What’s up Special Ed?!
Y'all ready to get busy or what?!?! There’s just a few days left until we kick off the 10th* season of the World’s Greatest Fantasy League!!! Lets go!!!!!
Man, ten years. A lotta people said we wouldn’t make it, but we're still goin strong - with over 60% of the original league still intact! That’s not bad!!!
We’re not gonna go over the top celebrating the league’s Tin Anniversary tho, since most contemporary Special Ed Historians only recognize 7 “Official” Special Ed Seasons, and 2020 has already been deemed our third ASTERISK season. 2011 and 2018 were each played with less than 10 fantasy teams, and there’s a good chance the 2020 season could feature less than a full slate of NFL teams and/or less than 16 games. To recap:
2011: The league began with only eight teams, so that first season was retroactively asterisked when we began the 10-team era in 2012.
2018: For some still unknown reason, the [REDACTED] drafted only Eagles then didn’t set his lineup or make any pickups for several weeks. It was the greatest travesty in the history of fantasy sports, and a stain this league will bear for generations to come.
Golden Richards was the 8-team champion and Defend Your Moves won the 9-team season, so there are currently 3 teams who have won 2 Official Special Ed Superbowls in the last ten years. If a full 16 game season does come to fruition this year, then Tacos!, GR, and DYM will have a chance to be named THE SPECIAL ED TEAM OF THE DECADE!!!!!!!!!!
2020 FUNNY NAMES UPDATE:
Overall we're pretty happy with the incoming group of rookie names in the NFL. We got Swift, Dobbins, Ruggs - All very fun names to say. But there's one NFL newcomer who stands out as perhaps the quintessential funny name for today's NFL game: CeeDee Lamb.
"Lamb" is a solidly funny last name. Everybody likes last names that are words cause they're easy to read and easy to remember. Cook, Hill, Bell, Hunt and Green are names that everybody drafts at least a round too early. And we get it: You gotta have those catchy names in your lineup.
His born name, Cedarian Lamb, already would be a top 5 name in this class. And "CD Lamb" as a nickname is also very not bad because a CD is a thing and so is a lamb. Perhaps, as a 21-year-old, Cedarian isn't really aware that a CD is a thing, or maybe he's intentionally casting aspersions on the outmoded medium. But no matter what the impetus, the phoneticized "CeeDee" is aesthetically stunning. We're not really in the business of over-analyzing sublime artistic works. We're just here to appreciate and celebrate the rare occasions when mankind creates something purely beautiful.
CeeDee is surely a name you've never seen before, but it's still incredibly simple, easy to sound out, and has an internal rhyme structure that's very fun to say. The capital D in the middle gives it a distinctively modern flare, and does so without any awkward spaces or punctuation, and without i's and y's.
And on top of all that, he's already got one of our favorite hair cuts (the Brent Holmes style half-bleached dreadlocks) and a DYM-approved cool jersey number. This is a young man with a bright future.
There might not be a lot of college football this year, and the players are understandably upset. The ones with the most to lose aren't the talented players - they can show up to the anonymized NFL combine and show out with that "WR14" shirt on. The tragedy is that the 2021 class features some outstandingly funny names that may never be spoken on national TV. That's why the funniest named kids at Nebraska filed a class-action lawsuit against the Big 10:
"Listed as plaintiffs are Brant and Brig Banks, Alante Brown, Noa Pola-Gates, Jackson Hannah, Garrett Nelson, Ethan Piper and Garrett Snodgrass." Holy shit!! Noa Pola?! Jackson Hannah's Wild Kingdom?!? GARRETT SNODGRASS?!?!?!
Folks, in these troubling times, now more than ever, America needs Garrett Snodgrass.
Let the kids play!!!
AMERICAS GAME OF THE WEEK
THE White Jesus Poison vs Tobin & The Rippers
AGOTW Prediction record 0-0
The #1 Yahoo! rated draft vs the league's actual best draft.
THE COMMISH:
It was very annoying for us to draft behind The Commish this year because we only hung out with like 3 people since March and he was one of em. Obviously we can't ever keep our stupid mouth shut so The Commish came in to this draft knowing our whole strategy and who all our favorite players were. We should take it as a compliment that he actually used our strategy and scooped our guys tho, so we might be on to something.
The preferred strategy this year was "5 starting RBs Minimum". We say 5 because we expect depth will be more important this year than ever before. But the objective fact of the modern fantasy football game is that the starting RB is the only position that matters.
And our new 2-flex roster gives us the opportunity to start 4 RBs every week. We were shocked how few teams took advantage of that fact last year, but even more surprised that The Commish was the only other team (besides ourselves) to begin the draft with 4 RBs. We got our 4 guys early too, but after that The Commish made it real hard for us to eclipse the 5 RB minimum.
We don't love all of The Commish's guys, Gurley especially. But the beauty of the RB-heavy lineup is that Gurley is his #4!! We don't love him, but we'd obviously rather have his in the flex than Theilen or Amari in the WR1.
He did a great job with the value WRs too. Chark and Keenan are among the very few "dependable" WRs in the game and Anthony Miller has a QB upgrade and one of the softest schedules in the league.
DRAFT GRADE: 2020 Special Ed Champion*
SUGGESTED TEAM NAME: THE White Jesus Poison (best team name ever)
TOBIN & THE RIPPERS
Zeke and Chubb was a great start to the draft, and they'll be a formidable 1-2 punch all year. But when he picked 4 WRs and then David Montgomery we were like "psshhh. nah".
A lot of people think it's ok to draft Montgomery this week since his groin injury was deemed "mild" and is expected to only keep him out "2-4 weeks." None of those people have ever pulled a groin muscle. The problem with a groin muscle injury is not just that it's painful, but that it takes FOREVER to get better. He might be able to run by week 3 but that shit is gonna hurt until week 8 even if he rests til then. And what's worse is he's sure to have a labored gait in week 3, which puts him at a far greater risk for a pulled hammy or sprained ankle cause he's not bending his hips enough when he runs.
