News:

Byemageddon is officially behind us. Not only did six of us emerge with a win but those that did, posted some surprisingly healthy scores. It’s also worth noting our fantasy rookie got his first win, to climb out of the cellar.

In NFL news, QBs seem to be front and centre for various reasons. The Jets’ owner threw Justin Fields under and bus just before they went back to him (classy) and Lamar was side-lined another week, all while the Ravens 2025 campaign is potentially slipping away.

Random thought of the week:

On Thursday night, it was truly painful to watch Carson Wentz being fed to the lions, gladiator style. To say the guy has had an up and down career would be an understatement and it’s fair to say his resume suggests he’s closer to being the 64th best QB in the league than the 32nd best but no one really deserves a ritual sacrifice.

Guys have played and been effective with “injuries to their non-throwing shoulder”, so you assume “effective” was at least a possibility going into Thursday night but it quickly became apparent it wasn’t. His injury was clearly unmanageable but beyond the shoulder, the bigger picture is that we were forced to watch someone actively accelerating the timeline leading to the end of their career. There are not many (if any) more opportunities for guys like Wentz and if there was ever a situation where you couldn’t blame a player for making a “business decision” this was it. He didn’t do that and now he’s on the IR.

Shark move of the week:

Honourable mentions go to AOB and the Brown Dawgs for putting up those lofty numbers, and particularly to Ken for line-up calls like Tucker Kraft (36.30) on National Tight End Day!

This week though the award goes to Brandon who, in a tough match-up, rolled with some bye-week beauties like Chimere Dike (33.90), Kimani Vidal (22.70) and Kyle Pitts (14.90) to secure the victory and drag Neil back down into the crab bucket with the rest of us!

Guppy move of the week:

In a week with some fairly modest scores you might think that’s where your guppy is lurking but it turns out that’s not the case. When scanning Neil’s line-up I immediately noticed the decision to leave Garrett Wilson in despite him having been ruled out on Friday. With that observation made, it would be tempting to tick the “guppy” box and move on but I didn’t. I further wondered what led him to believe Sunday was going to be an Andrei Iosivas breakout game in spite of Brown, Chase and Higgins all playing? More hidden messages in the Alpha-bits maybe?

When BigPlay did his post game film analysis on Tuesday, he must have noticed that 16 fantasy points stood between him being 6 – 2 and being 5 – 3. These are the little things that matter a lot in Week 14. If he gets Downs in there for Wilson, that’s 13 of those 16 points. Then maybe you pick up a DEF that isn’t playing KC? Maybe Neil just hasn’t reached that chapter of the book yet?

Smack talk award of the week:

I think I will share the award with Moogs this week as a tribute to those of us computer savvy types that decided bust out actual images in the chat. We are the leaders, the techo-vanguards among you. Our VCRs do not flash “12:00” constantly. Our printers have ink in them. We’ve even been known to carry our event tickets on our phones without any paper backups. Knowledge is power!

Welcome to fantasy hell award of the week:

I think the Piper is in the conversation this week, being on the wrong end of a Jets’ dead cat bounce and also for losing Pacheco during his game. Archie was a victim of one of those “Don’t just lay there. Do something!” type weeks (and those drive me nuts) but in the end I think the award goes to Grid who had to suffer through not only the target-less week from Quentin Johnston but quiet weeks from others and finally, the injustice of seeing Cam Skattebo leave the field with his foot pointing in the wrong direction.

Was Cam a “real and fantasy football” rookie of the year candidate? Absolutely. He was also fantasy steal in the 8th round and those guys can be “king makers” as we like to say. On the other hand, they can all be lost, like tears in rain.