Gooner
Pit League Fantasy Football Commissioner
WEEK 5 REVIEW
The Davis Division played fantasy football in Week 5 and as we hit the first round of bye weeks, the league as a whole is really starting to take its shape. Let's take a look at how things happened for our Davis teams this week:
WEEK 5 STATS
WEEK 5 MATCHUPS
SD3 78.92–78.04 Mrs. I/OAs the immortal Gus Johnson once said, "HEART. BREAK. CITY." Trailing by less than 4 points entering Monday Night Football, Mrs. I/O had the unfortunate experience of being given the lead at kickoff with the Colts DST, then having to hope they could hold on against a surging Baltimore offense. And considering the matchup, Mrs. I/O had to have been extremely pleased. With 12 minutes remaining, the Colts had taken a 25-9 lead, forcing Baltimore to abandon their running attack and air out the ball to get back in the game. Unfortunately for Mrs. I/O, that's where it all went wrong. A quick TD drive for Baltimore was followed up with a blocked FG, giving Baltimore the chance to tie the game with a touchdown and 2-point conversion, and with just seconds left on the clock, Baltimore made it happen, forcing overtime. Mrs. I/O still had a chance to hold on if the Colts could drive down and win in OT, keeping Baltimore under the 28 point threshold where negative points start coming in, but Mrs. I/O's luck continued to run bad as Baltimore won the coin toss and drove down to score the game-winning touchdown, both for themselves and for SD3. A devastating loss, the only one in the Davis Division in Week 5, and one that cut Mrs. I/O's playoff odds in half. I've seen some brutal fantasy losses and I've had my fair share where I wanted to rip my hair out, but this is way up there. My sincerest condolences, Mrs. I/O.
Young Buck 101.62–96.76 Barça
"You come at the king, you best not miss," and Young Buck did not miss in Week 5, taking down previously undefeated Barça in a high-scoring, topsy turvy affair. In pretty much any other week, Young Buck's performance would be considered pretty middling. Only one non-QB offensive player outperformed their projections and the Buccaneers DST had an alright day against Miami. But Justin Herbert, man oh man. A 42.82 point performance more than made up for the average week his teammates had, and it was enough to stave off some huge WR performances for Barça and grab a victory to propel Young Buck to the top of the Davis Division. Though his division lead is merely a points tiebreaker of only 33 points, ending the week at the top of your division feels good no matter the margin, and with two divisional games still to come, the head to head tiebreakers are still there to be won. But Young Buck will hope that Justin Herbert can continue to perform like the best QB in the league and give him the chance to put together a few wins to hopefully make tiebreakers irrelevant in the Davis Division race.
Jive Turkeys 77.94–70.74 Edarem
Another tough matchup for a Davis Division team saw Edarem take on redwing's Jive Turkeys, but unlike his Davis Division brethren Young Buck, a phenomenal QB performance was unable to make up for deficiencies with the rest of his team. Thursday's news that Chris Carson would be unavailable for the Seahawks' TNF matchup against the rams mean that Edarem was scrambling a bit for RB production, and unfortunately for him, he chose the wrong backup RB. While Elijah Mitchell did a decent job to get some points on the board, Edarem will be wondering "what if" as AJ Dillon got a touchdown and put up enough points that it would have made the difference between a win and a loss for Edarem. It's a tough loss as redwing and the Turkeys were gettable this week and the loss puts Edarem down a game in the division with a head to head loss against Young Buck, though his head to head win against Pickle will at least be a consolation this season. But making up two games on Young Buck while still being the lowest scoring team on the season leaves it all to do for Edarem. Hopefully he will not look back on Week 5 as the one that got away.
Oblong Pickle 98.4–95.72 Lazy-Eyed Psychos
Another close game for a Davis Division member, but Oblong Pickle found himself on the right side of the matchup, taking down Sleepy's Lazy-Eyed Psychos. A trio of great performances led the way for Pickle and gave him enough cushion to hold off a late Sunday push from Sleepy. Every game is a big game as the margins in fantasy football are so small, but for Pickle in particular, each week feels like a must-win. Pickle is in a unique spot in that he is tied for the division lead on record, but has an abysmal tiebreaker situation as both of his losses are to divisional rivals. And with his matchup against division leader Young Buck not until Week 14, Pickle has maybe the clearest but most treacherous playoff patch in the league. I imagine that Pickle will be hoping that he doesn't go up against many more 90+ point opponents on a weekly basis, but for at least one week his team gave him the performances he needed to stay ahead of the pace in the playoff race.
FAMILY CORNER
Carolina WacDarnolds 94.52–67.42 Mr. I/OAnother Family Corner appearance, another disastrous performance and loss for Mr. I/O who had to watch Saquon Barkley randomly step on the foot of a Dallas Cowboy and exit the game in first quarter, leaving him short of production and behind the 8 ball immediately. And though the rest of his team did what they could, there was little hope for Mr. I/O as Ph's WacDarnolds performed extremely well to lock up the victory on Sunday, allowing Hollywood Brown to put the cherry on top of Ph's best week of the season. Though Mr. I/O was able to get his first win of the season last week in an important divisional game, it looks more and more like that matchup being an anomaly and not the beginning of a resurrection, and with two consecutive games against teams with winning records coming up, it's possible it gets worse before it gets better. If it gets better. Tough week for the I/Os.
GOONER'S GALLANT GUESSES
Another 4-6 week drops my overall season record to 28-22, couple of really close matchups cost me. But we are staying afloat, that's all I want.
Congrats to all winners in Week 5, see you on Thursday for the Week 6 preview!
