Playing For Keeps: Big things to come in week 7

Weekly Remarks

Home For the Hollandaise get the massive, 800 pound monkey off their back and sleigh Blue Chips for their first win of the season. Welcome back Juwan Edghill, who immediately made an impact with 2 TDs on offense, and a pick-6 on defense to lead his team to victory. Simon Dagenais is a happy man at last!
Big Ups to Alex David and SMYTD in their surprising upset over JYD. David leveraged his years of FPF experience and high football IQ to do exactly what was needed for the win. He kept the INT sheet clean and continued to march forward with crisp short passes. Not bad for a third string QB!
Sean Avraam is a bad, bad man. (35 TDs to 1 INT!!).
Red Wave sent Smash Bros reeling and boldly announced their arrival to the division. It’s taken several weeks, but I think they’re here to stay. Mario Porreca has leveled out his play over the past two weeks, and more importantly the BIG 3 are starting to take over games.
Texas BareManz continue to tailspin with a disappointing loss to FiLP. Three weeks ago I called them the best 1-2 team in the division, they now sit at 1-5, I was clearly wrong.
On the “Flip” side, FiLP deserves some major credit this season. These guys play 30 points below the cap each week, with a sophomore QB and no true superstar to speak of. They have clawed their wau back to .500 and look to break into the winner’s circle with a victory over the Nuggets today. It will be interesting to see how they respond without the heart of their lineup, Danny D’Amour, wh’ll be replaced at QB by the veteran Dave Daoust.
For those of you looking forward to reading the second half of the mid-season review, I apologize in advance for your disappointment. St-Jean weekend has proven that pervasive Facebook meme to be true, in that waking up at 27 with a hangover really does feel like waking up on IV in a hospital room.
You will have the completed mid-season review for conference B posted tomorrow. Check it out on facebook or on the FPF website.

Weekly Fantasy Football:

This week saw the most no shows since we began our fantasy journey, but in the end it benefited me enormously. The Maximes missed their games for Danny’s team, which caused me to cancel out Trey Grant and Travis Moses to make things fair. I’ve been saying for a few weeks now that the pool of tier 1 picks is starting to dwindle at this point of the season, so we both need to be extra sharp in evaluating our picks for maximum gain. Well, Danny slipped first, and I was able to break his serve for the first time this season.

Marco Bertoldi is the runaway fantasy player of the week, posting an absolute monster offensive performance and pulling my team into the overall lead. Felix F.L. has been having a consistently dominant season, but I was also able to benefit from his best game of the year. Red Wave and their 4 INT day definitely helped put me over the top as well.

On Danny’s side it was a bit of a disaster, with 2 of his picks missing the game. Steve Sanner continued his steady run of productive fantasy performances. Jad Aridi couldn’t capitalize with a TD for the first time in a month for Big D. Finally, Bearskins D crippled Danny with a pedestrian performance. They were simply unable to slow down a red hot Gab Cote and MVE offense firing at all cylinders. I’ll take it all as it helps propel me into the lead.

Week 6 (Final)

Alex Danny

QB: Cory Johnson (21) QB: Simon Duschesne (24.24)

WR: Felix Fontaine-Larouche (27.8) WR: Maxime Giroux (NA)

WR: Trey Grant (NA) WR: Jad Aridi (11.1)

WR: Travis Moses (NA) WR: Maxime Chateauneuf (NA)

2W: Marco Bertoldi (45) 2W: Steve Sanner (20.1)

DEF: Red Wave (24) DEF: Bearskins (12.5)

Final Score: (117.8) Final Score: (67.94)

Record: 3-2 Alex

Overall Score: (535.54 – 522.06 Alex)

Week 7

I don’t expect this week to go down like last week. Although picking second, Danny has drafted an incredibly formidable team that had me questioning how I missed all these guys myself. Mitchell and Pollice possess their own gravity on their respective teams, as the ball is seemingly drawn to them as if under a spell. Edgehill finally arrived and delivered HFTH’s first win of the season against a talented Blue Chips team. After announcing his arrival with a big game last week, I’m certain that he’ll be looking to make up for lost time.

On my side, I’m hoping this is the week Jason Rossie breaks out of his slump against Going Deep. He’s far too talented to stay down for long, I’m expecting a hungry QB with no remorse. I’ve been eyeing Grizzley at 2WAY for a few weeks now, as he’s continued to put up impressive games. Let’s hope he has another one in him for me today. Jordan Moses lit it up for Red Wave one week after Travis Moses did. I think the Red Wave offense will continue to play feed the superstar each week and rotate top receiver, but give me Jordan’s upside here even if he ends up being the 1-B this week.

