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haberdashing · 4 years ago

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i want you to straighten out my tomorrow (4/?)

The last thing Jon remembers is working into the night in the Archives in early 2016. Now he’s in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, Scotland, with Martin Blackwood as his only companion. Obviously Jon’s missed something along the way here…

Inspired by beloved of jon, though it can be read separately.

Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4

on AO3

“It’s alright, Jon, it- it’s really not as bad as you seem to think-”

Jon closed his eyes as he pressed his hands against his face. “How bad is it, then? How much danger are we in? And we’re just- just sitting around talking, eating breakfast like nothing’s wrong-”

Jon’s voice started to quicken as his speech went on, his breaths quick and shallow. He was panicking, that much was clear, but he also didn’t especially see a reason to stop.

“Well, for one thing, odds are good nothing’s going to happen right this minute, we, we’ve been here for almost two weeks and nothing’s gone after us yet-”

“But something might go after us.” Jon couldn’t bring himself to unbury his head, to go back to looking Martin in the eye just yet. “Like Daisy.”

“Probably not Daisy, honestly. She was a hunter, yeah, but she was on our side. She, er-” Martin let out a strange sound somewhere between a wheeze and a laugh. “She was your friend, I think.”

“She tried to kill me, and now we’re friends?”

“That’s right, yeah. Trust me, it...” Another one of those strange sounds. “It seems odd to me, too. And it took some time.”

If Martin thought it was odd, and he was there, he remembered all of it happening... god, how much deeper did this rabbit hole go?

Jon opened a gap between two of his fingers just wide enough for him to be able to peek out, though he wasn’t sure if Martin noticed as much. “If not Daisy, who?”

“There’s the hunters I mentioned before. They came all the way from America to the Institute to go after you--you specifically, I mean. Actually, come to think of it, both of them come up in statements early enough you might know the names--Trevor Herbert and Julia Montauk ring a bell?”

Jon gave up all pretenses at hiding then, put his hands back down at his side so that he could more effectively stare at Martin in disbelief. “The vampire-hunting tramp and the serial killer’s daughter teamed up in America to become hunters that want to kill me?”

“Oh, you do remember them! That’s about the long and the short of it, yeah. Apparently you stole something from them after they kidnapped you?”

Jon’s mind was swimming again. If this was all a giant puzzle, evidently it had even more pieces than he had initially thought.

“Wait, Trevor Herbert... didn’t he die? I thought you said he died of lung cancer.”

“Oh god, not this again.” Martin muttered under his breath, the sound quiet enough that Jon wasn’t quite sure if he was meant to hear it.

“Again?” Jon repeated.

Martin’s face turned a bright pink. “This came up before once. I thought I’d heard that he’d died, but I must have mistaken, given that the guy’s still around... and, you know, out to kill you.”

Jon sighed, tempted to get in a dig about how Martin couldn’t even manage such basic research but instead only voicing a frustrated, “Great.”

“Though upside is, at least this time you’re not using that mistake as a reason to accuse me of murder.” Martin paused for a moment, and when he spoke up again, his words were softer, his voice subtly shaking. “You’re not accusing me of murder now, right?”

Jon nodded silently. He wasn’t sure how much he could trust Martin right now, whether his ramblings were haphazard lies or just flawed attempts at explaining a complicated truth, but even if he let his paranoia run wild, murder wasn’t on the list of misdeeds he could imagine of Martin at the moment.

“That’s... good. Certainly better than the alternative, anyway.” Martin let out a short bark of a laugh.

“Why did I think you killed someone, anyway?”

“Good question.” Martin laughed again, but there was no humor to the sound this time. “After I found Gertrude’s body, we weren’t sure who killed her, and you got all paranoid thinking someone you worked with was the killer, and that they’d be after you next. Which wasn’t entirely wrong, I guess, since Sasha’d just... gotten replaced.”

“Is that, that Not-Sasha thing the thing that killed Gertrude too, then?”

Martin shook his head, and Jon was struck by the sight of his wild red hair moving to and fro, how his streak of white strands mingled with the rest as it fell around his face. “No, that was... now, this might sound a bit crazy-”

“Because the rest of it hasn’t already.” Jon muttered in a low voice, more for his own benefit than for Martin’s.

Jon wasn’t sure whether Martin could make out what he had said, but he was greeted with a weary stare just the same. “-but I promise it’s true--Elias killed Gertrude.”

“Elias?” Jon furrowed his brow. “Why would he kill Gertrude Robinson?”

