Highest Scoring Team ($15)
IFL’s 3-Peat Pick ‘Em Champ
Coach Curtis
160.34 pts
Highest Scoring Player ($7)
The Control Room
Coach Jord
David Achane - 30.0 pts
(Curtis’ Alvin Kamara scored 45.5 pts, but cannot win both weekly awards.)
Perhaps it’s recency bias, but in just two weeks there seems to have been an unreal amount of significant injuries. I went through every team, and it looks like the only coach to dodge any injury thus far is Chris. Take a look:
Zach - Jordan Love
Brady - AJ Brown, Keenan Allen
Nick - Pacheco
Aaron - Addison
John - Tua
TC - McCaffrey
Jord - Kupp
Qualley - Ferguson
Austin - Puka, Kenneth Walker
Ewoldt - Deebo
Jack - Njoku
Jesse - Engram
Drew - Hollywood Brown
Hunt - Tee Higgins
Curtis - Mostert
Obviously some injuries are more significant than others, but I think the silver lining here is that the effect is pretty widespread, and able to be overcome.
Just look at TC. No CMC? Not a problem. Despite averaging just 93 points through 2 weeks (3rd lowest in the league), TC grinds out another win over rival 2-time champ Jack, 88-71. He may be biding his time right now with CMC, but he has two promising rookies in Brock Bowers and Malik Nabers, who combined for 50 points this week. Nabers had a ridonkulous 18 targets Sunday.
Jesse has to be pulling out his naturally spikey hair seeing TC’s low-scoring wins, as the Aspen Dummies lose ANOTHER heartbreaker, this time in our Game of the Week against Hunt, 119-122. He has lost his first two games by an average margin of 2.3 points. But the law of averages HAS to be on Jesse’s side, as he’s top 5 in scoring, standard deviation and all-play record, and that should translate to some wins in the coming weeks. The Dummies are a team to look out for, no doubt.
My favorite team this season, Chris’ Hey Darnold! came out on top in Week 2, despite declaring a loss after Scallon’s Marvin Harrison Jr’s 29 point 1st quarter performance. Amazingly, MHJr would get no more points after that, and Hey Darnold! would win 116-93, and improve to 2-0 for only the second time in team history. You’d have to go all the way back to 2016 to find the last time Chris accomplished that feat. This definitely won’t jinx it, but between the perfect start, and the clean bill of health his team has had thus far, I’m going to continue to state that this is Duncan’s year.
Drew’s infamous final kick was enough, as he knocked off XC rival Nelson, 105-96 on the back of Jalen Hurts, despite his TWO Carolina Panthers combining for just 11 points. It’s hard not to look at Nelson’s team and wonder if Anthony Richardson’s three interceptions and two fumbles had anything to do with it.
The Cul-de-Sack heats up this week, with two of their teams scoring in the top 3 of all teams this week, and those teams just so happened to play each other. Brady’s All-Time D was the beneficiary of an absolute slobberknocker from Curtis the 3-Peat Pick ‘Em Champ, who put up 160 to B’s 130. Curtis’ got 45 from Kamar, 28 from Nico Collins and 23 from JJets, just an absolute haul. Some solace for Brady, though, is that he got to see Kyler Murray absolutely ball out with a THIRTY BURGER in person in Glendale. He’ll have to manage his injuries of course, but his team is capable of scoring even in the absence of AJ Brown. Both coaches move to 1-1, and Curtis has to feel good about his week 2 turnaround, after scoring just 97 points in week 1.
The CdS makes up some ground thanks to Curtis, and X-IA maintains their healthy lead.
Tough week in pick ‘em, with Drew besting us all at 3 out of 4. Don’t expect him to keep that up. Shoutout to Jesse for being the only picker to get the MNQ right.