Alex Danny

QB: Jason Rossie QB: Gabriel Cote

WR: Quasie Gordon-Maule WR: Marcus Mitchell

WR: Vincent Lauzon WR: Carmine Pollice

WR: Jordan Moses WR: Dominic Benevento

2W: Jonathan Grizzley 2W: Juwan Edgehill

DEF: NoName DEF: Junkyard Dogs

***The standard scoring will apply as follows:

QB: 25 pass yards = 1 pt, 1 pass TD = 4 pts, 1 INT = -2 pts

Receiving/Rush: 10 yards = 1 pt, 1 TD = 6 pts, 1 REC = 1 pt

DEF: 1 TKL = 0.5 pt, 1 SK = 2 pts, 1 PD = 1 pt, 1 INT = 3 pts, 1 TD = 4 pts

Points Allowed (0): 15 points

Points Allowed (1-6): 11 points

Points Allowed (7-13): 9 points

Points Allowed (14-20): 7 points

Points Allowed (21-27): 5 points

Points Allowed (28-34): 3 points

Points Allowed (35-41): 0 points

Points Allowed (42+): -3 points

Power Ranking

This is a special week for the power rankings, as the top 3 teams will possibly have some shake-up come this time next week. The Bullies battle Commission for first place, and the loser could slip as far as third or fourth depending on how the Royals and Bearskins do. Things are heating up just at the right time, as we begin to prepare for an epic playoff run. Blue Chips could no longer remain on my list after the disappointing losses they’ve had over the past month, so they’ve been bounced for an upstart Red Wave team.

Backyard Bullies (6-0): Predictably tough win against a surging NoName team. This week they’ll take all their tough fought, close wins from the past several weeks and leverage them against the invading Commission team. Were all those close wins indicators of a slipping champion? Or were they simply fine-tuning for the massive battles ahead. The winner will claim 1st place next week.
The Commission (6-0): Sliced and diced their way through a tough Big D team for another impressive win. This is the week we’ve been waiting for. The showdown for the top spot against Bullies. Will they finally tense up under the spotlights?
Royals (6-0): Even in a kind of slow day for the offense, they cruised to an easy win against Nuggets and didn’t even break a sweat. This defense has impressed me immensely throughout the season. They’ve been patiently waiting for their chance to rise all season, the next few weeks will provide that chance.
Bearskins (5-1): Last week I said we were starting to see some smoke from Etinson at last, well this week he finally brought the fire. The Bearskins are who we thought they were…in a good way.
Impeccable D (4-2): Understandable loss against a strong Commission team. Would have liked to see them make it a bit more of a game, but no team can bring their A-1 magic each week.
Junkyard Dogs (3-3): Crippling loss to a team on their third string QB. That is not something that championship contenders allow to happen. I’m worried about them right now.
Jagerbomb (3-3): A close win against an inferior opponent but they got the W and made their way back to .500. I’m a bit concerned with the weekly inconsistency of this team.
Red Wave (2-4): They don’t yet have the record to merit this position, but I have a feeling that these guys have finally tipped and have begun their comeback.

Weekly Awards

QB:

Neil Etinson – Bearskins:

16/21 – 250 yards – 6 TD/0 INT – 154.8 QBR

We can all let out a sigh of relief, as Etinson finally dropped the “R-E-L-A-X” game on us, proving that he’s been fine all along. His team has been winning, he’s been steering the ship each week, and at last he delivered the dominant statistical performance that we’ve been expecting all season.

WR:

Marco Bertoldi – Bearskins:

7 catches – 135 yards – 4 TDs

There were some monster individual performances from WR this week (Ladouceur, Fontaine-Larouche, Allard, Foulcault), but none was greater than this one. That’s now an amazing 7 TDs in 2 weeks for this guy.

DEF:

Loïc Robidoux – Red Wave:

2 TKL – 4 INTs

Insane breakout game for the underrated Red Wave star. He was leading the band in a huge statement win over Smash Bros. Red Wave have officially arrived at last.

2WAY:

Felix Fontaine-Larouche – Jagerbomb:

5 catches – 108 yards – 2 TDs

2 TK – 1 INT – 2 PD

Had an incredibly dominant overall performance for his Jagerbomb team. Most importantly, he helped them stave off the huge upset from Going Deep, and save their positive momentum from the last few weeks.

Predictions

Last week Danny topped me 7-2 vs 6-3, narrowing the overall gap to 2 games. But this is the week we’ve been finally waiting for. After far too many weeks of almost mirroring each other’s picks, this is the week where we show the greatest variance in our picks. Someone will settle the score this week and take a definitive lead in this race for the free beer pitcher.

Alex (39-14)
Danny (37-16)

Alex Danny

Texas BareManz MVE

FiLP FiLP

Royals Royals

Blue Chips Jagerbomb

NoName SMYTD

Bearskins Impeccable D

Red Wave Red Wave

JYD JYD

The Bullies The Commission

More to come for this week as the article will be updated tomorrow with the mid season review. In the meantime Enjoy your time on the field because Spring season passes by in a blur. If you have any feedback, concerns, comments or just want a shoulder to lean on you can reach out to me @alexholowach1 on Twitter, or hit me up on Facebook. If you’re craving more div C content please check out the Calling the Audible podcast featuring GM and Justin, it’s a healthy dose of sophisticated silliness to get you through the week. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and make sure to check back next week to find out how week 7 shook out!