Guest writing this week is me. Jared Grube.

Great to see Berry getting his first interception since beating back cancer. Love how much of a team effort it was with the tip drill too.

Man. I am pretty sure the Chargers are still looking for Cooper in the film room. Gotta love how he stares down that defender and then just stops on a dime, sending him flailing into his own teammate trailing the play. A lot to look forward to in Oakland.

The underlying theme for today's write up is LUCK. We can rant and rave about who knows what and how things will work out. But the bottom line is LUCK plays a huge role into who wins each and every week. Shoot Andrew Luck has a role in two matchups this week alone, what does that tell you!

Here is how we are going to measure your teams LUCK for the week. And remember, I am by no way undermining anybody's team here. We all need luck and get it from time to time.

1-None. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong.

2-Bad. You had a chance, but not really.

3-Boring. Everything went as expected and you can't really argue the results either way.

4-Good. Caught a few breaks, maybe a sleeper came through for you.

5-Great. Nothing could stop you this week, everyone preformed. You won easy.

But before all that... POWER RANKINGS!

We begin with Nicks team. Nick gets a 5 luck score. Gronk being Gronk, Woodhead goes for 32 and Cooper is turning in a fantastic rookie year so far. On the other end Orest gets a 1 luck score. Foster, Randle and Lewis were injured this week. Luck was not kind to you, but it will swing back around your way with vengeance. Also, you can stop smelling Katy farts, they are unlucky.

Next is my team, with a score of 5 luck. First of all, my bench put up 76 points! Usually that is a bad sign I messed up my lineup in a major way. Second Val's team, luck score of 1, put up the worst scoring total of the year for him. I for sure lucked into a win this week, and Val... Although you did not even break 100 points this week you are the first team to 1,000 on the year. That being said you lost, so you probably feel like this kid.

Next is Jake with a luck score of 3. Everyone on your team did well but Eli but really, you can count on him stinking up the joint a few times a year. things were looking good when Miller went for 38 points in the first half. Then he never touched the ball again. Yuriy on the other side gets a 4 luck score. Things went well for you this week, Beastmode came back, Gurley is a stud and Megatron keeps on destroying double teams. This was the best game of the week, neither of you deserved to loose this week.

Alex and Matt I am giving you both a luck score of 2. This game was terrible from the start with Duke Johnson and Khiry Robinson leading the charge in the early game. A couple of 31 point games from Rivers and TY was the only intrigue in this match up. Lowest scoring game of the week. You both deserved to loose.

Alex gets a luck score of 5. You won despite both Forte and Hill on bye weeks, amazing. Diggs makes an insane diving end zone grab, and you get 12 points from your te/rb/wr group. On the other end Gary gets a luck score of 2. Your team played well, and you can look forward to better production from Boldin when the Niners get their head out of their ass and bench Keapernick.

Next we have Daniel with a luck score of ANDREW LUCK. I really don't know how he put up 29 points for you, watching that game you would think he scored in single digits. A couple of late TY bombs saved you this week Smith. And Yaro with a score of 1. Tate refuses to show up for you week in and week out. And the Pats really screwed you by running the ball a total of 9 times. An NFL record low 9 times, and the goal line work went to Brady. Ouch.

Alright guys. Sorry if there are too many gifs this week and they don't load proper. This was fun, and good LUCK the rest of the season!

Week 6 Recap

Week 6 marks the kinda halfway point in our season (13 games means 6 or 7 will have to be considered halfway).  I won't mince words and try to start getting cute with it right now, instead I'll jump directly into what matters.  Standings.