“Because she was planning on destroying the Archives, and him in the process. Almost self-defense, in a way, if you want to be generous towards him, which I really don’t.”

“Gertrude was the Head Archivist; why would she want to destroy the Archives?”

“Because they’re evil, Jon!” Martin threw his hands in the air. “Because we work for an evil organization dedicated to an evil fear power, and the Archives are the worst of it--well, besides Elias himself, anyway. On top of killing Gertrude, and then killing Leitner and framing you for it, he’s the one who made the Institute such a mess in the first place.”

Once again, Jon was finding a lot of information being thrown at him in a short period of time. Martin had mentioned Leitner before, but not that the man was dead, a murder Jon apparently was framed for--was that why he’d been “on the run” before, or was that a separate, equally-chaotic brush with the law?

(Also, some small, dark part of Jon that had hardened in place when he was eight years old was a little bitter that he wasn’t the reason Jurgen Leitner was now dead and buried.)

But that wasn’t what first came to mind when Jon opened his mouth to make a rebuttal, though whether he cared more about proving his knowledge or simply clarifying the situation Jon couldn’t say.

“From what I’ve seen, it sounds like the Institute was a mess well before Elias got a hold of it. If anything, Jonah Magnus should get the blame there.”

“Yeah, yeah he should, you’re not wrong! But the point’s moot, because Jonah Magnus is Elias.”

“...what?”

“He’s been, been swapping bodies or whatever for two centuries now, keeping a hold on his precious Institute.” Martin made a series of vague hand gestures to accompany his words, though their exact meaning eluded Jon. “Probably has some master plan involving the place. He was James Wright, too, and whoever was the Head before that, but now he’s Elias Bouchard. The whole Institute exists just to be some creepy monument to the Eye, to suck in power from his fear god.”

Jon’s head was starting to hurt something fierce, and as he realized one of the many implications of this latest tidbit of knowledge, his heart started to pound almost as fiercely as his head.

“...you said I have powers from the Eye, too, because I’m the head archivist. The same ‘fear god’ Elias has, according to you. Does that make me evil, then?”

Jon had hoped that Martin would eke out a quick “No,” maybe add in a bit of comforting reassurance, move on from the question quickly enough.

Instead, Martin hesitated for a long moment, and when he spoke up, it wasn’t to give Jon the simple “no” that he so dearly craved.

“I mean, not exactly, but... it’s complicated. You certainly can do evil things, or, or unnatural ones, with your powers--make people spill their deepest secrets, I think you cut off your finger once and it just grew right back?--but I know you try not to do that sort of thing... most of the time, anyway. You’re not just some amoral monster like Prentiss was when she attacked--I mean, obviously not, or else we’d be having a whole different conversation--but you’re also not... entirely human, thanks to your connection with the Eye. I wouldn’t say you’re evil, but the Eye is, and sometimes it’s hard to tell where you end and it begins.”

“...Christ.”

“Yeah, I know, this has to be a lot to take in, and I’m here to support you however you need me to...”

Jon looked around at his mostly-empty plate, at the dreary weather outside the window, at the safehouse and its thrown-together furniture and the half-done jigsaw puzzle on the far table, and his head swam as he tried to take it all in.

“Does that ‘support’ include you doing the dishes? I think I need a nap.”

Martin looked at Jon quizzically, though he obediently started clearing the table. “Jon, you just woke up.”

“Yes, and I’m going to take a nap now. I think I could use it; my head’s hurting pretty badly right now.” It wasn’t a lie, not exactly, but also Jon just wanted some time to himself, to think things through without Martin’s presence or input.

“Need a paracetamol? We’ve got a few in the bathroom cabinet.”

Jon noticed the way Martin casually, unblinkingly referred to the two of them as “we,” implying that their possessions were one and the same, but he didn’t have the mental energy to parse all the implications behind that single word right that moment.

“Maybe after my nap. We’ll see.”

“Alright then. Just... just come calling if you need anything, alright? I’m not going anywhere.” Martin shot Jon a weak smile as he finished that last sentence, and Jon wondered if there was something he was missing there, some inside joke or connection that was lost to him now.

“Will do.”

The bedroom was still small and awkwardly-decorated and the bed was still far too big for Jon alone, but as he lay there, trying his best to mentally put together the pieces to this convoluted puzzle, Jon was glad that he had some space to decompress on his own, tiny and awkward though that space might be.

