Evans World 2012–Week 5

Yes, yes, I know.  I promised these blog entries on Tuesdays.  Well, it just so happens that it’s hard to write these things at night these days.  So, I find I am writing them from work and that’s tricky in its own way.  So I apologize for my tardiness.  Bear with me while I continue to get my new Omaha schedule/routine worked out.

RANDOM THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK

• Ouch.  Mike’s utter destruction of my team is the 4th highest blowout in EW history.  Mike had a good week at just the right time to put him back into the upper echelons, a distinction hard to do these days.  Take a look at the point totals for teams and you’ll see why.  There is a big ol drop between Marshall’s team at 475.50 points and my team at 420.  It’s not likely for my team to catch up to Tony P. but I might be able to beat him in the right matchup.  As with all things, time will tell.  Even still, big win for Mike to keep his 2nd edition hopes alive.
• Speaking of Tony P. … holy shit is he doing well.  Tony is averaging 115.15 points per week.  Keep that in mind as you face him.  I’m pretty sure this is the best start to a season we’ve ever seen the #1 draft pick make for some time.  Great job building your team, Tony.  Here’s hoping you start losing this week.
• I like to see the trades happening, but we did have two big ouches this weekend.  The first is certainly the trade between Gary and Berk.  A good trade on sight … until 3 hours later when both players Gary traded for, Benson and Finley, left their game with injuries.  Gary still managed to turn in a huge win this week, but here’s hoping he hasn’t ended up with some lemons from this trade.  The other is my trade with Nathan.  While it will help my team out, I failed to recognize that Nathan now has 3 first-round picks on his team.  A combo of Brady, Johnson and Forte could prove disastrous for the rest of the league.  Also liked the trade between Jason and Ritchie.
• Nathan’s week is the #6 highest score total in EW history.  The records have been updated on the site.  You can see them by clicking on the “Evans World Records” category link on the right-hand side of the blog.
• Jason is #10 in the rankings and #8 in points.  I see another Kevin team brewing here, especially after I beat him this week.  We need to come up with a term to describe this phenomenon.  Any ideas?
• Battle of the Browns 1.0 is in the books with Berk just squeaking out a win.  Ritchie, I feel your pain.  Losing to the dumber brother is never fun.  Just aim for the playoffs since it’s your only chance to beat him again this season.
• So Tony Gonzalez is my new hero.  Here’s a guy on a team full of offensive weapons who is still managing to be a FF monster this year.  Consider this … after 5 weeks, he’s averaging 16.48 points per week.  The highest drafted TE, Jimmy Graham, is only averaging 11.20 points per week so far.  The #1 draft pick Ray Rice is only averaging 14.29 points a week.  I love to watch it happen.  He’s definitely one of those players you never want to see stop playing, like Marino, Elway, Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, etc.  I hope he keeps playing and paying off huge for Tony P.  I doubt anyone, especially Marshall, would have thought he’d be this good when planning our TE draft rankings this year.
• Speaking of playing well, how about Da Bears?  Damn.  From an FF perspective, they’re rocking the world!  In our league the players are pretty spread out.  But, in my other FF league we have one team that is 85% Bears’ players.  After 5 weeks, he’s the point leader by far, even more than Tony P. is in ours.  I know I called the Cutler-Marshall duo paying off, but this is unprecedented.  Even I have to tip my hat to that kind of FF productivity by a single team.  Too bad it won’t help any of you this week.  Yeah, also loved to see that thick cast on Alshon Jeffrey’s hand.  Love it.  Thanks.

