CHEA!!!!!!!! What up Special Ed. It’s Week Eiht up in this biyayitch and DYM is down to ride.
Man, for real I can’t believe it’s week 8 already. The first half of the season really flew by.
TOTAL MOVES THIS WEEK: 14
DUMPSTER DIVER OF THE WEEK: Golden Richards
Even in the middle of bye week season our league-wide move volume remains low. We understand, tho, we're not making wild moves either.
We said a few weeks ago that a certain amount of uncertainty and trepidation is normal in the first quarter of the season. It can take a few weeks to learn who you can trust. But this is a very unusual season. Even now, with only 6 weeks left in the fantasy regular season, we still don’t know what the fuck is going on. Not only is fantasy production down across the board it seems to be less consistent than ever this year as well. We’ve already talked a lot here about the Bench Point Pandemic, but now the cancer of bench points has metastasized to the waiver wire as well!
This week most of the best players in the NFL were not owned in Special Ed. If we composed a team ONLY of UN-OWNED players in week 7, that team would have beaten our league’s top team by over 70 points.
Obviously we’ve done a lot of streaming and a lot of dumpster diving in this league. We keep an eye on the waiver wire at all times, and while there are always good plays to be had out there, this kind of production is VERY unusual.
Right now, the only people with any chance of taking advantage of all this chaos are the players themselves. I’m pretty sure Cam Newton had the Bears D in fantasy this week. Look at this shit:
It’s hard to throw a ball this bad by accident. This is one of the worst picks we’ve ever seen and we watch the Bills every week, so we knows some bad football when we sees it, and we’re here to tell ya, this football is bad out here.
Let’s break it down –
Week 7 had:
3 Shut outs
6 (SIX!) teams without a TD
And the 2017 Season has had:
The second lowest scores per game of the last 10 years
Fewest TDs per game in the past 10 years
More FGs per game than any of the last 10 seasons
So, turns out Dave had the right idea spending a draft pick on a Kicker. But the flaw in his process became clear early on. Tucker is just a boring name. Easy fix for next year -- If you want to draft the #1 kicker, look for the kicker with the funniest name. Lutz, Zeurlein, or Stephen “Steven” Hauschka would actually have been pretty good 8th round picks.
AMERICAS SWEETHEART - JUJU SMITH SCHUSTER
The latest hilariously named Rookie to capture the hearts of NFL fans is none other than our pre-season Tajae Sharp!!
Juju has always been our guy ever since last year when we owned Josh Gordon. One day we were wondering if Cody Kessler would be able to support a fantasy relevant WR, so we pulled up some of his college highlights on YouTube. Play after play there was one WR's name the announcers would gleefully call: "JUJU SMITH SCHUSTER".
Everybody loves saying that name. The kid is just a delight to talk about.
A name like this on top of a QB number in that Steeler Black and Gold is a match made in marketing heaven. Long as he doesn't disrespect any troops he could have a great career ahead of him. The path was all layed out there for him on draft night. Juju knew that night there was only one thing he had to do to cement his place as a generational superstar - TD CELEBRATIONS!
And if you think a man named Juju isn't gonna have some all-time great TD Celebrations you're fucking crazy.
Juju came in to this season with a Russian-Facebook-style targeted marketing plan to reach all the most important demographics of NFL fans.
First, he had to get his name in the mouths of 2017's true tastemakers - 20 year old internet nerds. These sabermetrics nerds had to go get some dry sweatpants after Juju turned his first TD ball into Goku's Kamehameha Wave from DragonBall-Z.
Sean McVay loved this one. He's trying to get Watkins to do something like this if he ever scores
Next Juju rallied his base, the urban market, with this dice game celebration
CLACKITY-CLACKITY-CLACK!!!!!
You think Martavis got got in that dice game? He's been pretty salty ever since.
Then, in case the gambling was too adult, Juju and Leveon followed it up with a little something for the kids.
HIDE AND SEEK!!!!!!!!
Let's all just start calling him "FUTURE HALL OF FAMER JUJU SMITH SCHUSTER" now OK?
FOOD BEEF
The third stop on the 2017 Wing Tour is our new go-to hometown bar -
54 Main of Madison!!!!!!!!
54 Main is the best bar in Madison, no contest. To be fair, there's only like 4 bars in town, and each one has its own certain charm, but if anyone tells you they like Prospect or Poor Herbie's better than 54 they're just being cute. 54 Main is the best. They have one of the best beer selections of any bar we frequent, the food is top notch, sometimes college girls hang out there and they show every game every Sunday. It's the full package.
