Monday Night Football - Fantasy Preview - Week 9

A weekly newsletter for members of the Harry Koch Memorial Cup Fantasy Football league - all others will BE FORCED TO ENGAGE IN POLITICAL DISCOURSE WITH THEIR GRANDMA OVER THANKSGIVING

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Forward

The story of week 9 featured the league’s top 5 power squads continuing to exert their will on the competition. The top 3 ranked teams won their matchups by an average margin of 31 pts and 4th and 5th place are currently locked in a dual with each other with projections north of 120 pts, well above the league average. The rest of the league toiled in the fields with all but 2 of the bottom 7 squads scoring below 90 pts. With the monday night game featuring two notoriously abysmal fantasy organizations, all but 1 of our leagues matchups have effectively been decided, leaving two players to keep an eye on in tonight’s contest, and an irrelevant and solitary Jet earning a start (Frank “I am your 37 yo dad” Gore).

Game

(2-5) New England Patriots @ (0-8) New York Jets

• 8:15 PM EST
• Line: NE -9.5

Matchups

✅ Nick (6-2) v Diego (2-6) aka “How to lose 7+ guys in 10 days”

Diego put forth a valiant effort in this one, but it wasn’t enough to overcome multiple 35+ pt efforts from Josh Allen and Dalvin Cook from the confederation from Too Many Cooks. Nick’s ego has been unchecked for several weeks now and this is another step in a dark dark direction. Look for the highly crippled Cam to provide some sort of resistance against the Bad Man from AusTAN next week. If you are Diego, at least you rest on the fact that there is truly nothing you could have done to prevent this. Look for jumbo D to rebound in a major way next week, as he navigates the single consistent bright spot of his team, Patrick Mahomes’s bye week. Margin of victory = 22 pts

✅ Alex (5-3) v Scott (3-5) aka “Mr. Michael Tumnus”

A team has no name rode performances above projections from all but 3 slots of his team to gallop out to a monster lead over Scott’s “not not bad” team this week. After all the provisional points were counted, Alex sat atop his 48 pt lead and all but guaranteed his claim to this week’s BUILT FORD TOUGH - OUCHY OUCHY POWER THRASH. This will be Scott’s first time experiencing a rename, so look for him to take out his aggression this upcoming week in his cross country cannon clash with Keith and the combine prep squad. In other news, Scott’s 9 week long incubation of Michael Thomas finally hatched in a major way with a monster outing of 7.6 pts on 6 targets.

✅ Dan (3-5) vs Keith (3-5) aka “At least Keith has a few successful business ventures and a lovely wife”

Last chance U (suck) stopped the bleeding and his 3 game L skid with a comfortable 20 pt whomping of Keith’s combine prep squad. With Daniel “undefeated against the redskins/football team but 1-17 against all other teams” Jones calmly figureheading the U suck ship, Dan and his motley crew pillaged nearly all of Keith’s stores of salted meats and moldy cheese in this battle of 3-5 power orgs. If my calculations are correct, this win will move Dan into that coveted 6 spots for playoff contention - with a slight points scored edge over other 4-5 teams. At least Keith saw his prized TE Jimmy Graham “Cracker” go for 14.5 on 6 catches in this one - look for Keith to end his league worst 4 game losing streak by bouncing back in his matchup against Scott and his soon to be renamed squad.

99% Matt #1 (6-2) v Patrick (3-5) aka “Emphasis on the trippin”

Patrick went from Trump on tuesday night to Trump on wednesday morning real quick in this one as he saw his 2 RBs and TE combine for an inexplicable 4.5 pts against Matt and the Chubby ABs. To make things even sweeter, the extremely stable and abundantly merciful Robotripping Gardener left his Charkenator on the bench as he went for 24 pts on passes from some other guy that probably doesn’t have that impressive of a mustache. With neither team particularly dominant, it was Travis Kelce’s 20.9 pt outing on 10 catches that eventually made the difference and put Matt ahead by 9 leading into MNF. If the Patriot defense can manage to go for -9, this one could get very interesting (our settings only allow for a min defensive score of -4) but more on this in the fun facts section. Also of note, Antonio “whole lotta money” Brown returned to the league to the tune of 4.6 pts on a BRUTAL day for QB Tom “fiddlesticks” Brady. Look for him to move into a more core role in the coming weeks.

95% Cam (3-5) vs Matt #2 (4-4) aka “When you were out partying with your friends.. Drew Brees was in a sensory deprivation tank, readying himself for battle”

In another low scoring affair, Matt “the deuce” #2 drop 81 BIG ONES on the Kamarican Dream which was good enough to only be down 2.2 going into MNF. That means that Frank Gore only needs to score -2 or worse and Matt will be in serious contention. This win comes at critical playoff push time for Cam as he looks to compound his momentum in his tilt next week against Bic and the Too Many Cooks. These two team’s started TEs combined for 1.8 pts in this matchup, a league worst. Hats off to these two managers for their commitment to shift focus away from the TE spot, and towards other more pressing global topics such as climate change and the masked singer.

68% Jam (5-3) vs Hy (5-3) aka “Boysenberry Marmalade vs the Saguaro Sensei”

Finally, the one matchup of the night that is as open as Mary Poppin’s bottle of lean when shes baby sitting. Jam trails by 24.12 points and has Cam “Figgy Pudding” Newton and Damien “Drake - superspy” Harris still to harvest. You might be thinking, isn’t Cam highly liable to get benched if he starts slow in this one? And yes, absolutely - especially if he shows up wearing something like this, this, or this again. One cannot pretend to understand what prompts Jam to do the things he does, but you cannot argue with his results. Especially with the return of Christian “good genes of the family” McCaffrey and his 32 pt effort against the chiefs. In this battle of 5-3 teams, look for the Patriots offense to determine who will be victorious against the listless New York “really good team actually according to coaches who obvs cant say otherwise in an interview” Jets. If Hy loses, he might want to try starting one of his 2 20pt scoring bench receivers and this will be my face.

TiL Week 9 Fun Fact

• In some variation of ESPN’s standard scoring model, the defensive yards allowed is a variable in the DST scoring, with a max punishment of -7 pts for allowing > 550+ yards. Combine that with the max points allowed punishment of -5 for > 46 pts and you have a theoretical worst DST score of -12 pts in this mode, and that implies no sacks or positive defense moments for the entirety of the game. Only 4 teams have ever achieved the theoretical worst defensive effort in the history of the league. And yes, you guessed it, the Lions did this back in 1993, as they fell to the 49ers 55-17 well surrendering 565 yds of offense. Very nice, other historical worst stories here including the lowest ever individual fantasy score of -9.7 by Ryan Leaf on 1-15 passing, 4 yds, no TDs, 2 picks, 3 lost fumbles, and 1 yd rushing.