The Seahawks Can’t Stop Winning & Getting Injured

Posted on September 28, 2020 by dunderhead99

The Seahawks won 38-31 and it pretty much went how I thought it would. In retrospect, I should have looked at the over/under for total points in this one, because the over was a MORTAL lock; the Taylor Family Farm never would’ve been more secure had I jumped on that one when I had a chance!

I was even right about the turnovers being key! Once again, had the Seahawks played a clean game in this respect, we might’ve won by double digits. But, with the defense being as bad as it is – on top of now being as banged up as it is – it’s fair to ask if the Seahawks would’ve won this game at all had they not gotten the two picks and one fumble from Dak Prescott.

I don’t have the energy to go through the entire game beat by beat, so let’s start where we’re supposed to start: Russell Wilson. 315 yards on 27/40 passing. Not his most crisp game of the season, but it’s tough to beat the really sparkling efforts leading up to this one. The only number that matters is his 5 touchdown passes (and 0 picks), which puts him at 14 touchdowns in the first three games, which is a new NFL record. I mean, obviously he’s playing better than he ever has before. But, now we have to seriously talk about him playing not only among the all-time greats, but among the PEAKS of the all-time greats. Is he, right now, at this moment, the greatest quarterback who ever lived? If you could pick any quarterback at any time in history and start them for one game, would you not at least have to think about rolling with Russell Wilson? Given how much of the offense he’s accounting for, on top of the fact that the defense is giving up yards and points on just as high of a rampaging pace? I mean, if Wilson leads the Seahawks to the top of the NFC this season, we’re not just talking about the NFL’s MVP award, but we’re talking about maybe the MOST valuable player the NFL has ever seen! It’s in play, is all I’m saying.

I want to get back to the turnovers here, because this game was all over the place. The Seahawks took a 7-3 lead on a 43-yard touchdown to Tyler Lockett (who was WIDE open all day, but particularly on this play, where it seemed like there wasn’t anyone within 20 yards of him; he finished the game with 9 catches for 100 yards and 3 touchdowns), then kicked off to the Dallas goalline. The return man muffed it at the 1-yard line, didn’t know what he should do for a second (if he could bring it back into the endzone for a touchback or not), and ultimately had to fall on it at the 1-yard line, which immediately led to a safety and a 9-3 lead for the Seahawks. I’m counting that as a turnover in the Seahawks’ favor, which – along with Dallas missing two extra points – dictated a lot of the scoring actions for the rest of the game.

Dallas ended up tying it at 9-9 not long after that (thanks to one of those missed PATs), which led to one of the craziest plays I’ve seen in a while. Russell Wilson threw a deep ball to D.K. Metcalf that ultimately went for 62 yards, almost all of which was air yardage. He threw that ball like most guys punt: high and arcing and with a hangtime unlike any pass I’ve ever seen before! Like Lockett earlier, Metcalf had a good ten yards or so on the nearest defender, but it was made up for due to the length of time the ball was in the air. D.K. came down with it easily, but proceeded to saunter towards the endzone, with the football being held in his right hand near his waist like he was carrying a suitcase or something. So, of course, you know what happened next: as he got to the 1-yard line, the defender came up and punched the ball out, into and through the endzone, for a fumble/touchback for the Cowboys. That play loomed pretty large and looked like it might define the day for D.K.

After trading some punts, the Seahawks finally went up 16-9, before the Cowboys returned the favor (sans extra point) to make it 16-15. A clock-churning Seahawks drive that ultimately led to a punt gave Dallas the ball back with just over a minute left, and you had to wonder if they weren’t going to take a lead before halftime. Instead, a great play by Shaquill Griffin led to an interception deep in Dallas territory! It was one of the few great plays by Griffin all season, who has been among the worst cornerbacks in the NFL through three games (coming off a Pro Bowl season, and heading into free agency in 2021, not a great sign for a guy who might’ve been on the hunt for a max-salary contract). Thanks to a pass interference penalty in the endzone, the Seahawks were able to convert that drive into a touchdown, for a 23-15 lead going into halftime. BIG swing in a game that finished within a single score!

Almost just as big was the sack/fumble on Dallas’ opening drive of the second half, which led to the Seahawks going up 30-15! The game felt out of reach by that point, but of course, never rule out this Seahawks defense. To be fair, the Seahawks’ offense also went pretty cold in the second half, with three consecutive drives ending in punts. Two TD’s and a field goal gave Dallas a 31-30 lead late in the fourth quarter, before Seattle mounted a game-sealing drive, culminating with a 29-yard touchdown to D.K. Metcalf (he ended up leading the Seahawks in receiving yards with 110 on 4 receptions), who went from potential goat to G.O.A.T. The lowkey play of the game, however, might’ve been the 2-point conversion to Jacob Hollister to give the game its final score. One more turnover by Dallas would seal the deal though, as Dak threw a de facto hail mary ball from the Seahawks’ 26-yard line that was intercepted.

Given how good Dallas is offensively, and the fact that we’re now 3-0 and leading in our division, I don’t really care how the result came about, as long as we won. But, that doesn’t mean there isn’t cause for concern.

The defense, in particular, suffered a rash of injuries the consequences of which we’re still trying to suss out. Jamal Adams was, of course, the biggest, with a groin injury that took him out for much of the second half. It’s hard not to feel that was a big reason why Dallas was able to come back the way it did. On top of which, Quinton Dunbar didn’t suit up in this one, with a knee injury that flared up before the game; we’ll see how long that hampers him. With the loss of Marquise Blair last week, that left us mighty thin in the secondary, and it showed. Shaquill Griffin, as I mentioned, got beat up pretty good in this one. Tre Flowers looked marginally better on the other side of the field – returning to the starting role he’d held the previous two seasons – but he still got beat on a fair number of demoralizing deep balls to remind everyone why he lost his starting job in the first place. Honestly, Ugo Amadi – the forgotten man in the nickel cornerback rotation – was the best defensive back we had on the field once Adams went down! He was all over the place, finishing with 2 passes defended officially, but I don’t remember him being challenged all that often either.

Lano Hill also didn’t suit up in this one, with a new injury this week. Then, linebacker Jordyn Brooks – making his first NFL start – left the game as well. I didn’t get a chance to see what he was up to, but we finished the game with Shaquem Griffin seeing his first action of the season, and making a number of impact plays in very limited time. If he isn’t officially on this team’s 53-man roster this week, then I don’t know what they’re seeing, because he looks good to me!

Injuries weren’t exclusive to the defense, though, as the three interior linemen for the Seahawks all got dinged pretty good. Damien Lewis is the big scare, with an ankle injury that prevented him from returning. Mike Iupati missed a few plays as well, and it sounded like Ethan Pocic was thought to miss some time as well, but I don’t know if that ended up coming to fruition or not. Then, there was Chris Carson, who had his knee twisted while being tackled on what looked like a VERY dirty play. The guy clearly had Carson on the ground, but he kept rolling over and twisting that leg until Carson succumbed. If that guy isn’t at least fined, that’s a fucking travesty, because that was beyond unnecessary.

On top of Ugo Amadi looking good on defense, Alton Robinson – our rookie fifth rounder – made his first NFL appearance and got a sack! He’s mostly filling in as a pass rusher for the injured Bruce Irvin, but he looks like the real deal a little bit! Small sample size, obviously, but considering I never expect anything out of rookie defensive ends, I’ll take it!

In general, the injury issues for this team are VERY concerning. We’re pretty deep in a lot of positions – secondary and offensive line, particularly – so it’s not time to panic just yet. But, obviously, you never like to see your starters go down for any length of time. It doesn’t sound like Carson’s injury is too bad, and I wouldn’t think Adams will be out for too long, but we talk about Injury Luck every year when we talk about the teams that end up in the Super Bowl. Clearly, the Seahawks – as long as we have Russell Wilson – should be talked about in those terms, but if we can’t keep everyone else on the field, it won’t matter how great Wilson is.

Two more games, then a Week 6 BYE, which honestly couldn’t come at a more opportune time given the injury bug. We just gotta get to 5-0 in the meantime, which shouldn’t be too difficult given our opponents.

Can The Seahawks Maintain Their Hot Start?

Posted on September 25, 2020 by dunderhead99

This Seahawks team sure looks more special than I expected. I feel like we’re one more win away from a guaranteed 5-0 start; we just have to get over this Dallas Cowboys hurdle.

While the Seahawks appear special, that’s not the same thing as them being dominant. The defense is still just as much of a liability as it’s been the last couple seasons, worsened by the season-ending injuries to Marquise Blair and Bruce Irvin. The Irvin injury feels like a real crusher. He obviously hasn’t had a ton of sacks or anything through the first two games, but he provided plenty of value along that defensive line in many ways, from run stuffing, to at least getting pressure on the quarterback from time to time. You just knew he was going to have some real blow-up games at some point, coming up big in key moments, so it’s almost a tragedy to see him go.

By comparison, the Blair injury doesn’t seem as bad because we have lots of guys behind him who are able to step up. But, we’ll never know! How could we? Maybe Blair has All Pro-level talent, and that’s been taken from us. The Alternate Universe Seahawks are probably enjoying all that he has to offer, but I don’t live in that universe, so nuts to that!

I just don’t see a lot of great options – either on this team, or in the free agent market – to replace someone like Irvin. It’s going to be a severe downgrade any way you slice it. Maybe one of the young linebackers currently on the team can provide better speed at that SAM spot, but you probably lose some of the power and definitely lose the pass rushing ability (on a team that, obviously, struggles at that aspect as it is).