#tma #tma au #tma fic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #the magnus archives au #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #personal #my writing

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junker-town · 3 years ago

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8 players I’m watching this NFL season

You owe it to yourself to pay attention to these guys.

By this point you’ve probably locked your Week 1 rosters for fantasy football, and that’s a good thing. Truth be told, I’m really pretty terrible at fantasy football. It’s a world that demands a very different mind to that of just appreciating NFL games. It’s like watching someone good play Madden, someone really good, who has an innate understanding of what breaks the A.I. and will always pick up a big gain on offense.

Instead I want to talk about the players I just can’t stop thinking about. The guys who I know will do something incredible every week, and who I cannot wait to see back on the field.

Justin Jefferson

God, I’m such a sucker for LSU wide receivers. I have no idea what’s in that Baton Rouge water but the Tigers need to bottle it and give it to every pass catcher around the nation. It feels like it’s been such a long time since we’ve truly seen a receiver so good he makes up for his quarterback, but that’s exactly what Jefferson did for the Vikings in his rookie season.

I’m not here to litigate the skills of Kirk Cousins, because Kirk Cousins is too boring to even warrant time on the court docket. Instead we should focus on a dude who caught 88 passes for 1,400 yards in his friggin’ rookie season. Know the last time that’s happened in the modern era? How about never.

Anquan Boldin: 1,377 yards

Odell Beckham Jr.: 1,305 yards

The GOAT himself, Randy-freaking-Moss: 1,313 yards

I want nothing more in this world that to see Jefferson dominate again, because frankly it’s been too damn long since the league had a must-watch receiver. Hell, it’s probably been since OBJ was making stupid one-handed catches and flexing on the entire league, and go figure, he was from LSU too.

I’m a sucker for feeling like I’m a part of history, and the possibility of seeing the emergence of one of the greatest receivers of all time is enough of an allure that I’ll actually subject myself to watching Kirk Cousins play football.

Derrick Henry

I’ve been trying to limit my red meat consumption under the assumption that reducing my carbon footprint will help the world, so Derrick Henry is my giant weekly helping of beef.

Everything about football is time and place. Go back a decade and Henry would be in the mix with a lot of stellar, league-defining running backs. Now, he’s an iconoclast in a league that keeps pushing more and more towards passing, and ignoring the sweet science of mashing a dude into the turf with a stiff arm and a steely grin.

The season, perhaps more than any other, I cannot wait to see what Henry does in Tennessee. With Julio Jones in the mix it’s going to be a fascinating weekly drama of “who’s defending who?” with Henry more than likely getting a chance to do his own thing and obliterate people, because that’s favorable to giving up 20+ in the air.

Derrick Henry's tired of the helmet on a stick...he needs live bodies to stiff arm pic.twitter.com/A5QcDKIhny

— Buck Reising (@BuckReising) September 6, 2021

If Derrick Henry turns his own teammates into sacrificial lambs, then what the hell is he going to do to his opponents?

Every single poor sap on the Texans

Okay look, I know this breaks my conventions a little because “58 players I’m watching this NFL season” doesn’t have the SEO-friendly ring to it, but I’m lumping the entire Texans team into this scenario as one sorry player.

I truly did not believe things could get worse for Houston than last season, but by gawd they found a way, didn’t they? You know David Johnson? The running back they traded DeAndre Hopkins for? He’s their backup running back to a 31-year-old Mark Ingram now.

I honestly feel slightly bad for the individual players on the Texans, because there are a ton of genuinely delightful individuals on this team. Collectively their depth chart looks like Santa’s workshop if all the elves decided to run off and become dentists, so dolls were pieces together by unskilled labor.

The elves really should have unionized.

Daniel Jones

Let it be known that above all else I am a petty, petty bitch — and while Daniel Jones is, by all accounts, a nice gentleman, he does represent something I love to hate on with the fury of 1,000 suns: Dave Gettleman.

I watched firsthand while Gettleman systematically destroyed my beloved Carolina Panthers are turned away team legends like Steve Smith with a bedside manner best described as “imagine if Jason Vorhees was your orthopedic surgeon.”

Jones represents his biggest roll of the dice. The guy Gettleman took and told the world to “trust him.” He passed on Josh Allen, gave Jones the rope to let Justin Herbert fly by a year later, now he’s getting one more year to prove he’s the guy, following a draft where New York could have selected Justin Fields.

