A recap of Week 2’s action, the fantasy duel continues and a preview of what Week 3 has in store.

It’s too late for excuses.

It’s been 2 weeks. We’ve had highs, we’ve had lows. With more than 20% of the season gone by, it’s too late for excuses. If you’re 0-2, this is the turning point. If you’re 2-0, this is also the turning point. In the past, we’ve seen many teams climb the rankings to 2-0 and finish 2-8 because they took things for granted. On the flip side, I’ve seen more than one team turn tides and go from 0-2 to high seeds into the playoffs.

It’s FPF, it’s never really over because, let’s face it, we don’t have a fat lady to sing.

With too much of the season now behind us, there’s really no other way to say this: Step it up. If you aren’t happy with your current results, stop making excuses for yourself and play better. You registered in Division C; it’s where you belong. Fight for what you want.

Let’s get started.

 

Week 2

It’s been two weeks and I must say the division is starting to look like what I’ve come to know of FPF; expect the unexpected. Many upsets, many surprises, but then again, it’s not a surprise to see upsets (See what I did there?)

The top 3 most scoring offenses are sort of surprising: I was expecting Coyotes to top charts, but hey, they’re 3rd with 72 PF right above Eskimo Brothers are 71. No Fly Zone take the #1 spot with a glorious 97 (yyeaaaaahhhhh) and Varennes sit at 2nd with 76.

Now that we know who puts up points, how about we stop ‘em?

 

Thoughts of the Week

• It’s not that I hate the No Fly Zone players, it’s the opposite actually, it’s just that I dislike playing them; it’s frustrating how they manage to be all over the place all at once. I guess I find solace in the fact that Gualano can’t catch a football.
• Steve Sanner is really making a name for himself, once again, in Division C. Luckily for everyone else, he’s not eligible for awards, so his stats are, well, meaningless. You can stop now.
• Kyle Lebofsky is a bad man. Bad, bad man.
• There’s no such thing as “you need to call some for us too”. If a referee calls the game fair, it shouldn’t be “your time” at some point.
• Division C is awkwardly balanced. With 9 teams undefeated, 9 teams winless and 8 teams at .500, we almost have perfect numbers (But noooo, someone had to ruin it)
• I’ll be the first one to admit it, I wasn’t expecting Brunch Buddies, Warhawks nor La Sauce to be winless by week 2. I guess that’s what I get for thinking too much of myself.
• My bold pick of the week for fantasy is Top Sauce. Guys, please, make me proud.
• I haven’t seen Cummins play this season yet, so I’ll avoid commenting too much, but 2 TDs in 2 weeks is unacceptable, regardless of circumstances. Let’s go man.
• Demetriou keeps getting the job done. It’s not always pretty, hell, it’s far from it, but winning is all that matters.
• There have been plenty of low scoring affairs in Division C this season. Is this the week things turn around and we see people dropping 40-50 burgers?
• Keyport Lock can’t catch a break. Hopefully, their full roster showed up this week and offense looked much better. It’s defense’s time to come around.
• Complaining to referees will get you nowhere.
• By the end of week 3, we’ll have one less winless team as La Sauce faces Brunch Buddies. Sadly, we could still have 8 winless teams. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
• Injury and key players missing apart, we might have one real undefeated team this regular season: No Fly Zone. I see a bump in the road for Coyotes. Varennes’ schedule is too tough for them to finish 10-0.
• It was picture week and I must say, you guys are looking rather sharp. Some good looking dudes out there.
• Although No Fly Zone came out nicely in the team picture, I have to tip my hat to MVE and Jo Duclair’s pose as Top Contender for best team picture this year.

 

Players of the Week

• Kyle Lebofsky (Broccasion): 4 Picks and 2 of those were for 6. At some point, you’d expect people to stop going his way, right?
• Jeremie Lavoie-Patry (Jagerbomb): 5 sacks. Yes, FIVE. Dayum.
• Robert White (No Name): His team needed a spark so White emerged for 112 yards and 3 TDs. Way to go Rob.
• Anthony Vendrame (Varennes): Vendrame keeps impressing with over 200 yards passing, 6 TDs and a pick on defense. Another great night for him. Oh, and yes, his team is undefeated.