On the plus side, maybe this is an opportunity for Shaquem Griffin to make an impact! I hope so; I think he has just what this team needs.

Anyway, getting back, yeah, this defense IS a liability. But, we’ve seen shaky defenses propped up by elite offenses before, and this offense is 100% elite right now! It’s right up there with Kansas City and Baltimore (though, obviously they have an edge with superior defenses). We’ve also seen shaky defenses get better as seasons progress. As the weather cools and passing games cool right along with it, it becomes more important to stop the run as we get into December and January, which is when this team could really come together.

The Seahawks have also been challenged by some pretty strong offenses through two weeks; Atlanta’s passing game looks as good as anyone’s, and New England will continue to play well as long as Cam is healthy and Belichick is breathing. Dallas, this week, is a continuation of that: Top 5 passer, lots of weapons to throw to, and probably the best running back still healthy at the moment. As far as our non-divisional schedule is concerned, this is our most difficult remaining game outside of the Buffalo contest in early November. So, when I say if we can get through this one with a W, 5-0 is VERY much on the table, as we go to Miami the following week, before hosting the hapless Vikings after that (in primetime, no less).

It’s hard to figure out where the Cowboys are as a team. I think it’s pretty clear they’re the best team in the NFC East right now, but is that saying much? All the other teams in that division are bumbling along pretty pitifully. Is this a situation where Dallas might win a playoff spot with an 8-8 record? I feel like they’re a play here or a play there from either being 0-2 or 2-0. They almost came back to beat the Rams in Week 1 (a bogus OPI penalty on Michael Gallup was particularly galling). But, at the same time, they really SHOULD have lost to the Falcons last week (if anyone on Atlanta’s Special Teams was smart enough to fall on a spinning football during an onside kick before it went the necessary 10 yards for the kicking team to recover), so it’s tough to say how good or bad Dallas is. I believe the Rams are a top tier football team, and while Atlanta probably isn’t so great, their offense is explosive enough to give any defense fits.

Based on what I’ve seen, I know enough to be wary of these Cowboys. Given how balanced and talented they are on offense, they should have no trouble moving the football (made even easier, obviously, by the lack of fans in the stands) against our nothing defense. At the same time, nothing about Dallas’ defense scares me if I’m the Seahawks offense. I think this one is destined to be another high-scoring shootout.

The same keys find their way into any pre-game analysis when you’re talking about the difference between winning and losing. 3rd/4th down conversions, TD/FG percentage, penalties, run/pass ratio & efficiency. But, I think this is going to boil down to turnovers. It seems like these two offenses are so similar, that they should be able to move the ball at will and do whatever they want. Therefore, critical turnovers could play a huge part in determining the outcome of this game.

You could see that in the Pats game as well. It shouldn’t have been as close as it was, but the Patriots converted a Pick-Six, while the Seahawks dropped a chance at returning the favor. Had the Seahawks played a clean game from a turnover perspective, we would’ve witnessed another double-digit victory. I think there’s a CHANCE for that to happen here, but it’s going to require the Seahawks not shooting themselves in the foot.

With the way our offense is rolling, the only team that can beat the Seahawks IS the Seahawks.

Right now, all the MVP hype in the world is on Russell Wilson’s jock, and for good reason. He’s been nearly-flawless. Of course, the MVP through two weeks has rarely been the MVP at the end of the season. For the Seahawks to continue to be special, they’re going to need him to keep this up, especially against the very best teams on our schedule (like Dallas). There will be opportunities for the Seahawks defense to shine; bad teams are coming! But, I don’t believe Dallas is among them, and it’s going to take everything we’ve got to keep the good times going.

Ezekiel Elliott has always destroyed us, even when our defenses were great. While this is good for my fantasy team, it’s bad for the Seahawks. But, in spite of that, I think I’m more afraid of Dak Prescott and this passing game. Imagine how tough New England was, only if they had more than one good receiver. Dallas is rolling three deep! They’re fast, they’re big, and they can make plays anywhere on the field. Amari Cooper is always a tough matchup for us, but I’m watching out for CeeDee Lamb and Michael Gallup. With the way our secondary has given up big plays down field through two games (likely having a lot to do with our complete and utter lack of a pass rush), I see no reason for that not to continue. We’re still working in new guys (Jamal Adams and Quinton Dunbar, most notably), and now we’re getting over the loss of Marquise Blair (who factored heavily in our defensive scheme this season); this is not the best time to try to take on this Dallas passing attack.

The ace up our sleeve in this one might be the Cowboys’ head coach, Mike McCarthy. His teams tend to make some baffling decisions on offense, which could conceivably work in our favor. Then again, his Green Bay Packers teams in recent years have had their way with us, and those teams weren’t nearly as stacked as these Cowboys are.

I nevertheless expect a narrow Seahawks victory in this one. I won’t rule out a blowout one way or the other, though, because while I do believe the Seahawks are the superior team, we’re a mediocre Russell Wilson performance away from losing by double digits (or being so far out of it that a garbage-time score still leaves us woefully behind with no time left in the game). I won’t go so far as to say I know this offense has a few duds in it, but I will say I haven’t TOTALLY bought into the sea change we’ve seen through two weeks. I keep expecting the other shoe to drop. I hope I’m wrong!

It would be nice to see a shocking level of competence out of this defense, though. Two weeks should be enough time for this staff to coach up some guys and figure out what tweaks they need to make. We were close to getting – on a number of occasions – Cam Newton on his ass last week, and he just barely weaseled his way out of trouble. Dak is sort of a younger version of that, but I would argue he’s easier to get down as he isn’t quite as big and strong. I hope we’re able to learn from those missed sacks and do a better job of wrapping up; at the very least, force the quarterback to throw it away rather than escape for a huge gain.

5-0 is within range. I can taste it! We’re going to need it too, because the rest of the NFC West (sans San Francisco) looks pretty fucking great. Arizona looks a lot better than I expected, and I already expected them to give us fits whenever we match up against them. The Rams, I think, are still the team to beat. But, I bet their fans are saying the same thing about the Seahawks right now.

In the end, it’s going to come down to conference record (and record against common opponents), so this Dallas game is HUGE! It’s the first game that meets both of those criteria; I would love nothing more than to get this leg-up (or, at the very least, keep up with the Rams’ leg, since they already beat the Cowboys in Week 1).

The Mariners Are Clinging For Dear Life (But No, They’re Not Really)

Posted on September 24, 2020 by dunderhead99

If the Mariners beat the A’s four times in a row, and the Cheating Astros lose to the Rangers four times in a row, then you can say there’s a sliver of a chance. I’m just glad Houston didn’t get the opportunity to celebrate a playoff berth on our field.

There’s also still allegedly a chance at the Wild Card, if the Mariners win out and Toronto loses out. All told, according to ESPN, the Mariners currently have a 0.2% chance of making the playoffs. I’m not really a betting man – as you well know – but I’d have no problem putting up everything I own on the Mariners’ season concluding this Sunday.

It was a fun ride while it lasted, but like every year (except four) in the team’s history, it’s going to end without the playoffs.

Monday’s game was rather inspiring! We had a good ol’ fashioned pitcher’s duel, between Marco Gonzales and Lance McCullers. Nothing but zeroes through the first six and a half innings, before we put up four unearned runs in the bottom of the seventh, off of a Ty France double and an Evan White 3-run home run. As if that wasn’t enough of an insurmountable lead, Kyle Seager chipped in with a 2-RBI single in the eighth to really hammer this one home. Gonzo ended up throwing eight shutout innings, giving up 7 hits and 1 walk, while striking out 6. The shutout wasn’t meant to be, as Joey Gerber gave up a run in the ninth (we’re still waiting on that first shutout for this pitching staff), but I’ll take a 6-1 victory every single time.

What I got on Tuesday, instead, was a 6-1 defeat! Were you NOT paying attention?! Ljay Newsome battled through 4.1 innings of 1-run ball, but the bullpen is what it is, and sometimes that means it gives up 5 runs in 4.2 innings. Kyle Seager and J.P. Crawford had two hits apiece, but that was about it for the offense.

To get just our third victory against the Cheating Astros of the season – and our first 3-game series victory over them since 2018 – it required a massive team effort last night. Nick Margevicius was a champ, going 6 shutout innings (giving up 3 hits and 3 walks) while getting out of numerous jams along the way. I’ll be interested in what the team does with him next year. As a fifth starter, he seems like a pretty good fit. He might project more as a bullpen/long-relief/spot-starter type of guy though. We’ll see. Anyway, Kyle Lewis, Seager, and France all had two hits apiece, with Seager and France providing all the RBI in this one. We led 3-0 going into the ninth, before Yoshihisa Hirano scared the bejesus out of everyone. He gave up 2 runs in acquiring his fourth save of the season, but did just enough to preserve the 3-2 victory.

Our record is 25-31 now, which is actually a half game behind the Angels, who have gotten hot of late! We’re still tied for tenth in the draft order next year, with four games to go: an off-day today, followed by a Friday night game, a Saturday doubleheader, and a Sunday matinee, all down in Oakland. I’ll be honest, I hope we lose all four. We’ve done what we came to do, we got some guys some valuable experience, but now is the time to do some serious tanking. We can still pretty easily leap over about six teams to get a Top 5 draft pick! I think; I’ll be honest, I haven’t looked at every team’s schedule here to do the specific math.

I won’t sweat it too much, though. If the Mariners are going to rebound into a championship-calibre team, then the pieces we need to do that are already in the organization. I just think, you know, you can never have too many Top 5 draft picks, right? Right.

So, lose away, Mariners! You have my permission (not that you’ve needed it all these decades).

