2. Joe – Would be #1, but he has to play me this week and I cannot give him any confidence. Also, Joe, breezy, bro, bruh, breahhhh… you have 8 guys on bye in one week? That’s some Jose shit that I did not expect to see from you. 3. Danny – Good bones, but just needs to flesh it out a bit. Oh right, his team… They have kept hope alive despite Killa Cam’s struggles, Megatron’s injury and the patchwork left behind. I can see a scenario where Danny finishes around .500. It goes like this: Killa Cam and Megatron play like themselves. Wes Welker gives Peyton a big hug, maybe a fruit basket. Then, he quits the Molly, picks up the ganja and orders a shit ton of Papa Johns. His concussion symptoms subside, he finds his happy place, promises to volunteer at the Manning Passing Camp and voila, he catches 12 TDs over the final 9 games. So yea, Danny finishes at .500. 4. Baron – Good acquisition with Cobb and Brees will turn it on soon. But holy shit, I cannot talk playoffs until he benches Vereen, Ingram & Andre Johnson, then drops EVERY SINGLE PLAYER ON HIS BENCH. Seriously there is not one person on his bench that I would want on my team. For those of you keeping track at home this includes, the Jets dynamic duo, 3 hometown heroes in Jennings, AD and Owen Daniels, 2 guys out for the year (one IR spot for a reason bud, you don’t keep these guys on the bench), and Blake Bortles. Blake motherfucking Bortles. He plays for the Jaguars. The fucking rookie QB for the worst franchise ever. Who decided Baron was good at Fantasy Football? <and red face fades to normal(ish)> 5. Air Kat – Defense does win championships. Plus, it would be hilarious to see him pack it in and hit huge on some of his downgrades. Not huge enough to make the playoffs, but enough to beat Jose. 6. Jose – For he is the Jose, and only the Jose has the Jose’s legacy to uphold. Plus, too much time making graphs on other teams right now, not enough time making graphs for his own team. If he does make the playoffs, it is only because he failed at the only thing he is good at, being bad at fantasy football. (see last week’s answer, no we shall never stop making fun of Jose.) (Jose: Dude. You just described Jeff's team in full for Baron. Baron is House Hipster) Fuck. Well, hold off on that. Let me rewrite his. 4. Baron – So the first time I looked at his team, I couldn’t believe how bad it was. I wrote a lengthy description of how horrible every player on his bench was. Then, Jose told me, “Dude. You just described Jeff's team in full for Baron” Duly noted. Well, can’t go back on my rankings now, that would be un-American. And yes, I ranked Jeff above Air-Kat and the Jose. THIS WEEK'S QUESTIONS 

- Remember how I said that it was Sean, Dan, Bryan, and everyone else?  No surprise, except for maybe that Dan has outscored Sean.  It's worth looking at how they're scoring.  They are top three when it comes to WR scoring in the last three weeks.  Sean's gruesome twosome of Antonio Brown and Jordy Nelson has actually fallen off, and Dan has gotten massive contributions from Demayrius Thomas.  Bryan, of course, is now living the TY Hilton magic carpet ride.  Dan is getting his contributions from the Flex as, if I'm not to be mistaken, he's been putting Andre Ellington there.  Sean is still just really good at the RB spot, and Bryan at the TE spot.  Antonio Gates has scored six TDs in his last four, including two against me on Friday...And then of course they have those QB situations.

If there's one thing to look at, it's how buoyed by kicking and defense Bryan's team has been.  Don't get me wrong, he's strong in other areas and Lesean McCoy should only get better, but I always like to think those could fluctuate.

- Aaron Katarya: Defense does not win championships

- Jeff has always been a curious case study to me (Sorry Jeff, but I'm going analyze your situation so long as you and I share a lack of playoff appearance).  He drafted a Top 3 QB, and has been in 6th on the season, although it should be noted that Brees has been on bye once.  He also drafted the Top TE in the draft.  Basically, he did things that we don't normally see Jeff do, and he's had a string of unlucky breaks that have actually made him below average at all those positions.  And what's worse, he's been stuck with a lot of WR mediocrity, which has affected his WR and flex positions.  I'm not saying Jeff should've made the playoffs this year, but his team should've been better than mine to this point.

