FOOD BEEF VI: BURGERS!!!!!
This week: 54 Main - Madison, NJ
We had to shuffle the Burger Tour schedule this week. Waverly Diner is only open for breakfast and lunch and they close at 2. We rolled up at like 2:02 today and they were closed. That’s OK tho cause we felt like having a beer anyway so we just went another block down and grabbed a table at 54 Main. 54 Main used to be the shit. It’s still pretty cool but it used to be THE BOMB. Food Beef named 54 the Wing Champion back in 2018 but a year later they changed food distributors and the wings got real small and shitty. Nowadays they still have the best beer selection in town but whenever we go now we get “The Madison Burger” and it’s been very consistent. Today we topped our Madison Burger with pepper jack and bacon, and paired it with a Fiddlehead IPA.
Good Lord, that burger was delicious. Somehow, 54 Main always seems to know when Food Beef is on tour. Even though we hit them with a surprise week 5 schedule-flex they still brought their A-Game for the FB Judges Table.
On the first bite a deluge of liquid fat poured out onto our plate, so we knew they were on the right track. The flavors were all on point and right away we knew this was a full step above the Bottle Hill Burger from last week. On the second bite we felt a hearty crunch from the FRESH lettuce and tomato, and we were in heaven. This motherfucker hit the SPOT!!! It went along with the IPA perfectly and with that little 2-beer buzz it felt soooo good in our tummy. Just an incredible feeling on a sunny Thursday afternoon.
Besides it being corn-fed beef (we prefer grass-fed), this was an ostensibly perfect burger. We were hard pressed to think of any way it coulda been better. See you in the playoffs, 54!!!!!
BURGER SCORE: 9.5
SPECIAL ED POWER RANKINGS!!!!!
We've got four weeks in the books now, so this is the time of year when we move away from the speculative pre-draft mindset, after four weeks or so we kinda think we know who's good and who's not. That's why we draw up the annual Special Ed Power Rankings after week 4.
Last year we named 14 players as "Superstars" but of course we know by the end of the year there were really only 2 RBs and 2 WRs in the top tier. So this year we were a lot more stingy with the Superstar designations. We deemed 7 players as Superstars and Cordarelle Patterson as a borderline Superstar. Patterson is averaging over 18 points per game which has him currently ranked as the #3 RB and #5 WR in our league, and that's crazy. There are only 2 active RBs (Henry and Ekeler) and 3 WRs (Kupp, Tyreek, and DJ Moore) averaging over 20 ppg and only 2 QBs averaging over 25 ppg (Mahomes and Kyler) - so those are your superstars. That's it.
Also following the pattern from last year, there are twice as many second-tier "Starters". Last year there were 26 players scoring over 10 pts per game that we were confident would continue to do so - This year there are 52.
POWER RANKINGS:
Every year around week 4 we line up every WR, RB, QB and TE owned in Special Ed and JUDGE THEM.
Based on performance, reputation, and our own gut instinct, every player is put into one of four self-evident categories:
SUPERSTAR, STARTER, CAN'T CUT, and INJURED/EXPENDABLE
The DYM POWER METRICS are calculated by dividing the number of superstars on your roster by 7 and number of total starters by 7 (for the 7 starting starting positions in a Special Ed line-up) and adding the two percentages together (so that SUPERSTARS count twice)
MISS CLEO'S PLAYER OF THE WEEK!!!!!
KYLER MURRAY!!!!!
MISS CLEO'S PROP BET RECORD: 3-1
AMERICAS GAME OF THE WEEK!!!!!
NO AND THEN! vs TOBIN & THE RIPPERS!!!!!
AGOTW Prediction Record: 3-1
The highest projected score in this week's matchups and the #1 vs #2 in the standings. LETS GOOOOO!!!!!
Giants fans hate being happy. We're still not sure why but they almost all hedge against their own happiness, it's a weird phenomenon.
Every year in this league the majority of Cowboys and Washingtons will be on Giants fans' teams. We don't get it - Why do you guys wanna root against your own fantasy team? Not worth it if you ask us. Fortunately our Eagles contingent has always been die-hard homers. This year Tobin took Zeke in the first round; PHP has Dak, CeeDee and Brady; and Paul has Terry, Pollard, and Gainwell. Pickle Ricks and Double Birds wised up and just trusted their guts this year.
