News:

It’s hard to believe we are entering our twentieth season of Clan McDonald fantasy football. When I reflect on this, I think about what has changed and what has stayed the same. Over a dozen “alumni” managers have played with us and subsequently retired. We started with ten teams and also had a year or two where we’ve contracted from twelve to ten but always had competitive seasons and a solid foundation of people.

In terms of the football itself, I’d say the more things change, the more they stay the same. Players rise and fall. Promising rookies become superstars, reliable vets and eventually, bye week fill-ins. Some play too long and others don’t get to play long enough. NFL teams also rise and fall, build dynasties and then we watch them crumble. We’ve also seen the rise of the passing offense, the decline of the “bell cow” back and lots of ebb and flow between those.

Fortunately for us, there are no dynasties in redraft. Every year is a reboot and twelve individuals are given equal footing to claim the coveted Plastic Helmet of Excellence once again. Which brings us to the business at hand…

Random thought of the week:

I’m always skeptical of teams predicted to have big turnarounds or big drop-offs from one season to the next. That said, I was pretty surprised at how bad Denver’s offense looked, how good the Giants looked and how the Vikings scored 39 points against Green Bay with Carson Wentz.

Cleveland, Miami and Tennessee I’m not surprised about and I think you can almost blindly stream any DEF facing one of them in any given week – at least until they show something resembling a pulse.

Shark move of the week:

Honourable mention goes to Ken for the “real” (yet early) A+ draft grade for his first four picks (Chase, JJ, Flowers and Monty). I typically feel like you’re mostly trying to avoid catastrophe early in a draft but so far, this is way better than that.

Honourable mention also goes to Ayden for casually dropping a Week 1 high score on commish. I was slightly worried going in to the week but definitely did not have the points Dart and Watson put up Sunday on my Bingo card.

The award for Week 1 goes to AOB however, for rolling with his 10th rounder Jalen Coker on Sunday for a cool 36.80 points. Nicely done.

Guppy move of the week:

Runner up goes to commish for the dubious honour of having more Week 1 points on his bench than in his line-up. I, myself, personally am choosing to view this as solid depth – yeah, that’s it. I also made exactly one line-up change prior to the weekend and managed to lower my point output. So I got that going for me, which is nice…

Granted I’m really reaching here but I’m not sure I would have started the Texans DEF against the Bills as BK did. Don’t get me wrong, Texans are legit and they were at home but matchups do matter. I get it though. Early in the season it’s hard to justify more than one roster spot for a defense. Too many draft picks have yet to reveal themselves as good or bad to be dropping anyone in Week 1.

Ultimately though I decided to bestow this week’s award on the Mooglar, somewhat for starting Burrow over Lamar but honestly, more for drafting Burrow and Lamar two rounds apart. He will look like a genius if one of them goes down to injury but otherwise, that’s an awful lot of draft capital tied up at QB.

Smack talk award of the week:

We had a decent start to the chat this week considering Week 1 can often be a quiet one. Grid rightly pointed out that the Rams did not do “exactly what it says on the tin” (so to speak). In fact, it was a bit more like opening a box of mac and cheese to find the box half full of noodles and a half packet of “cheese” sauce that tastes more like wallpaper paste. When the best part of the recipe is the milk and butter you have to supply yourself, that’s a rip-off.

Since there is no award for complaining about shrinkflation and enshitification, I’ll get back to our league. Smack was fairly congenial this week so I’m going to give the award to Ayden simply for jumping in right away. Now granted it’s a bit easier when your squad looks like the ’72 Dolphins but still, good on him! That said, I think I speak for the rest of the league when I say we’re not quite ready to engrave your name on the trophy.

Welcome to fantasy football hell award of the week:

Plenty of candidates for this award this young season! I’ll start with Brian, who’s TE Colston Loveland (sounds like a soap opera character?) managed zero catches and points on a team that scored a record-setting 59 points on Sunday. That almost feels like a personal insult.

It wouldn’t be a week of football without injuries and perhaps the “biggest” one this week was new Patriot AJ Brown, who landed himself on the IR with the dreaded high ankle. We also had early exists for Darnold and Kyler, as well as later ones for Flowers and McConkey. Next man up I guess.

Last but not least, I think Piper’s team looked a bit like it was still shaking off the cobwebs from the off season, with players like Cook, Higgins, McLaurin and Kittle looking a bit like decoys out there. Hopefully they look a little more involved next week.