2020 Power Rankings-Week 4

## Introduction

I want to be 100% transparent with you guys: Monday is the first time in 11 years of playing fantasy football that I actually cried. I fucking cried. Over fantasy. It literally is called "Fantasy." Not a sob. Let's be clear. It was a head in my hands, sitting in the darkness on my couch in my underwear, tears wetting (but not soaking) the palms, loud sniffles but not a weep. It required a single tissue. So yeah, I'm officially broken. Credit to me for even doing these rankings when I was a Tom Brady grey sideburn hair away from using my Commissioner tool to drop every player on my team Monday night. I even had a text written and ready to fire off to Mike Wolfe asking if he wanted to take over my team and the only thing that stopped me was thinking the only thing worse than finishing 6-7 in 5th place and no trophy would be having Mike take over my team and win a championship. It's bad. I'm in a bad place. I'm not having fun, have not had fun yet this year, and I'm probably going to continue to not have fun even if I win (which I won't). But I' m sticking with it for you guys because of all the love stuff I mentioned in week one.

So let's see if me being numb to the point of psychosis makes these rankings better or worse.

## Conclusion

Alright guys that's it for me. See everyone next week.

## No but Seriously...

We had a wild week in the league. GBM isn't the only team spiraling due to injury. The bug has hit Pain Train extra hard, with both Adams and Julio out in week 3.

Elsewhere in the league, Papa won the battle but lost the war as Chris Godwin is now expected to miss multiple games with a hamstring injury (SO GLAD HE SUITED UP THIS WEEK THOUGH).

Stupid Idiots may miss Chris Carson this week, and even though they won Sweet Dee still has to compensate for no Christian McCaffrey.

Tarik Cohen tore his ACL in Nate's starting lineup. Paddock 9 lost backup tight end Goedert to IR and still doesn't have his keeper AJ Brown back from injury.

Shotti has another few weeks without Le'Veon Bell. Jared's team is hoping to get George Kittle back this week, but who knows.

Literally every team has lost someone very important. Not all of them lost the 1st overall pick for a month or the 3rd overall pick for the season, but everyone has lost either their best keeper or a top-20 pick for at least one game. That's...fucking ridiculous. And it's about to get worse...

## The COVID Conundrum

By now everyone has heard the big news. Steelers/Titans has been postponed. My guess is that the game will be played week 7, with both teams now using week 4 as their bye. This pushes the Steelers/Ravens game to week 8 and moves the Ravens bye up from week 8 to week 7. It's a really easy fix.

What is going to happen in week 12 when a game has to be postponed and everyone has already taken their byes? I do not know. I do not have the answers, despite my giant brain. We'll figure it out as we go. That's part of the fun of the COVID year.

I get the panic around what this means for fantasy and I don't know who needs to hear this, but I do not work for the NFL nor am I affiliated with Yahoo. I do not know what this all means. Asking me questions about how this affects Headhunters is futile as well. What I can say with somewhat confidence is that players on these two teams will be treated like any bye week player: they will not be IR eligible. Juju was going to take a bye week eventually, now it's today instead of in a month. It's not like we're going to take Juju's week 8 score and add it to week 4. It's not that complicated. Whoever plays in this week's games counts towards this week. That's it.

So everyone be calm, hang tight, set your lineups.

## Stat Chat

* Duck Punchers passes Shotti Bunch for the most combined wins in LOC history (84).
* Pain Train just lost back-to-back games for the first time since week 9 of 2017. That's a streak of 33 regular season games, the third longest such streak of all-time.
* Papa's Posse is on the longest active streak of games without back-to-back wins (16). He holds the all-time record with 29 straight without back-to-back wins.
* Sweet Dee has won three straight regular season games for the first time since 2016.
* Sweet Dee has tied her franchise record for most consecutive games over 200 (3).
* Paps's Posse becomes the 8th team to reach 50 regular season wins.

## Matchup Recaps

* Papa's Posse literally rips the soul out of his own son and takes a 0.23-point win against GBM for the first time since September 2014 (4-11). **Next Matchup: Week 11**
* Paddock 9 puts Nate's hopes and dreams in a coffin just in time for Halloween with a win against RIPDab (8-6). **Next Matchup: Week 7**
* Sweet Dee continues her best ever start to a season by defeating Stupid Idiots (2-2). **Next Matchup: Week 10**
* Duck Punchers dominates a depleted Pain Train (7-6). **Next Matchup: Week 5**
* mama gets into the win column with another blow to Shotti's legacy in one of the most underrated rivalries in the LOC (8-9). **Next Matchup: N/A**

## Team Records By Month

Updated 10/01/20

Almost everyone's records took a hit this month. The following teams play their best month of football in October:

* Duck Punchers
* ma ma momma said
* Paddock 9
* The Shotti Bunch

The following teams play their worst month of football in October:

* Pain Train
* Papa's Posse
* RIPDab
* Sweet Dee

## A Committment to Sub-Parness

One of the weird stat things that fascinates me is the unique standings every year, and this year we have a strange phenomenon with all these 1-2 teams.

1-2 Teams by Year
 2012
 2013
 2014
 2015
 2016
 2017
 2018
 2019
 2020

Seven, which is at least two more than any other year. But it gets even more mediocre:

Teams with 2+ Wins Through 3 Weeks
 2012
 2013
 2014
 2015
 2016
 2017
 2018
 2019
 2020

THREE! Somehow the Fantasy Gods have found a way to maximize the amount of pain for us this year. I'm no mathematician, but I'm pretty sure this is the absolute maximum number of 1-win teams you can have. The top three teams have more wins than the bottom seven. Fucking 30 percenters, man.