I know Giants fans have reached the same point Panthers fans did with Gettleman. He made us all chuckle with his old man phraseology to start his tenure, then it became abundantly apparent he was still looking at football as if it was being played during the Reagan administration with no appreciation for what was happening in the modern game.

I don’t think this story is going to end well, and while I’m sorry for Giants fans, I promise it’ll be worth it to get rid of Gettleman.

Justin Herbert

Hey, it’s the guy I just talked about the Giants passing on. Cool.

Anyway, I love watching Justin Herbert play ... a lot. He looks like a 12-year-old and plays like a 40-year-old veteran. In fact, I’m not 100 percent sure Herbert really is entering his second year, and he’s not some wily veteran like Peyton Manning aging backwards like Benjamin Button.

I’d really like Herbert to succeed because dammit, I want the Chargers to succeed. I don’t know if there’s a more historically likable team than this one, but who never, ever seems to catch a break. Philip Rivers was a really nice guy, LaDanian Tomlinson was also a delightful fellow — I want Herbert to succeed where they didn’t and finally, FINALLY pull the Chargers out of the doldrums.

Also, it would be fun as hell if we get another elite quarterback in the AFC West for the next decade next to Patrick Mahomes.

Brian Burns

Here’s a guy who nobody outside of the Carolinas really talks about, but totally should. Sure, Burns doesn’t have a double-digit sack season to his name ... yet, but I think it’s about to happen.

The reason I just want to see him play is baked entirely within that sentence: I just want to see Brian Burns play. Last season he registered 9.0 sacks, but these weren’t effort, fight his way into the pocket type sacks. Burns flies off the line with unnatural speed and even without a tremendous array of pass rushing moves, he’s able to overwhelm defenses with his first step.

Burns ranked Top 10 in the NFL in total QB pressures last season, and I think that will jump ahead again. This could be a breakout season, and it’s just fun to see how this guy plays football.

Trevor Lawrence

I’ve just gotta know. I have to know if all these years of watching, and waiting for the best college QB since Andrew Luck actually materializes in Jacksonville and FINALLY gets that team over the hump.

The Jaguars got so monumentally lucky to have this situation fall in their laps and get to take Lawrence, and this was a franchise in dire need of luck. Oh god, that’s three mentions of “luck” in two paragraphs, my editor is going to hate me (sorry Ricky). Shit, now it’s four. Better quit while I’m ahead.

I just want Jaguars fans to be happy in a way that doesn’t require copious amounts of pre-game liquor and vandalism. Is that so much to ask?

Kyle Pitts

In a similar vein to Lawrence I’m just fascinated by seeing what Kyle Pitts does this season. The rookie tight end is being asked to fill some tremendously large cleats with Julio Jones being traded away, but thankfully he is a large man who I presume has feet to match.

Before I get too carried away with feet references and y’all start rumors about me on the internet, let me just say that I think Pitts can be one of those iconic, league-defining players that makes us totally re-think the tight end position. I believe he’s that damn good.

Now, I know there’s also a learning curve here and that transitioning to tight end in the NFL is damn, damn difficult (I mean hell, no rookie TE has broken 1,000 yards since Mike Ditka), but there’s just something transcendent about how Pitts plays football. I need to watch him play and develop this season to satiate my own curiosity.

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daveandtrev · 4 years ago

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The 2020 Andre Johnson Sweepstakes League write-up

Friends of the Andre Johnson Sweepstakes League, welcome. I am pleased (no really, I am excited) to bring you a breakdown of the AJSL as it blessed our lives in the one-of-a-kind year of 2020. Below you will find a mix of analysis and lighthearted fun aimed at taking a first pass at what the heckfire happened this year from start to finish. We’ve got analysis on the draft, injuries and schedule plus some fun awards to give out. I won’t buffalo you any longer, lets get to it.

Draft Day Analysis

Draft day analysis interpretation: I tried to objectively pick the best teams based on my personal draft rankings (subjective draft rankings, objective draft analysis…sort of follows?). Here’s the methodology: I assigned a value to every player for above average play (in 0.25 increments). It’s essentially five tiers (+0.0 = starter, but could be replaced; +0.25 = contributing starter; +0.5 = solid starter; +0.75 = strong starter that will create a positional advantage; +1.0 = elite starter providing a distinct positional advantage). This all makes sense in my head, and it should make more sense when you look at the table. I then added up points for each team’s best possible starting lineup according to my points system and voila; Dave Stark’s handicapping of the AJSL.

