Happy Day-After-Election Day, Ramblers! I know a majority of my fellow owners were up late last night following all the race results, but fantasy football waits for no one. We need to power through this. Picking up way back in Week 5, the last time I made picks, I am 4-3. In reality, I should be 5-2, but this was the beginning of Garcia deciding to start a 5-game nosedive, starting with a narrow 3 point loss to Team Motley.
I’d really like to stretch this lead out a bit, so since I know we’re all still in a mood to crunch more numbers, lets get into the Week 10 Picks.
Dorne Diredonkeys (Mark) vs Denver Ponyboys (Carlos)
A big game for two teams who are chasing FIL for the Infinity Stones division title, which not for nothing, is the NFC East of GMRRFA. 71.4% of the teams in the division have a losing record. My most accomplished trade this year will be when I successfully move Smeet’s Bad Journeys to the Infinity Stones division for FIL. In fact, based on the Commish’s calculations, if the season ended today, FIL’s team would be the sole representative for the Infinity Stones Division in the playoffs.
The major headline here has to be is that Fournette is finally back for Carlos, completing his superstar RB tandem with Melvin Gordon. But I think the backs get pretty much cancelled out by Mark’s WR corp of Michael Thomas and OBJ, and Mahomes absolutely annihilates Baker Mayfield every single day of the week (Commissioner's Note: If Carlos is paying attention at all, he'll swap Andrew Luck back in after last week's bye. Alas, lazy writing for cheap jokes...). I don’t mean to pick on Carlos, but…
Winner: Dorne Diredonkeys
Dead Sea (Unicorn) vs Hurdy Gurley Man (Stabs)
This match-up is unbelievably close. Both teams are 4-5. Both teams have one game winning streaks. Both teams are owned by men who are constantly mistaken for a certain Italian plumber who’s addicted to mushrooms. Even ESPN believes this match-up to be too close to call with a calculated spread of .4 points! Not 4 points, but four-tenths of a point!
Zooming out a bit, the teams are less similar in their philosophies to get this far. Dead Sea has been extremely active in the trade department, moving pieces like Deandre Hopkins and Ezekiel Elliott to give himself a deeper roster, ending up with Aaron Rodgers Golden Tate, Jimmy Graham and a few other role players. Meanwhile, Stabs has held on to his workhorse back, Todd Gurley, and made only 2 trades, both times for middling TE’s. Even though I favor active trading, I think the Unicorn gave up a lil too early, trading Hopkins for cash and is now caught switching gears mid-season from selling to contending, mostly due to the lower bar of competition in his division. Stabs has a high ceiling for scoring points, while Dead Sea has only broken 140 once.
Winner: Hurdy Gurley Man
Lights, Kamara, Action! (Garcia) vs Trubisky Business (The Commish)
The Commish knows he traded his soul to have what he believes to be the league’s best trio of WRs in our league. He also knows that he is dangerously vulnerable at RB. This week both of these nightmares come true with Hopkins on bye and needing to find 2 starters out of Tarik Cohen, Peyton Barber, Nyheim Hines and Derrick Henry. Yikes!
Everyone in the league knows LKA has some firepower. We all respect his team’s ability to score points. And more importantly, he can’t keep losing forever, right?
Winner: LKA!
In Bob Mueller We Trust (Toby) vs The Pain Train (Fredo Maisel)
On paper, I was not looking forward to breaking this one down, but to my surprise Fredo is still competitive and sitting at 4-5 (the same record as LKA! for those keeping score at home). However, Pain Train is praying he can strike lightning twice, hoping to get output from Tevin Coleman and Jordan Howard again, but I’m not sold that they are breaking out just yet.
That being said, looking at Toby’s roster, I am struggling to find who can break out and score points. This is a coin flip, but maybe Fredo pulls one out since Toby was probably focused on other things leading up to this week.
Winner: I don't care. I mean, if I had to pick, gun to my head, The Pain Train.
Kerryon Myself Wayward Johnson (Coop) vs Bad Journeys (Smeet)
I've resigned myself to the fact that Coop probably hates me. I'm not really sure why, or what I may have done to offend him, but I've been following the bread crumb trails in the group chat, and it doesn't look good. That being said, I think he's done a fantastic job of building a solidly middle-of-the-road mediocre roster. I know how that sounds, and it's not a bad team per se, but it's hard to get excited about a lineup featuring Kenyon Drake, Doug freaking Martin, Alshon Jeffery and Randall Cobb. Interestingly enough, with the Baltimore bye removing Collins and Crabtree for Coop, does he start two TE's (Olsen and Uzomah) this week?
Smeet on the other hand, for all intents and purposes, has a terrible team. However, he has just enough pieces with upside (Mack, Boyd and Doyle) to remain an annoying threat to just about anyone in the league not named Tito Galen. Just ask The Commish how nerve-racking it can be to be down against Bad Journeys. I could probably write more, but unfortunately, I have hit my character limit for writing about a team with 1 win, not to mention Smeet’s “best” guys face pretty stout defenses this week.
Winner: Kerryon Wayward Johnson
The Big Gronkowski (Tito Galen) vs Team Motley (Makese)
CHRIS HOGAN IS STARTING!!! I REPEAT, CHRIS HOGAN IS STARTING!!! Tito Galen’s as vulnerable as he’ll ever be (which is to say, not very vulnerable) with both Thielen and Emmanuel Sanders on their byes. Otherwise, it’s the same old stacked lineup. Meanwhile, Team Motley has Josh Gordon and Cooper Kupp heating up, Mixon coming off a bye and Sony Michel probably back in uniform this week. Could we see a Makese resurgence to reclaim the #1 spot in the only division that matters? If the Big Gronkowskis don’t lose this week, do they ever lose again? You have my heart this week, Makese. Please be gentle.
Winner: Team Motley
Dude Where is My Carr? (FIL) vs Vienna Sausages (Sausage King)
This is the week I find out if the Antonio Brown trades comes back to haunt me. AB and Saquon for FIL have the potential to steamroll any match-up in their path, but if Cam, James Conner and CMC can keep churning out steady points, I have a chance. Personally, I think it will come down to our mid-tier players, which luckily for me Austin Hooper seems to have come back down to Earth, but maybe Duke Johnson and the new Cleveland offense burn me. On my side, its go time for Keenan Allen and Mark Ingram to show me that they can play up to their possible potential and worth the steep prices I paid for them.
Winner: Roll Sausage!
In a related note, it’s nice to see that I’m on Tito Galen’s radar. Out of all the teams currently nipping at his heels (myself, LKA, Dorne and FIL, sorry not sorry Commish), its nice to get confirmation that fear is creeping in. But, Big Gronkowski’s playing chess, not checkers, stockpiling new assets and avoiding trades with what he deems as possible threats to his championship this year. With the playoffs looming, it would be an understatement to say that I’m absolutely giddy to see how all of this plays out.
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