Week 1: Football is back!

 Football is back!

It's finally here. After months of articles, podcasts and talk-shows pumping up players or debating legal situations, there's finally football to watch and things went... not really the way we expected.

Quarterback Revenge Games

One of the fun narratives going into this week was the larger than normal amount of QBs facing off against their previous home teams. Russ tries to punish Seattle for refusing to let him cook, Baker faces a team that spurned him for a serial sexual assaulter(is that a word?), and Joe Flacco.... well he did play for the Ravens for a while.

Flacco and the Jets getting crushed by the Ravens? Not really surprising.

Baker and the Panthers losing a close one to a talented Browns team helmed by Brisset? Also fairly understandable.

But Russ losing to Geno Smith's Seattle in a mindboggling game featuring 2 goal line fumbles and a coach that chose a 64 yard field goal over a 4th down attempt? That is what NFL football is all about.

Matchups

Kelsey Lohan's Ghost vs The Crooks

This matchup was basically entirely decided by the QB position. Kelsey got horrible production out of 5/9 players, but 41 points from Mahomes vs 6 points from an injured Dak was too big of a mountain for The Crooks to climb.

The Crooks need a new QB for sure, but they're also going to need a lot more than 19 yards from TE prodigy Kyle Pitts. I expect that to change, but his usage was the most surprising thing in this matchup.

The Loch Ness Burrow vs Ancient Allens

Josh Allen and the Bills tore the Rams apart on TNF but thanks to disgusting performances from young star WRs DK Metcalf and CeeDee Lamb his huge game wasn't enough to secure the win for Ancient Allens. There's definitely some cause for concern here as I don't expect the QB play to improve for either of these WRs; one is tied to Geno Smith for the season and the other just lost Dak. 

On the other side of the ball, Jonathan Taylor and Joe Burrow both provided big scoresn clawing their teams back into games they fell woefully behind during the first half. While both got their teams into overtime, neither could secure a win for their real life franchises like they did for Loch Ness Burrow.

Roswell LAMARtians vs Oh Godwin he can See

Yuk. Here's our noodle fight of the week: LAMARtians somehow grabbing a win with just 84 points. 

Preseason darling Damien Pierce got overshadowed by Rex Burkhead, Aaron Rodgers lost all his WRs, Akers put up 3 rushes for 0 yards (what?) on TNF, and Ekeler rushed for just 36 yards in a game the Chargers won. Gross all around.

I'm not worried about Rodgers or Ekeler, but things do not look good for Pierce and they look awful for Cam Akers. Find someone else to start in week 2 please.

momo vs Ballderberg

Bot vs Bot in this matchup of our 2 auto-drafted teams was not particularly close.

Momo got huge games out of all his star players in Kupp, Pittman, and Kelce as well as a solid game from a QB in Hurts who continues to surprise me with his real world NFL ability. Maybe he can really take the Eagles somewhere past a first round playoff exit. 

Unfortunately, injuries have struck early for Ballderberg as Kittle was surprisingly out for week 1 and Higgins exited the game with an injury. Luckily neither of these should be long-term issues so there's plenty of time for this squad to get back on track and notch some wins.

Jets Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams vs Chipped by Billy G

Billy G put up the 5th highest score of the week and got absolutely crushed by Jets Fuel. Justin Jefferson said he wants to be the #1 WR in the league this year and he's well on his way at just 23 years old. Backed by AJ Brown (23) and Hollywood Brown (12) and Michael Thomas (20) Jets Fuel has a crazy stacked WR room that showed up for week 1.

On the Billy G side of the ball, Swift put up a monster game even with Jamaal Williams stealing 2 of his TDs but this squad is going to need a lot of more out Zeke and a frankly awful Cowboys offense to get their RB room going strong.

Hazers vs KY

In our closest game of the week, KY falls to the Hazers despite having 5 RBs on their roster putting up 13+ points. Shockingly, CMC was the lowest scoring of that group thanks to a baffling low amount of usage in the Carolina/Cleveland game. I can't really fault Mooney for putting up a dud in monsoon conditions, but there's no question that it cost KY the win this week as every other position showed up for him.

Hazers had multiple "dud" performances including a disappointing week 1 injury for Eli Mitchell, but was saved by an otherworldly performance from Saquon Barkley. If this is the kind of performance we're going to get out of him this season he will be the steal of the draft in the 2nd round.

Pickup of the Week (preseason addition)

In the future this column will focus on players selected in the week leading up to the games, but as this was week 1 and we drafted 2 days before kickoff there's not a ton to analyze here.

The award this week goes to Cole for swapping Dallas for Tennessee on Sunday morning which netted him...2 points. I'm sorry guys but the other options are guys like Mike Davis and Mecole Hardman.

Bench Shaming Corner

Would it have been a gutsy call to play Drake London coming off injury in his first NFL game over Darnell Mooney? Absolutely. But would it have lifted KY to victory? Also yes.