Nobody Wants To Hear About My Fantasy Team 2020: Everything That Could Go Wrong

Posted on September 23, 2020 by dunderhead99

Pre-Season Week 1 HERE
Pre-Season Week 2 HERE
Fantasy Draft HERE
Week 1 HERE

What an unbelievable clusterfuck. I mean, there’s really nothing to say at this point, other than Nobody Beats The Wiz scored the fewest amount of points in the league. My quarterbacks were fucking trash, and my last-minute wide receiver replacement – Parris Campbell of the Colts – got injured the first time he touched the football and is now out indefinitely. He really looked like he was going to be an awesome play against an inept Vikings defense (the other receivers on that team ended up having great days, to further twist the knife into my heart), but it doesn’t even matter because if I’d stayed with my original second wide receiver choice Darius Slayton, he only ended up with 6.3 points, which wouldn’t have been enough to put me over the top, as the final score was 136.20 to 123.45.

The loss drops me to 1-1; there are eight teams in our league with the same record (one team is 2-0, and one team is 0-2). Thanks to my low number of total points, that means I’m in 8th place out of 10 teams. So, obviously, not great.

I suppose it could’ve been worse, given all the crazy injuries that took place over the weekend. Saquon Barkley – a keeper in our league, but a top 5 draft pick most everywhere else – is out for the year. Christian McCaffrey – another top 5 guy – is out for a few weeks. God help you if you’re reliant upon the 49ers, as most of their team is hurt! The Broncos lost their quarterback and top receiver, the Chargers’ quarterback is week-to-week, even the Seahawks’ run-down defense is feeling the loss in significant ways.

This is a week to just forget about and move on as quickly as possible. I have nothing positive to say, other than my opponent left Cam Newton’s 38 points on his bench, otherwise I would’ve lost by a significantly wider margin!

I have something of a dilemma on my hands this week. Not with my running backs, who are all great; between those two spots and my FLEX, I’m happy starting all of them every single week. While my receivers are far from ideal, I’m pretty much resigned to playing whoever’s got the best matchup (with ODB getting the lion’s share of the starts until he proves too mediocre to play on a regular basis). But, once again, I’m getting abysmal quarterback play, which is the worst-case scenario for a 2-QB league where points are skewed in their favor.

You strive in fantasy football to take all decision-making out of it, by acquiring players who are Must Starts every week they’re active. The more you introduce decision-making into it, the more you open yourself up to mistakes. You can have all the stats in front of you, making your decision based on the soundest of logic, taking emotion completely out of the equation, and it can still bite you in the ass. I frequently tout Daniel Jones and his four 40-point games last season as the primary reason why I decided to make him one of my keepers, but how many of those games did I have him in my starting lineup last year? I want to say once. One time I was able to take advantage. Every other time, I was scared of the matchup, or not ready to believe in his abilities.

Well, here I am, two weeks into 2020, and I’m scared of EVERY matchup, and I don’t believe in ANY of my quarterbacks! Carson Wentz was supposed to be my safe play, the guy who gets me a steady 20-something points every week. He won’t go off for 40+ very often, but he’s not supposed to be wretched either! Yet, I’m looking at 15-point and 10-point games in back to back weeks; that’s unacceptable. But, it’s not like Daniel Jones is much better. My best quarterback through two weeks is Mitch Trubisky (who I picked up as a free agent last week); he’s a guy NO ONE believes in, yet here we are.

My dilemma is, I allegedly have three good matchups this week. Daniel Jones is hosting a depleted 49ers defense; with all the injuries on that side of the ball – combined with Barkley’s injury for the Giants – I could see Jones throwing the ball with great success. Carson Wentz is projected to score me the most fantasy points this week, as his Eagles host the Bengals. But, Mitch Trubisky might have the juiciest matchup of all, playing in Atlanta against a Falcons defense that’s given up the most points to opposing quarterbacks in all of football. So, who do I sit?

To me, Trubisky is a Must Start this week. Atlanta has proven they can’t stop anyone this season, and Trubisky has shown he’s at least semi-competent. The Bengals allegedly have a terrible secondary, but from what I’ve seen, it’s their run defense that’s truly awful; I could see the Eagles getting an early lead and leaning on their running game the rest of the way in a comfortable, lowish-scoring blowout. With Jones now being The Guy on that Giants offense – combined with the fact that the Giants’ defense is one of the worst, so they’re always going to need to score lots of points to stay in games – I can’t bring myself to sit him. The potential is too great, whereas Wentz doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing this year.

So, with that being said, watch out for a HUGE day by Wentz this week! I’m sitting him, so of course he’s going to put up 40+ points! I fucking hate fantasy football.

All right, with my crybaby tantrum out of the way, let’s take a look at my roster moves for this week. I put in a waiver claim for Dallas rookie wide receiver CeeDee Lamb (dropping the injured Campbell, naturally). As a guy who currently owns way too many compact discs (and whose collection once numbered into the four-digits), that’s a name after my own heart. But, more than that, he looks like the real deal. The Cowboys obviously like him a lot, and it appears he’s taken over the #2 receiver job on that team ahead of Michael Gallup (who many thought would have a breakout year, but hasn’t done much of anything so far). Lamb is immediately going into my lineup as the Cowboys face off against the Seahawks, who have given up a TON of yards and touchdowns to receivers this year (in fact, according to Yahoo!, the Seahawks have given up the most points to fantasy receivers this year). He is, once again, taking the spot of Darius Slayton (who I really like, as again, he’s going up against that depleted 49ers secondary), but it’s a numbers game at this point (also, watch out for Odell Beckham Jr. to have far and away the worst day of the three receivers on my roster this week; just a hunch).

I also went ahead and picked back up the Indianapolis Colts’ defense. They bounced back in a big way against the Vikings last week (scoring 29 points for no one), showing that they’re not horrible like I’d once feared. While Washington has a pretty solid matchup against the Browns this week, Indy is going up against the Jets, who might have the worst offense in all of football. So, this will hopefully be a significant boost to my team this week (and ideally, for weeks to come). I still have Washington’s defense, though, as I plan to mix-and-match for a while; I ended up dropping running back Malcolm Brown, who is, indeed, in a 3-headed hydra at that position for the Rams (and who looked pretty mediocre last week). At this point, I can’t afford to hang onto two backup running backs for the same team, when I’ve already got three quality starters for other teams going every week.

I HOPE … that will be the end of my tinkering. Here is my lineup:

Jones (QB) vs. SF
Trubisky (QB) @ ATL
Beckham (WR) vs. WAS
Lamb (WR) @ SEA
Elliott (RB) @ SEA
Jacobs (RB) @ NE
Fant (TE) vs. TB
Edwards-Helaire @ BAL
Butker (K) @ BAL
Indianapolis (DEF) vs. NYJ

A.J. Brown, receiver for the Titans, looks like he’s going to miss a second consecutive week, which is a shame, because they’re going up against an inept secondary in the Vikings. Corey Davis might be a decent pickup for someone who is streaming receivers, but obviously you want Jonnu Smith, the Titans’ tight end (he should have a monster day; if you haven’t picked him up in your league, now is the time, because he’s elite). I’ve pretty much talked about the rest of my bench and why they’re not playing this week, other than Cam Akers, who has a rib injury and is also still playing behind the other two running backs on that Rams team. He’s still my little stash, though! I’m hoping for a late-season run of good fortune out of him!

This week, Nobody Beats The Wiz is facing off against Korky Butchek. On paper, his team doesn’t seem that strong, but I’m really one to talk. So, without further ado, here is his projected lineup:

Jared Goff (QB) @ BUF
Joe Burrow (QB) @ PHI
DeAndre Hopkins (WR) vs. DET
JuJu Smith-Schuster (WR) vs. HOU
David Montgomery (RB) @ ATL
James Robinson (RB) vs. MIA
Jonnu Smith (TE) @ MIN
D.J. Moore (WR) @ LAC
Matt Prater (K) @ ARI
Kansas City (DEF) @ BAL

He also has Hayden Hurst as his other tight end, but Jonnu was one of Korky Butchek’s waiver claims this week, and I have to believe that’s who he’ll be going with. Otherwise, his team is pretty banged up. Raheem Mostert went down last week; he’s out. Drew Lock went down last week; he’s out. LeVeon Bell went down in week 1; he’s on IR. As for his starters, his quarterbacks are playing some tough defenses on the road. His receivers should all clean house, and his running backs should be fine. If I were him, I’d worry about that Kansas City defense going up against Baltimore; let’s just say I’m glad I picked up Indianapolis this morning, because I’d hate to have to go up against someone with them in their lineup!

I’m a soft favorite so far, but there’s still time for him to pick up another defense to even that out. I’m sure my tinkering (with quarterbacks) and lack of tinkering (with ODB) will kill me, and you’ll be talking to someone who’s 1-2 and spiraling out of control this time next week.

The Mariners Are Starting To Fade With That Weekend Series In San Diego

Posted on September 22, 2020 by dunderhead99

Let’s just pretend last night’s game against the Astros didn’t happen. Football season being what it is, it necessitates my writing about the Seahawks most Monday mornings. And I’ll be damned if I’m posting twice on the same day when I don’t have to!

So, imagine it’s yesterday morning when I’m writing this. The M’s are 23-30 and coming off of a series defeat to the Padres. The fact that we won once – and took the finale to extra innings – is impressive-enough, but with the Cheating Astros winning 2/3 over the weekend, they took an insurmountable 4-game lead heading into the Seattle series this week.

