Greetings from your illustrious Commish of the best fantasy football league I’ve ever been a part of – on four hours sleep and three hours early for a flight, I’m writing from the beautiful BWI airport as I prepare for a league expansion trip to New Orleans (tax write-off!!!) to bring you the Week 11 power rankings, which based on my lack of sleep may be more disjointed than normal…
But first! We have an important follow-up to Tuesday, when I (mistakenly) claimed that Detroit Lions’ kicker Matt Prater was an active GMRRFFA owner… While Fredo Maisel remains a reliable source, I actually received further details from a close source to the Dorne Diredonkeys, and learned in fact Mark isn’t a professional kicker; he’s actually a financial advisor in the DMV area…
And, maybe, the Lady of Dorne has a point:
The Lady of Dorne should be commended for going out on a limb, revealing the secrets of an identity shrouded in mystery, and her evidence is impactful. If this leads to a devastating divorce in Dorne, I take little comfort and express serious remorse for that beautiful family. My real hope will be that Mark takes accountability for his hidden identity and also recommends a solid 529 for the me to invest in for the Junior Riff Raff.
In any case, on to the power rankings…
14. Bad Journeys (Smeet)
Record: 2-8
Last Ranking: 13th
Analysis: I’m tired of expanding on this team. He secured a solid win over a devastated Coop, but learned he’s actually eliminated officially from the playoffs on Tuesday, much to his chagrin. I’m confident that about 4-5 other teams will wish they’d taken on his strategy of rebuilding before the season even starts in the coming weeks, but this is probably just a good time to note his mailbag is coming out tomorrow, so ask him questions.
13. The Pain Train (Fredo Maisel)
Record: 4-6
Last Ranking: 12th
Analysis: Just one week after an improbable win over LKA!, Fredo returns to form, falling ungraciously to Toby Kobach last week. He may be a game out of the playoff hunt, but this train has been out of service for some time now (lost 6 out of his last 8). Originally cast as the Lions/Browns of GMRRFFA (which was actually a complement), his roster now features just two players from those teams – Golladay and a returning Hyde – and his team deserves its own scoring line graph (but I’m traveling so no). In the last five weeks, he’s scored: 67; 135; 94; 152; 105. Making sense of his lineup is an exercise in futility.
12. In Bob Mueller we Trust (Toby Kobach)
Record: 4-6
Last Ranking: 14th
Analysis: I literally wrote this originally under the assumption that Toby lost last week. That said, he’s 4-6 and, unlike Fredo, he still thinks he has a shot at the playoffs (which he does), but he actually has some tough match-ups ahead: Dorne, a suddenly relevant Stabs, and the Week 10 scoring champ Carlos. All potentially winnable but I don’t know if Toby can string together a run of victories. He could be selling assets next week, or he could talk himself in to delaying packing up the season for another week.
11. Dead Sea (Unicorn)
Record: 4-6
Last Ranking: 11th
Analysis: The dismal season that the Unicorn is going through remains largely ignored by the league, especially when compared to the first three owners mentioned above, but damn the Unicorn is struggling. I can’t help but continue to chastise the recently-turned-40 year old Unicorn’s trade for Zeke, and his outrageous claim for needing stability in his scoring output. Post-trade (3 weeks), the Unicorn’s team scoring average has dipped to 98 points per week, ten points less than pre-trade and nearly 30 points behind the league scoring average. Great guy aside, can we please stop ignoring how bad this team is?
10. Trubisky Business (The Commish)
Record: 5-5
Last Ranking: 7th
Analysis: My team this year feels like a middling Western Conference NBA team, where I may be good enough to make the playoffs, but what good is it knowing I’m going to end up facing Tito Galen – the GS Warriors of GMRRFFA – in the first round? I’m honestly not sure, but the last two weeks have been humbling, barely breaking 100 points and getting soundly trounced by LKA! At some point, someone on this roster besides ‘Nuk, Edelman and Tarik Cohen’s first quarter self need to break out. I hold out hope but quite literally I won’t be surprised if my brother-in-law throttles me by double digits this week.
9. Kerryon My Wayward Johnson (Coop)
Record: 5-5
Last Ranking: 8th
Analysis: I’m giving the nicest smile in the league a pass this week after blowing a game by three points to Smeet – he’s engaged again, even if he lost the bidding war for Anthony Miller on the waivers this week – but his roster still has questions, including Dalvin Cook and whether Alshon Jeffrey can be a relevant WR1 this season. That said, this week against Fredo is essentially a must win for Coop, who has Tito Galen and Makese (combined 13-7 record) in the last two weeks of the season.