A couple of notes:

· Players are listed in the positions as there were drafted, with highest spend creating the starting lineup. For my points system, I subbed in bench players if they had a higher value than the starter.

· I cheated on Christian McCaffrey’s value: he was a +1.25 in my book. Clearly the best player in the game with even higher upside than the traditional studs.

A few things that turned out like I thought

· The running QBs outside of Lamar (Dak, Kyler, Russ, and DeShaun all avg 22.0+ fantasy pts/gm and sit top 7 at QB)

· The QBs at +0.0 (Baker, Carr, Danny Dimes, Kirk Cousins, and Jimmy G basically ride the merry-go-round from one bye week fill-in to the next. Tannehill and Cousins maybe qualify as +0.25 players now, but neither averages over 20+ pts/gm)

· Jonathan Taylor +0.0 (His value has been everywhere this year. Marlon Mack was the only reason I had him ranked this low. When Mack went down I pegged him for +0.75 with the possibility to go +1.0…and then nothing materialized until late into the year)

· Devin Singletary +0.0 (Started hearing whispers of Zack Moss splitting carries + Josh Allen hogs goal line rushes)

A few places where I was dead wrong

· Stefon Diggs +0.0 (Turns out, Josh Allen actually got better - +10% Completion % in 2020)

· Josh Allen +0.5 (Averaging 24.7 pts/gm which would have been the QB2 overall last year by almost 3 pts/gm. Currently QB4)

· Kyler Murray +0.75 (Not nearly high enough on him. Averaging 26.5 pts/gm as the QB1 overall. Playing at a +1.0 level)

· DK Metcalf +0.25 (Seattle hired their lead chef to work full time)

· Lamar Jackson +1.0, Mark Andrews +0.75 (Uhhh, why is this team broken?)

· Kenyan Drake +0.75 (Beware the extravagant 8 game sample size that says someone is a world-beater)

· Zach Ertz +0.75 (Is this the cliff year at 30 years old? How did Tony G catch 83 balls at age 37?)

· Aaron Rod Gers +0.25 (Yeah he’s a +0.75 guy now…should have known that drafting the backup QB would light a fire under Aaron: we’ve only seen this from Alex Smith and Joe Flacco in 2 of the last 3 years…Wait, why hasn’t this applied to Wentz yet?)

· Davante Adams +0.75 (Good golly, A-Aron’s resurgence means Davante is almost on +1.25 level when he is healthy)

· Keenan Allen +0.25 (This was all about Tyrod…then we found out that Justin Herbert was interning specifically for Keenan Allen and the Chargers med staff decided to euthanize Tyrod)

· TJ Hockenson +0.0 (2nd year leap puts him at TE3 overall. $20 player next year?)

· Chris Herndon +0.0 (When you read too many draft articles, you begin to believe that an Adam Gase coached player might actually become an average contributor at his position…ha!)

Injury-ruined seasons

· Saquon, Michael Thomas +1 (Biggest team-killers to date by far)

· CMC at +1.25 (Still overall #1 when he plays)

· Dak at +0.75 (Was playing like a true +1 on par with Mahomes before going down)

· Zeke at +1 (Dak died and then Dallas decided to start “Gucci DiNucci”…yeah that didn’t go well)

· OBJ +0.5 (Traded to Cristian’s team where he put up a combined 3.5 fantasy pts in 2 games started)

· Courtland Sutton +0.25 (After space-cadeting Sutton’s auction bid, we got our “Ball don’t lie” moment a few weeks later. Trevor is shrugging as he reads this.)

Great, let’s move on. Luck, imagined as either dice rolls or Luck Dragons depending on who you talk to, plays a pretty big part in fantasy success every year. Too many injuries? See you next year. Tough schedule? Hope for a good tiebreaker and maybe you can sneak into the playoffs with the #4 spot. These are probably the most talked about facets of the game since they are beyond our control and create the classic “if only I didn’t have that injury back in high school, i’d have crushed you guys” cop-out that we’ve all heard for years. Let’s see who really has a case to be upset, shall we?

Let’s start with one of my favorites – every team’s record if we played in a league where the top 6 scores secured a win each week (in lieu of head to head matchups). This is a much more “fair” look at how your team performed on a weekly basis when you throw out the schedule which is always a subject of scrutiny, consternation, and conspiracy theories each season.