Friday’s 6-1 defeat was a bust any way you slice it. Yusei Kikuchi gave up 5 runs in 4 innings; his season hasn’t been ideal by any stretch of the imagination. In spite of decent bullpen work the rest of the way, the offense couldn’t generate more than three hits (one of them a solo homer by Evan White).

That made Saturday’s 4-1 victory all the more exciting, though. Legitimate cause for celebration – Justus Sheffield – tossed another gem, going 6 innings, giving up 1 run. He has been a true revelation this season! Kyle Lewis hit a solo homer (his 11th on the season) and two guys we brought in from the Padres in that Austin Nola deal – Ty France and Luis Torrens – combined for 4 hits and 3 RBI in this one. Nola, meanwhile, has shockingly been ice cold since going to San Diego, with only 10 hits in 49 at bats, for a slash line of .204/.316/.388, which has to be a disappointment for both him and his new team. Maybe the pressure is too much? Maybe it’s just a flukey cold streak. We’ll see. Anyway, this one got hairy in the ninth inning, with Yoshihisa Hirano loading the bases before getting out unscathed.

The finale on Sunday was pretty bonkers, with both starters getting into the fifth inning without giving up any hits. The M’s actually managed to draw first blood in the bottom of the fifth with a single and a double to take a 1-0 lead. Justin Dunn didn’t give up a hit until he got two outs into the sixth inning, before a walk, a double, and 3-run homer ended his outing. The Mariners tied it in the eighth on a Dylan Moore 2-run bomb, which eventually got us into extras. With the dumb Start A Runner On Second Base rule in effect, the Padres scored in the top of the tenth and the Mariners did the same to make it 4-4 heading into the 11th. The Padres did significant damage this time around, scoring three runs to ultimately take the game, 7-4.

Again, heading into Monday, the Mariners and their 23-30 record were good for tenth in the draft order next year. Still well within shouting distance of a much better pick! How will we do against the Astros? I’m predicting three more defeats!

(Would you look at that?! After last night’s game, I’m already wrong in my prediction!)

Every Time The Seahawks Play The Patriots, It’s The Best Game Of The Year; Last Night Was No Exception

Posted on September 21, 2020 by dunderhead99

That game was so good, I don’t even know where to start, so let’s just run through everything in order of appearance, because there’s too much to discuss to have any other format for this post.

Is Greg Olsen The Most Washed-Up 35 Year Old Tight End Inexplicably Earning $7 million On A Team With No Pass Rush?

Boy did he have a bad game in this one. How do you feel about 0 catches on 1 target? Furthermore, how do you feel about that lone target coming on the first drive of the game, being a perfect throw that bounced off of his hands and into the open arms of Devin McCourty for a Pick-Six? I kept waiting for Olsen’s redemption moment that, unfortunately, never came (unless it was some impactful block that I missed because who pays attention to THAT stuff?). I get the feeling that we’re destined for a super-mediocre season out of Olsen where the saving grace is that he catches 7 touchdowns, or one for every million dollars he’s earning. Nope, couldn’t have put that money to better use on the defensive line; NO SIR!

Seahawks Rushing Attack Quietly Good

It’s hard to say if Russell Wilson “cooked” in this one; the numbers were split pretty evenly: 28 passing attempts, 30 rushes (to be fair, those five Wilson runs were scrambles that would’ve been passing attempts had things looked differently on those plays). I mean, if you want to point to the ideal Pete Carroll type of offensive game, you’re looking at it. He doesn’t care where the touchdowns come from (all five were Wilson throws, which is pretty fancy cooking any way you sauté it), he just wants the running backs at least AS involved in moving the football as the quarterback. As a team, the Seahawks ran for 154 yards (a robust 5.1 yards per carry), with Carson leading the way (as it should be), 17 for 72. Don’t discount the effectiveness of Wilson’s 5 carries for 39 yards; he’s not just saving these attempts for the fourth quarter like in seasons past. He’s busting them out early enough to force defenses to account for him on potential zone-read plays later on (Travis Homer was the recipient of a few quality runs in this mold, ending up with 3 carries for 21 yards). Since the Patriots’ run defense isn’t that great, it was nevertheless good to see that the offense didn’t forcefeed us an All Wilson All The Time type of game.

Tyler Lockett Is There Whenever You Need Him

On any other team, or if Lockett were like a traditional wide receiver diva, he would command 15 targets per game and be among the league leaders in catches, yards, and touchdowns. He’s THAT good! He’s ALWAYS open, even when he’s got guys draped all over him! In this one, he ended up with a sensible 7 catches (on 8 targets) for 67 yards and a touchdown (in the drive immediately following the Pick Six, to tie the game at 7-7), but it seemed like all of his catches were big (either to convert a first down, or to get us out of a huge hole after a holding penalty or a sack or something). One of the ways the Seahawks have been very effective so far this year has been in how the offense has dug itself out of holes. Even though holding penalties are down leaguewide, the Seahawks are still right up there among the worst offenders as an offensive line. But, for the most part (not every time, obviously; this offense isn’t perfect in spite of Russell Wilson signing a pact with the devil) it’s not an automatic punt whenever we find ourselves in 1st & 20, or 2nd & 15. Tyler Lockett has a lot to do with this. Most teams would take more advantage and throw it to him too much; but Wilson knows it’s best to save those moments for when they matter most, because Lockett will always be there to pull this team out of the fire.

Quandre Diggs (tsk tsk tsk)

Yesterday was as bad a day across the NFL when it comes to injuries that I’ve ever seen. Not just the number of guys who went down, but the number of high-impact players who were out for the rest of their respective games, who will end up missing a number of weeks, and/or who will be out for the remainder of the season! I’ll discuss more of that in my fantasy column later in the week, but it was rough. As it turns out, you can’t go from 0 to 60 at the drop of a hat – with no pre-season ramp-up – and not expect to see this as a reality! You may ask, “Why didn’t we see all of this in the first week?” Well, my thoughts are that everyone got beat up pretty good, and since no one was in real game shape, everyone needed more than the 6-7 days they were given for their bodies to recover. Since everyone was heading into yesterday without sufficient recovery time, all their bodies were more susceptible to the types of injuries we were seeing. You can dismiss the pre-season all you want, but going from playing a quarter, to a half, to into the third quarter, and then scaling it back to almost-nothing in the fourth game sure seems to be a better way to ramp up everyone’s bodies for the pounding they take on a weekly basis than what we had this season.

Anyway, what does that have to do with Quandre Diggs? On the Patriots’ first offensive drive of the game, he was ejected for a helmet-to-helmet hit on a defenseless receiver (on a 4th down play, that ultimately put New England in a position to go up 14-7). No one was injured on the play, though it was a good call by the league. Seahawks fans were complaining on Twitter, asking what Diggs was supposed to do with it being such a bang-bang play; well, he’s not supposed to lazily ram into a guy while fully erect, with his helmet smashing into the other guy’s helmet! If Diggs was using proper technique, he would’ve bent his body at the waist, gotten his head out of the way, and led with one of his shoulders … you know, like we’ve been preaching around here for the better part of the last decade! This is simple, people; Diggs had plenty of time to put his body into proper position. He was just lazy on that play, didn’t feel like bending down, and he was properly ejected as a result.

How this gets back to injuries is that, of course, Marquise Blair – our Big Nickel defensive back extraordinaire last week – went in to replace Diggs at safety after that (flip-flopping with Lano Hill whenever we were in a Nickel Defense), and also of course, ended up with a serious knee injury. It will either cost him a few weeks or the rest of the season, which is just a crusher. I still have faith in this secondary to lead the way; we have lots of guys behind Blair who will step up and be good. But, Blair sure looked like he was turning into something really special. It’s only his second season in the league, so there’s time for him to bounce back and become great. But, it’s a shame when someone this early in his development has a setback this potentially-significant.

Newsflash: Cam Newton Is A Great Rusher

His numbers weren’t quite as sparkling as his 15 rushes for 75 yards against the Dolphins last week, but 11 rushes for 47 yards is nothing to sneeze at. He tacked on two goalline touchdowns in that total and looked ALMOST unstoppable (foreshadowing, you know you want it). I was really impressed with the variety of different rushes the Pats used at the goalline; they will be tough to defend down there. Don’t let them get inside of the 10 yard line if you have hopes of holding them to field goals! It won’t work out most of the time.

Great Punting Tho

With the Seahawks down 14-7 and driving, I was legitimately starting to worry about our ability to stop New England’s offense. Had we fallen too far behind, it would’ve been super tough to come back with Cam pulling plays out of his ass all night. That’s why I was so discouraged we took a minor sack on third down at the New England 42 yard line. 4th & 5 isn’t all that different from the fourth down we converted last week (with the bomb to D.K.). The way we were otherwise moving the ball at will, that seemed like a pretty easy one to convert. I’m not saying the ends justify the means, but we did win the game, so I won’t complain too much. But, had we lost, this is a moment I would’ve pointed to as one of the reasons why.

Nevertheless, we had a GREAT game from Michael Dickson! No one cares about punting, of course, but he showed why he was an All Pro as a rookie two years ago. He averaged an even 50 yards per punt (with a long of 63), and all four of them ended up inside the 20 yard line (including one that died inside the two yard line all by itself, like he’d chipped it with a pitching wedge or something). That is an impact that doesn’t show up directly on the scoreboard, but it nevertheless affects the game in countless hidden ways.

Seahawks Run Defense Also Quietly Good

I know I was up there praising Cam Newton a minute ago, but this is a true statement! The Patriots as a team ran the ball 25 times for 67 yards (2.7 yards per), and the non-Cam runners were a terrible 14 carries for 20 yards (1.4 yards per). That was legitimately shocking to me. I thought for sure the Pats would Ground & Pound it up our bums, but clearly the emphasis for this defense was to stop the run at all costs (which, as it turned out, meant giving up a lot of passing yardage, as we’ll get to later).