- Tim's scoring has been pretty consistent.  He's actually scoring a little less.  I haven't looked at his team enough to say it's been one thing over another, but if I had to guess, I think Alshon's lack of production recently has made his team look just a bit weaker.  He never really had AP in the first place as it is.  But darn it if he's not consistent.

- If there is a team or teams who have a real chance to trend up as we get into the second half of the season, it's Baron's and Joe's.  Let's be honest with ourselves, while Danny, Tim, and I will fight tooth and nail to get that last playoff spot, there is a noticeable gap between where Joe and Baron sit right now compared to us three.  I'll start with Baron.  His success is purely speculative on my point since we need to see what this trade does for him, but his team has been 5th in scoring the past three weeks, and you can mainly thank Forte for that.  He also gets a lot of luck when he plays Tim while Forte's on his bye.  Tim will be missing half his team, including Alshon Jeffery, Joique Bell, Aaron Rodgers, Robbie Gould, and Delanie Walker.  If you add in his trade for Cobb and the reemergence of Tom Brady, a playoff push is seriously possible.  And from my perspective, seeing all three championship winners in the playoffs would make us underdogs not enthused.

Which is why, outside of myself, I'll be hoping Joe's team puts it together during the stretch run.  He's seen his RB scoring increasing, although his QB play has taken a serious poop this past three weeks.  The reason I think Joe is already on the upswing is the soon to be return of Megatron.  That'll only help Stafford start putting up the numbers he can put up.  Plus, there's always Julius Thomas, who has a HUGE leg up on whatever TE Siems is rolling out right now.  The downside to Joe's success, though, is that Golden Tate should see his stats go down as he Megatron comes back.

- I guess no one has noticed Greg Olsen's success recently have they?  But outside of him, Danny's team is looking very meh.

So what can we infer from this data going forward?  For one, unless serious injury hits, we can pretty much say now, more than ever, that Dan, Bryan, and Sean are destined to make the playoffs.  Things can change of course, but that's where the trends are going right now.  If I had to guess where things end up, I'd say Sean gets the top spot, Dan second, and Bryan third.  If either Dan or Sean had one loss, I'd pick Dan to win the regular season.  I think Bryan is susceptible to possibly falling more than the other two, but I'm not comfortable saying he won't make the playoffs.  Meanwhile, for the fourth spot, I'm giving a slight edge to Joe.  Here's eaches remaining schedule:

Joe:
Jeff
Bryan
Siems
Danny
Dan
Jose

Baron:
Danny
Tim
Joe
Sean
Jeff
Dan

I've bolded any games I think they should win.  With the one game advantage for Joe, when he goes into his game against Siems, he should be tied for that final playoff spot.  But Joe has the easier final schedule, and they could very well end the season tied.  And even with his trade, Siems is almost 100 points behind Joe, so the tiebreaker could be huge.  Upsets do happen though.

With that then, here are my mid-season predictions for the rest of the year:

1. Sean
2. Dan
3. Bryan
4. Joe
5. Siems
6. Jose
7. Tim
8. Danny
9. Jeff
10. Arun

And yes, I did artificially boost myself ahead of Tim because I could #spreadsheetshomeboy

I'm calling this segment Hyperbolism Wednesday for the sole reason that I can.  It's a combination of hyperbole and realism, and you all are providing it.  So without further adieu, I'll let you all answer last week's questions.  Also, I know it's not Wednesday.

By the by, not everyone answered this week, but it's only week one.

1. The best record the league has ever recorded was Katarya in 2009. That year he had a 12-1 record. Sean is currently 6-0 and blowing everyone out of the water. Do you think he has a legitimate shot to take down Katarya's record?

Sean - I am going to take down Katarya's record simply because he traded Jamaal Charles away to Jose. This isn't the NBA Katarya - there should not be any "tanking".

Tim - He has a shot, but I don't think it'll happen. Has anyone ever seen an undefeated season in a fantasy league? Too much needs to break your way over the 3 months (injuries, luck of facing an opponent, etc.) and there will be the inevitable down week.

Danny - Yes. Especially because Katarya's '09 season was founded on the backs of a lot of lucky close calls and led to the christening of the Brown Banner.

Jose - I'm naturally a pessimist about these things. I mean, how is someone going to beat a 12-1 record?! Sure, Sean could tie it, but I struggle to think he's going to actually beat the record. That being said, he does have The Maestro (Manning) and two serious wide receivers. I just think that, at some point, his two RBs are going to fall off the wagon a bit. And besides, in the classic tradition of a Sean-run team, he'll dominate the regular season and lose somewhere in the playoffs.