WEEKLY AWARDS

• MVP – I could give it to Welker who winked and made his way back to the top of the Patriots heap and helped Mike’s trouncing of my team, but why reward Mike anymore?  I’ve already praised the Bears DEF and that was painful enough to do the first time.  So, I’ll give it to Nathan for managing to dupe us out of our top picks via trades.  Well played, sir.
• Honorable Mention – I love to see Peyton Manning back and playing well.  Definitely helped Tony P. secure his win over Tony G. this week in the battle of the Tonys, another matchup we won’t see until the playoffs.
• Best Owner Choice – Lots of gems this week.  Mike gets more praise for picking up Tynes to cover his K.  Nathan too for picking up Walsh, the wunderkind up in Minneapolis.  Never did give Gary props for picking up Zuerlein, by far my rookie of the year and a solid FF K for years to come.  But, this week I’ll give it to Gary for starting Kendall Wright.  Not sure if it was desperation, necessity or wisdom, but it was a good call.
• Unfortunate Bench – You might think I’d give this to Jason for benching Reggie Wayne and his career day of 29.6 points, but in truth had he started him (and I don’t blame him for not starting him), he still would have lost the matchup with Nathan.  So, I’ll cut him a little slack this time around.  I think Tony G. underestimated Crabtree’s contributions this week, but hell who wouldn’t?  So, this week’s award goes to Ritchie who left a well-healed Mendenhall on his bench and denied him a shot at winning the Battle of the Browns.
• Lawrence Phillips Award – Surprisingly I can’t think of anything that anyone in the NFL did that was stupid enough to meet the LP level of play!  Can’t remember the last time that happened.  So, I’ll give it to President Obama for what was a disappointing and lackluster performance in the first Presidential Debate.  If I ever wanted to cite an example of the physical/emotional impact of the Presidency on a person, I can simply compare Obama 2008 to Obama 2012 and you can see just how tired the guy is.  Either that or he’s saving the big guns for the later debates.  Who knows.  I’m still not going to vote for him, and we as a country are totally fucked no matter who wins, and in all fairness his performance doesn’t measure up to LP standards.  But, it’s my chance to get a shot in my blog about the debate, so I took it.  Stepping off the soap box now.

MEANWHILE, BACK IN THE NCAA …

• I honestly don’t know what the solution is for Nebraska.  The more I look at our lackluster play over the past few years, I’m leaning towards one of two things.  First, and most likely, I think it has to do with our player recruitment and development.  Nebraska isn’t going to land a lot of 5-star recruits, and we can’t compete outside of the Midwest very well.  But the truth is we’ve never had to.  Some of the greatest players to play in Lincoln came into the program with a little talent and left with massive quantities of it.  That to me shows the practiced eye of the recruiter to spot potential and the commitment of a conditioning and coaching program to develop a player.  We’re just not seeing that out of the Pelini Era.  Sure, we’ve got the walk-ons back and they’ve helped.  But where are the Peters, Wistroms, and Mike Browns?  Where are the kids with the fire and talent that simply needed kindling?  So maybe we need to adjust the recruitment and coaching a bit.  Not sure how much, but I have to believe that a program with as much history and notoriety as ours can land better recruits than those players I saw play on Saturday night.  Second, I’m not sure Bo is an ideal head coach.  He’s definitely a national championship defensive coordinator, but the defense that played on Saturday wasn’t up to his spec, not even close.  To decide if this avenue of thought is correct requires information about how the program is run and exactly what Bo’s duties are (Tony G., any insight?).  But if Bo is too busy being Head Coach and can’t focus and develop the program or players, maybe he shouldn’t be the Head Coach.  I trust the new AD to determine that and make the correct decision.  I think removing him from the program completely would be a mistake and seriously hurt the team.  But I doubt he’d take a demotion.  Not sure but changes need to be made or games like this past week will happen a lot more often.
• Speaking of the new AD, Nathan, you happy about this?  I think he got out of Miami just in time before any death penalties get handed down to the program and suddenly he’s dealing with a worthless job.  It’s a little chickenshit to do, but I don’t blame him for it.  I like we’ve got someone in there who’s young, who’s had success, and who is focused on developing programs, not simply reshaping things to be the way he thinks they should be like Peterson did.  This is a good hire.
• I loved to see Texas lose to West Virginia.  I liked to think that somewhere deep in the secret meeting chambers of the Texas Board of Regents, they regretted forcing the mediocre Nebraska out of the Big 12 to be replaced by a team that will actually be harder to beat.  I hope they feel the sting of losing so many quality teams as their replacements come in and show Texas just how good they had it until they went and ruined it by being so fucking selfish.
• Florida State is for real, but after that loss they’re never going to get a chance to show it again.  Wah, wah.

LOOKING AHEAD

• This week features the battle of the top 2 teams, Tony P. and Gary!  While the rankings may not change much when it’s all said and done, it’s going to be a great matchup.  Me, I’m rooting for Gary.
• This week also features a battle of the bottomfeeders between me and Jason.  I’ve got a bad feeling that my losing streak is about to kick into high gear and Jason will get his first win.  My worst seasons always seem to come when I make that 1-2 major mistakes in the draft or in the season.  This season I think I got waiver happy, moving/trading players around I shouldn’t have.  Learn from me, friends.  Don’t overthink things.  And definitely don’t give Nathan any more first rounders without getting something for it.
• Tony G., kick Nathan’s ass.
• Marshall, are you there anymore?  We miss you.  Trash talk with us.  Please.