2023 Power Rankings-Week 3

## Introduction

What do I have in common with Nick Chubb's leg? I bend over backwards for this league.

Week two featured our first MNF comeback of the year and boy was it a big one. RIPDab trailed from basically the first snap on Thursday night, all the way through the weekend and into halftime of the final game for his matchup against ma ma momma said.

As the games progressed, updating projections got tight.

But of course even with a 50/50 projection, the team on the bottom always feels the burden. Olave and Sanders needed to outscore MT on MNF.

Sure enough, the resurrected corpse of Michael Thomas was laying waste to the Carolina defense and it was looking like yet another injury-plagued bad year for RIPDab. And then...halftime adjustments.

Carolina defense took MT out of the game, forcing Carr to target Chris Olave (the more talented, young WR I may add). Little by little, Dab chipped away at what seemed like an insurmountable lead, until finally he broke through with a massive 40+ yard reception that got him within striking distance. On the Saints' last drive of the game, Olave made a key reception that put Dab over the top on the defending champ. It was the last scoring by either teams fantasy players.

The win comes at a great time for RIPDab, who desperately needed a boost of confidence after losing JK Dobbins for the year. He now heads into a matchup with Stupid Idiots, who also lost some okay players at the RB position.

Elsewhere in the league, Sweet Dee won the low scoring Matchup of the Week vs. The Shotti Bunch. After the last Power Rankings post, look at how close the projection came between these two:

You'd need another decimal place to get closer than that.

Pain Train and Duck Punchers both felt the force of the European Curse as they continued trips in Greece and Ireland, respectively. They're both in early 0-2 holes and will look to right the ship against a DiGennaro Boi in week 3.

Finally, Mattness has put it together in back-to-back games for the first time in a long time. Mattness was 0-2 a year ago, but has now taken down Glory Bowl XII champ and 2023 Salty Dolphin Champ to start the new season. The gauntlet will continue against 4th place Duck and 2nd place Idiots before the first round of byes hit in what's shaping up to be a crucial week 5 matchup against rival Sweet Dee.

## Draft Charts (Updated)

I hadn't updated the draft charts in several years, so during the flotsam that was Steelers vs. Browns, I decided to put in the work and see if any new trends had emerged.

If you are on a laptop, this will be in color and probably easier to read. On a phone I'm guessing there is some scrolling involved.

### Final Standings by Year Sorted by Draft Order

Couple noticeable things here:

* The champion has come from the 8 spot in back-to-back seasons. The team that drafts 8th is the Salty Dolphin Champion, a sure sign that teams are building on the success of their previous year, likely with strong keepers. This year, that is Papa's Posse.
* Bad news for Pain Train. The 10th place team has drafted in the 5-slot for four consecutive seasons.
* The top three spots have produced a top-three finisher in five of the last six seasons, while the 4th-5th spots have not produced a top-FIVE finisher since 2016.
* Historically, the best position to draft remains 7th or 8th. A person has made the Glory Bowl from one of those slots in 10 of the first 12 seasons.

### Positions taken in the first round by year

* 2023 marks the first time since 2017 that WR was the most common position drafted.
* That follows 2022, which was the first year in which not a single WR was taken in the first round.
* 5th is the earliest a TE has ever been taken.
* 2023 was the first time a defending champion picked a RB in the first round since 2018.

## Matchup Recap

* Paddock 9 has the best performance of the young LOC season in a deconstruction of rival Duck Punchers (13-12). **Next Matchup: Week 8**
* Mattness establishes himself as a force in a blowout win over Papa's Posse (15-7). **Next Matchup: Week 12**
* Stupid Idiots has won four of the last five to tie the franchise series against a reeling Pain Train (5-5). **Next Matchup: Week 10**
* Sweet Dee wins ugly in the closest-projected contest in LOC history to knock down former first place Shotti Bunch (5-12). **Next Matchup: N/A**
* RIPDab, in their first September meeting since 2018, gets a Monday Night Miracle victory over ma ma momma said (12-9). **Next Matchup: Week 7**

## Stat Chat

* The Stupid Idiots is 2-0 for the first time in franchise history.
* Mattness is 2-0 for the first time since 2015.
* Duck Punchers is on a two-game losing streak for the first time since 2020. His streak of consecutive games without back-to-back losses ends at 30, one shy of his record 31 consecutive games from week 4, 2018, to week 9, 2020.
* Paddock 9 is in first place for just the 8th time.
* By defeating momma, RIPDab moves ahead of them on the all-time conbined W/L list.

