E's Back for More

I've been exposed.

After 11 consecutive newsletters written by every team but mine, it slowly became evident that I am a fraud and should not have been solely responsible for the newsletter and podcast content these past three years. You guys are much better at it. With the exception of a largely clueless Vandelay Industries who thought there was no one left to nominate two weeks ago, I did not have to write one word in the last 11 weeks and, I have to say, it was glorious. 

I've never been more excited to pen a newsletter. Well, except for the 300 lb Ellen-Show Guest Elephant in the Room. Seriously, Taco, how can anyone follow that? You've injected at least two phrases into my every-day vernacular: "For the liberal arts majors..." and I'll let you guess the other. (Hint: it rhymes with Clowndown Gravitation.)

But at any rate, I’m back like Kevin Durant and, unlike Kevin Durant, I don’t have to save a 5-12 OKC squad with my silky jumper. I’m merely here to wrap up Week 13 and preview the 2014 Millerkuz League Playoffs.

Stud of the Week: Dunn Givashit slapped up a cool 172.3. In a league seemingly devoid of every down backs, LaGarrette Blount’s orchestrated departure to New England all but guarantees that Le’Veon Bell will stand behind Big Ben’s Fat Face on every snap until the Steelers inevitably play themselves out of the playoffs. To that end, Le’Veon “Chocolate Diamond” Bell contributed 40.4 points to DG’s league-leading weekly (and yearly) total. Even though Peyton Manning scored a Ryan-Tannehill-like 13.3 points – his lowest of the season, DG still managed to out-pace the league this week by 11+ points. Even more incredulously, DG’s bench tallied a ghastly 143.4 points which happens to be enough points to beat SEVEN starting rosters in this league. Special shout out to DeAndre Hopkins who, undaunted by his delegation to DG’s bench, scored exactly 15.8% of his total points (52.8 out of 334) this season in ONE WEEK. It’s official, it’s Dunn Givashit’s world; we’re just living in it.

Honorable Mention: In what can only be described as “pulling a Deej,” the Barrister’s Balls are this week’s second-highest scorer and they still added one to the “L” column thanks to our aforementioned Stud. Well, DJ might not be the only honorable mention to fall to the stud, but to hear him talk about his team after a loss, you’d think he was the most unlucky fantasy football player to ever waste a draft pick on Ladarius Green. Tony Romo did his best to submarine the Balls on Turkey Day by posting less than eight total points while he ran around looking more afraid to get hit than a pigeon on the sidewalk. But alas, the Balls tallied a round 161 points due in large part to the 48 points the St. Louis Ram’s D/ST managed to amass. I’ll never understand how defenses in this league score points, but take a bow, Deej, you scored the second-most points this week and still loss. It’s so hard being you.

Willy Loman of the Week: Vocabulary time: Microcosm (n) a situation regarded as encapsulating in miniature the characteristic qualities or features of something much larger. This is the only appropriate word to describe the fantasy football week Wicked of Lately had. WL aka the Paper Champs, managed to squeeze out a league-worst 95.2 points which is commiserate with his team’s performance all year. It doesn’t help that he started a goose-egg in the form of this year’s Underperformer of the Year – Julius Thomas. The squad looks really good but when it comes time to perform, they go flaccid. And they have all year. It’s all too fitting a week like this officially eliminated WL from the playoffs.

Honorable Mention: The United Nolans of Regent Square (shout out to that awesome logo which I only just discovered). Oh how the mighty have fallen. After Week 7, the Nolans were in first place with an impressive 6-1 record. They round out the regular season with a middle-of-the-playoff-pack 8-5. Less than impressively, the Nolans were two garbage-time touchdowns and two point conversions from Antonio Brown from being sub-100 and the Willy Loman of the Week. ABNot the best way to roll into the playoffs. AB, whose back has to be ailing from carrying the likes of Benjamin Cunningham (?!) and the rest of the Nolans squad, scored (approximately) 30 of his 31.7 points with four minutes left in the laugher against the Saints.

The All-Irrelevant Team: Hey, Big Sandwich, Limp Dixons, Wicked of Lately and Newsletter MVP, Taco – you don’t play so good. Have a nice off-season. The four of you and the garbage heaps you’ve been passing off as fantasy teams this season were rendered utterly irrelevant at the conclusion of the Dolphins-Jets game last night. When asked if Crop or he would like to write a short playoff preview from an outsider’s perspective to accompany this newsletter, Sam promptly responded: “Here’s your playoff preview. Fuck all y’all. Go Fadi. Love, Sam and Crop =).” So to all four of you: Do Better.

Bench Bomb: The easy answer is Travis and his highest scoring bench of all time. But I don’t ever take the easy way out, unless manual labor is involved. My hands are far too soft for that noise. Lucky for you, no manual labor here. But, unlucky for Raging Pollacks, I did some more digging. Lucky for no one, RP probably won’t even read this far down. But I digress. The Bench Bomb of the Week belongs to RP who decided to play Marques Colston over Eddie Royal. At first blush, it may seem like she made the right call, but again – not so easy. Over the course of this season, Colston has scored more than 10 points five times. Royal has scored more than 10 points six times. Additionally, Royal has scored more than 20 points three times this season. Colston has scored more than 20 points the same amount of times as Estella this season. Easy decision – has to be Royal there. Not only did RP make the wrong decision for her WR, but it also cost her a win in Week 13 and the opportunity to play my hit-or-miss (mostly miss) Looney Tune squad in Week 1 of the playoffs. Your loss, my gain.

Playoff Match Ups: If you are in the Playoffs and you do not know who you play this week, then I hate you. I won’t even bother to type it here. Go on your phone or the internet and look it up. If you won’t do that, there’s no helping you and I hope you lose miserably. Also, I wish you all terrible luck. May your decisions be comically bad and may you all lose unpleasantly.

Newsletter Rules to Remember: Each week, the lowest scorer of the playoff participants will write the newsletter for that week, culminating with the second-place finisher writing the final newsletter of the year. So next week, if you are the Willy Loman of the Week then you are writing that week’s newsletter. Irrelevant Teams need not apply.