Tyreek Hill is the only Superstar in this matchup, but he gets Tredavious White in primetime Sunday night so Tobin is gonna need some other dudes to step up this week. Zeke went crazy against Carolina last week but there's no guarantee of a repeat against the Giants. NYG has allowed 2 100 rushing games to RBs but they've also allowed 2 RBs to go over 80 yds receiving this year. So unless the Cowboys get out to a huge early lead this could be a big Tony Pollard game. It looks like they're getting AJ Brown back this week but Julio is still out (as of Thursday) so that's big,
No And Then! are total frauds. They are 3-1 despite only scoring over 110 once. Last week they could only manage a paltry 87 points against Team DYM. No And Then! has no Superstars. Aaron Jones is the #4 RB but he's scoring a full 3 points per game less than Ekeler. He's a lot closer to David Montgomery than he is to Derrick Henry. They've also been inadvisably starting Robert Woods and Nyheim Hines every week. It's not even like they have 4 or 5 kinda ok dudes that they play matchups with - they just lock in Woods and Hines every damn week. They've both had like 2 not bad games this year, and Woods is on his way to a not bad game tonight, but this is not a recipe for season-long success.
Prediction:
Tobin & The Rippers - 117.43
No And Then! - 90.12
TOBIN & THE RIPPERS WINS!!!!!
SPECIAL ED MATCHUPS!!!!!
JEDI LOLA BUNNY vs PAULS AWESOME TEAM
No Superstars in this one, but a great QB matchup. Old-ass half-retired Aaron Rodgers half-assing it against Cincinnati vs The hot new-shit Josh Allen in a primetime shootout at KC.
Julio's lookin doubtful, and so is Calvin Ridley, so Paul's probably gonna roll Kyle Pitts against the Jets. He should go Tony Pollard against the Giants tho. The Cowboys also happen to give up more receiving yards than rushing to RBs so that could be a big Saquon game too.
Anyway, we picked up Damien Williams on Sunday. Then we snagged Alex Collins and popped him in the starting lineup last minute tonight. Don't really know why. Probably shouldn't have had IPAs at lunch, but c'est la vie. If he doesn't fall into the endzone in the second half we might be in trouble. We love Hollywood Brown vs Indy and the Manny Sanders stack at KC. We think this one's gonna be close so we're always picking the home team.
JEDI LOLA BUNNY WINS!!!!!
DELTA BLUES vs PICKLE RICKS!!
The Commish is blowing his load on Thursday night which is always a bad look. DK got an early TD but the stack is gonna need a big second half. Fortunately for him Fay is also sacrificing his WR1 at the TNF alter this week too.
Both these teams have shitty FLEXes this week with a bunch of injurinos on the bench resting up for the second half of the season.
At 1-3 The Commish should really consider trading Michael Thomas. That's one of the few guys out there that one could still trade even though he hasn't done anything yet. Like there's no way we could get a decent RB back for Allen Robinson now even though a couple weeks ago he had as high a second half ceiling as Mike Tom. Somethin to think about.
PICKLE RICKS WINS!!!!!
BRING IT ON HOME vs 🦅DOUBLE🦜
BIOH has Stafford and Rams D tonight so they're starting in a hole. But Double Birdo's projection is way too high with Cook and Jacobs both "playing through" ankle injuries and Mahomes and CEH facing the vaunted Bills defense in PRIMETIME. This could be a low scoring affair. Cordarelle gotta put the team on his back.
🦤DOUBLE🕊 WINS!!!!!
SHARON ERTZ vs POLK HIGH PANTHERS
PHP is the #1 team in Special Ed Power Ranking but they've fallen on hard times recently - losing two straight and averaging about 100 per game the last two weeks. Obviously PHP drafted a lotta ballers, their problem now is roster management. They have two starting QBs, which as Marv Levy said, means they don't have one. See like our team has two QBs but one of them's garbage. Dave has two QBs but they both suck! That's how ya do it!! Can't have two good QBs. He's also never started Brandin Cooks even though he's the highest scoring WR on the team. It's ridiculous. This is the highest scoring team in the league, and they leave like a hundred points on the bench every week.
Even if Matt does figure it out this week, he's gonna run into the buzzsaw that is Miss Cleo's Player of the Week Kylo Murray. Sharon Ertz has lost three straight but this is their week!!!!! Gibson gets it goin in a shootout with New Orleans, and Jonathan Taylor SZN has officially begun last week. Then it's Diggs vs Moss on Sunday night. But we think Kylo puts this one out of reach before then.
DI CARDS DEM NEVAH LIE!!!!!
SHARON ERTZ WINS!!!!!
