News:

There’s no need to manufacture NFL headlines this week with injuries to high profile fantasy assets like Najee Harris, CeeDee Lamb and James Connor. Behind those headlines we also have names like Nick Bosa and Tyrone Tracy among others.

League wise I find myself trying to play that “who’s better than who?” game but the league now is as much about match-ups as it is better or worse. It’s a good thing I’m not a gambler because Browns – Packers, Cowboys – Bears and Lions – Ravens probably would have cost me some money.

In Clan McDonald, we’ve dispensed with the notion of perfect records in record time and I sense managers are feeling more skepticism than optimism about the waiver wire. Likewise the early candidates for “fantasy bust”, where it’s important to note that a lack of success is only partially due to the player (sometimes it’s even a very small part). There are too many to name in this short season and we’re all trying to decide if they are “buy low” or “cut your losses”. I think our trade this week might be motivated (at least in part) by this thinking but we’ll see.

Shark move of the week:

Honourable mention to Ceilidh who had options for a flex start other than Montgomery but clearly made the right choice. A tip of the cap to Piper as well who must have received some premonition that greatness was coming for Chase McLaughlin. In a tight contest with Grid, a 37 point contribution from his special teams was more than enough to secure the victory.

This week though I think I have to give the award to AOB for pivoting from Bo Nix to Caleb Williams. Bo had a pretty good “real football” day but Caleb carried him to fantasy victory and no doubt eased the sting of Tre Tucker and Minn DEF on his bench to the tune of 80 points.

Guppy move of the week:

There was enough bad that happened this week that there’s really no need to name names and award awards but some of us are clearly trying to decide if certain players are real or if their initial success or failure is a mirage. A number of us guessed wrong this week with some examples of bad staying bad and good staying good.

Smack talk award of the week:

As a Seahawks fan I have mixed feelings about Russ Wilson but I will say this: I do think Russ is done but NYG is not a good place to be a QB. Both things can be true. We’ve seen what Saquon can do elsewhere and are seeing what Danny Jones is doing elsewhere. He was a bigger, more durable and more mobile version of Russ. Why bring Russ in knowing that, especially when you’ve done nothing to plug the holes in your o-line? Why now stick rookie Jaxson Dart back there when you have an experienced, expendable and pretty mobile option like Jameis Winston on your roster? These sound like the kind of decisions that get you fired when you’re trying to avoid getting fired.

Anyway, this week I’m going with Neilly in the chat. He got a decent shot in on my pathetic week and Piper’s best player (which technically, he kinda was). I’m not entirely sure how Dan Campbell was going to win him his match-up Monday night, unless he expected him to go for two on all those TDs? Yeah that’s likely it.

Welcome to fantasy hell award of the week:

I think we can safely narrow the field to Ken and Ceilidh this week. For starters, they played each other. One lost a first rounder (temporarily) while the other lost a 4th rounder for the rest of the season. One took a zero for Lamb while the other got 6.70 points out of Connor before he went down – arguably the margin of victory in the match-up. Ironically though, Ken has Trey Benson so I think I’m going to give the award to Ceilidh this week by the slimmest of margins.