## The Greatest Game - Week Three

Week three of 2020 saw some wild ones enter the pantheon of great games, and one of those has made it into today's nominations

Here are week three's nominations:

### 2020 - Patty's Payback (Paddock 9 vs. RIPDab)

* Final Score: 222.64-216.04
* Why it's Nominated: Exactly one year after RIPDab beat Paddock 9 on the last play of Monday Night Football, Paddock 9 gets his revenge with an improbable late game throw from Patrick "Don't Call Him Pat" Mahomes to Travis Kelce.

What makes this game a classic isn't simply that Paddock 9 had a big comeback on Monday night. It's that it took place exactly a year after RIPDab did the exact same thing to him. Last year's week three matchup ended 226.71-224.52 in favor of RIPDab, who moved to 3-0 and ended up finishing the season (somehow) 5-8. Brandin Cooks had 112 yards on 8 receptions. Coming in to MNF *this* year, it was Dab with the 88.80 point lead and Paddock 9 came in with just 127.24 points.That's when Patrick Mahomes happened. He put up 72 points, throwing TD passes left and right and connecting with Travis Kelce down the middle late in the 4th on a clock-killing drive to seal the comeback. In total, the team scored 95.40 in one game between Kelce, Ingram, and Mahomes.

### 2018 - The FitzMagic Miracle (Garoppoblow Me vs. Duck Punchers)

* Final Score: 235.13-234.11
* Why it's Nominated: GBM completes an improbable comeback when Fitzpatrick completes a 27-yard TD bomb to Mike Evans on his last completion of Monday Night Football.

As we are seeing, most classic matchups need to come down to Monday night, or at the very least the last player. In this case, it came down to two players. GBM had Mike Evans and Ryan Fizpatrick going on Mnday Night Football against the Steelers. Fitz was coming of games over over 70 fantasy points and over 60 fantasy points, respectively. Mike Evans was also playing well, but both would need to play great to overcome the 79.80 point deficit. They did. Fitz went for 411 yards, 137 going to Evans. But it was the last completion that sealed it, a rainbow completion to Mike Evans good for 17.08 points. Fitzpatrick would score just 8 combined fantasy points in his next four games, but Fitzy had one more miracle in him that fateful Monday night.

## Power Rankings

No theme. Actually the theme is I hate this shit. How about that?

### 1(1). Duck Punchers

Okay, yeah. This team is good. This isn't a Mattjinx (MATTJINX BE GONE), I'm legit expressing my belief that this is a very good team. The Lockett/Wilson hookup is the best 1-2 punch in the game right now, and they are loaded in the flex spots. Big concern this week is RB, where they will be down Derrick Henry.

### 2(2). Sweet Dee

We've all seen Sweet Dee perform well in September. But now comes October, where they are 5-26, a drop of 37% in win percentage from September. One thing is for certain: no matter what happens in their matchups for the next two weeks, this team will still be getting Christian McCaffrey back. Look out.

### 3(6). RIPDab

The rest of these teams are sort of average, but we have to hand it to RIPDab. They are the only team that has broken 700 total points on the season. It shouldn't take 300 points to get a win, but so far it has. Maybe luck will change this week playing a depleted Duck Punchers.

### 4(5). Garoppoblow Me

Another team getting a bump despite a loss, but it's hard to argue that this team won't be better than it was last week when they are hopefully getting back star WR Michael Thomas. Let's see what they are made of against arguably one of the best team in the LOC: Sweet Dee.

### 5(7). Paddock 9

Paddock 9 is open. Week one may have been a fluke, with Mahomes starting to look like Mahomes and other players stepping up. They won this week despite losing three players to injury mid-game. That's a hell of a performance.

### 6(4). The Stupid Idiots

Every year I rank this team high and then I have to remind myself, they're the Stupid Idiots.

### 7(3). Pain Train

On paper, this is a top team. But if no one is going to stay healthy than they do not stand a chance. Yes, almost everyone is 1-2, but you have to figure this team probably needs a win this week the most with their 589 total points.

### 8(9). Papa's Posse

Nice win. Now run it back against Jared with Godwin down and I'll take the Posse's playoff hopes seriously.

### 9(8). The Shotti Bunch

Oh no, the Shotti dynasty is dead! Not so fast. Week three last season they scored 135.66 and still make the playoffs. If they turned this around it would not surprise me an they are projected to beat Paddock 9 in week four.

### 10(10). Ma ma momma said

Same rule as Papa applies here. Beat the Posse and get to .500 and you will be replaced in the dungeon (probably by myself).

## Matchup of the Week

So hard to pick just one, but I have to give it to RIPDab vs. Duck Punchers. RIP is without Juju, Duck is without Henry. They are both projected over 225 points and it should be a great showdown at QB (Murray vs. Panthers against Wilson vs. Dolphins). Side question: who would win in an actual fight between a cardinal, a dolphin, a seahawk, and a panther? I'd say probably panther or seahawk, but you have to imagine that a panther in the ocean would be at a disadvantage. Can a seahawk dive under water? Are they one of those birds? If so, they definitley have a chance to do some dive bombs. Cardinal is for sure the first one dead, unless it can form an alliance with the seahawk to take out the dolphin and panther first. Then the cardinal just has to find a way to beat the seahawk. Granted, no easy task. I'm going seahawk.

Alright guys, that's all I have for expert matchup analysis. See you next week unless I have yet another mental breakdown in which case bye forever.