2022 Week 3 Preview

Winners

Cleveland (1-1), Culver City (2-0), Madtown (1-1), Tooz Town (2-0), Oregon (1-1), Linn County (2-0)

Prediction Record

Week 2: 3-3

Overall: 8-4

There’s that pedestrian performance we all know and love.

2023 Divisions (If they were made today)

Holley has an all-play record of 1-21.

Week 3 Matchups

Week 2 was just miserable for me as I watched Matt Ryan piss down his leg over and over again while the guy I almost started performed competently. Without that lineup blunder I would have won, even with Matt’s heroic linebacker getting a pick-6 on Monday night. That must have been exciting for Matt. I went to bed with a 96% win probability and woke up with a convincing loss. I’m glad I’m too old to stay awake for the MNF games these days (curse this Eastern time zone!)

Tooz Town (2-0) @ Batavia (1-1)

How are the GIMB 2-0? I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy it. Their $6 rookie corner scored 11.60 last week, and I want no part in pretending that a corner is worthy of a 2nd round pick. I would prefer to walk into the sea.

The GIMB aren’t worthy of discussion, so let’s talk about MY team instead.

Ryan threw 2 interceptions after my prayer. And then Trey Lance got knocked out for the season. Good times.

Anyway, the Colliders seem like the better team on paper, especially now that they have fired Matt Ryan WITH PREJUDICE. Let’s check in on how the two highest paid running backs in the league are doing:

Derrick Henry: ranked 28th among RBs (dude isn’t even a RB2, smdh)
Christian McCaffrey: ranked 9th among RBs (hooray, a top-10 RB for the low price of $65!)

I fully expected them to underperform, but I was thinking it would be due to injury. They are just out there sucking like I didn’t drop $130 large on them. I’m not a fan of that.

The WRs are more promising, with Justin Jefferson ranked #6 right now. Too bad he can’t play the Packers every week! CeeDee Lamb is ranked 50th and will get one more chance to show he can “do something.” He probably won’t, just like that guy I challenged at the bar lo these many years ago. Fortunately Christian Kirk is waiting in the wings to take over the #2 receiver spot in Batavia, and what a feared QB-WR stack he will make with Trevor Lawrence! I thought my team might be good, but I must also entertain the notion that they suck.

I refuse to admit that the GIMB are better than me though, so I’m picking the Colliders to run away with this one! Go Batavia, woo hooo!

Holley Hawks (0-2) @ Bestine Banthas (1-1)

Guys, we may be witnessing a historically bad fantasy team. Holley is averaging 98.3 ppg so far. Their best player is a washed-up hippie named Aaron Rodgers, who only scored 12.80 against the Bears. What will he do against real defenses? Probably pull a Matt Ryan!

But don’t sleep on the Banthas, who are the “1” in the Hawks 1-21 all-play record. They only scored 94 points last week. What the hell happened? Well, their punter scored -3 thanks to a blocked punt, and the Banthas were totally demoralized after that.

The Banthas seem to have put it behind them, though, because they’ve already jumped out to a commanding, nay, insurmountable lead thanks to Alex Highsmith scoring 18.75 points on Thursday night (in a loss to the Browns…who loses to the Browns, lol?) The Hawks were so shooketh that they haven’t even managed to submit a lineup at press time.

Bestine will win a laugher this week.

Linn County (2-0) @ Oregon (1-1)

Josh Allen is on his way to being the scoring leader for the third consecutive season. Those are JJ Watt numbers! Anyway, he’s a freaking beast. He plays the ascendant Dolphins this week, and analysts will try to pretend that we’re going to have a game on our hands, but by the end of it Josh Allen is going to throw for 3 TDs and run for 2 more like he’s trying to win the Heisman, and Buffalo will have won 38-17.

Robbie Anderson is overpaid and ready to disappoint.

Josh Hammond in the 2022 Week 2 Preview

Robbie Anderson did Robbie Anderson things last week, scoring 1.70 points once he jumped into the starting lineup. Haha, don’t say I didn’t warn you. He’s weirdly getting the start again. Clearly Garcia feels about Anderson the way I feel about CeeDee Lamb: “this is the week, I just know it.”