As of halfway(ish) through the  season these are the official standings,

IF THE PLAYOFFS BEGAN TODAY:

1ST SEED: Valeriy Shishkin (5-1 990 PF)

2ND SEED: Jared Grube (4-2 800 PF)

3RD SEED: Daniel Smith (4-2 719 PF)

4TH SEED: Alex Gomez (3-3 857 PF) (1 GB)

5TH SEED: Jake Yorke (3-3 831 PF) (1 GB)

6TH SEED: Orest Yaslinskiy (3-3 729 PF) (1GB)

7TH SEED: Yuriy Yedinak (3-3 718 PF) (1 GB)

8TH SEED: Yaro Yaslinskiy (3-3 695 PF) (1 GB)

9TH SEED: Nic Meyer (3-3 689 PF) (2 GB)

10TH SEED: Andrew Gomez (2-4 687 PF) (3 GB)

11TH SEED: Oscar Meyer (2-4 658 PF) (2 GB)

12TH SEED: Matt Burke (1-5 774 PF) (4 GB)

Now only the top 6 make it, so the team to beat is Ory.  There's still 7 games left, so that's one more than we've played so far.  I'd say probably the worst record you can get in with is 7-6 or 8-5.  Matt, good luck dude.  You've got the PF to make a tie breaker though.  

Out of curiousity I'll list the PA in terms of most PA to least PA also.

1ST: Alex Gomez w/ 853 PA

2ND: Jake Yorke w/ 851 PA

3RD: Matt Burke w/ 850 PA

4TH: Val Shishkin w/ 768 PA

5TH: Ory Yaslinskiy w/ 765 PA

6TH: Oscar Meyer w/ 743 PA

7TH: Andrew Gomez w/ 742 PA

8TH: Nic Meyer w/ 734 PA

9TH: Yaro Yaslinskiy w/ 728 PA 

10TH: Daniel Smith w/ 725 PA

11TH: Jared Grube w/ 712 PA

12TH: Yuriy Yedinak w/ 676 PA

Odd, normally it's pretty inverse with the standings but in this case if you just flip Jared and Matt it is almost the same as the standings.  Anyway, Alex feel good about yourself despite losing to the better team, you've had a rough season.  Matt, again good luck dude. Try not to end up like your QB.

POWER RANKINGS:

RIVALRY OF THE WEEK

GRONKIN' UP SOMETHIN' GOOD (N. MEYER) DEFEATS UNPROTECTED SOUP KITCHEN (ALEX G.) 157 - 110,

 

You know, it's one of those games where you feel like you have absolutely no chance of winning at all and yet somehow you also know there's no way you can lose.  That's how I feel when I come up against Alex, because Alex, there just isn't anyway I lose to you in an important game.  Much like you are the destroyer of the Yaslinskiy's I will be the destroyer of you.  Now sometimes I'll let you get a win to build up confidence, but when it counts, just know.

Anyway, to cut a story short, the real heroes were the two plug and plays Blake Bortles and the Miami D/ST.  Suh put a stomp on the throat of my opposition.

Week 5 Recap

5 down, 8 to go until the end of the regular season.  Are you where you hoped to be at this point?  I'm guessing the answer is no, especially now that we have 0 undefeated teams.  That's right, D Smith finally lost to my dad, G. Meyer, and on a week where Q Boldin outscored Antonio Brown.  That's a lot of fun to think about.  How I can imagine D Smith's reaction after losing because of one of his favorite players:

Oh well, it happens.

This was a strange week though, the highest scoring players were mostly names you don't hear often.  Hell just going through each teams highest scoring player gives me this:

A. Foster (20 pts)
G. Barnidge (27 pts)
A. Rodgers (18 pts)
D. Freeman (32 pts)
D. Murray (24 pts)
T. Brady (29 pts)
Derp Manning (34 pts)
D. Martin (36 pts)
J. Edelman (22 pts)
Q Boldin (24 pts)
Phil Rios (24 pts)
A. Dalton (30 pts)

Now the point isn't to say these guys are bad, but to ask the question: do they seem like the highest scoring guys around to you?  This year features a lot of new (not young, just new) faces making actual impacts.   Not a lot of the top scorers at this point were exactly what was expected.

So, going back to something I haven't done in a few weeks here are some divisional breakdowns (you know, like deathcore).

EAST: 
Total Points for: 2,541
Highest scorer: V. Shishkin w/ 797 pts (averaging nearly 160 ppg)
Lowest scorer: Yours truly w/ 532 pts
Total Points against: 2,511

WEST:
Total Points for: 2,559
Highest scorer: Alex Gomez w/ 747 pts (almost 150ppg average)
Lowest scorer: G. Meyer w/ 557 pts
Total Points against: 2,516

NORTH:
Total Points for: 2,408
Highest scorer: J. Yorke w/ 687 pts (Slightly under 140 ppg average)
Lowest scorer: Bag of Suck w/ 548 pts
Total Points against: 2,481

Interesting notes:

Jake, despite being the highest scorer in his division is 2 games back and tied with everyone besides D. Smith in his division. Meanwhile, Yuriy and D Smith in the same division have the two easiest schedules.

