News:

Apparently this was “Rivalry Week” according to Yahoo and I’ll admit to understanding the concept but not really understanding the attempted execution. It would seem to me that rivalries are based on the teams, not a randomly selected week of the season and a schedule randomly determined in early September. I prefer to think that either no weeks are rivalry weeks or all weeks are rivalry weeks. What matters is we’re down to four weeks and like Scott Hansen likes to say on Red Zone, “It’s The witching hour, where wins become losses and losses become wins“.

Full disclosure, I sort of forgot there were other ways to “filter” our league standings – Current Projections, Draft Day Projections and Power Rankings. Playing with those views, some interesting observations:

1. By Current Projections, AOB and I are expected to finish the regular season tied at the top with a record of 10-4. As much as I’d love that, I don’t see anyone winning out the next four weeks.
2. BigPlay is expected to finish oh so close to a play-off spot but alas, come up a little short again (That’s what she said!).
3. According to Draft Day Projections, Piper was expected to finish as the top seed with a record of 11-3. Incidentally I was expected to finish at 3-11, tied with Jaydawgs and one win above Neil. Maybe not.
4. Last but not least, the Power Rankings also put AOB at the top (which doesn’t surprise me considering Yahoo’s projections) but I thought it was interesting to see them predict a bit of a late surge from the Brown Dawgs and a bit of the opposite from the Claymores. Hmmm…

Shark move of the week:

Honourable mention goes to Neil this week for swinging not one but two trades. We like to have fun with the intentional bad trade but honestly, truly good trades aren’t an easy thing to do. For one thing we’re all dealing with bias whether we want to admit it or not and it’s also hard to put something together that addresses the needs of both sides. Some leagues seem quite distressed they don’t have more trades but that doesn’t bother me. As I said, it isn’t easy to do and that’s okay.

The top shark this week though is Ceilidh. I know math tells us every week counts the same but I still have this feeling it was particularly important for her to get to 7-3, especially if Yahoo knows something we don’t. Likewise, there’s no such thing as momentum in fantasy football but if you can “almost” clinch a spot early, a lot of tough decisions get a little bit easier.

This week she got the textbook start you want from backup Jaxson Dart on your starter’s bye and she got a solid week from the always unpredictable Jauan Jennings – nicely done!

Guppy move of the week:

It’s common for guppy awards to become progressively more difficult to give as the season wears on. The injuries have piled up to where you’re often just trying to get something at all out of that flex spot. Other truths have revealed themselves as well. We’ve all figured out Joe Mixon isn’t coming back this year. We also know guys like Bucky Irving haven’t really been “questionable” for the past six weeks (even though that’s what coaches keep saying). We had some close (and not-so-close) match-ups this week but it wasn’t really anything anyone could control. No guppies for us!

Smack talk award of the week:

Not smack per se but honourable mention to Neil with the London Jr Football championship and the family photo op. It’s always nice to see some real football mixed in with the “fake football”!

Our clear winner though was the Piper who raged on into the Doub-less night and then later doub-led down by again raging against the dying of the Doubless light. I don’t know about you but I was imaging Doug in front of the TV doing his best impression of “Coach” from Letterkenny – Fucking embarrassing! No doubt the Doubster will not be getting a Christmas card this year!

Welcome to fantasy hell award of the week:

My sincerest condolences to AOB, Scott and Brandon who had the clear misfortune of running into the fantasy buzz saws that were Jahmyr Gibbs, JT and Achane in Week 10. When you’re on the wrong end of something like that, there simply is no counter tactic. As Grid said, Turn out the lights, the party’s over.

Fade to black, we’re on to Week 11.