News:

Through two weeks of football I feel like we’re in one of those NASCAR races where there’s a crash at the starting line and a quarter of the cars are involved and it takes awhile to figure out who is driving away from the pile and who is being towed away. We’ve had an ugly start but we’re underway I guess and standings wise, we have three teams with unblemished records thus far, a couple teams clearly scuffling a bit and then everyone else in between – in other words, business as usual.

The NFL news is just more injuries to prominent players. In no particular order we have the following players injured: CMC, Puka, Pacheco, Kupp, Deebo, Mixon, Tua, Mostert, Walker, Higgins, AJ Brown, Allen, Njoku, Engram, Love and Addison. Unfortunately, I’m probably missing some.

Random thought of the Week:

Not really a random thought but I’ve been thinking about the NFL’s injury reporting system and how ill-suited it is to the modern era of fantasy football and gambling. People are upset about the way McCalfInjury’s situation was handled and I completely understand that but the real problem is that San Fran did nothing wrong in the context of the injury system currently in place. How will the league reconcile the two polar opposite interests of teams (that want to disclose as little as they can get away with) and the customers of online betting, casinos and fantasy platforms (who want to know as much as possible)? Betting and fantasy are almost solely responsible for the huge surge in fan interest and these pursuits pay the freight for a big portion of the advertising too.

Shark Move of the Week:

Honourable mention goes to the Brown Dawgs who just posted a top-to-bottom solid line-up this week. In particular the “special teams” contributions by the Texans for a cool 36 points is hard to match.

I’ll throw a runner up in my own direction as well, not for anticipating what NOLA did to the Cowboys on Sunday but for perhaps seeing the Saints possible bounce back from last year. In short, they have something they haven’t had since prime Drew Brees – an o-line. There are now three first rounders and a Pro Bowl second rounder on that line. Even older guys like Kamara can run when there’s somewhere to go.

However, the award this week goes to AOB for sticking to his rookie WR strategy in Week 2. I will admit to raising a Spockian eyebrow during our draft when he took MHJ, Nabers, Odunze, Worthy and Adontai Mitchell but it seems to be working out okay. Maybe a little more than okay.

Guppy Move of the Week:

Pretty slim pickings for guppy candidates this week which is always a good thing. Scoring is down mostly to the injury landscape I think but I was surprised that both of the kick returners I mentioned in my newsletter last week were picked up. You people do know I don’t know anything right?

As I said, it’s hard to pick but in the absence of really good options, I’m going to have to go with the Rosstitutes and specifically the decision to roll with Miami’s DEF against Buffalo. Granted, it wouldn’t have made a difference in the outcome and he didn’t have an alternate option on his bench but there was really no reason for optimism with the Phins there. I realize the NFL is a week to week league and the whole “horses for courses” thing but still, the Bills are going to score points.

Smack Talk Award of the Week:

Hard not to give the nod to the Piper here after making not one but two bold predictions for the final standing of our league this year. I like Ken’s team a lot but a few of us are going to have something to say about how this journey ends. Decidedly fewer of us are interested in competing with Piper’s squad for the porcelain bowl of not so excellence.

Welcome to Fantasy Hell Award of the Week:

Plenty of temporary setbacks to choose from this week but I think I have to give the award to Mortley who just two weeks into the season is already facing some major roster Jenga just to field a complete line-up. People love to say “It’s just one week” and whatnot but blanket advice is bad advice and not all early moves are panic. I’m a patient manager but sometimes you have to risk flushing a non-turd while you’re flushing the turds. It’s a cost of doing business.