There you have it. Good news is, the top 5 in our league standings would be the exact same top 5 if we played the other way. The schedule hasn’t defrauded anyone of a 2020 playoff spot. Bad news is, the bottom of this list is mildly shocking. Cristian has struggled all year for wins and this shows that his team hasn’t been half bad – but he has essentially lost out on 4 wins due to schedule. Yikes. Phil on the other hand was in playoff contention up until week 12, whereas his team has the fewest expected wins in the league….Of course for those with conspiratorial thoughts, you’ll notice the Stark brothers combine for +7 “lucky” wins due to schedule. Of course the Stark wife had to bite the bullet to make it look fair (-2 “lucky” wins). I’ll let everyone digest that and make their own judgments. (Where is that clause in the constitution involving starting a new league without the commish? This is evidence!)

The next “luck metric” that dominates our chat conversation and generally elicits “I got screwed, feel bad for me” self-pity arguments would be games lost to injury. Everyone knows it sucks and everyone experiences it to some degree every year. And if you play long enough, you will get hit by the double ACL tear/broken collarbone/never-healing ankle injury to all of your star players and be left at a severe disadvantage. It’s gonna be okay Sport, put on a brave face and hit the waiver wire. Come back next year and clap secretly at 3pm on Monday when Schefty tweets the next guy’s RB1 season-ender. (After the large exhale that it didn’t happen to your RB1 of course.) Ending rant, just know that if you experienced the injury season from hell, the rest of the league knows that it’s part of the fantasy business and are very relieved that it didn’t happen to them. Empathy runs high, sympathy runs low. (And I just removed my ability to ever complain publicly about my team’s injuries by writing this now.)

After all the talk has subsided, let’s check facts. First table: mid-game injuries. These are games where players play a much reduced role and typically produce dreadful fantasy finishes. There’s a bit of subjectivity here (if a player plays 3 quarters and gets hurt, I don’t count that as a mid game injury. But if he plays ½ or less of his normal playing time, it would count.) I also add mid-game benching to QBs because they fit the description as fantasy wreckers due to an unforeseen cutback in playing time. Here is the Commissioner’s official list:

Congrats on that title Jason, I know you were hoping for it. Just know, you weren’t THAT far ahead of the rest of us. Mon and Trevor on the other hand can only blame poor performance on their season’s disappointments (or better yet, the schedule!)

So I buried the lead a bit on Mr. Montgomery here, because the next table should give him his share of justice on 2020 injuries.

So the above list is missed games + mid-game injuries for drafted starters and traded players updated through week 13 (except for those with season long injuries – I went ahead and added week 14 there). Jason, there’s your proof. Nobody deserves to bellyache more than you, friend. 19 of those games were from QBs (Dak/Jimmy G) which added to a smattering of missed games from the rest of the roster (Godwin 4, Ridley 3, Aaron Jones 2). I haven’t tracked this before, but I imagine that this year was significantly worse than others (more soft tissue injuries and COVID positives were the biggest culprits.) The hope is that 2021 gives us a bit of a reprieve here.

Before we conclude, I recognize that there is a portion of the audience who prefers the entertainment value of this yearly endeavor, so I’m going to do my best to hand out a few fun awards. Without further ado, the 2020 AJSL Dundees (this award style hasn’t possibly been overdone, right?)

Dundee to The Scorned Lover: Mr. Jordan Swavely on behalf of Henry Ruggs.

While I wrote this tribute in his farewell on the group chat, it bears repeating: 7 pts or less scored by Ruggs in 6 straight games, starts him again for a 7th week and only a 50 yard bomb on the last play of the game saves Ruggs from another 3 point performance. Totaling the points for those 7 starts, Ruggs scored 36 points for a 5.1 average. Ruggs averaged 3.4 targets/gm in these contests. You do you, Swave. Go and get your man.

Dundee for the Best Team Name: Mr. Greg Poelman, ShlongBarry Sanders

Any reference including a dong and our beloved college town is going to score high on both the Dude and Nostalgia scales. Plus a Barry Sanders nod, we like that.

Dundee for the Best Team Picture: Mrs. Monica Stark on behalf of Presidential Security

Any time you can get combine Greg Poelman and The Donald in Photoshop and it doesn’t even look that fake, you have my attention and affection. And now you have a Dundee to go along with it. Well done.