SMGDH, isn't this guy a doctor? Remind us to never get sick in Philly, you guys.
We do like Calvin Ridley, though. He's gonna be that guy this year.
DRAFT GRADE: it's aight
SUGGESTED TEAM NAME: Jabberjaw & The Neptunes
SHARON ERTZ
Obviously this is not an ideal team structure, because he only drafted 2 RBs in the first 6 rounds. But really we think the only bad picks were Ron Jones and Jamie Crowder. Odell is poised for a bounce-back season. He had a tough time last year, but let's just say he's a guy who definitely isn't drafting David Montgomery this year.
At the moment it looks like this team has 3 good starting RBs. The Leonard Fornette transaction probably sunk Ron Jones' value completely, but Adrian Peterson getting cut should make Antonio Gibson a locked-in starter. Gibson was already our #1 most coveted sleeper RB even before Peterson got cut, so Big Kudos on that pick, could be an excellent keeper. Plus he's got the Full House, and Ka'imi Fairbairn is maybe the best kicker name in the league today.
DRAFT GRADE: Talking myself into it
SUGGESTED TEAM NAME: Kawhi Fairbairn
BRING IT ON HOME
The only exceptions to the "all RBs early" rule are, of course, Kenyan Drake and Leveon Bell. And he got BOTH of em - What the fuck, dude?
And TWO white WRs? For Real??
Oh God, and Jordan Howard is on this team too. Oh man. This team is fucked,
DRAFT GRADE: yuck
SUGGESTED TEAM NAME: The Garbage Pail Kids
I KNOWS PANDEMICS 👾
The #1 pick was a no-brainer, and Tacos didn't fuck that one up. But pretty much every pick after that was kinda suspect. Hopkins might still be the "best" WR in the NFL, but receivers changing teams are almost never good for fantasy, and Hop has yet to practice with his new team. Multi-week preseason hamstrings are still a red flag in our book.
They did manage to add 5 more RBs to run with McCaffrey, but they're all "value" RBs who don't really have the starting job locked up.
We're not gonna trash anybody for carrying 2 QBs this year. We do think it's worthwhile to backup every position, but it's gonna be hard to justify taking both QBs in the first 7 rounds with this many question marks at RB and flex.
DRAFT GRADE: top heavy
SUGGESTED TEAM NAME: Not Easy Being Green
PICKLE RICKS!!!!!
Our biggest priorities for the 2020 draft were (1) starting RBs and (2) bench flexibility. Although we're not sure that there are two good starting RBs on this team, there may be no more flexible roster this year than the Pickle Ricks'. At first we were kinda looking down on this draft because we didn't see of the requisite work-horse RBs. But after the Fournette, Kamara, and Peterson drama this week we're starting to love the idea of having 3 high-leverage RB handcuffs on the same team.
And our favorite thing about the PR draft is that it's still not done! There's NO DEFENSE!!! He's got at least one move to make before next weekend so they are contenders for the Week 1 Dumpster Diver Award.
DRAFT GRADE: We see you, doggy
SUGGESTED TEAM NAME: SEAL TEAM RICK!!!
TEAM MEH
Did you know there are only 2 NFL player who have been selected in every Special Ed draft? Big Ben is one of them and for 9 of the last 10 years The Fourth Reich has picked Ben as their starting QB. In 2014 Abby drafted Big Ben, a mistake that directly lead to her dismissal from the league.
Team Meh has always been our league's preeminent homer football fan. But this draft may be their piece de resistance. Their first three picks were all fellow PSU alumni and then they added four Steelers: Ben, Dionte, Benny Snell and the Defense.
This makes us happy. We don't entirely know why. This team is good, not great, but we're very glad it exists. Great Job! Go Bombers!!!
DRAFT GRADE: if it ain't broke don't fix it
SUGGESTED TEAM NAME: Ben & Benny's
PAULS AWESOME TEAM
Even in this most unpredictable of seasons, some things never change. We have never liked a Golden Richards' draft; For the tenth year in a row, we DO NOT like this team.
Aaron Rodgers is the only other player to have been picked in all ten Special Ed drafts. LeSean McCoy and Adrian Peterson were also drafted nine times coming into this season. With AD cut and Fournette joining the Bucs, it's looking like neither of those two will be fantasy viable this season, so good job fading them, everybody!
This team should be OK, in theory, but we're pretty concerned about the depth. We feel like Tyreek Hill catches a hamstring in preseason or week 1 pretty much every year, and James Conner is a chemotherapy veteran who might still have a compromised immune system. That means this team is very likely to start Tyler Boyd or TY Hilton regularly which is not ideal in this ten-team 2-WR format.
Apparently Matt Breida's a Dolphin now. Our guess is Peterson ends up there later this week.
DRAFT GRADE: 0 for 10
SUGGESTED TEAM NAME: 2020 Dumpster Diver Champ
Polk High Panthers
Man, they are lucky Fournette got picked up and could still be a starter. Cause for a minute there this team looked F U C K E D. Even as it is, they really only have one good RB and one good WR. They have two QBs, but one of them is a spinal case and the other is 40, not ideal. Jarvis Landry is probably starting a lot of games here, which is never a good thing.
They did get CeeDee Lamb, tho. Great name.
DRAFT GRADE: 🤮
SUGGESTED TEAM NAME: The New Abby
DEFEND YOUR MOVES
DRAFT GRADE: we got this
SUGGESTED TEAM NAME: #GODSPLAN2020
HAVE A GREAT WEEK EVERYBODY!
