The first ever IFL contest for Best Team Name was as hard fought as a full-fledged fantasy season.
According to your peers, I will highlight the Top 3.
3rd Place (6 votes)
Joe
The Nut Grabbing 9 Year Olds
The immortal 9 year old combines with his most potent offensive attack and strikes comedic gold, landing him dangerously close to the title of Best Team Name. The trauma of his victims' probably cost him some votes.
2nd Place (7 votes)
Jesse
Helm's Deep Archery Club
LotR will always be fertile territory, and the nostalgia and playfulness of Jesse's entry scored big with Tolkien fans; though not quite universal enough.
1st Place (9 votes)
Brady
TC's SICK Fantasies
Much like the rings of Middle-earth, it is said IFL championship rings carry their own curious powers. Hot off his 2016 IFL Championship, Brady divined a team name so darkly comedic, that it Trumped all other contenders. His ring, I fear, was the source of this darkness, and I personally worry for his long-term mental health. Nevertheless, the peers agreed, and TC's SICK Fantasies takes the freaking cake for the 2017 Best Team Name.
Brady will be submitting 3 punishment ideas to me in the next few weeks, and pending approval, the league will then vote on its favorite. I'll keep you posted.
With our coaches poll complete, we can now also issue 2017's first power rankings.
Based on a formula that evolves with the season, the first week of power rankings combines the Coaches' Poll, an Experts' Consensus Poll using fantasypros.com's league analysis tools, and NFL.com's Projected PPG for the season.
Without further ado, let's take a look:
The age of Brady topping the charts early is over.
Jordan was our #1 in the Coaches' Poll and now officially #1 in the Week 1 Power Rankings. Watch out, boys. The Birds of WAR are looking GOOD.
I'd like to point out that this is the highest Jesse's ever been in pre-season power rankings. So maybe I was wrong about last year being Jesse's year. Maybe it's this year.
Also, Scallon is hot off a wedding, and sitting there at #5, I have a feeling Scallon's going to make some moves in 2017.
Previews of Week 1's hottest games to come in the season's first Pick 'Em Polls - later this week.
Here we go, boys.
EDIT: I posted some draft highlights on the Draft page, but I'll copy them here also:
- Hunt did it. 3 years in a row he lands Mr. Downtown Antonio Brown, and in back-to-back #1 picks no less. Gotta love the commitment.
- We didn't make it to the 3rd round, but we did mature slightly as a league, with the first quarterback not being taken until the 25th pick. Although, even had Braughton not taken Aaron Rodgers, Chris drafted Tom Brady at pick 26. So maybe we didn't mature too much.
- Nelson is rolling the dice in 2017, drafting 6 NFL rookies. Most IFL teams only have 1 or 2.
- Brady drafted the oldest starting lineup in the IFL, with an average age of 30 years old. Might be time to send Brady and his team to the nursing home.
- This was the first year a TE wasn't drafted in the first 10 picks. The first TE fell all the way to 22nd, where Nick grabbed Gronk. There's the maturity we're looking for.