Hello, series of warts on a bull’s testicles.

Oh how sweet it is to have fantasy football back. Now, instead of scrolling Instagram or reddit and pretending like you actually care about what’s going on in the world, we can mindlessly stare at our lineups and pretend like we care about those outside of Thursday afternoon and Sunday mornings. This is the peak season of every year.

Also, my gif/meme game is non-existent this week because I’m behind on this, but I will do better in the weeks ahead.

How about that first week, huh? Mike made a strong case to go ahead and stamp his last-place finish on the year after only one game, but otherwise the league did reasonable well overall, highlighted by Garrett and Austin’s 150+ point outings. We’ll get into all of it, but first, the standings.

Standings

Pretty clean week overall, all the winners also secured a Top 5 point, although Nathan came close to getting edged out by both Jake and Tyler. How’d it happen? Let’s dive in.

Recaps

I leaned into this last year, but to relieve my mind from the extreme stress of choosing what order to recap the games in, I’m going straight off the game score. None of them were that good….

Mike 69 – 168 Austin (Game Score: 52.6)

On top of being the worst game (mostly due to the ridiculous margin of points), this one is especially heartbreaking because due to a horseshit stat correction that took a fumble away from George Kittle, Mike’s score retroactively increased to 69 (nice) from 66, meaning he only lost by 99 points instead of over 100. Talk about a sad turn of events. Mike’s team is generally not worth talking about, except for how Aaron Rodgers looked like he was drunk the whole time and managed to score -1 points. Hilariously, Mike left two WRs that scored 26+ points on the bench (Corey Davis and Deebo Samuel), so maybe just get better? Idk dude.

Austin’s team, on the other hand, had a very strong week. CMC put up the numbers people have been expecting from him over the past couple years, with 98 yards rushing and 89 yards on 9 catches, which provided a nice 26 points despite him not finding the endzone. DeAndre Hopkins made up for that though, finding the endzone twice on his way to his own 26 point outing. The cream of the crop this week, however, was Amari fuckin Cooper. Dude had 13 receptions for 139 yards and two TDs. That’s big money, and if Dak stays healthy and keeps leaning on Cooper, he could be a top 5 WR all year.

Garrett 155 – 124 Jake (75.4)

I can’t even be mad that my bb Stafford had a big game against me. Ole boy is on a new team now and he’s lookin solid. He put up 321 yards and 3 TDs against the Bears this weekend and maybe will have a breakout year on a team not named Detroit. Saquon (3), surprisingly, had a very poor season opener, gaining only 26 yards on 10 carries. Garrett’s stars this weekend, along with Stafford, were the WR duo of Tyreek Hill and Adam Thielen, who combined for 66 points off 20 catches, 289 yards, and 3 TDs. Can’t compete against production like that. Jake had a relatively average week, especially given the high scores seen around the league. Russell Wilson earned 34 points during a 4 TD effort, and David Montgomery (20) performed well on Sunday night by gaining over 100 yards on the ground and finding the endzone once. Overall, not a game that Jake will be embarrassed about, but certainly not enough to keep up with Garrett’s strong showing.

John Luke 121 – 125 Nathan (75.4)

Patty can’t do it all, JL. Mahomes had a monster day, with 337 yards through the air and 4 total touchdowns for a total of 40 points, but JL was handicapped by a severe lack of RB production. Aaron Jones suffered a similar fate as Aaron Rodgers and the rest of the Packers offense, and only managed 3 points, all from passes out of the backfield. Najee Harris also had a slow debut, with 45 yards for 4 points. JL’s other big source of points was Tyler Lockett (26), who just did crack 100 yards and find the endzone twice. Nathan juusssttt slightly outperformed, though. No single player really broke out big, but CeeDee Lamb raked in 23 points and Joe Burrow 22. Otherwise, reliable points from DK Metcalf (16), Austin Ekeler(11), Myles Gaskin (11), and a nice little 15 point boost from the Steelers defense were enough to propel Nathan to both a win and a top 5 point.

