News:

I can definitely relate to Mark Davis this week. Sometimes you want to fire your entire starting line-up. Sometimes you want to fire your coach and GM. Oh wait, never mind. That’s me!

The good news is that scoring was generally up in Clan McDonald this week and everything is far from decided after the first eight contests have flown by. We have snow on the cars this morning here at Clan McDonald fantasy headquarters and it feels like if you blink, you’ll miss November altogether.

Random Thought of the Week:

It’s around this time of year I start looking at points for and against. In terms of points against, it’s not that surprising to see BigPlay, Mortley and Jaydawg leading the way with the most points scored against them. On the other end of things, Chloe, BK and the BrownDawgs lead the way in points scored. Sure, there are some Captain Obvious conclusions you can draw when correlating points to wins and losses but there are some less obvious ones too.

You can look at the stats yourselves and drawn your own conclusions but let’s just say I think a few teams have drawn more than their share of “bad luck” through eight games and a couple teams have maybe gotten a few more lucky bounces than others. It’s a cliché but also true – you can’t control how many points are scored against you but the deeper you get in the season, the more likely those stats are to “average out”. If the overall points story starts to take centre stage the rest of the way, the standings could be in for a bit of a shake-up.

Shark Move of the Week:

I think this is an honourable mention week more than an award granting week. In particular, I’m thinking of Archie, who managed to actually turn what Jahmyr Gibbs did on Monday into points that actually counted. Gibbs’ story is pretty typical – highly drafted in the NFL and fantasy, people roll him out early, expect big things and they don’t happen – at least not right away. The occasional rookie who immediately plays like a superstar story does happen and those tend to overshadow the far more common and realistic path to stardom. It can take awhile.

Guppy Move of the Week:

Sometimes guppy moves are deeply entwined with fantasy hell scenarios. Case in point, we had the Piper starting the formidable duo of Mattison and Demercado at running back this week. It feels a bit like he may have been visited by the three witches from MacBeth, who foretold big fantasy victories for those two and cruel defeats in battle for Jacobs and the Green Bay backfield. Of course we know the witches led McBeth to his ruin just like we know the fantasy gods like to torture us for their amusement. Coincidence? Probably not…

Smacktalk Award of the Week:

Technically it was more a whimsical acknowledgement of his own demise than it was “smack talk” but either way, Mortley has entered the chat – and for that I will grant him the award this week.

Also, for those in the basement (or at the top of the steps), I can highly recommend the Noma 50 Pint Dehumidifier from Canadian Tire. It’s a little noisy but highly efficient and the water reservoir comes with a built-in handle!

Welcome to Fantasy Football Hell Award of the Week:

The award this week goes to those afflicted by QB injuries. If you had Stafford, Cousins or JimmyG, you are down a QB. If you had anyone in the passing game of these three offenses, you also took a big hit this week. To be clear, JimmyG isn’t injured, he’s just terrible.