D.K. Is Living In The Future, So The Present Is His Past

His presence is a present, kiss my ass! Stephon Gilmore was the Defensive Player of the Year in 2019. I don’t know if he’s the best cornerback in football, but he’s up there. There were rumblings coming into this one that he would lock onto D.K. Metcalf and shut him down (while the rest of the Pats’ defense did whatever it could to stop everyone else). I never expected Russell Wilson to back down and avoid Metcalf entirely, but it wouldn’t have shocked me if we saw a quiet game out of him nevertheless.

Instead, his game was so loud it damn near made up for there being no fans in attendance!

He had four catches for a team-high 92 yards, including a 54-yard bomb that he caught over Gilmore (who was all over him, and indeed had an arm in Metcalf’s bread basket as he caught it), who was swatted away like a gnat en route to the endzone. It was incredible! Gilmore was indeed on Metcalf most of the game, which ultimately led to a near-brawl on the Seahawks sideline as Metcalf manhandled Gilmore on a block, who took offense to being dismissed accordingly. I didn’t see much between the two after that; Gilmore sat out for a play, and I think it was more of a Defend-Metcalf-By-Committee situation after that. Get used to reading about that, because every week Metcalf is inching closer to being the best in the game.

Why Not Some Words On The Kicking Game?

That D.K. touchdown tied it at 14-14, but New England marched right down the field again. Our defense stopped them at the Seattle 33 yard line, which resulted in the Pats missing a 51-yard field goal. In a game they lost by five points – which (spoiler alert!) ended with them at the goalline – that’s a pretty significant miss.

As I believe there was last year, there’s an early-season epidemic in the kicking game leaguewide. I don’t have the numbers, but they’re out there; it’s being discussed by people with more patience than me. Anyway, Jason Myers was a perfect 5/5 on extra points in this one, and considering how those are no longer automatic, it’s nice to see our guy isn’t making our lives miserable.

A Quiet End Of Half

After all that had happened to this point, it was crazy the Seahawks were in a position to take the lead heading into halftime. Following the missed field goal, we had excellent field position. But, we couldn’t get out of our own way in spite of numerous opportunities. Greg Olsen had a false start to add to his negative ledger. Wilson threw an insane forward pass when he was a good five yards beyond the line of scrimmage (and penalized accordingly). Then, we somehow got bailed out on 3rd & 19 with a defensive holding penalty. With a first down at midfield, hopes were restored, but another penalty and a sack pretty much torpedoed that drive; the only good thing we did was chew up all the clock (and punt it inside the two yard line), so the Pats had no chance to do anything.

Jamal Adams Showed Up!

I read somewhere that all of Adams’ stats happened in the second half of this game. 10 tackles (one for loss), a sack, and two hits on the quarterback. It wasn’t all DPOY roses and sunshine, though, as he gave up a number of big gains through the air (presumably playing more free safety than we would’ve liked, with Diggs ejected). His sack was huge, as he dove at Cam’s ankles to trip him up; if he’d missed, Cam definitely would’ve converted it for a first down. There were, however, at least a couple times where he had Cam dead to rights in the backfield, but Cam eluded him, which was frustrating as all get-out. Mixed bag sort of day, but this team doesn’t win this game without Jamal Adams.

More David Moore!

David Moore had a pretty underwhelming 2019, which had a lot of fans down on his prospects going forward. He seemed like Just A Guy, made more infuriating by how often Wilson tried to force it to him last year. Well, in this game, Moore showed why this team is so high on him! He ended up with 3 catches for 48 yards, but one of them went for an insane touchdown (that had a less-than 7% probability of being completed, per some weird stat I don’t understand) at the front-left corner of the endzone, to give the Seahawks a 21-17 lead early in the second half. How he managed to keep both feet in bounds while coming down with the football, I have no idea, but it was truly miraculous!

Quinton Dunbar, Hello!

Through the first half of this game, you would’ve been justified in wondering whether or not Dunbar is actually a good football player. As it stands, we might have to question whether or not he’s a good fit for this team, but I’m going to give it a few more weeks before I make any definitive statements. Anyway, he very nearly had a pick-six of his own earlier in this one, before finally succeeding in jumping an out route and picking off Cam Newton following the David Moore touchdown. It was a welcome sight! It’s been a few years since the Seahawks have had a cornerback who’s capable of generating interceptions; now, if only Dunbar can stop getting faked out on comebackers.

A Freddie Swain Sighting In The Wild

If you never expected rookie wide receiver Freddie Swain to make any sort of impact this year, don’t worry, I was right there with you! I didn’t even think he’d make the team! If anything, I thought this was a year for John Ursua to assert himself, but he seems to be on his way out of the organization (currently on the Practice Squad). Swain, however, might be a legitimate baller. He only had 1 reception for 21 yards, but he made the most of it, catching a crosser and taking it to the house for a 28-17 lead late in the third. He looked fast and crisp in his route running, everything we need out of a #4 receiver right now!

Let Cam Cook!

Cam Newton was great all game, but he really came alive in the fourth quarter. He finished with 397 yards passing and 1 TD (to go along with his rushing yards and two rushing TDs). So, taken with Atlanta’s crazy passing day last week, the Seahawks’ secondary has given up approximately 900,000 passing yards in two games, which is, you know …

It’s hard to blame the secondary too much, because he was really zipping those balls into some tight windows! For the most part, our defensive backs were in good spots to make plays, but Cam was pretty perfect.

Of course, he had all damn day to throw the ball! Oh my God, was the pass rush ever atrocious in this one! When we blitzed, it was either picked up, or Cam was able to side-step a guy and run for a first down; when we rushed four, they did nothing; when we rushed three, Cam was able to give his nails a manicure, read a magazine, wait for his hair to dry, and gab with the gals about all sorts of juicy gossip while his receivers took their sweet time getting open. It was unbelievable! I’ve never in my life seen a Seahawks pass rush this inept; it’s incredibly infuriating!

Anyway, New England took almost no time at all to make it 28-23; the only thing our defense did right on that drive was stop the 2-point conversion. The touchdown itself, though, was mighty nifty. See, every other time the Patriots got down close to the goalline, Cam lined up in shotgun, took the snap, held the ball for a second or two until a lane opened up, and ran right through it for a score. Well, this time, he did the same thing, but faked a run and threw to some fullback I’d never heard of for the score. If that continues to happen, New England will be truly unstoppable down around the endzone.

More Wilson Magic

The teams improbably traded punts on the subsequent two possessions – more due to questionable play-calling for both teams than anything the defenses managed to do – but with nine minutes left in the game, you knew the Seahawks needed to add more points. Thankfully, we have Russell Wilson (and you don’t).

The Seahawks methodically marched down the field, and on 2nd & 5 from the New England 18, he dropped a beautiful pass into Chris Carson’s arms for a 35-23 lead, with four and a half minutes to go that felt pretty insurmountable.

Superman

But, again, Cam Newton is Superman. In just over two minutes, he took New England 75 yards and, once again, plunged over the goalline to make the game 35-30. There were thoughts that the Pats might onside kick it after that; given what the Seahawks’ offense was able to do all night, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But, they had all of their time outs, so it made sense to kick it deep.

There was some iffy decisionmaking on the ensuing Seahawks possession. For starters, Chris Carson took a handoff and looked like he had a bead on a 10-yard gain. But, his momentum was about to take him out of bounds and he slid instead, to keep the clock moving. The only problem with that was: you always take the first down. Besides that, we snapped it with 2:09 left in the game; the two-minute warning was coming regardless. While I like the thought, it was just a little misguided and almost cost us.

On 2nd & 4, we handed off to Carson again, who tried to find a hole, but could only muster three yards. I didn’t LOVE the play call there; I would’ve preferred to give Wilson two cracks at throwing for a first down. But, I get it. You force New England to use a time out there, and you make it 3rd & 1, which SHOULD be easily converted every time.

The fanbase might’ve stormed CenturyLink Field and revolted had we handed off to Carson there and he was stuffed, so I was happy to see Wilson with the ball in his hands. I was MORTIFIED, however, to see Wilson chuck it deep, overthrowing Lockett by a few yards (it looked like he was moderately interfered with, but no ref worth his salt was ever going to flag that play). I don’t know what Wilson was thinking, because he had Carson wide open on a check down; he also could’ve simply run it a couple yards and kept the clock moving. Instead, it saved the Pats a time out and probably set-back the Let Russ Cook movement; any time he fails, I keep thinking the coaching staff is going to revert, so let’s not fail again for a while!

Kryptonite

New England started on their own 19 yard line after the Seahawks punt, with just under two minutes in the game and two time outs remaining. In less than a minute, the Pats were on Seattle’s side of the 50. We were able to keep most plays in front of us, and tackled guys in bounds to keep the clock moving. But, with 36 seconds remaining, Cam hit Julian Edelman for 18 yards down to the Seattle 13.

Bafflingly, New England didn’t use its last time out, so the clock ticked down to 12 seconds following an incompletion. Cam then hit a pass down to the 1 yard line with three seconds remaining, forcing New England to use their final time out. They had one play to win it! Everyone on the planet knew it was going to be a Cam Newton run; their goalline offense had been perfect to that point in the game (and probably the season, though I didn’t watch their game against Miami last week).

