2015 Power Rankings-Week 7

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## Introduction

Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!! Congrats to Dee for taking down the #1 team in the league, who was so #1 that he is still #1 even though he lost.

Six weeks in the books and tension is higher then ever. We've got people taking shots at the king left and right. Commish, your trade was bull shit. Commish, your new schedule system is unfair. Commish, my matchups are too hard. Well let me tell you something people. No, in fact, I'll let Walter White tell you instead:

What is it that Nucky Thompson says in that episode of Boardwalk Empire that only I saw? "If you're going to be a gangster in this fantasy league you'll pay me for the privilege." Am I not building you an empire over which one of you will lord over at the end of the season? Do I not give you nice things??

## ScheduleGate

Sooo much chirping over the schedule poll. For those who haven't seen it, in an attempt to increase the fairness and competitiveness of the league I thought it would be fun to custom make next year's schedule so the bottom teams this year play twice and the top teams play twice. Either that or we do a flex schedule with agreed upon rules for the final four weeks. Of course, since this isn’t a Dynasty League, every team is completely different every year. That being said, there do seem to be certain teams that perennially suck and others that are consistently good.

Well what do you know, the sucky teams think its a great idea and the good teams think it's awful. Far be it from me to determine what's best for the league, I only bleed this league instead of actual blood. HBO only pays me a billion dollars a week to pretend to work while I build you a website from scratch using nothing but my massive brain and fantasy prowess.

But hey, I'm a fair and noble overlord. If people think it's a bad idea, we go with randomization like every other year. At least it's unbiased, and it's true that my idea punishes the good teams, sorta. Sorry Pat, guess you're just going to have to suck again next year.

## The Law of Follett

The Law of Follet states no Follett-run team can ever actually lose a Fantasy Game fairly, there’s always some exterior bull shit reason why they lost. Lucky play, stat error, the guys on the other team cheated, full moon, etc. It's never just because the other team is better. Since Dee wears the pants in their relationship, she naturally falls under the Law of Follett. Thus, trailing late in the day on Sunday, Dee began cranking up the Excuse Machine and accusing GBM of only winning because of a player acquired in “a bull shit trade.” Ah, there are some things in life to which you can always set your watch.

## In Defense of the "Bull Shit Trade"

Apparently being the greatest Fantasy League Commissioner of all time does not entitle me to nice things.

As an owner, I want to do everything I can to win. As the Commish, I want the league to remain fair and balanced with no foul play or shady trades that may upset the Fantasy Gods. We all remember TankGate in 2012 and TradeGate in 2011. For this reason I feel compelled to defend what I believe to be a fair trade.

Sproles was drafted in the 10th round, whereas Ivory was taken in the 6th. However, included in the trade with Paddock 9 was a 5th round pick in exchange for a 10th, an even better deal for P9 headed into 2016.

Sproles’ value is in his return game, where he’s already run one back for a TD. He’s an explosive playmaker operating in an offense where their #1 guy, Murray, had been a pretty big bust through five weeks. Ivory, on the other hand, has clearly more value because he’s an RB1 for the Jets offense, though he’s already missed a game to injury and is not featured in New York’s passing game. In 2014 he only caught 18 passes whereas Sproles has already caught 16 this season.

Finally, let’s take a look at the OJ/Dee trade: we’ll compare using performance over the first 5 weeks (right before the trades took place):

**GBM to P9**

*Sproles - 75.09 fantasy points (no health issues)*

*5th round pick in 2016*

*for*

*Ivory - 77.46 (battled injury)*

*10th round pick in 2016*

**Dee to OJ**

*Lynch - 36.11 (nagging hip injury)*

*for*

*Sanders - 111.70 (top 10 WR)*

Of course, those are just numbers. Fantasy Football comes down to more than just numbers, right?

In any case, I get it. Ivory has a higher floor and trading valuable picks for players seems cheap (which is the exact point I made in 2012, AGAINST a team stacking picks). Obviously I didn’t know Sproles would get concussed and be a non-factor this week while Ivory had the game of his life. That being said if a trade is viewed as unfair that’s why we have a website, a message board, a facebook thread, and a veto system in place. But once the trade is processed, shut up and play. The Fantasy Gods have told me they cannot stand sore losers.

For the record, I was approached by a team offering me a top 5 RB in exchange for Latavius Murray and a high pick and I turned it down because I thought it was unfair to the other teams. I would have been extremely stacked and virtually unstoppable. I don't care about winning as much as I care about everyone playing the game right. But fuck with me about one more thing and I'll accept that trade and run train on all you sorry ass holes.

## New This Week

This week I created head-to-head charts for each team. The massive head-to-head charts were a little difficult to read, so everyone’s team pages now has a chart that shows that team’s record vs. every other team.

## The 10-Win Club

Congrats are in order for Deez Sons of Bitchez. Dee became the 10th team to join the 10 win club. This is the longest it has ever taken a team to earn their 10th win (32 games) but Dee is better than ever. The team has four wins already this season. It took them 13 games to get their first four.

## The Rankings

I know you probably skipped over all that other stuff anyway, so here you go!!