Honorable mention: Monica’s Team, Bring Out Your Dead

Golden Tickets to the Winning Waiver Warriors: Mr. Scooter Nelson, James Robinson; Mr. Blake Grundy, Justin Herbert; Mr. Jack Holmer, Justin Jefferson

Since everyone is bidding for the “winning lottery tickets” of the waiver pool, we’re going to give out Golden Tickets to those that struck waiver wire gold this season. Scooter milked 11 starts out of Robinson who averaged 17.6 pts/gm during that span. Robinson has been the RB4 overall since the week 2 pickup. Grundy picked up Herbert for week 3 and never looked back, banking 10 starts at 22.5 pts/gm (He’s the QB7 in that time frame). Holmer nabbed Jefferson before Week 4 and was rewarded with the WR4 from that point on. Impressively he only benched him once, refusing to play him against his beloved Bears. This is the dream of every late Tuesday night and you guys reaped the spoils. Well done, gents.

Dundee to the Wounded Wavier Warriors: Mr. Phil Stark, Devonta Freeman; Mr. Jack Holmer, Darrell Henderson; Mr. Trevor Allison, Nyheim Hines

Big money, No whammy. That’s the goal. Of course more times than not, the reality is…more like this. Phil emptied out the pocketbook early on in the season after the Saquon injury to grab his replacement with a winning bid of $78 on Devonta (next highest bid: $15). Devonta responded with five games played, two of which resulted in 1 point showings. Then he followed Saquon to IR and Soape picked up the true workhorse of the Giants backfield in Wayne Gallman, who hasn’t pickup up less than 10 points in six straight games. Ouch. It took $54 to secure the rights to Darrell Henderson after week 2, seemingly the new Rams lead RB. Unfortunately Jack’s faith manifested at the wrong times: 5 starts of Henderson yielded 6.3 pts/gm, while Henderson’s two strong games (18.5 and 20.3 pts) were enjoyed on Holmer’s bench. Not fun. $46 was the bid that beat out 7 other bidders after week 1 for Nyheim Hines’s services, after which Trevor was rewarded with 5 straight games of 8 points or less. After cutting him loose over the bye week, Hines busted out for four double digit games in six tries, music no doubt to Trevor’s ears. A Dundee for your troubles, boys.

The “Fantasy Football Was A Lot More Fun Last Year” Dundee: Mr. Cristian Driver

For every obvious reason. Where did that championship belt get to?

Dundee for a Fun and Easy Season: Mr. David Stark

Injuries, COVID surprises, bad schedules, underperformance? Didn’t seem that big of a deal to me.

Dundee for Most Attempts to Defeat a Hornet’s Nest: Mr. Jason Montgomery

Similar to our favorite Office handyman Nate, Jason was tasked with eliminating the danger of his crumbling fantasy season created by the aforementioned injury bug. Both hailing from the historically-rich metropolis of “La Philadelphia”, what ensued after Jason’s 4-0 start pairs Nate and Jason together even further. Jason utilized a league-high 20 unique waiver pickups that entered the starting lineup this season. Results were bleak; the fast start was followed by a 2-7 record that signaled victory to the opposition. Maybe try the bow and arrow next time?

Receiver Corps Dundee of Excellence: Mr. Joel Soape

It only took 3 name changes to figure out which WR was needed (Red Solo Kupp -> Mike’d Up -> The Adams Bomb) , but Soape finally landed on the right guy for the job by calling on Davante Adams and his 22.1 pts/gm this year (easily the WR1 in this metric). Somehow Corey Davis (left for dead after last year) has had a career resuscitation on this team as well, dropping a 30 burger in week 12. The Receiver Corps salutes your dedication to their fraternity, Mr. Soape.

That’s all for now guys. Full disclosure, I have another 1k-2k words written that takes a deep dive into each of our performances at 1) waiver pickups, 2) positional scoring, and 3) sit/start decisions. Maybe this would be most helpful for a post-season article as it encompasses your overall strategy and ability to aid your team’s output. Look for that at some point in the future. For now, I hope you enjoyed this meaty entrée. Thanks for another great season and allowing me to bring you another fun recap, everyone!

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junker-town · 4 years ago

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7 winners and 3 losers from Week 11 in the NFL

Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images

The NFC East is inspirational, and the Lions are definitely not.

There are plenty of people who are going to look back on the 2020 season and see the NFC East as an abhorrant garbage pile of mediocrity. An affront to the sanctity of NFL parity, which presents itself as a perfect, almost infallible system which allows the best teams in to the playoffs, and the others to retool and try again. Ask me a decade ago and I’d agree with the grand, presentational beauty of football as the be all, end all bastion of competitive hustle. Now, I confess that 2020 has broken me. I cannot help but love, with all my heart, just how ridiculous the NFC East is.