True to form, Cam took the ball and looked for a hole to his left. But, L.J. Collier had the play of the game, blowing it up and getting to Cam’s legs. Between him and Lano Hill on the outside, undercutting the blocking running back to force Cam inside, they really saved the day, as Cam took a 1-yard loss on the play. Game over, Seahawks win 35-30.

That’s, not for nothing, the third time in the last three matchups against the Patriots that the game has come down to a final goalline stand (with the defense prevailing every time, including Super Bowl XLIX). These games are always so ridiculously fun. No one, really, in all of football (except maybe Andy Reid) has ever been able to play chess with Bill Belichick like Pete Carroll. They are so different in their coaching styles, but so damn similar in their preparation and ability to match up with one another during games. We were never going to have Belichick as our head coach; he doesn’t strike me as a West Coast type of guy. But, it’s nice to have the next-best thing. Pete Carroll often gets overlooked around these parts – mostly by fans who grow weary of watching a conservative offense – but it’s really been an honor to have a coach like him, who sets the tone for the entire organization. There’s a reason why this team has been so good for the last decade, and while Russell Wilson deserves a lot of credit, Pete Carroll is ultimately why we’ve had so much fun watching this team over the years.

The Mariners Have Been Smoked Out Of Seattle; Things Are Clearly Going Great Right Now

Posted on September 18, 2020 by dunderhead99

We got that doubleheader in against the A’s on Monday – in far-less than ideal conditions, smokewise – but with the air quality failing to improve, MLB made the probably-smart decision to move the 2-game series against the Giants to San Francisco, where I guess things have improved dramatically since the last time we played them (on September 9th) and the sky made it look like they were on Mars. That pushed things back to where our Tuesday/Wednesday do-si-do this week became a Wednesday/Thursday whathaveyou, which necessitated a flip-flopping of my Seahawks preview post and this Mariners post-series post, so what I’m REALLY getting at is this whole thing is a huge inconvenience to me above everyone else!

I am, of course, kidding. The smoke in the Pacific Northwest continues to be a huge dumpster fire to the point that even our 3-game home series against the Padres had to be moved to San Diego this weekend. Between these five games, and the additional make-up game against the A’s that’s already been tacked onto our season-ending series in Oakland, that’s at least six home games the Mariners will have had to play on the road this year. So, on top of being a rebuilding team that has improbably found itself on the fringe of playoff contention in spite of trades shedding the roster of a couple of our best guys, we’re saddled with a 24/36 home/road split. If we figure out some way to make the post-season with all of this going against us, then truly there is a higher power who is improbably a Mariners fan (to whom I would like to ask: WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN THE LAST 20 YEARS?!).

Anyhoozle, the Mariners were just beaten two more times by the Giants, so I’m pretty glad to be the fuck away from THAT team for a while.

Wednesday’s 9-3 defeat was pretty demoralizing. Ljay Newsome – fresh off of a shortened start when he was hit in the pitching hand by a line drive – was clearly rusty, giving up 5 runs in 3 innings. Erik Swanson was recently called back up – fresh off of either being demoted for sucking, or maybe an injury, I forget/don’t care – and clearly hasn’t learned how to pitch since he was with the Mariners last, giving up 3 more runs (2 earned) in 1/3 of an inning. There was some okay bullpen work beyond that, but the damage was done. Kyle Lewis had a couple hits in this one, but he’s been pretty cold of late, with his batting average dipping below .300. I hope his Rookie of the Year chances aren’t in jeopardy!

Thursday’s 6-4 defeat was demoralizing in a completely different way. After five innings, the Mariners held a 4-1 lead (scoring all of our runs in the second, as we chased the Giants’ starter from the game), but proceeded to slowly, but surely, give it all away. Nick Margevicius was spectacular through five, but he couldn’t get a single out in the sixth inning, and two more runs were allowed in the process. Things were still in okay shape, with Kendall Graveman coming in for the seventh inning. But, he just didn’t have it in this one, giving up three more runs while getting only two outs. It’s been a while since we’ve had a prolonged slump from our bullpen, but we appear to be in the throes of one right now, and it’s not much fun.

Our only chance to make the playoffs seems to be as the A.L. West’s second place team, as the Wild Card looks to be out of reach. The Cheating Astros were working with us on that goal by losing a bunch of games, but they have the easiest remaining schedule in all of baseball the rest of the way, while I believe the Mariners have one of the hardest. We currently sit three games behind Houston, which is really four games, because they own the tiebreaker in the head-to-head matchup already.

It’s not looking likely that we break the streak, is my point. As I mentioned, we have three more games down in San Diego over the weekend. If we can somehow get through that without losing any more ground on the Astros, then we have a three-game set against Houston that we SHOULD be able to play in Seattle next week! If we hold serve in San Diego, and sweep the Astros next week, that would put us in a dead heat; from there we’d have four games down in Oakland to try to make up one game’s worth of ground against Houston to overtake them.

I apologize if you wasted your time reading the previous paragraph, because none of that is EVER going to happen. My hunch is: we’ll continue to spiral this weekend, and be officially eliminated at home in Seattle next week, making our final series in Oakland totally meaningless.

Which brings us back to draft positioning! We’re 22-28 right now. That puts us squarely in the 10th spot in the draft next year. I don’t want to alarm you, but given our difficult schedule, we have a VERY legitimate opportunity to leapfrog anywhere from 4 to 8 teams. To get to the #2 overall draft position, we’re only four games separated from the Texas Rangers! Obviously, they’re terrible, but you never know!

The floor is the limit, everyone!

How High Can These Seahawks Fly?

Posted on September 17, 2020 by dunderhead99

The big questions heading into week two are: was Week 1 an aberration, or a sign of things to come? And, if it’s a sign of things to come, how good can this Seahawks team really be?

All you can really do – heading into a new season – is review any roster changes and see how they might fit with what you’ve seen from that team in the past. Generally, you would compare this team to what it was in 2019, but we have ten years’ worth of Seahawks teams to look at with respect to Pete Carroll, eight of those years with Russell Wilson. Knowing what we know, having seen what we’ve seen, it was sensible to expect more of the same: a balanced offense, relying on the defense to keep it close, and hope our All Pro quarterback can pull it out in the fourth quarter. For a team that’s only missed the playoffs twice under Pete Carroll – and only once with Russell Wilson at quarterback – clearly “If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It” comes into account.

That’s why last week was such a shock – a welcome shock, don’t get me wrong – because it was SO unexpected. Part of me saw them throwing on that first drive and thought, “Well, they’re just doing this to shut the fans up; they’ll get back to a run-heavy approach on the next drive.” But, the passes kept coming, and coming, and coming, and before we knew what hit us, the Seahawks turned into the 2019 Chiefs!

You’ll recall that’s a team that won the Super Bowl. So, in answer to the second big question listed at the top: that’s how good this team can be. With Russell Wilson playing out of his mind, with this offense putting up that many points every week, it doesn’t really matter what the defense does; as long as it’s not dead-last in all of football, this team will win 12+ games, the NFC West, and could very well advance to the Super Bowl if things go right in the playoffs.

BUT, remember that caveat: if Week 1 was a sign of things to come, and not just a one-time treat.

I’m going to stick with my cautiously-optimistic stance for a bit here (instead of full-blown elation), for two reasons. For starters, Pete Carroll was already quoted this week complaining about how few carries the running backs had against Atlanta. 16 carries split between the three of them. Chris Carson is still one of the best running backs in football – as evidenced by his two receiving touchdowns – but he only had six carries! That’s not good enough. In a game we won by double-digits, it’s weird that we didn’t have more of a running game presence in the fourth quarter. So, I would expect Carroll will get his way as early as this week in pounding the rock more than we did last week.

The other cause for concern is our opponent: the New England Patriots. Their defense is crafted much like ours, in that their biggest strength is in the secondary. While I don’t expect the Seahawks to completely revert back to their 2019 form, it would make sense to neutralize things a little bit by hitting the Pats where they’re weakest: defending the run.

That isn’t to say the Pats are bad at defending the run; I can’t say with any certainty one way or the other. Against the Dolphins last week, they held them to 87 yards and a 3.2 yards per carry average; however, the Dolphins’ top two rushers combined for 62 of those yards on 14 carries, for a 4.4 yard average. The Dolphins were playing from behind for most of the game, so they didn’t have the luxury of working that part of their offense in more.

It’ll be REALLY interesting to see what how the Patriots gameplan the Seahawks’ offense. Bill Belichick famously creates a new scheme every week, based on his opponent, to take away whatever it is they do best. Now, he’s a smart man, and he surely knows Russell Wilson is what this team does best, so I don’t expect him to neglect defending the pass in any way. But, will he see this Seahawks team through the lens of what happened last week, or the previous ten years?

The Seahawks offense has been built around two concepts: running the ball and completing deep passes. Last week, the Seahawks completed exactly one deep pass (the 4th down touchdown to D.K. Metcalf), and as I mentioned, hardly ran the ball at all. Most of these were short-to-intermediate routes, which is completely counter to everything we’ve ever done before. Pete Carroll prides himself on his offenses taking care of the football. Running, and throwing deep balls to guys in one-on-one situations, are the safest things you can do. As long as your running back isn’t a fumbler, with a guy like Wilson chucking it, you feel like you have a minimal risk of turning it over on a bomb (either your guy gets it, or it’s incomplete; even in the rare instances where it’s picked, that’s still sort of like a punt in the field position game). The odds of turning it over increase when you throw it a lot, and throw it in those short-to-intermediate routes (where there are lots of different defenders running around, some in areas you wouldn’t expect them to be).