8. Hurdy Gurley Man (Stabs)
Record: 5-5
Last Ranking: 9th
Analysis: Don’t look now, but Stabs in one Gurley ass on the four yard line away from a three-game winning streak and, even more importantly, he’s averaging 139 points per week over his last three match-ups. His remaining schedule is by no means easy – LKA!, Toby Kobach, FIL – but he’s starting to hit his stride at an optimal time, and talks of potentially trading Todd Gurley seem so last week for the Brooklyn hipster.
7. Denver ponyboys (Carlos)
Record: 5-5
Last Ranking: 10th
Analysis: I’m still floored by his Week 10 performance, where he absolutely crushed the season high for any team. His entire roster was in double digits, and only three positions posted under 20 points. It was straight ridiculous, but obviously the question is whether its sustainable. I mean, I made a line graph… The good news? It probably doesn’t have to be. Carlos has by far the easiest remaining schedule – the Commish, Fredo, and Toby Kobach – so even scoring the league average of 127ish is good enough for two wins at least.
6. Dorne Diredonkeys (Mark)
Record: 5-5
Last Ranking: 4th
Analysis: Its been a tough week for the artist-recently-revealed-as-Patrick Hutchinson; not only has the Lady of Dorne broken his most secret of secrets, he posted the fourth highest total in 2018 only to lose to Carlos. That said, he can’t fall too far down the rankings. He’s 2-3 in his last five, but he’s exceeded 130 points per game in all five contests, meaning its more bad luck – like Tito Galen and Carlos both dropping 210+ against him – than anything else. The good news? Riff Raff Ramblings believes he’s Spiderman, and he gets Toby Kobach and Fredo Maisel in two of his last three match-ups.
5. Team Motley (Makese)
Record: 7-3
Last Ranking: 6th
Analysis: His victory over Tito Galen last week was HUGE – Makese’s first over a team with a winning record all season – and proved his roster’s ability to post points, but let’s be honest that this was an awful week for the 2018 favorite. Tito Galen’s 115 point performance was THIRTY-NINE points below his season average. Meanwhile, Makese hasn’t broken 140 points since Week 4, he’s starting Spencer Ware this week, and if I had any confidence in Lesean McCoy being as good as he was last week long-term, I wouldn’t have traded him for Mohammed Sanu’s corpse and money to invest with Patrick Hutchinson.
4. Lights Kamara Action! (Garcia)
Record: 5-5
Last Ranking: 5th
Analysis: Of course, LKA! went H-A-M last week and good thing he did, because a loss would’ve put him in a tough spot for the playoffs. At 5-5, he at least has some wiggle room with Stabs and Mark ahead. The real question will be if his 166-point Week 10 performance is an anomaly, or if he’s back to his deadly ways heading in to the playoffs. In related news, I rejected his offer of Mohammed Sanu for both of his kids last week, a decision I may be regretting at this point (largely for the tax benefits but still)…
3. Vienna Sausages (The Sausage King)
Record: 6-4
Last Ranking: 2nd
Analysis: I’m not dropping a team too far down the power rankings after going 5-1 over his last six weeks. He lost to FIL – who scored his best output of the season – but that was in part because of some less-than-expected results from a handful of role players. His match-up with fellow Filipino Tito Galen is much more intriguing this week, largely because both need a win to stay in the hunt for a division crown, and the loser falls back in to the black hole of playoff mediocrity (ten teams vying for 5 playoff spots).
2. Dude Where is My Carr? (FIL)
Record: 7-3
Last Ranking: 3rd
Analysis: What a huge victory for FIL last week, placing him on the cusp of a division title and a likely top seed in the playoffs. If Allen Robinson performs like last week, FIL all of a sudden pits a top-5 WR group (AB and Woods too) to go along with Matt Ryan and Saquon Barkley, which suddenly looks like a very tough out in the postseason. Its definitely not an easy road ahead – Makese, Unicorn, and Stabs – but FIL is the only team that should feel pretty good heading in to the final stretch of the regular season (besides #1 of course).
1. The Big Gronkowski (Tito Galen)
Record: 6-4
Last Ranking: 1st
Analysis: I really don’t care about his loss last week and the clunker of a performance. Its fantasy football and even the best teams have bad weeks. Tito Galen’s Week 10 performance is an outlier in an otherwise brilliant season – it took the Big Gronk 10 weeks to score below 120 whereas every other team underperformed by Week 9. In a 14 point loss, here’s a list of underperforming players from line-up: Phillip Rivers (underperformed his season average by 6 points); Kareem Hunt (underperformed his season average by 10 points); James White (underperformed his season average by 13 points); and, David Njoku (underperformed his season average by 6 points). That’s 35 points below average coupled with the white Michael Jordan, Adam Thielan, on a bye, meaning a win wasn't that far off. So, if you think Tito Galen shouldn’t be number one, start your own column and call it a day…
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