## Longest Winning Streaks to Start a Season by Team

Here is a list I don't get to update very often, and yet today I had to make several changes all at once!

Updated 09/20/23

Yes, you are reading this correctly. The Stupid Idiots is on their longest win streak to start a season in franchise history. Additionally, Paddock 9 has tied their longest win streak to open a year. They have never been 3-0, but will look to hit that mark this week. Mattness, meanwhile, has a chance to tie their best start (3-0) with a win against Duck Punchers. Sweet Dee will need a few more wins under their belt to hit their all-time best 4-0 start, but the possibility is still alive.

## This Time Last Year... (2022 Week Two Standings)

This should make Papa feel a little bit better. Last year they started in 10th place before rocketing to a Salty Dolphiin Bowl victory. Pain Train, on the other hand, might be feeling a little down on themselves. They are over 200 points behind their scoring total from a year ago.

## Above and Below

A chart to track how many games above/below projections for each team.

I'm not really sure what happened last week, I guess I forgot to update the chart? Fucking annoying. Anyway here it is for the first two weeks:

Well that's weird. Everyone is 1-1 except for the 9th and 10th place teams (who face off this week).

## Absolute Standings

Absolute Standings tracks the standings if the top five scoring teams won every week regardless of matchup.

## Power Rankings - Week 3

Lots to sort through as action starts on unlucky season 13.

### 1(1). Multiverse of Mattness

Commish thought he was really smart starting Joshua Kelley and it's a good thing it didn't matter because turns out some people are better left as change-of-pace backs (looking at you Alexander Mattison). What makes this team so dangerous is the potential of the KC defense as well as their WR depth, with Ja-KOBE Meyers looking like a slam dunk once healthy.

### 2(5). Paddock 9

Gets spooky when you consider P9 had the best performance of the season among all ten teams in the LOC and did so without Diggs or AJ Brown meeting projection. The production is coming from Puka Nacua, who got plugged into the Cooper Kupp slot of the Matt Stafford industrial complex and immediately started pumping out the best rookie season in NFL history. It remains to be seen whether the return of Kupp would turn Puka Nacua into Puke Nacua, but for now this is a money train.

### 3(2). Duck Punchers

Duck might be suffering from too many players on his team having PIT in their name because so far this season has been in the dumps. Lucky for them they have a get-right matchup against Mattness, who they own in the regular season. Duck has a tremendous bench, with guys like George Pickens and Aaron Jones riding the pine in week two while he hit 213 points.

### 4(6). Sweet Dee

Sweet Dee has made three moves in the early part of the season, but those moves might make the difference between a lackluster season and another title run. On September 10th she picked up Kyren Williams, who is now RB1 in LA. On the 17th she snagged Jerome Ford, a day before he became the bell cow in Cleveland. And just yesterday she added Stafford, who has beaten projection in each of his first two games, as a potential stop gap for any Joe Burrow calf issues. Quality, not quantity.

### 5(3). Ma ma momma said

Being the top scoring loser doesn't buy you much but at least it means that their 0-2 start is more a product of their schedule than their roster. Still, mild concern that third round pick Alexander Doesn'tMATTerSON is a bust, and Burrow's offensive struggles limits the upside for all-pro wideout Chase. They are outscoring each of their next two opponents by more than 50 points each, but beating September Sweet Dee and the sporadic Shotti Bunch is not going to be walk in the park.

### 6(7). RIPDab

At least Nate took him to prom first before fucking him. RIPDab used his greatest tool against momma on MNF: going to sleep early. Everybody knows that when Nate goes to sleep, shit gets wild. At 1-1 and facing the depleted Stupid Idiots two of the next three weeks, Dab has a decent chance to be 4-1 heading into the meat of the schedule. Some early problems include Miles Sanders, who has looked more like Inches Sanders thanks to a really poor start by Carolina's offense. And Gibbs me a break on Jahmyr's usage. Seven rushes a game?

### 7(4). The Stupid Idiots

I'm not even going to make a joke about Nick Chubb (besides the one I made earlier). This is a huge loss for football, he is awesome and that injury was disgusting. This is a grim reality for Idiots, who is without Chubb and Barkley for the next 1-2 weeks before at least getting Saquon back. There is some room to grow as their WR room is solid, but this is a huge blow to a team that started off so hot. Chubb has been an integral part of the lockerroom since Idiots returned to the LOC, and I don't know if that is a void that can be filled.

