Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Both the Seattle offense and defense had their act together on Sunday, despite some painful penalties, but then again, the Radiers can make a lot of teams look good. I had fun watching Marshawn Lynch’s ineffectiveness. Sports radio around here was gushing over how great he is and maybe that’s true, but I thought his last year here was a mess. It appeared to me that he just didn’t want to play and I have no respect for that even though I liked him a lot before that. I ended up throwing away my Lynch shirt (ok, actually I donated it.) I have similar feelings about Earl Thomas. Thanks for all you did. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out and don’t expect me to cheer for you when you play against the Seahawks.

Tyler continued his dominating streak with a close win over me. To add insult to injury, he did that with one player scoring negative points. Logan is nipping right on his heels. Andy and Tim round out the top four while the rest of us are tied with 2-4 records. Looking at points for/against gets interesting around this point of the season. Logan and Tyler have the most points by a pretty wide margin. Nick and I have the most points scored against us but Nick also has the least points scored which is a tough combination.

On to the weekly power rankings:

1. Logan (Goat Roapers) +1
2. Tyler (Krazy Kanuck) -1
3. Andy (RAAAWWWRRRRR!!!) +1
4. Ben (Kool Aid Kid) -1

Lots of new records this week…

The odds were heavily against the Seahawks but they almost pulled out a win. Their offense was able to cover their defensive failures and they even had a final drive to put themselves in position for a game winning field goal… and then they took themselves out of position with penalties. I’m sticking with my 7-9 prediction.

Our leave is finally spreading out a bit. Tyler continued his winning streak and is sitting pretty at 4-1. Logan, Andy and Tim are tied for second and the rest of us are chasing them. Make sure that you’re checking those free agent boards. There are still some great players out there that are free agents. This league is generally won by the person who makes the best use of those free agents. Tyler is in first place in our power rankings and it’s hard to argue with that.

1. Tyler (Krazy Kanuck) +2
2. Logan (Goat Roapers) -1
3. Ben (Kool Aid Kid) -1
4. Andy (RAAAWWWRRRRR!!!)

Now on to the weekly awards…

The Seahawks made rookie QB Rosen look good, but they pulled out a win. That stadium continues to haunt them though. Remember last year when Sherman and Chancellor got hurt there and ended their Seahawks careers? Add Earl Thomas to that list. He left with a broken leg and though it’s something that will heal by the time the playoffs roll around, he didn’t appear to want to return in a Seahawks uniform. I have a hard time siding with a guy who is getting paid $10 million to play football. See ya Earl.

Our league’s goofy season continues. We now have a 6 way tie for second place and Luke down in 8th place is only 2 games out of first place. Tyler is alone out front at 3-1 and he’s looking strong. Nick will be the next one to try and knock him back down into the mass of teams nipping at his heels.

When you look at the records below, look at the highest scoring player. This is the fourth consecutive week where the highest scoring player has a been a free agent!

Even though the league is close in terms of records, with four games behind us, my incredibly accurate and totally future-predicting power ranking algorithm is ready to rock. Here’s what it says now:

1. Logan (Goat Roapers)
2. Ben (Kool Aid Kid)
3. Tyler (Krazy Kanuck)
4. Andy (RAAAWWWRRRRR!!!)

Now on to the weekly awards…

The Seahawks looked reasonably good on Sunday. It was a nice change of pace. Wilson didn’t spend the whole game getting sacked and the defense was able to keep the Cowboys under wraps. My prediction for this year is that the Seahawks will finish 7-9.

In our league, I posted the second highest score and lost to Logan. I guess it’s only fair since that happened to him last week. Half the league is now tied for 1st with a 2-1 record and everyone else is tied for 5th with a 1-2 record. It’s obviously anybody’s season at this point. Our two newest league members, Tyler and Nick, started with a loss but they now have 2 game winning streaks and Tyler is at the top of the league!

Now on to the weekly awards…

The Seahawks played a game and they lost. I don’t know a lot more than that because my DVR messed up and I saw the score before I watched the game so I didn’t watch the game. Let me guess… they had a really bad offensive line that led to a bunch of turnovers and hits on Wilson? Ok, I actually did watch the recap. I’ve found the summary videos on the NFL to be a great way to keep up with various games.

In our league, we ended up with a 6-way tie for second place. The outliers are Andy on top at 2-0 and Logan on the bottom at 0-2. Logan always said that Jim was his nemesis, but now Jim has left the league. Maybe Tyler is his new nemesis? It hurts to get the second highest score in the league (by a long shot) and lose. Congrats to Tyler for putting up a huge score!

Next week Logan will look for his first win against me and Andy will defend his perfect record against Nick.

On to the weekly awards with new records in bold.

I feel like it’s going to be easier to watch the Seahawks this year. I have no hope of them making the playoffs and I’ll be satisfied if they make it to 8-8. That proved to be a good attitude for week 1 as they bumbled their way through the game with flashes of greatness mixed into a messy game. It was fun to be watching football again though.

The rest of the NFL provided plenty of excitement with the Browns breaking their losing streak (but still not winning), but the craziest game has to go to the Packers. Aaron Rodgers too his enormous new contract out for a test drive and promptly got carted off the field in the second quarter only to come back late in the game an engineer one of the greatest comebacks in history. How’s that for a roller coaster of emotions?

In our league, the top two teams from last year started off with losses this year as Tim (Beer-me), Dad (EndOverEnd), Andy (RAAWWWRRRRR!!!) and Luke (Helmetheads) all started off their season with a win. Every week I’ll update the stat table below. Normally the third column will be the current season but this week I’ll put last season’s numbers in there.

Only 79 days left until kickoff of the 2018-19 NFL season. This year we had two managers leave our fantasy league. Thanks to Jim for playing with us the last 10 years and Austin for the last 5! You guys were great additions to the league and you will be missed.

Since we have some new members, I thought I’d introduce everyone:

• Andy lives near Green Lake and his dog has more Instagram followers than I do.
• Dad is one of my parental units. He lives in Indiana and has three tractors.
• Logan is my brother-in-law (Tyla’s brother). He started off pretty bad in the league but somehow seems to be winning too much lately. He lives in Kirkland.
• Luke is my brother-in-law (my sister’s husband.) He lives in Toledo and just built a fence.
• Nick currently inhabits half of my office at work. We say that together we make a pretty average software developer. He lives in Woodinville.
• Tim is my brother-in-law’s (Luke’s) brother. He was also my roommate for a few years.  He lives in Monroe.
• Tyler lives all the way across the cul-de-sac from me. He has a bigger garden than me and one more MG than I do.

Now that you’ve all been introduced, let’s refresh our memories of the standings for the last 10 seasons.

And if you take that chart and calculate average finish, here’s what you get:

The first piece of business is picking a date for our draft. We’ll do a live draft party at my house again, but as always, you’re welcome to autodraft if you prefer. I don’t think there’s much correlation between the people that the draft method you prefer and your finishing position in the league so don’t sweat it. Watch your email for a link to a poll for picking the draft date/time. You don’t want to miss out on your chance to pick Kaepernick. I mean, surely some team will pick him up before the start of the season, right?