Gaze upon its beauty and majesty.

We laughed when the teams had losing records weeks ago, but nobody expected this scenario to remain manifest with a month remaining in the season. Four, utterly hopeless teams, one of which will make the playoffs — not by merit, but default. Nobody in the NFC East will deserve a playoff shot. Instead they’ll be handed it by circumstance, and it’s really not worth getting worked up over.

Every few years a season like this happens in a division. Football writers wax poetically about whether the playoff system is fair. Fans of an excellent, deserving team will watch as their beloved 10-6 squad misses out — while someone from the NFC East will head to the post season with a 5-11 record. They’ll scream about how it’s all “bullshit” and “unfair,” and it is. It really, really is. I feel for those fans of (probably) an NFC West team, but once that anger subsides you’ll appreciate how hilarious this all is.

There’s only one appropriate way to cap off 2020: Whoever makes the playoffs from the NFC East needs to go on an impossible Cinderella run and win the Super Bowl. The most asterisk worthy team deserves to win the asterisk season and send us into a (God help us please), better 2021. Then this can all be a fever dream.

For now, you’re all winners ... for making me smile.

Loser: The hapless Detroit Lions.

Let’s break this one down in stages.

The Lions lost. Bad.

To the Carolina Panthers. Worse.

Who didn’t have Christian McCaffery. Even worse.

And were starting a quarterback whose prior experience in pro football was playing in the XFL, and threw two red zone picks. YIKES.

I know it’s not entirely as simple as this. The Panthers defense is better than most people expected, and P.J. Walker, to his credit was better than he had any right to be. Still, this was an absolute mess.

Keep in mind the Lions were a team who still believed they had a shot in the NFC North. They believed it so much they traded for Everson Griffen at the deadline, who will be a free agent at the end of the season. They thought they could actually find a back door in. There is almost no way that happens now. This season has fallen apart for Detroit, and it’s difficult to see where the team goes from here.

Winner: Justin Herbert and Keenan Allen, new BFFs.

There isn’t really some glowing award anyone should win for beating the Jets. It’s kind of like beating a three-year-old at miniature golf. Sure, you’re happy you got the W, but you also feel kinda bad for making them realize they suck.

That said, Herbert and Allen are quickly becoming one of the best duos in the NFL. On Sunday this was on full display, with the rookie quarterback throwing for 366 yards and three touchdowns, while Allen caught as astonishing 16 passes, en route to a 145 yard day.

This duo should be able to hang together for another solid 4-5 years before decline sets in, and the way they’re meshing already should bring a smile to the face of Chargers fans.

Winner: The New York Jets, kings of tanking.

Every journey requires a first step, and you did it guys. Getting eliminated from playoff contention began the sojourn in ensuring you’re on the path to Trevor Lawrence. But, the hard work doesn’t end here. Now you need to lose again, and keep losing — no matter what. That is your lot in life, so you can select, and ruin yet another promising quarterback.

Loser: Patriots.

New England already faced an uphill battle to make the playoffs in 2020, but losing on Sunday to the Texans more or less sealed their fate. It would take a small miracle, and a heck of a collapse by the Bills to change the course of the division at this point, and that’s not going to happen.

We now look ahead to one of the most fascinating offseasons in recent memory for a team. How long does Belichick keep going? Do the Patriots think Cam Newton showed enough to try this again? How do you revamp a roster, with holes everywhere, without the promise of dominating wins or the once-vaunted “Patriot way?” I’m anxiously awaiting it, because I have no real stakes in it and can enjoy it more without the stress of this being my team to worry about.

Winner: The AFC South elite.

The concept of divisional statements is a bit of a beleaguered one. After all, every team plays for themselves in isolation, giving this idea of “divisional pride” not much meaning. Except for our beautiful, sweet summer children the NFC East where everything is bad.

That said, the Colts beating the Packers in overtime, and the Colts beating the Ravens — also in overtime, makes a heck of a statement for the health of the division. Both teams deserve a playoff spot based on their recent play, and it’s going to be a brutal stretch for the spate of teams locked in second in AFC divisions trying to find a way into the playoffs.

Loser: Matt Leinart.

LA just closed all dining INDOOR/OUTDOOR for 3 weeks? Can’t wait to move out of this awful place. Ridiculous.

— Matt Leinart (@MattLeinartQB) November 23, 2020

‘Nuff said.

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