Ultimately, I don’t think the Seahawks are going to totally revert to what they’ve always done, but I do think it will be difficult to run that same gameplan out there for a second week in a row and have the same level of success. I think the running game will have to be incorporated more, for the simple reason that I don’t think the Patriots’ coverage will be as soft as the Falcons’ coverage was last week. If their corners start bullying our receivers at the line of scrimmage, or if the Pats play significantly more zone – while their D-Line does everything it can to keep Wilson in the pocket – I think that’ll open us up to switch to running plays at the line of scrimmage. It won’t be the coaching staff asserting their dominance, it’ll be Wilson doing the smart thing and checking to what the defense is giving us.

It has never made sense to continually pound the running back into 8-man boxes. I think what we saw against the Falcons had to do with exactly that: giving our quarterback the freedom to make smart decisions on the fly.

I actually like the Seahawks in this one. It’s a night game, for one, and you know how we always show up for those. While the home-field advantage won’t be there – with no fans in the stands – I would argue that hasn’t been as effective in recent years, as most teams have adapted to playing on a silent count. I just think we’re better than them at this point.

Now, that isn’t to say I believe we’ll blow out the Pats (though, I’m not throwing that concept out of bed either). I kind of see this as a normal Seattle/Carolina matchup, only with a better coaching staff. Cam Newton is the star of that offense (an offense that is pretty bereft of talent, even by Cam Newton standards); he’ll be the man we need to beat. The Patriots have built an offense that features his skillset (meaning: lots of designed quarterback runs) that might end up being even better than some of those elite offenses he ran with the Panthers (having him on a one-year deal makes this more palatable, as if you run him into the ground or get him injured, it’s no long-term risk to your franchise). With Julian Edelman being the only guy that scares you from that receiving corps, it’s never been more The Cam Newton Show than it will be this year. And, for as savvy as Edelman is, I think our cornerbacks won’t have trouble keeping up with him, for the most part.

It’s almost like the Seahawks traded for Jamal Adams with this game in mind in particular. As we all saw, Adams was all over the place last week, frequently up at the line of scrimmage pre-snap, and also frequently diving into the backfield to chase after the quarterback or running back. He was often successful, and more importantly, he punished anyone that he ended up hitting. My biggest concern in this game isn’t the pass rush; it’s the run defense. The Falcons, when they did run the ball, were pretty successful, including a number of chunk runs through considerable holes created by their otherwise so-so offensive line. It’s been YEARS since the Patriots have had an alpha dog at running back; they usually have three or four guys they like to work in there throughout every game. So, it doesn’t really matter who they hand it to, if their O-Line is able to do to our run defense what the Falcons were able to do, they’re going to have an easy time moving the ball down the field (made even easier by the fact that Cam Newton, when healthy, is in the top two among rushing quarterbacks with Lamar Jackson).

That’s where Jamal Adams comes in. Cam is an elite runner; we need an elite defender to shadow him. Bobby Wagner has traditionally been that man for us, and he’ll certainly play a significant role in following Cam around and keeping him in check. But, as we saw last year, Bobby can’t do everything by himself. Having Adams right there with him should be the difference-maker in keeping this Patriots offense from blowing up.

I’ll also be very interested in seeing what Bruce Irvin and L.J. Collier can do in setting the edge on either side of the line. Keeping Cam contained as a scrambler is just as important as stopping him on those designed runs. Irvin didn’t seem to do a whole lot last week, but as the game went on I thought he did a good job of setting that edge (of course, where is the statue that is Matt Ryan going to run to?); he’s going to be vital in this one, and I think he has what it takes to step up in a big way.

I’m a little over 50% convinced the Seahawks win in a close game. I also think there’s a reasonable chance we prevail by double-digits again (in which case, go ahead and lump us in with the Ravens and Chiefs as the best teams in football, because it’ll be Go Time, my friends!). The only way we lose is the same way most elite offenses like ours end up losing: by keeping them on the sidelines. If the Patriots convert an insanely-high percentage of 3rd/4th downs and dominate Time of Possession, they could steal a close one late in the game. There’s an infinitesimal chance the Pats blow us out, so small as to not even be worth thinking about.

I am SOOOOOO excited for this game! Even more than I was last week, and that had all the juice of being the first game of football I’ve seen since the Super Bowl (not counting the Thursday Night game, of course). I think we’re all holding our breath and crossing our fingers and rubbing our lucky rabbit’s feet that this offense will come out slinging it just like we did last week (and, not only that, but producing a similar type of production from a points perspective). All of our collective worst nightmare is if we continue to throw the ball and it fails; we endure multiple 3 & Outs and turnovers in the process. Because then, you seriously have to wonder about the coaching staff abandoning it and going back to what worked before.

Our enjoyment of football is on the line, people! On the biggest stage, against history’s best-ever football coach, and the team that has far-and-away won the most football games over the last two decades! If we succeed here, the rest of 2020 shapes up as one of the most fun football seasons we’ve ever seen. If we fail, the cost will be enormous.

I know I sound like those lying politicians who say this election is the most important in history (how can they ALL be the most important?), but I’ve never been so on edge for a Week 2 football game in my life. I’m 1-0 in both of my fantasy football leagues, yet all I can think about is the actual football team I follow? You KNOW this is a big one!

Nobody Wants To Hear About My Fantasy Team 2020: Crisis Averted!

Posted on September 16, 2020 by dunderhead99

Pre-Season Week 1 HERE
Pre-Season Week 2 HERE
Fantasy Draft HERE

Yahoo! had me projected to lose heading into the week, and continued to have me projected to lose after the Thursday night game when CEH had his outstanding nearly 20-point debut. It was, in fact, looking pretty grim on into the afternoon games, when Crazy N8’s Prostates already had a 35-point game out of one of his quarterbacks with Dak Prescott still yet to play. Even though I had three players going on Monday Night, as we headed into that Cowboys/Rams game on Sunday Night, I was ready to face my defeat like a man and get to work on turning things around in Week 2.

Among my disappointments, I have to start with Odell Beckham Jr. I didn’t want to draft him in the first round, for obvious reasons, but I also didn’t want to draft him AT ALL, except he managed to fall to me in the second round and I felt I had no choice. The upside is too great with this guy, but the downside is clear: 3 receptions for 22 yards, for a total of 5.2 points. There are certain teams you JUST don’t want to fuck with, because they’re poorly coached and their overall rosters are mediocre-to-terrible. The Jets are annually one of these teams. The Washington Football Team usually finds its way onto this list. You can usually make cases for the Jaguars and Bengals as well. But, at the very top of my Fantasy Football Shit List, we have the Cleveland Browns (never a more apt team for someone of ODB’s proclivities to play for). All of their guys were off of my draft board. Even Nick Chubb – who is one of the most talented running backs in football – couldn’t be trusted because, as we saw on Sunday, he’s in a pretty strict time-share with Kareem Hunt (another high-level running back they sought to add for no apparent reason other than to distress fantasy football owners).

Anyway, the Browns gave ODB a shit-ton of money (~~no pun intended~~ no, pun intended) after he came over from the Giants. And, let’s just say I don’t believe he has the heart of a champion. I think he got his millions of dollars and his GAF-level is at an all-time low. It doesn’t help that the franchise is poorly run, his quarterback is overrated, and their offensive scheme is total balls. But, the real tragedy is now I’m stuck with a guy who’s too good to bench, but too bad to help me win games. Everything about this is a disaster because his trade value is so low, all I could reasonably get in return is somebody’s backup defense or something. He gets one more week out of me before I bench him in favor of Darius Slayton of the Giants, who absolutely TORCHED the Steelers on Monday Night (getting me 28 useless points for my bench).

Also high on my disappointment list is Carson Wentz. Once again, his best weapons are all injured, and this week even his security blankets were out. Miles Sanders has a hamstring issue, and his Pro Bowl left tackle was also out. Against a Washington Football Team defensive line that’s apparently among the best in football (and gave Wentz fits all day). In this case, there’s really nothing I can do, because I have no better QB options on my roster, so I just have to hope for improved health luck (and thank my stars he doesn’t have to face Washington again in this fantasy football season).

Finally, I’m putting the Indianapolis defense in this list, because they only managed 8 points against what was supposed to be an inept Jacksonville Jaguars offense, allowing Minshew Mania to complete almost all of his passes. 4 sacks, that’s it. I can’t tell if this was just a bad week, or if the Colts just aren’t as good as I’d hoped, but needless to say I’ll be looking for defensive reinforcements this week.

My matchup against Crazy N8’s Prostates started to turn in my favor during that very Sunday Night Cowboys/Rams game, actually! Dak Prescott only threw for one touchdown, and it was to my running back, Ezekiel Elliott! With Elliott also scoring a rushing touchdown, he actually managed to out-score Dak by five points!

From there, heading into the two Monday Night games, Yahoo! had me projected to win by a considerable margin. But, of course, Crazy N8 still held a decent lead, so my guys would have to put up SOME points.

Daniel Jones (when he’s bad) started off the game in true Danny Dimes (when he’s good) fashion! He had an early bomb to Slayton and the Giants actually held an improbable lead over the Steelers for a spell. Then, with two mind-boggling interceptions, Dimes reverted to Jones and I was pretty distraught. Thankfully, once the Steelers had the game well in hand, Dimes returned with some garbage-time points (in the form of a second TD pass to Slayton). All in all, it was a 20-point effort that’s far from ideal, but is good enough as a baseline level of fantasy production as my second quarterback. Better days are ahead, I’m sure of it.

In the night cap, I had one of my late-round draft sleepers going in Noah Fant. He was terrific! His 19 fantasy points is not only great for a tight end, it actually out-paced Travis Kelce on Crazy N8’s team (who was one of his four keepers)! With Fant’s production alone, it didn’t matter that A.J. Brown only put up 8.9 points for me; I got to go to sleep early, knowing my victory was in the bag; 170.45 to 150.80.