Bryan - The best record the league has ever recorded was Katarya in 2009. That year he had a 12-1 record. Sean is currently 6-0 and blowing everyone out of the water. Do you think he has a legitimate shot to take down Katarya's record?

He has to play me once before the end of the year, so he definitely won’t go undefeated. He’s solid with his starting lineup and Peyton no doubt will dominate. But, this time of year depth is going to come into play with byes and injuries so some questions remain.

Baron - Yes, he has a legitimate shot. He has one player that is ranked outside of the top 6 of their respective positions... and that's his flex (and he's still in the top 25!) He will not have more than one loss, except in the playoffs when Peyton rests (like always).


Question 2: Jose is at it again, this time having traded for Jamaal Charles on top of his Philip Rivers trade earlier this year. Is this finally the year that he breaks through and makes the playoffs? Or do we get to keep making fun of him?

Sean - Having Rivers and Charles sure makes his team look appetizing....and I would definitely say at 3-3 the table is set for him to make a move. But the playoffs? No. SImply because it most likely comes down to him vs Bryan. And yeah....

Tim - Yes to both questions. Feels like your year, Jose, after lucking into a W or 2 already, and I'm pretty sure making fun of Andre in The League still happened when he made the finals that one season.

Danny - Maybe but I'm guessing not. Things are just too logged jammed in the middle of the pack right now, even with Charles (who's coming off an injury) it'll be hard to sustain a .500 record given how few points are being scored.

Jose - I sure hope so. Admittedly, I'm writing this post-Siems trade, and I know I have an uphill battle in front of me since I've scored so few points this year. But I have a solid WR core (at least in my mind), some solid RBs, and a QB that's played out of his mind. Then there's the Gronk. So yea, on paper this team can compete with anyone else's, but it's not like that'll make the whole difference.  

They say the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting the same results. Maybe only making two trades and trading away money will actually reverse my karma. Oh who am I kidding, I know for a fact that I won't make the playoffs until draw Danny's damn MS Paint drawing. It's like the Billy Goat Curse or something... Bryan - Jose is at it again, this time having traded for Jamaal Charles on top of his Philip Rivers trade earlier this year. Is this finally the year that he breaks through and makes the playoffs? Or do we get to keep making fun of him?

Well no matter what we keep making fun of him. If for some reason he stumbles into the playoffs we will all have to do a little soul searching to find out where this league is heading. Realistically this means lower your expectations for Rivers & Charles heading forward since the curse of the Cuban is bound to cause problems.
I do however applaud Jose for trading away draft money that he never seems to use anyways. It takes a big man to look inside and realize he is not going to change. Jose, you are a big man, a big, cheap man. See, no matter what we will continue making fun of him.

In an unprecedented move for Jose, he has mortgaged his future to make a playoff run this year!

Enough speaking in the third person, but Katarya and I have agreed to a deal.  If you look at it directly on the ESPN page, it looks completely lopsided, but let me break it down a bit more for you.

Katarya trades:
Jamaal Charles
CJ Spiller

Jose trades:
Jerrick McKinnon
Carlos Hyde
$$$

Now let's talk about that money.  I immediately give up $8 to Katarya regardless of what happens this year.  If I make the playoffs, I owe Brown Kat $10, if I make the championship then $13, and if I win the championship it's $15.

Additionally, there is a follow up deal to this original one that we agreed to.  In three weeks Katarya will trade me the Lions D/ST, and I'll trade back Spiller to him.

So at the end of the day, this deal will be as follows:

Katarya trades:
Jamaal Charles
Lions D/ST

Jose trades:
Jerrick McKinnon
Carlos Hyde
$8/$10/$13/$15 depending upon how the season plays out.

It's a new day gentlemen, even if that day ends in rain.

PYT Burger.  Just to complete the Justice reference for Air Bear.

Hey guys!

Been a while hasn't it?

We're five weeks into the season and the most active person in the league has been...Tim?  Go look at all the stuff he's posted on the league page and give the man kudos for keeping the beat of our leagues heart still going (Note: That last sentence had a Hillary Duff reference in it.  A very sad, annoying Hillary Duff reference).

Also, after five weeks into the season, we haven't had a writeup by votre sinceremente.  That changes today.