We go there a fair amount cause it's pretty close to my place and to Ertz's. It's also a good sports bar set-up; Sit at the bar and you can see several screens at once. Me and The Commish have been there the last two years for the first Thursday of the NCAA tourney and had a great time. It could become a semi-regular Sunday spot now too.
Last year we hit up a bunch of pizza places that we thought we knew real well but something unexpected happened. Sometimes, some of these guys seemed to know they were being put under the DYM Microscope and they stepped up to plate. Much like Coppolas did last year, 54 Main were unflinching when they found themselves face to face with a Food Beef Challenge. They dug down deep and found their very best wings when they needed them most.
There was a Wings Special on the menu last Sunday, 20 Wings for $20. Good value. We got 10 Classic Buffalo and 10 Thai flavor. Both were very very good.
Surprisingly good:
The Thai had this crispy crunchy skin reminiscent of the very best Chinese food spot wings. Sweet but not syrupy. Just spicy enough. Garnished with fresh pineapple.
The Buffalo was AUTHENTIC Buffalo. No breading necessary, just crispy fried chicken skin. Every wing was meaty, no runty stragglers. The sauce was mostly butter, so much butter it tasted like movie theater popcorn. Straight up like popcorn, it was crazy. Goddamned delicious.
Only knock on both is they coulda been hotter, should be an easy fix. We'll have to try em again this Sunday since the Bills won when I was there last week. Really looking forward to it.
WING SCORE : 9.5
WHO'S HOT!?!
The moment you've all been waiting for...
Hoooo boy.
Good thing Doug and Abby both don't read this, they might be upset when they find out how ICEY FRIGID COLD they are. Typically low scoring teams (like Saquons Heisman) are able to take advantage of their slow start and build a hot streak even without scoring a ton of points. That team can still pull out some apparent upsets by being hot and maybe even steal a playoff spot. But a team like 15 YOB is totally fucked. The lowest scoring team in Special Ed is also by far the coldest. Somebody trade with this guy. He's dying.
AMERICAS GAME OF THE WEEK
15 YARDS OF BALDWIN vs. TEAM MEH
At 2-5 Team Meh is both a sleeping tiger and a hidden dragon. They rank near the top of the league in every metric besides wins. Meh is the 2nd highest scoring team and also the 2nd HOTTEST. Earlier this year, Meh also placed very highly in the POWER RANKINGS, but have only managed one win since then.
Here's the problem with Team Meh tho: they keep playing Tyreek Hill and Kelce together even though only one of them is good any given week, never both. He needs to trade Kelce and play matchups with Hill and D Jackson since they're both boom-or-bust. Good thing he doesn't read this either ...
PREDICTION
TEAM MEH - 103.29
15 YOB - 88.01
AGOTW PREDICTION RECORD : 2-5
SPECIAL ED MATCHUP PREVIEWS
DYM.com vs Polk High
These two QBs are the top contenders for the DYM award for Best Waiver Pickup of 2017. DYM and PHP are both strong teams, this marquee game could help decide a DYMA and give the winner a trajectory toward Special Ed playoff glory.
PHP WINS!!!!!!!!
Saquons Heisman vs White Walkers
A very difficult bye week for the White Boyz opens up a prime opportunity for the Commish to pull off a big upset. If I eat wings at Bar 54 again it could help Tyrod, but Dave is also looking to start Kenny Stills tonight which could leave him in a hole going into Sunday.
SQ WINS!!!!!!!!
Randall Cummingham vs BitchSlapps
All of Abby’s worst players are on bye, so she’s forced to bench them. The bye week is actually helping her here, it’s addition by subtraction. But its NOT ENOUGH TO OVERCOME THE #1 QB in FOOTBALL CARSON WENTZ!!!!!!!!
RC WINS!!!!!!!!
¡Que Lástima! vs Golden Richards
The top 2 teams in Special Ed face-off for the only time this year. A tough bye week situation for both teams. LOTS of decisions to be made for both. Lineups likely will be nervously set at the very last minute for this one. NAIL BITER!
GR WINS!!!!!!!!
HAVE A GREAT WEEK EVERYBODY!!!!!!!