Collin 137 – 110 Ryan (78.2)

Collin kind of kept up the same trend as Nathan. A couple players broke 20, D’Andre Swift (23) mostly found points from receiving targets out of the backfield for 65 yards and a TD, and Cooper Kupp (23) had a 100 yard/1 TD game, but that’s really the highlights. Lamar Jackson scored 17 and stayed generally tame, par for the course from last year, and Alvin Kamara only managed 17 in the Saint’s blowout win. Collin’s bench…. Well that might be something he should worry about, but hey a win’s a win. Ryan’s poor showing was fortunately shadowed by Mike’s hilariously bad week, but he didn’t do great. Dak had a great game on Thursday, posting 35 points in his comeback, and Joe Mixon scored 26 by gaining 127 yards and one score, and he finally looks like he could have “his year” that he’s supposed to have had for like 4 years now, but they’re about the only two to make any noise. Ryan left a 21 point game on the bench in the form of Ja’Marr Chase, and it cost him a top 5 point had he started him over Mike Evans (which… to be fair you can’t really blame him for). Not the start of the season Ryan wanted, but definitely recoverable.

Tyler 123 – 144 TK (78.4)

Tmo let’s get one thing clear here. Until you send the group a video of you pounding a brew out of that godforsaken trophy, I will attack you and everything you believe in. You’ve had almost a year now, yet you haven’t put aside TWO MINUTES to do the ONE FUCKING THING I asked of the league for making that trophy.

That being said. I’m ecstatic that Tmo lost. You think Kyler Murray is so great? He got you 40 points and you still didn’t even get within 20 points of winning. Brandon Aiyuk had the same number of points as there are people who can pronounce his name, and Mostert was so upset that he had to spend the season on your team he went and got his knee broke. I just relish in the fact that Tmo could have won if he played AB, who scored 23 points for the bench, and Tmo just has to sit there and think about it. This can all be over when you just do what you know you should do, Tmo. For the league.

TK, that well-rounded roster, had a much more respectable game that even the most traditional of fantasy owners can appreciate. He relied on skill players like Dalvin Cook (19) and Chris Godwin (22) to supplement some conservative yet productive QB play, with 17 points coming on Josh Allen’s arm. Darren Waller proved to be worth the draft position in week 1, scoring 26 points on 10 catches and 105 yards with a TD, and TK looks primed to be a contender with Austin and Garrett on the season.

Previews

I’m not doing previews this week. I waited too long to do this one and there’s a game in like 2 hours so there’s not enough time. I will say, however, that the standings will be forced to even out a bit because four of the games are either 1-0 vs 1-0 or 0-1 vs 0-1, so we’ll equalize the records quickly.

Cash money

Austin scored the highest in the league this week, earning him the $10 weekly bonus. JL, pay the man!

Starting next week, I’ll keep a running tally on who’s won how much throughout the year.

Trivia

I’m incorporating trivia into this year’s newsletter because, why not? If you guess it right…. Idk give yourself a pat on the back I’m not paying your ass. I’ll give you a shoutout in the next week’s newsletter I guess. I’ll do the question, plus the answer to the previous week’s question under this section.

Because you guys hate fun and refuse to talk in the group message anymore, I’ll just give away the answer to my trivia question from the group message as the previous question.

Last Week’s Trivia

Who is the only team to get beat by 100+ points more than once?

A: It’s only happened 3 times, and here they are in chronological order:

• Week 8, 2012: Patrick lost by 169 points against John Luke, 32-201 (this record will literally never be beat, ever)
• Week 14 2014: Jake lost by 110 to John Luke, 208-98
• Week 4 2016: Jake lost by 107 to Mike, 88-195

So yeah. It’s fucking me. I’m the answer. I hate this fucking game.

This Week’s Trivia

How many seasons (out of 10) has the reigning champion wonhis season opener?