 

Recaps

• Coyotes made No Big Deal look real bad Sunday afternoon in this week’s opener as Coyotes put up 26 against Applebaum’s weak 6. Sure, McLaren was missing (and he was a big part of week 1’s success) but 6 points is simply unacceptable. In a sort of rematch from 4A’s finale, everyone knew Applebaum would come in firing and wanting to put on a show to fight off his woes from that Brossard night but fell flat. Defense kept Feder in check most of the night as he didn’t breach the 30 points mark he so often does, but offense was a mess. Applebaum was firing bullets all over the place and people were either dropping or the passes were too inaccurate / poorly timed to hit the mark. Every snap, I was expecting No Big Deal to turn things around and they simply never did. It was simply a bad night; it happens to the best of us. Expect No Big Deal to bounce back.
• Top Sauce took on Show me Your TDs and it wasn’t pretty on both sides of the ball. Mike Addona was missing both Kevin Lubin and Julien Bellavance who were big part of his redzone offense in Week 1 and couldn’t seem to punch it in regardless of the amount of tries he got at it. On the flip side, Nardone came out firing with nice throws in the 1st half and a deadly pick-six early, but he was held scoreless in the second half even though they won. Kudos to Top Sauce’s defense for stepping up, but 0 points in the 2nd half will not win you games very often, Vince. Step up. We’ve grown to know Addona to have rollercoaster weeks and this was simply one of those; he needs fix pieces in his offense and he was kept from them this week. Expect Bellavance to have another great performance come Week 3.
• La Sauce looked revitalized with Jonathan Brown taking snaps for them in Cory Kennedy’s absence, but it simply wasn’t enough to take down the monster that Eskimo Brothers have become. Stachowski started the game very poorly and struggled to get anything going whatsoever as La Sauce reached a 14-0 lead right before half. Stachowski managed to score and get the convert right before halftime to get some momemtum going before break. 2nd half came in and it was tale of two halves. La Sauce’s offense wasn’t going anywhere anymore and EBros had Brown figured out whereas Stachowski found rhythm and open receivers all over the place making La Sauce’s defense look out of place and out of sync. With Shawn Steen’s interceptions in the 2nd half and Stachowski finally hitting receivers, Eskimo Brothers simply took off and never looked back as they blazed to a 31-21 win.
• Varennes played Warhawks on Tuesday night at Brossard and although I witnessed Varennes coaching each other pre-game, they looked GOOD. Warhawks looked out of sync and aside from Ladouceur performing well, the rest of the team looked like they were playing a higher division team and simply couldn’t compete. Everything was working for Varennes offensively as Vendrame put on a show for his receivers to enjoy and his defense was solid. There’s no second guessing it, Varennes are a great Division C team with studs all over the place even if they use different pieces every week and Warhawks need some fine tuning because it’s simply not working at this point. Mallette usually uses his legs to buy time and find open receivers down field and he simply doesn’t look the part this time around; maybe he needs to go back to his old habits, but he needs to do something because Warhawks won’t win with only 18 points on the board. They have the playmakers to get Ws, they simply need to execute.

 

Power Rankings

1. Coyotes (2-0-0). I ranked them #1 preseason and they simply haven’t disappointed me yet.  
2. No Fly Zone (2-0-0). There’s no way around it, NFZ are dominant. They belong at the top, but so does Coyotes. So tied for first until one falters.
3. Eskimo Brothers (2-0-0): They started week 2’s game sloppy, but turned things around efficiently and deserve recognition.
4. Varennes (2-0-0): They’ve looked like a higher division team for the past 2 weeks. Everything works.
5. Honey Badgers (2-0-0): To get it done without your starting QB is a remarkable performance.
6. BearSkins (2-0-0): Offense is clicking and defense is playing well. Truly balanced team.
7. Stockton Slap (2-0-0): Joey Taylor’s offense keeps being as efficient as ever. With so many studs on defense, Stockton Slap is scary good.
8. No Name (2-0-0): Michael Roy is really rejuvenating this franchise. They have enough playmakers to make a deep run in Division C; they’ll only get better with time.
9. 69ers (2-0-0): It’s not always pretty and they keep it close, but they always find ways to win when it’s a tight game.
10. Broccasion (1-1-0): The way defense played this week has got my confidence in this team back sky high.