My win and points total puts me in third place among the 1-0 teams heading into this week, where I go up against Colinoscopy Time (our reigning league champion) who scored the second-fewest points in the league in Week 1. At the time of this writing, Yahoo! has me projected as a slight underdog, but we’ll see where we’re at when my roster is set for the week. In the meantime, here’s where I’m leaning:

Wentz (QB) vs. LAR
Jones (QB) @ CHI
Beckham (WR) vs. CIN
Brown (WR) vs. JAX
Edwards-Helaire (RB) @ LAC
Elliott (RB) vs. ATL
Fant (TE) @ PIT
Jacobs (RB) vs. NO
Butker (K) @ LAC
Washington (DEF) @ ARI

So this officially brings us to Waiver Wire Corner! I put in one claim this week: the Washington defense, which as you can see I ended up getting. I dropped Mecole Hardman, who wasn’t long for my team, because it’s apparent the Chiefs are using him more as a #4 receiver than the #2 I’d hoped for. Then, when I woke up this morning, I saw a couple other guys sitting out in Free Agency that I could nab. First and foremost, I got quarterback Mitch Trubisky, dropping Sam Darnold. The Jets are a true disaster right now, plus their schedule looks TOUGH. The Bears, on the other hand, have a pretty light schedule – at least to start the season – so I’m hoping Trubisky can build up some confidence. He was a good fantasy quarterback a couple years ago (and I don’t think you could EVER say that about Darnold), so I feel better rolling the dice with the somewhat-proven commodity. Finally, running back Malcolm Brown of the Rams went totally unclaimed! Given how great he looked – getting the lion’s share of the carries, scoring two touchdowns against the Cowboys – I was SURE someone would’ve put in a claim for him. I mean, I’m stacked with running backs, but I can’t just leave him out there! Plus, this way I have both Brown and his backup, rookie Cam Akers (who didn’t have an inspiring debut, even though he technically got the “start”; he’s more of a guy you stash on your bench for better days later in the season). To make room for Brown, I made the tough decision to cut DeVante Parker, who reaggravated his hamstring injury during the game last week, which is VERY discouraging, because he was so good last year. I would LOVE for my wide receiver spots to be as settled as my running backs are, because I need all the help I can get if my quarterbacks are going to be so up-and-down. I might have to trade from my position of strength to get a wide receiver that I’m happy with.

Although, with Deebo Samuel officially hitting the IR – and therefore not available to me for the first three weeks of the season (at least) – maybe he’s someone I can look forward to providing me a little help. That’d be nice.

I don’t have any use for my bench this week, though it’s tough to want to sit Slayton against the Bears, whose defense I don’t think is very good. As I said before, if ODB can’t rack up points against a bad Bengals team on Thursday Night, then next week I’ll be more than happy to make that change.

Colinoscopy Time has the following lineup:

Deshaun Watson (QB) vs. BAL
Ben Roethlisberger (QB) vs. DEN
D.K. Metcalf (WR) vs. NE
Stefon Diggs (WR) @ MIA
Derrick Henry (RB) vs. JAX
Tarik Cohen (RB) vs. NYG
George Kittle (TE) @ NYJ
Michael Gallup (WR) vs. ATL
Nick Folk (K) @ SEA
Tennessee (DEF) vs. JAX

His quarterbacks have some very difficult matchups, which makes me happy, because those guys can be monsters. Metcalf might very well struggle against the Patriots’ secondary, but he’s a wild card, so you never know. Diggs should do well against Miami, as should Henry against the Jags. I don’t like Cohen much at all, but you never know when they’ll check down to him 15 times a game. Kittle is a bear, but he’s also a little banged up and may or may not play a whole lot this week. Gallup sounds like he’s a boom-or-bust kind of guy, who’s playing behind their new rookie receiver. Colinoscopy Time should clean up with the Titans against the Jags (but, then again, I thought the exact same thing with the Colts last week, and look at where that got me).

I actually like my chances in this one, which is usually a bad sign. We’ll see, though! Maybe my mojo in 2020 is starting to turn in my favor!

In Spite Of Everything, The Mariners Have Made Things Interesting

Posted on September 15, 2020 by dunderhead99

To be fair, the Houston Cheatin’ Astros have also made things interesting (by losing more than expected), but that’s neither here nor there.

1.5 games is all that separates the Seattle Mariners from an end to the playoff drought that dates back nearly 20 years. 2001 was the last time we made the post-season, making us the most suffering franchise in all of the four biggest North American sports. I wonder if that’s changed? Like, if you ranked the top ten biggest North American sports, would we be the losingest among ALL sports?! I mean, at some point we have to be the worst, and I think I would’ve heard about an organization that’s somehow been more inept than the Mariners.

Anyway, if you thought this 60-game season was a sprint, get ready, because we’ve got 12 games between today and September 27th; 12 games to try and overtake the Astros. I don’t think we can do it, but it’s 2020: crazier things have happened.

The series against the Diamondbacks over the weekend didn’t start off as fabulously as I’d hoped, with a 4-3 defeat. Yusei Kikuchi battled his way through 6 innings, giving up all 4 runs by the third before settling down. Dylan Moore hit a solo homer in the third, Jose Marmolejos hit an RBI single in the seventh, and Ty France hit a solo homer in the eighth, but otherwise the offense just couldn’t get going and we ultimately ran out of innings.

It was doubly unfortunate because the M’s went on to win the next two games, both with a score of 7-3.

Determined to get off to a hotter start on Saturday, we were up 5-0 after the second inning. Justus Sheffield quietly dominated in this one, going 7 innings, giving up 2 runs on 5 hits & 3 walks, with 7 strikeouts. Marmolejos and France both busted out multi-hit games (including homers for each), as did Luis Torrens and Phillip Ervin (sans the homers).

Sunday’s victory felt a little costly, as Justin Dunn was all over the place in his 2-inning start. He threw 66 pitches and while there was some good there (1 hit, only 1 run given up, and 5 of his 6 outs were strikeouts) the bad (5 walks) was too much to bear. The Mariners required seven pitchers in total to get through this one, which wouldn’t have been so bad if we had a scheduled off-day coming up (don’t get me wrong, we DID have one of those, but the A’s had to go and get COVID right before our previous series with them, and MLB was forced to schedule a doubleheader on Monday to help make up for it).

I didn’t have high hopes for this 2-game set yesterday. BUT, we had Marco Gonzales going for us in Game 1. If there was ever a time for one of his patented, dominating seven-inning starts, this would’ve been the one (recall all doubleheader games have been reduced to seven innings this year, which in hindsight was a brilliant call by the league, because there have been approximately one billion doubleheaders so far, across all of baseball, thanks to all the various COVID outbreaks). My hopes waned considerably once Oakland took a 5-0 lead in the fourth inning. Marco was a trooper in this one, and it looked like he might’ve had to wear an even worse outing just to save the team (because we decided to have a Bullpen Start in Game 2), however he also settled down and limited the damage to just those five runs, over a six-inning start.

Things started to get interesting in Game 1 in the bottom of the fourth. Luis Torrens hit a solo homer to make it 5-1. Then, in the fifth, Jose Marmolejos hit a solo homer, followed by a Kyle Lewis two-run home run, closing the gap to 5-4. THEN, in the sixth, Tim Lopes – recalled specifically for this doubleheader, and inserted into the starting lineup as the designated hitter – hit his third double of the game to tie it at 5-5! What followed was only slightly anticlimactic, but the bases were loaded on walks from that point on, and Kyle Lewis ended up walking in the go-ahead run to make it 6-5. From there, Yoshihisa Hirano had no trouble locking down the seventh for his second save of the season.

At that point, we were playing with house money. And, if sports gambling were legal here (or easy to come by), I had the perfect wager. The Taylor Family Farm would’ve been doubling in size if I had my way! Because there was NO way the Mariners were winning the second game of that doubleheader. Not with a Bullpen Start. Not a chance.

I was right, the Mariners lost 9-0, though it was interesting for about two innings. The A’s gave our “starter” all sorts of fits in the first, but with the bases loaded and two outs, Kyle Lewis saved our bacon (temporarily) by jumping as high as I’ve seen anyone jump to rob the other team from a Grand Slam. It was absolutely phenomenal, and gave everyone visions of a young Ken Griffey Jr. robbing a home run in one of his early seasons on the team. This kid is SPECIAL, I’m telling you, and if he’s not the Rookie of the Year this year, I’m going to be very upset.

The only way the Mariners were going to win this one is if it was one of those oddball 10-9 affairs. Instead, the offense mustered all of two hits, as the A’s starter ended up going the distance. Ehh, it happens.

Nothing changes the fact that we are, again, 1.5 games behind the Astros. Of course, I think I read somewhere that the first tiebreaker is record in head-to-head matchups, which the Mariners have already lost even though we have three more games against them. So, in reality, it’s like we’re 2.5 games behind the Astros. We can’t just tie them in record and play it out, we have to be one game better by the end of the season.

Still, no one expected that! Our over/under was 24.5 wins; we need to go 3-9 the rest of the way to hit the over! What were my thoughts on the matter heading into the season? NEVER YOU MIND!

Okay, so listen, I need to win some money and I need to win it fast. The Taylor Family Farm is once again in trouble! No, I don’t know why I do these things! Clearly, I have a problem with gambling! Just float me some cash for a week, you know I’m good for it!

Seattle Sports Hell

Why Do We Put Ourselves Through This?