### 1(3). ma ma momma said

The only team to break the 200-point line in each of the last five games, MMMS is looking like the team to beat. They are putting up massive numbers despite his Manning QB-Tandem competing for who can throw the most pick-sixes. What happens when this perennial playoff team gets Dez Bryant back?

### 2(4). Deez Sons of Bitchez

Dee lost power in the passing game when she traded away Sanders in that bull shit trade but drafted so successfully that it was clearly not felt this week. Strangely enough, this is not unfamiliar territory for Dee despite their awful record coming in to this season. In 2014 one of their two wins was against future champion Reign Maker and in 2013 one of their four wins was against future champ The Shotti Bunch. Taking down 1st place contenders is old hat. They have a big bye-week against #FreeOJ next week, but for now they’ll enjoy taking down GBM for the first time.

### 3(1). GaroppoblowMe

    This team is trending in the wrong direction. They’ve lost two of their last three games and have had some troubling performances from their top guys. Brady, though his actual numbers remain fantastic, has steadily declined in Fantasy Point production since week 2 thanks to an increasingly injured offensive line and an unlucky pick-6 Sunday against the Colts. Their bye woes are for the most part behind them and they have an easy matchup this week but they still have four games left against playoff teams.

### 4(2). The Shotti Bunch

TSB has won their second in a three straight stretch against teams below The Groot Line.  Is Murray finally getting his game going or was this week a fluke?  We’ll find out next week against a stout Carolina defense that just got done stuffing Marshawn Lynch, another RB that has struggled early in 2015.

### 5(5). #FreeOJ

OJ didn’t just win, they proved once and for all that they are here to stay as a contender in 2015. The Odd-Year Rule seems to be holding true again for FOJ, who is now 24-8 in odd years and 7-19 in even years.  They gained a ton of power with Sanders, who averages 14 yards/rec and leads Denver with 3 touchdowns. Antonio Gates might be the pick up of the year. They face a vicious schedule from here on out, with 5 of their next 6 against playoff contenders.

### 6(8). Reign Maker

Is Reign Maker back?

Second week in a row that they are top 3 in scoring and even though Andrew Luck lost his game he put up the second highest FPT among all starting QBs in the league. Their collection of RBs is effective, albeit a bit underwhelming considering some of the other RB tandems out there (GBM, TSB, and FG are among the more impressive ground units).  When the season started it looked like there was no chance for a repeat but this team is trending up and it looks like they may be in position to at least punch a ticket to the dance.

### 7(6). Papa’s Posse

Papa’s Posse ran into the top scoring team in the league this week, which overshadowed a nice breakout game from Megatron and another solid performance from wily veteran Palmer. Heath Miller has only scored over 5 points once since Big Ben went down in week 2 and this team is among the weakest at the RB position. Three early wins have kept this team afloat for a minute but we’re starting to sink here.

### 8(7). Fire Goodell

At the very least, Julius Thomas appears to be a little bit better than the bust he was pegged to be last week, but on top of some poor Free Agent choices FG is now dealing with injuries to their top 2 WRs. As potent a lineup as the RBs can be when they are all in-synch, this looks like the worst WR core in the LOC and may be the undoing of a squad that has so often been considered a top-four team.

### 9(10). TEAM MANBEARPIG

I mean, what is there to say at this point? This is the Tennessee Titan team of the league, all their home games are being blacked out by TV stations. They’re like the Phantom Menace of the league, when it started everyone was like hey this isn’t so bad but then they realized oh my god, this is bad. They’re the Matrix sequels. They’re every Elton John album after Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. And amazingly, they aren’t in last place.

### 10(9). Paddock 9

The website has been battling me every step of the way tonight and there were numerous gifs and videos I wanted to put in that it just wouldn't let me. Most I let go but this joke was too good to pass up so you're all going to have to just click the link like we're living in fucking Afghanistan and can't afford embedded videos. Click here to see highlights of Paddock 9's latest matchup .

In a classy move, ma ma momma said released the following statement after their victory over Paddock 9: “You have to respect a team that continuously struggles but keeps putting in the effort day in and day out.” What’s incredible is that Paddock 9 in fact benched his win against MMMS this week. While continuing to please the Fantasy Gods by making roster moves and setting their lineup, somehow they continue to be screwed every single week.

## Matchup of the Week

This week features yet another Championship game rematch, this one a battle of the most recent champion (Reign Maker) and the team they vanquished in the final game of 2014, ma ma momma said. But that is not the 3-3 vs. 4-2 game that I’m most interested in (sorry guys). Nate Bowl 2015 is here, that special time where we all collectively agree to root for Nate’s girlfriend to emasculate him in front of all his friends. Regardless of the standings, the prospect of Nate losing what we can only imagine is a humiliating bet to his lady is why fantasy football was made. Add in that both teams are competing for first place and/or a bye spot and you have a really great matchup. FOJ has the edge, winning three regular season matchups and dropping a consolation game in 2014 for a 3-1 combined record. This looks to be a low scoring affair as FOJ is without Cobb and Sanders while Dee will miss RBs Bernard and Forte AND QB Aaron Rodgers, who admittedly has underwhelmed in recent weeks anyway. I give FOJ the edge here only because his team has been hot and there is no way some of the guys that went off against GBM can repeat their projection-beating performances.