Ok fellas I'm feeling particularly cynical this week, so I'm writing this intro portion at 8:55 am on Sunday morning. I'm in (or was in, rather) an SEC Survivor and stupid fucking VANDERBILT lost last night in what can only be described as the most incompetent final 5 minutes of football I've ever seen in my adult life (highly recommend going back to watch it if you didn't see it), and my entry in the family CFB Pick'em got crushed this week, so it just FEELS like one of those weeks on the virtual gridiron. I can ALREADY TELL YOU that Aaron Jones going down with the hammy injury has doomed me into submission this week because there's about a 4% chance that the $40 I spent on Tyler Allgeier winds up being worth it. Ryan looks poised to take the weekly challenge with Tmo already having two bad outings from Thursday and TK just might go 2 for 2 on top scores. I'm going to let this blurb ride out the day and see how it goes.

Update: It's 7:40 pm and the Broncos just lost to the Commanders, let's take a quiiccckkkk gander at my morning forecast and see how I did, shall we? Tyler Allgeier not being worth it? Check. Ryan taking the weekly challenge? Still possible, but as of now TK is actually predicted to take it. TK getting another top score? Also check. My inaccurate pick was saying that I was doomed into submission, it's actually looking like I'll win, but overall I'd say I batted around .500 which isn't too shabby.

Tuesday morning update: Ayee Ryan did wind up taking the challenge! 3 for 4 on the week hot damn yall just call me the fantasy prophet. Granted, Ryan's winning of the challenge came from Najee Harris snaking me out of $10 with his typical bullshit, but we'll get into that later.

Well, without further ado, let's dive in.

Imperialism Map

Recaps

Austin 118.62 - Collin 137.68

Austin ripping the acquisition on Puka Nacua looks like a solid decision here in week 2, as he got 15 receptions for 147 yards amounting to 30.1 points. But that wasn't enough as Collin took this one comfortably. 24.5 from CMC, another 25.9 from Tyler Lockett, and Tony Pollard falling just short of 20 were all enough to bury Austin into dropping to 0-2. Austin, in his depths of wisdom, saw the Giants lose 44-0 last week and was like "hell yeah that defense is due for a sick game, I'll grab them and make sure to leave two 20+ point WRs on the bench". Yep, pretty much everything besides Nacua went wrong for Austin this week, as he continues his search for his first points on the season. Collin shook off the rough week 1 outing to improve to an even .500 going into a cage match with league-leading TK.

Nathan 121.16 - Garrett 137.5

Another solid game from Nathan, though he found himself on the losing end against a strong outing by Garrett this week. A massive 37.56 points on Thursday from Kirk Cousins set Nathan up for success early, but no one else managed to really break out to keep up the pace with Garrett, who saw a combined 58 points from WRs Tee Higgins and Mike Evans. While he was still overshadowed by TK, Garrett quietly put up a score that indicates he could wind up being a force to be reckoned with. I personally take credit for that since I said his team was done for last week, I'm like an oracle of bad takes. The result was both teams joining the army of 2-point teams in the standings, with Nathan slipping to 7th as one of the only two people with a H2H loss among the 2-point teams.

Jake 127.24 - Mike 96.54

Don't let my win fool you, this was a loss for me because now, having already lost Aaron Jones to a hammy issue, Saquon and Amari Cooper are both down. Basically my team is falling apart and my options are to gamble my entire budget on the waivers to salvage my roster. However, Rachaad White (21.3) is looking more and more like a viable RB2 and DeAndre Swift had a huge game (for my bench) so perhaps all is not lost. Mike pitted his chances on Najee Harris and Chris Olave going into Monday night to supplement the 25.3 points from CeeDee Lamb, but weak games from Javonte Williams (been there) and Calvin Ridley (definitely been there) proved too much to overcome. Najee Harris also has secretly been a bust in the NFL, at least from a fantasy lens. 5.3 points was just another of his typical lackluster games, but it was just enough to trim my MOV to 30.5.... just 1.46 points less than Ryan's. So fuck you for that, Mike. Jake also sits inside the 2-point club, while Mike splashes around with Austin in the 0 point kiddie-pool.

Tyler 106.5- Ryan 138.66

Tyler went the opposite direction of Garrett and Collin by turning around from a big 140+ game last week to a lackluster performance this week. Now give Ryan the credit he deserves, 138 is a great outing and 30 points from both his Allens (Josh and Keenan) is a great sign of things to come, especially if Ekeler comes back to fill the hole Ryan had this week at RB. Tyler just couldn't get anything going outside of 28.2 points from Justin Herbert. With the win and top 5, Ryan joins TK at the top of the standings and sets his eyes on the guy who's currently eating crayons, 0-2 Austin. Tyler, despite the bad week, had the cushion from last week to land softly in the crew of 2-pointers, and his big week last week helps keep his PPG high enough to not be cause for concern... yet...

TK 155.6 - John Luke 134.28

TK seriously dude I need you to relax a little bit. Its just a game, and John Luke is too fragile to do this kind of stuff to. He's just a boy. I joke, but the entire difference in this game came from 2 positions: TE and Flex. TK outscored JL 46.5-3.5 in those two spots alone due to a 0 spot from Zay Jones and another bad game from Kyle Pitts. As it stands, TK is the team to beat early in the year. He has a healthy, complete lineup that has put him over 300 points in his first two games. John Luke, you still get your top 5 so wear the loss with honor, TK just went beast mode and you were collateral damage. TK looks to stay hot vs Collin next week while John Luke can go ahead and not check his lineup and rest easy it's ok bb just close the app and pay no attention shhhhh shhhhh.