 

FlagPlus Fantasy Football

After week 1, I remain the reigning champion. I must say, Peeze gave me a serious run for my money.

Here’s the breakdown of last week’s results:

	Simon	Points Scored	Peeze	Points Scored
Quarterback	Zach Stachowski (Eskimo Brothers)	30.47	Doug McKernan (Honey Badgers)	0
Snapper	Kevin Donnet (TOPSZN)	1.2	Yoni Lehrer (Keyport Lock)	13.4
Receiver	Anthony Addona (Show me Your TDs)	26.2	Aleksander Papich (BearSkins)	23
Receiver	Justin McLean (Top Sauce)	14.2	Matthew Rupcic (Stockton Slap)	22.2
Receiver	Kevin Laliberté (Varennes)	25	Jordan McLaren (No Big Deal)	0
Receiver	Francis Maheu (Former Tomahawk)	11.2	David Centomo (MVE)	8
Rusher	David Faucher (Gotham Knights)	0	Simon Laporte (No Name)	5
Defense	BearSkins	10.5	Broccasion	45.5
Total		118.77		117.1

 

Last week’s MVP: Broccasion

If either McLaren or Doug Mckernan would’ve played, I would’ve lost. Thank you guys.

This week’s challenger is Justin Blanchard. Some of you may know him as he plays Division C for Brunch Buddies and writes the Division D articles. He’s been around the league for a while and thinks he’s got a shot at taking me down.

Let’s remind everyone of the simple rules we follow weekly:

• Cannot draft someone from your own team
• Cannot draft the same player twice (Gives an edge to Challenger)
• Winner stays. Loser’s out.
• Challenger picks first.

Here’s the scoring format we’ll be using this season:

Quarterbacks

• 1 point per 15 yards passing
• 3 points per passing TD
• 1 point per 5 yards rushing
• 5 points per rushing TD
• – 2 points per interception
• – 1 point per sack

Receivers

• 1 point per 5 yards
• 5 points per TD

Rusher

• 7.5 points per sack

Defense

• 1 point per 3 tackles
• 1 point per 2 PD’s
• 2 points per sack
• 3 points per INT
• 5 points per pick-six
• 10 points for allowing 10 points or less
• 8 points for allowing 11-20 points
• 6 points for allowing 21-30 points
• 4 points for allowing 31-40 points
• 2 points for allowing 41-50 po ints
• 1 point for allowing 51 + point

** Key changes: Rusher is now 7.5 points per sack instead of 5 points.

** Key note: If any given player wants to be part of the Fantasy Duel in the upcoming week, we need new challengers. Send me a message (FB, Twitter, email) and I’ll set you up. You don’t need to be media/well known. As long as you love FPF / Division C and will spend about 25-30 minutes of your time to draft your team, we’ve got a deal.

This week’s teams:

	Simon	Justin
Quarterback	Sammy Feder (Coyotes)	Richard Humes (No Fly Zone)
Snapper	Yoni Lehrer (Keyport Lock)	Alexandre Provencher-Rivest (Gotham Knights)
Receiver	Steve Sanner (No Fly Zone)	Josh Feder (Coyotes)
Receiver	Dilan Daoust (Honey Badgers)	Jonathan Grizzley (No Name)
Receiver	Corey Oliver (Eskimo Brothers)	Anthony Addona (Show me Your TDs)
Receiver	Laurent Ladouceur (Warhawks)	Justin McLean (Top Sauce)
Rusher	Simon Laporte (No Name)	Mathieu Cauchon (Former Tomahawk)
Defense	Top Sauce	The Commission

 

