Week 2 Recap – Canton Heroes vs. Fear the ROO

It don’t matter if you win by an inch or if you win by a mile.  Winning is winning.

That’s right – I just quoted Vin Diesel.

And thanks to the Seattle Defense completely shutting down Anquan Boldin for the first 50 minutes of Sunday night’s game, ending with only 1 catch for 7 yards on the night, I was able to squeak out a victory in Week Two to put my first one in the win column of the season.  Other special thanks goes to my opponents’ kicker, Randy Bullock of the Texans, who actually posted -1 points.  If he hadn’t gone up to kick any field goals during the game against Tennessee last week, I would have lost.

I found myself in a set of very rare circumstances as two of my three running backs in the starting line-up left their respective games early with injuries (Ray Rice and Maurice Jones-Drew).  Thusly, my leading point scorer for the week out of my three starting running backs (who I used my first three picks on) was Stevan Ridley with 4 points.  The three of them combined together for just 9.3 points.  Then factor in my Tight End Fred Davis only posting .3 points and that’s 4/9 starters combining for under 10 points.  And yet, MY TEAM STILL WON THE GAME.  Who else can say that they picked up a win under those kinds of circumstances?

Carson Palmer matched Tom Brady’s score exactly at 10.8, which was key.  Any time your QB doesn’t get outplayed against one of the elite QBs, you kind of feel like you dodged a bullet.  The Patriots Defense he played pummeled the hapless Jets for 17 fantasy points, but my Broncos defense came up with some key interceptions that kept that category close.  And then my WRs, Randall Cobb and DeSean Jackson were able to carry my team on to victory with scores of 18.8 and 25.3 respectively.  Janikowski came up big for me also, kicking for 13 fantasy points, compared to Bullock’s -1.

I was very proud of my team’s depth this week. I had my 7 bench players go off for a total of 73.1 points.  The 7 guys on my bench would have beaten the starting 9 of 2 other teams in the league this week.  That’s some significant depth.  Plus, I just picked up Eddie Royal to add even more receiving depth and switched around my tight ends.  This week the Canton Heroes bid farewell to Tight End Fred Davis and Wide Receivers Rod Streater and Dexter McCluster.  Welcome to the team, Eddie Royal, Charles Clay and Coby Fleener.  Depending on the health of Ray Rice on Sunday, I may be plugging Eddie Royal in at the Flex this week and I’m plugging Clay in at TE right away against the Falcons porous pass defense.

Next week, I face the team I pulled off a preseason trade with, acquiring Stevan Ridley for Brandon Marshall.  That team is now known at Marshall Law.  Right now, it looks like his starting line-up will feature Matt Ryan at QB, DeMarco Murray and Chris Ivory at RB, AJ Green and Brandon Marshall at WR, Antonio Gates at TE, Vincent Brown in at the Flex option with Matt Prater doing the kicking and the Packers defense.  His team is the only 0-2 team in a league that has had a lot of parity over the first two weeks of the season.  There is only one unbeaten team out of 12 and only one winless team with everybody else falling at 1-1.  The race to the playoffs is going to be a tight one.

Week Two Box Score

Canton Heroes – 91.5

QB – Carson Palmer – 10.8

RB – Ray Rice – 2.5

RB – Stevan Ridley – 4

WR – Randall Cobb – 18.8

WR – DeSean Jackson – 25.3

TE – Fred Davis – 0.3

Flex – Maurice Jones-Drew – 2.8

Defense / Special Teams – Denver Broncos – 14

K – Sebastian Janikowski – 13

Fear the ROO – 91.2

QB – Tom Brady – 10.8

RB – Chris Johnson – 9.7

RB – Reggie Bush – 6.9

WR – Dez Bryant – 20.1

WR – Jordy Nelson – 18.6

TE – Owen Daniels – 8.4

Flex – Anquan Boldin – 0.7

Defense / Special Teams – New England Patriots – 17

Kicker – Randy Bullock – -1

(Updated Canton Heroes Roster)

QBs – Carson Palmer, Jay Cutler

RBs – Ray Rice, Stevan Ridley, Maurice Jones-Drew, DeAngelo Williams, Bernard Pierce

WRs – Randall Cobb, DeSean Jackson, Pierre Garcon, Cecil Shorts III, Eddie Royal

TEs – Charles Clay, Coby Fleener

D/ST – Denver Broncos

K – Sebastian Janikowski

Week 1 Recap – Canton Heroes vs. Chudley Canons

So, you had a bad day week one?  I sure did.

When you use your first three draft picks on top of the line running backs, you expect for them to put up more than 20 total points between the three of them.  With Stevan Ridley getting benched in the first half after a fumble to end up with 2.6 points and Maurice Jones-Drew suffering from the Jaguars overall horrible offensive week one output for just 4.5 points, I was in a huge hole that the rest of my team was unable to pull me out of.

So, overall I don’t think I have anything to be worried about.  With Shane Vereen out until Week Eleven with a broken hand, Ridley is far and away the most reliable ball carrier the Patriots have to rely on and they should be running the ball quite a bit in Week 2 once they build up a lead against the hapless Jets (who somehow managed to not stink up the field as badly as Tampa Bay did in Week One for a 18-17 win.)

I have several things to be happy about.  Randall Cobb and DeSean Jackson both showed in Week One that they will be integral parts of their teams’ passing attacks this season and while Pierre Garcon and Cecil Shorts were a little disappointing, my late round wide receiver picks (Dexter McCluster and Rod Streater) I think showed a lot of promise and will be integral parts of offenses that will not be nearly so bad as they were a year ago.

Carson Palmer put up numbers I was very happy with against a very respectable Rams defense.  In fact, he outperformed my opponents QB Cam Newton and he should continue to perform well enough to keep me in contention barring getting exploded on by Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady in future weeks.

Tight end is looking like a definite weakness early with Fred Davis being my only guy at the moment, but it’s too early to panic and there are some decent options on the waiver wire if it looks like Davis isn’t going to be able to put up decent numbers.

Vernon Davis having a big week against me (21.8 points) vs. Davis’ extremely sub-par 2.2 points, plus my running backs being abnormally unproductive in week one lead to me posting just 87.2 points, the third worst week one score in the league.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.  I’m in pretty good shape moving forward.  Look for Ridley and MJD to not disappoint nearly as much next week against the Jets and the Raiders respectively.

Week One Box Score

Canton Heroes – 87.2

– QB – Carson Palmer – 17

– RB – Ray Rice – 13.1

– RB – Stevan Ridley – 2.6

– WR – Randall Cobb – 17.4

– WR – DeSean Jackson – 16.4

– TE – Fred Davis – 2.2

– Flex – Maurice Jones-Drew – 4.5

– Defense – Broncos – 10

– Kicker – Sebastian Janikowski – 4

Chudley Canons – 120.5

– QB – Cam Newton – 12.8

– RB – Matt Forte – 15.1

– RB – Frank Gore – 12.5

– WR – Larry Fitzgerald – 20

– WR – Steve Smith – 11.1

– TE – Vernon Davis – 21.8

– Flex – Miles Austin – 7.2

– Defense – Rams – 11

– Kicker – Justin Tucker 9

Week Two Match-up – Canton Heroes vs. Fear the Roo (Tom Brady, Chris Johnson, Reggie Bush, Dez Bryant, Jordy Nelson, Owen Daniels, Anquan Boldin, Patriots, Randy Bullock)