it Thursday yet? 🙂
Have a great week!