Matt is number 3 in scoring, and yet posts the leagues worst record with a 1-4.  He has the 3rd hardest schedule.  Bad luck?

Jared and Ory's teams are 31 points different in score, and there schedule is only 12 point difference.  They have almost the exact same output and input up to this point.

Once again, I don't have answers for these stats, but you know that feeling when you see a nice stat walk by

POWER RANKINGS:

MATCH-UP OF THE WEEK

Ory Yaslinskiy beats on Jared Grube.  Final score: 132 - 124

So, before I get too far into this, for archival purposes that we need to show how Ory's team came to be known as Katy Grube Fart Sniffers despite winning the game.  So everyone can see exactly what the bet was and how it went down:

The blue texts are Ory and the yellow is Jared.  Now the bet could have been about who won, in which case Ory would have got his fun.  Instead, Jared renamed the team after his sister who apparently has some noxious gas.



In this game in particular, it's hard to find someone that really stands out on Ory's team, the highest scoring player was Demarco Murray, but since he is soon to depart Ory's team I don't want to dwell on him.  Instead, I'll say the impressive part of Ory's team is the consistency.  From top to bottom they were double-digit players including the ones on his bench.  Hell if it weren't for his D/ST and kicker playing like butt this team could have really been special.  Even Dick Rod got in on the action, getting a solid 10 points.  Compare this to Jared's AlfMo (1pt) Jared Cook (1pt) and Delanie Walker (7pts) and its easy to see why even angry Brady couldn't throw his way out of it.  Ory won with a team that decided this was the week where every single player would actually do something, and because of that the KATY GRUBE FART SNIFFERS have made it to 3-2.  Now some happiness from the most elusive RB in the league Dion Lewis

Week 4 Recap

Week 4 is in the books.  Every single team in the league now has a win, and D Smith remains the final undefeated team at 4-0.  Compared to last week, this week was low scoring but it seems that almost all of the matchups were perfectly timed.  The average margin of victory was just 14 points, and that was made larger only because of Andrew's 30 point win over Yuriy.  I mean simply for perspective, the two highest-scoring teams played each other and the two lowest-scoring teams played each other.  The week was a good one.

So I know a few teams that have simply had bad luck probably aren't worried, but there's a few teams that should be (mine included).  Look not to beat luck, but instead to put luck on your side.

It was a strange week though, there were a lot of injuries and also a lot of scores that didn't seem to make much sense.

At the end of the week, I think we're just hoping for a win

Or accepting the awful loss.

POWER RANKINGS

MATCHUP OF THE WEEK

As chosen by the people, for the people, by the people,  the matchup of the week is Valeriy versus Jake with 5 votes.

In this matchup (SPOILER ALERT) Val beats down Jake 154 to 135.  Now kudos to you guys, it was the highest scoring matchup of the week by far.  If Jake had played any other team he would have won.  Instead, I'm here to rub it in his face that he failed.

Versus

Ya know, with Bell going on Thursday I really thought Jake started well.  Sure Steve Smith got hurt, but still 33 points from two players is a good Thursday.  Hell really, even through the Morning games Jake was looking pretty good.  Except, Devonta Freeman one Atlanta RB decided that enough was enough.  He personally had to put an end to that ex-champions smug run of suspended first-round pick winning.  He had to massacre everything that ever was holy and contribute to the winning of someone in the East conference that really should be 4-0 but couldn't because he faultered before the reigning champion.  Yup, that's right, Devonta Freeman.  Some dude that just happens to share the last name with god from Bruce Almighty.  Coincidence? Probably not.  Anyway, Jake,  I just wanted you to know you could have tied if you had played Forsett and Duke Johnson instead of Mike Evans and Melvin Gordon.  Just FYI.

Hats off to Val's TD machine, Devonta Freeman.

POLL