### 8(8). The Shotti Bunch

Which Shotti Bunch is closer to the real thing? The one we saw in week one or the one we saw in week two? Justin "Can't See The" Fields seems to be a major concern. And Nathaneal Hackjob seems hellbent on ruining Breece Hall's value. Hall and Fields cannot rush for a total of seven times if Shotti wants to get back into the championship conversation, but the unfortunate reality is that their two studs are in offenses that are DOA. One positive we can say for sure is that for the 10th season in a row Mike Evans was undervalued in the draft. Every year this fucking guy delivers.

### 9(9). Pain Train

Honeymoon Pain Train is back in America and finally ready to start their season, but to get win one they need to get revenge on the team that knocked them out of the playoffs in 2023. Najee Harris is looking more like Nah G Harris because nah, I'm not starting his ass any more. Kendrick Bourne was looking Kendrick Dead in the Water after a nice opening week, but there is good boom potential in that revamped NE offense. Once again loving what I see from Jordan Love and if Tremor Lawrence is looking shaky than having a solid backup is crucial to getting back in the mix.

### 10(10). Papa's Posse

Maybe it was better this way. Mattness had the second-best showing of the week, so might as well get everyone's bad games out of the way now so that they can be stronger against Pain Train. One had to question how long the DeShaun Watson experiment would last, especially now that the team has lost Chubb. That question has been answered, as Papa moves to the tried-and-true Kirky for week three. The Cam Akers to Minnesota news means Papa has stumbled into a potentially productive QB/RB stack, and if Christian Watson can get healthy there is potential.

## 3-0 vs. 0-3

Week three is big, especially for the 0-2 teams. Starting 0-3 isn't exactly a death sentence, but the odds are not in your favor.

### 0-3

Only three 0-3 teams have ever made the playoffs, a success rate of 21%. Of those three, none have made it beyond the opening round of the Festival. It would be the first time since 2016 that an 0-3 team made the postseason.

We are guaranteed at least one 0-3 team this year, as Pain Train and Papa square off in week three.

### 3-0

While 0-3 is a pretty good indicator that this team is going to struggle to compete, 3-0 doesn't necessarily mean anything.

Four 3-0 teams have missed the playoffs over the last twelve years. And while a success rate of 67% seems like good odds, it's not the lock that I expected.

Both these numbers are drastically changed if you remove the outlier 2016 season. The success rate of 0-3 teams drops to 8% while the success rate of 3-0 teams rises to 80%.

Curiously enough, a 3-0 team has never won the Glory Bowl...

## Matchup of the Week: Battle at the Bottom (Pain Train vs. Papa)

A matchup that might not seem exciting on paper, but the fillet has been smoking weed because the stakes are high!

This is sort of the Vikings vs. Chargers of games. Both teams 0-2, the loser guaranteed last place.

Pain Train vs. Papa is also a rematch of the 2022 quarterfinals, which Papa won in a shocking upset. Since then, the two teams are a combined 1-6.

Pain Train is also still looking for his 100th win and has now returned from his trip to Europe, a sure sign that maybe the tides are about to turn on his season.

Papa vs. Pain Train has always been a pretty close contest. The series record has been tied at 1-1, 4-4, 6-6, and 8-8. Pain Train went on a tear from October 2019 to January 2022, but Papa has won two of the last three head-to-heads.

As far as what to watch for this weekend: There should still be some meat on the bone for the SNF matchup, where Papa will put forth Freirmuth and Josh Jacobs against a lackluster Najee Harris. Depending on the performances, we could see a MNF nailbiter as Pain Train will roll out the surprisingly-efficient Tutu Atwell vs. Cincy in the later of the two Monday contests.

The biggest difference could be the defenses. Buffalo takes on Washington for Pain Train, while New England takes on the Jets for Papa. Defenses have the ability to swing matchups. As do injuries, and one to watch is the toe injury to Papa's first round pick, Amon-Ra.

## Survivor Update - Week 2

Big Dick Nick takes their first hit by selecting Detroit in week 2. Jared gets his first strike by forgetting to make his pick, something I feel like I could copy and paste every single year.

Shotti survives another week in the rogue Survivor league by selecting Dallas.

## Conclusion

Someone will be 3-0. Someone will be 0-3. The difference could mean everything. Good luck all and we'll break down this pivotal week in our next writeup!