Menace Mashup 2013: Week 5

In golf, the third day of a tournament is considered to be "moving day."  The name means exactly what it says.  On moving day, you make your move.  There's no guarantee you'll be hoisting the hardware by making your move on moving day, but if you don't there's a solid guarantee that you won't.  Fantasy football, in a sense, is like golf.  Granted, we just finished Week 5 and we still have a long way to go, but this is the time of the season when you have to make your move.  If you don't make your move, you might as well be playing golf when the regular season ends. 

OK, in the words of the great Happy Gilmore:

"Enough with this golf sissy crap and get back to work!"

Well, you don't have to get back to work...yet, but we get his point.  After all, golf worked out pretty well for him, didn't it?

In a sense, many of us here at MIISFFL feel exactly like Happy did after his little tussle with Mr. Barker.  In fact, exactly half of us do.  Whether you lost by insane blowout (which is usually the norm) or by excruciatingly agonizing choke job after being as high as a 95-5 favorite (see below), all losses feel like a punch in the gut...or a kick in the head.

We start of course with our defending champion Patrick who ended up on the wrong end of a 29 point defeat to the Art of Kent-master himself.  As with most matchups in this league, it came down to a Monday night showdown.  Patrick trailed by a lot, but had a puncher's chance with Jacquizz Rodgers (who cracked 20 points in his own right) and a battle royale between arguably the best tight end in the history of the game, Tony Gonzalez, and...and...and?  Jeremy Kerley?  Surely Gonzo would go Gonzo on the J E T S, right?  Patrick would win and go over .500 and all would be right with the world.  Well, this Kerley guy had other ideas, as did the Jets secondary.  Gonzo got free a couple times, and even found the end zone, but his total could have been much higher had it not been for the assault and battery style double teams he kept getting at the line of scrimmage.  Meanwhile, Kerley not only caught 5 balls for 68 yards, he found the end zone once and even tacked on 24 punt return yards to boot.  Thus taking Mr. K's relatively comfortable point total from the rest of the weekend and solidifying his victory...and taking his first weekly pot with a total of 152.

On the other end of the spectrum, your humble correspondent for a long time had delusions visions of taking the weekly pot himself, especially as the points piled up in that Denver-Dallas game.  After Fred Jackson got Andy off to a solid 23 point start on Thursday, the Caputo's Corner machine took over as (just about) every skill position player found the end zone on Sunday.  Brees had 2 (albeit in an uninspiring performance), Decker 1, free agent of the year Orange Julius had 2 (and his first 30-burger of the season), Jones was the only Packer to score in his game, and even Mendy and Law Firm hit paydirt!  Ah but fantasy football is a fickle game.  Going into the (first) Sunday night tilt, Caputo's Corner was a 9-1 favorite to win.  All he needed was an average game from both Boldin and Houston D.  Oye vey I got neither.  Houston got pounded and Boldin only caught 2 balls all night, which left the door open for Andy to finish the comeback with P-Riv in the nightcap.  Rivers did what Rivers does, throwing 3 picks, but 411 yards and two TDs later, he came back to eek out the 2 point victory. 

Cover you eyes and hold your nose!  The mom bomb has officially exploded.  Jeff's squad may very well be the most balanced squad in the league, if Sunday was any indication.  Buoyed by a half-a-hundy from Tony "the choke" Romo, Jeff whamboozled the Gaz-led freeballers.  His supporting cast was somewhat uninspiring (0.8 from Ryan Mathews), but that didn't matter.  By the time that game started this one was locked up.  Not that he needed it, but 20-packs from Graham, Rams D, and even the kicker helped the cause.  Jeff surges to first place overall in the league as the only team to have a 4-1 record.  Gaz, on the other hand, goes from top of the heap to losing two in a row and questions abounding.  Such is the fickle world of fantasy football.  Denver D was most definitely the wrong play on Sunday with a -1 (although it could be argued that the late pick of Romo could have been worth 100 points in pure backbreaking style points).  Gaz now is firmly in the middle of the pack and 3-2 and looking for answers. 

In the latest edition of the battle for Northern Virginia, Eddie's Peyton Express Omaha-ed Sean's cavalry all the way back to Dubai.  Even though Peyton was not even the highest scoring quarterback on the field in Dallas, a nifty 45-er (combined with 37 from Alshon Jeffrey and 22 from Jamaal Charles) left Eddie just two points shy of his third weekly pot of the season.  Not a bad start from the new guy considering he has a nearly 100 point lead in the overall point scoring competition.  As for Sean, he was riding Aaron Rodgers like a rented camel after the draft, but ever since then dreams of AP have entered his head as he is now second from the bottom in total points through 5 weeks.  If it weren't for a first week explosion over Andy (his highest point total to date), he and his beloved NY Giants would be sharing more than just the blues.

Carolina Cam was back to his winning....er...nevermind.  Fortunately for Zach, Carolina Cam proved to be completely unnecessary in his Week 5 tilt against JP.  Who needs quarterbacks anyway when the rest of your roster produces double digits across the board (led with 24 by none other than Justin Blackmon).  Don't quarterbacks play golf?  I digress.  JP could not take advantage of more read-option misfortune as 5 of his charges failed to crack the 10 point barrier.  That T-Rich trade is looking more and more like fantasy doom for Richardson owners across the country as he plays second fiddle to Andrew Luck's passing game and Ahmad Bradshaw.  JP perhaps had a shot on Monday Night with Matty Ice, but like it says in the ad (go to :16)

Finally this week, Dewey and Tom squared off in the last recap of the week Bowl.  Tom, despite being dead last in points in the league (Sean not too far ahead), inexplicably has a 3-2 fortuitously catching teams on off weeks.  This week is no exception as Dewey has taken the drastic steps of beginning the pre-trade deadline fire sale one month early.  Despite being only 2 games out of first in the Greene Turtles Division, Dewey has conceded the season and already is interested in potential keepers for 2014.  Tom on the other hand, despite the low point total, is tied with Andy and Kent for first place in the division, trailing only Jeff for first place overall.  This week, Tom was helped in no small part by almost-30 burgers from both Dez (getting his piece of the Romo pie) and the Cardinals D (who knew?).  He better be on the lookout though as poor Mr. PETAyto head sprained his pinky again (or was it his hamstring?) and the Igs are turning to Nick Foles.  Speaking of quarterbacks, the Niners put a hurtin' on Houston and Super Kaep could muster only 11 points?  No wonder Dewey is ending the competitive portion of his season. 

This was a fun week, unless of course you squander a 30 point lead going into the prime time games like I did.  We inch closer to important league milestones in Week 6: 

Patrick-Jeff (Top dog takes on last season's champ)
Nick-Eddie (I have the formula for de-Peytoning the league!)
Tom-Sean (At least based on point totals it's our first edition of the futility bowl!)
JP-Dewey (A Buccaneers fan is going to win...guaranteed)
Zach-Gaz (Does Carolina Cam come to play?  Does Cruz like salsa?)
Kent-Andy (Battle for first in the Greene Turtles Division)

Shameless plug-first of the season.  Don't forget that our annual League Meeting event (coinciding with our "rivalry week") is set for Week 11 this season.  That will be Sunday November 17th at 1PM at the Greene Turtle! 

I think you had enough...

No....

Now you've had enough...

...bitch