As I've stressed above, we're five weeks into the season.  It's about at this point where we can start looking at the numbers and have actual, meaningful takeaways.  And I'm always a sucker for habitual self-deprecation in the form of numbers, so as I usually do at this time of year, I'll be summarizing our league's scoring through the first five weeks.  This does not include Thursday night's TY-splosion, Foster-athon, or Luck-fest.



QB
1. Sean - 126 points
2. Dan - 122
3. Tim - 92
4. Bryan - 86
5. Jeff - 84
6. Joe -80
7. Danny - 69
T8. - Jose - 58
T8. - Baron - 58
10. Arun - 57

Takeaways:

- It's Peyton, Luck, and everyone else
- Sean really got a good fill in with Eli when Peyton was on his bye.
- Bryan's effectively played his two-headed Kaepernick/Foles situation
- Some big names that haven't performed the way we'd hope: Brees for Jeff, Stafford for Jose, Cam for Danny
- My situation is understandable given I started Geno Smith twice.  Baron's is understandable given he starts Tony Romo (on the league's run-heaviest team mind you)
- Poor Katarya and his Tim Brady situation

RB
1. Tim - 128
T2. Joe - 114
T2. Sean - 114
4. Dan - 101
5. Baron - 91
6. Bryan - 87
7. Jose - 81
8. Jeff - 74
9. Arun - 71
10. Danny - 65

Takeaways:
- With all the injuries that have happened this year, there have only been a few consistent performers.  For example, if you have Demarco Murray, you should damn well lead the league in RB points (it's at this point Jose face palms after trading him last year)
- Want to know a big reason why Baron is struggling?  His three biggest investments were at the RB position, and while Gio has turned out just dandy for him, Monte and Forte haven't given him enough return to this point to get him above 5th in scoring.
- I've told Sean this directly, but there really is nowhere to go but down.  How many of you here think Arian Foster will stay healthy the rest of the year?  That's what I thought.  And Ahmad Bradshaw?  Or how about Bradshaw's unsustainable TD rate?  Don't get me wrong, Sean does have T-Rich in the event of an injury, but he still probably won't be able to hold as much value as Bradshaw is right now.  But I don't think his fall would be very hard once we detail the WR section.
- I look at Danny's team and I see a team that was reliant on a lot of last year's magic to carry into this year.  Matthews, Stacy, Deangelo, Woodhead...It's a veritable list of 2013 performers who, for one reason or another, haven't delivered this year.  To Danny's credit, despite his history as one of the league's least reactive teams, he did pick up Forsett, but that's looking like a three-headed monster situation right now.

WR (this is just the two players you played at your WR spot any given week, not WRs played in the flex)
1. Sean -  154
2. Dan - 122
3. Danny - 107
4. Joe - 98
5. Arun - 93
6. Bryan - 91
7. Tim - 78
8. Baron - 61
9. Jose - 56
10. Jeff - 51

Takeaways:
- Jeff has built up a reputation as a guy who sure does love his WRs.  And based on his WR count after the draft, you could say that assumption still held true.  But some circumstances were different this year.  For one, Jeff's biggest investments were in the TE and QB position, and he's gotten incredibly inconsistent performances from the rest of his team.  Kinda like what Ken had last year.
- Remember that floor I spoke about with Sean?  This is why he still should perform.  For as much as we think his RBs should stumble, he still has Antonio Brown and Jordy and his top WRs.  You tell me if you see a problem with those two.
- The scariest part about Dan's scoring is that D. Thomas has only had one really good game.
- A couple of crazy Julio games have skewed Joe upwards, but he's gotten strong contributions out of Golden Tate, especially during Megatron's injury spell.
- I'm not going to lie, I definitely thought I would've outscored Baron's team, at least, when I started doing this.
- The league leaders all have studs at WR. Except Danny.  What's impressive about his situation is, despite playing Megatron the Decoy the past couple of weeks, Kelvin Benjamin has turned into a huge TD threat (much to Danny's delight), and the Steve Smith Revenge Tour is going strong.  While I don't think this holds for Senior, Gary Kubiak led offenses have typically only featured one receiver, and if Smith is the man, then he could post big games.