Previews

• Broccasion vs Keyport Lock: Keyport Lock has turned into an offensive franchise with a average defense at best. Giving up high 30s is not something they are afraid of, as long as Rosenblatt outscores their opponents because, at the end of the day, the highest score wins anyways. Broccasion is making serious noise defensively with guys like Justin Cerantola, Kyle Lebofsky and Jonathan Louis and will create headaches for Rosenblatt as Cola might have met his match in Louis and Gerville in Lebofsky. It’ll be interesting to see how efficient Lehrer can be as he’ll, most likely, become the biggest offensive threat for his team this week and Rose might rely on him more than once to move the chains. If Keyport can find a way to minimize Kristian Cerantola’s efficiency as a dual-threat QB, they might pull off the upset. Otherwise, they’ll fall to a tough 0-3.
• Top Sauce vs BearSkins: Everyone loves a good old rivalry game. Vince Nardone basically plays with half the time in higher divisions and, well, they’ve been known to play together for ages. Expect good matchups, the famous “know your enemy” mentality and bragging rights to be on the line for the entire hour. Aside from all those goodies, I do believe both teams match up nicely; Top Sauce’s speed and deep threats against BearSkins’ aggressive and talented safeties plus BearSkins’ methodical offense against Nardone’s zone shooting schemes. I fully expect turnovers on both sides of the ball and it’ll be your typical FPF game where one reaches 30’ish and the other loses with 26-27 points.
• La Sauce vs Brunch Buddies: Speaking of rivalry games, I face, well, most of my Division B team this week. Not only do they know my playbook in and out but there’s a reason I play with them…! With question marks as who’ll be throwing for La Sauce this week, their offense isn’t very promising, but it’ll be fun to see what I can do against some of my teammates and how well they’ve grown able to play against me over the years (because we’ve faced more than once before too). La Sauce has the athletes in Francois Raymond, Antonin Desgent, Francois Hogue, Cory Kennedy to make plays against any given defenses; it’s just a matter of execution and finding rhythm. It’s also tough to think they haven’t won in 2016 altogether.
• Gotham Knights vs Varennes: Gotham Knights are currently 0-2 with a -7 differential (that’s less than many 1-1 teams). They’ve been around in all their games and it came down to the wire. On the flip side, Varennes has been exposing teams since week 1 and making it look easy. The matchup isn’t in Gotham Knights favor, but Rivest seems to find ways to work with the pieces he has efficiently and score against any given opponent so I wouldn’t count GK out just yet. If they can find a way to minimize Vendrame’s high efficiency ratio as a QB, they might just get the ball back with good field positioning and turn the tides. Can anyone stop Laliberté this season?

 

Picks of the week

I’ve gone 10/12 in my first week predicting. With such high pourcentages, it’s like predicting the future. I guess you guys are cursed if I pick against you.

Here’s this week’s picks :

Coyotes vs Warhawks: Coyotes

Honey Badgers vs Les Blues Branleurs: Honey Badgers

Eskimo Brothers vs MVE : Eskimo Brothers

Stockton Slap vs Show me Your TDs: Stockton Slap

Broccasion vs Keyport Lock: Broccasion

TOPSZN vs Former Tomahawk: Former Tomahawk

La Sauce vs Brunch Buddies: —-

Gotham Knights vs Varennes : Varennes

Top Sauce vs BearSkins : Top Sauce

Killa Beez vs No Name : No Name

Jagerbomb vs No Fly Zone: No Fly Zone

Evolution vs The Commission: The Commission

69ers vs No Big Deal: No Big Deal

 

That sums it for this week’s article. It’s always a pleasure to write and hear back from you guys. After all, the content is meant 99% for you. I keep a percent for me; ranting here and there is fun after all. You can always reach me via twitter @DagenaisFPF or via email ([email protected]). I’ll be at Lachine every Sunday night scorekeeping/playing and at the new Stade on Mondays so you can stop by and chat. Don’t hesitate. Bird is on his way back. I’m not too sure I envy next Thursday’s podcasts, but we might actually have a countdown this time around, so it should smoothens the transitions. Hopefully he comes back red>tan so at least we get something to make fun of while he brags about “how amazzzinnnggg it was guyyyysss”