TE
1. Joe - 68
2. Danny - 55
3. Sean - 53
4. Jeff - 51
5. Jose - 47
6. Tim - 44
7. Bryan - 42
8. Baron - 35
9. Dan - 21
10. Arun - 19

Takeaways:
- Boy, that Julius Thomas sure does look like a good player huh Joe?
- Who knew that Greg Olsen would kill it for Danny?  I don't even think Danny's played another guy.  It might be 55 points of just Greg Olsen.
- Seriously, Sean is Top 3 in all skill positions to date.  A lot of it is Martellus Bennett, and it remains to be seen if he keeps it up once Jeffery and Marshall are fully healthy.
- Last year Vernon Davis had one of the most unsustainable TD rates in NFL history (it was something like 1 TD every 4 catches, and half of them were coming from over 20 yards out).  So Katarya picks him, he has a first good game, he gets hurt, and Katarya KEEPS PLAYING HIM.  Now he's been forced to play Eric Ebron, which pretty much sums up his TE situation to date.
- Trend time! While being 5th in TE scoring, yours truly is 1st in the last three weeks.  Gronk this Gronk that Gronk this Gronk that.
- Two monster games from Antonio Gates have propped Bryan up to 7th in TE scoring, but I think he has the highest variance amongst all owners.  It's truly boom or bust.

Flex
1. Dan - 67
2. Baron - 52
3. Jose - 50
T4. Sean - 48
T4. Arun - 48
6. Joe - 40
7. Tim - 36
8. Jeff - 31
9. Danny - 29
10. Bryan - 28

Takeaways:
- The flex is the most deceiving position to snapshot because, for example, Sean could throw Jordy there for the heck of it and skew is WR and Flex numbers in an instant.  But it's fun to hypothesize why a lot of the lowest scoring teams lead the flex position?  Is it because they do the aforementioned strategy?  Or are they deep across the board in B to C level players.  I tend to believe the latter.  While players like Dan go big on superstars early and backfill on cheaper players in the flex spot (although I think Ellington played there last week for Dan), the guys who don't get the biggest stars fill in with a bunch of mid-level players that they fill into their flex spots.
- There is honestly nothing else I can take away from this.

K
1. Bryan - 57
2. Arun - 51
3. Jose - 48
T4. Joe - 44
T4. Danny - 44
6. Baron - 36
7. Tim - 34
8. Jeff - 33
9. Sean - 30
10. Dan - 29

I only bring up kickers because Stephen F***ing Gostkowski scored 21 points against me.  Had this been two weeks ago I'm pretty sure Bryan would be in sixth or something.

D/ST
1. Arun - 70
2. Sean - 52
3. Tim - 46
T4. Joe - 30
T4. Baron - 30
6. Bryan - 27
7. Dan - 22
8. Danny - 21
9. Jeff - 15
10. Jose - 0

Two things:
1. Just what we need, Sean's team to be good at another thing.
2. I've scored zero points total this year at the D/ST position.  Holy crap.

Now, even though these numbers look at the season from a wholistic standpoint, there are some differences between looking at all five weeks and looking at even just the last three weeks.  I'm not going to repost everyone's rankings in the past three weeks, but here's the major differences I've noticed if you remove the first two games of the year:

- Greg Olsen is the top TE in the league.  Let that sink in for a second.
- Jeff's team has taken a slide. He's 10th in the "random" positions: K and D/ST.  He's also 10th in WR scoring.
- Katarya has ZERO points out of the TE spot.
- Sean's team has not gotten any better, but not any worse.
- Guess who's trending upwards?  Despite low scoring, I'm tied with Danny for the top TE spot.  Gronk this Gronk that Gronk this Gronk that.
- Danny's defense has scored negative points in the last three weeks on defense.  Jeff, even more negative.
- Don't look now, but Tim and Joe are third and fourth in scoring the last three weeks.

So here's what I'm seeing.

1. The creme de la creme is Sean, and Dan's not far behind.  Sean should fall down a bit, and I have no idea how deep Dan's team really is once these bye weeks truly settle themselves.
2. Tim, despite losing AP, has a darn good team so long as Murray carries everything.
3. Joe and Bryan are contenders.
4. I'd venture that Danny, myself, Baron, Arun, and Jeff are all in that "others" category.  One of us could make a run, but the odds are against us.  That being said, it's been a weird year (I'm 3-2 after all), so surprises could happen.

Since it's 8 am and I need to get ready, for the day, I'm going to cut this post off now.