The ‘Jacks are also starting some dude named DeAndre Carter at wide receiver. And with Jaylen Waddle and Mike Gesicki playing the Bills, I think the Lumberjacks might be poised for a big letdown.

With Drake London and CEH playing surprisingly well, this columnist is inclined to pick the Oregon Dream Team this week. Is that sensible? If picking Oregon is wrong then I don’t want to be right. Look for the Dream Team to end Garcia’s fun start to the season.

Madtown (1-1) @ Fransburg (1-1)

Justin Herbert is questionable to play for Madtown, and that’s a damn shame because he’s got the Jaguars this week. However, the Marauders won’t lose much by inserting Lamar Jackson into the lineup in his stead, who is coming off a 31-point performance last week.

The Marauders proved me right about being kinda good last week in the most annoying way possible. One hopes for some regression to the mean for Cooper Kupp, but instead he keeps scoring 25-points a game. Nobody has learned to cover him? What the hell, it’s not surprising when they go to him.

The Marauders have taken an early lead after the Thursday game, but Fransburg still has some game changers in the lineup. Except for Dalvin Cook. That guy seriously sucks right now. Jonathan Taylor should bounce back this week when the Colts coaching staff realizes that Matt Ryan is somehow worse than Carson Wentz. Expect JT to get 30 carries.

Rookie Jahan Dotson as been performing admirably on the bench, so hopefully he won’t pull a Robbie Anderson now that he’s in the starting lineup. You have to expect Tyreek Hill to get a lot of short passes when the Bills are winning 38-7. The most intriguing change is at QB, where Jared Goff gets the start over Kirk Cousins. That feels a bit like points chasing, but maybe Adam buys the Lions, who are going into battle with one buttcheek (or whatever their coach said on Hard Knocks.)

This one is tough to call, but I’m going to go with the MADTOWN MARAUDERS to pull the upset. Is it an upset? I don’t know. I don’t know the spread. *checks and sees the Marauders are favored* All chalk baby!

Cleveland (1-1) @ North Point (0-2)

Nick Chubb and Amari Cooper already got a bunch of theirs on Thursday night for the Cleveland Browns-slash-Battery. They should have started David Njoku as well. Ah well. With a commanding early lead, you have to think the Battery have what it takes to finish the deal. They also have this one wide receiver named Davante Adams who is pretty good. I will find it endlessly hilarious that he is thriving while Aaron Rodgers is throwing to a bunch of bums because he was mad that management didn’t keep the aforementioned bums on the team once they were no longer serviceable. Yeah, Randall Cobb is really making a difference. Clown stuff, man.

The Chitons are struggling. Austin Ekeler found the end zone 20 times last year, which is bonkers to me. He’s found it zero times this year. His previous high was 11 touchdowns and usually he’s rocking 5-6 a season. If he falls that much then the Chitons are done. DONE I SAY!

And we might as well put a fork in them this week as well. BREAK UP THE BATTERY! (They will fade down the stretch per usual, but Ben can have fun right now.)

Culver City (2-0) @ Marshfield (0-2)

The Pirates have 5 championships, so please excuse me if I am a bit giddy at their rough start. The schadenfreude is strong with me. It’s okay to hate the Pirates though. It’s like hating the Patriots or the Yankees. They win too damn much.

Culver City looked very good last week. Not only did Stefon Diggs go crazy, so did their other receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. That guys is so much better than that Equanimeous fellow. Mahomes had a subdued outing last week, only throwing two touchdown passes, but unlike last season he isn’t turning the ball over every 5 minutes. He should find plenty of throwing lanes against the Colts (just ask the Jaguars.) The Pirates are banged up with Kamara hurt (and potentially missing a 2nd game,) and Saquon Barkley still has to prove he can beast around consistently. I like the Krakens to continue the winning streak, and I’ll take great joy in seeing the Pirates drop to 0-3.

In Closing

It’s kind of amazing to me that the 49ers tried to offload Jimmy G all season, only to have him take a paycut and rejoin the squad. Trey Lance couldn’t even beat the Bears, and the 49ers struggled until he got hurt last week. Then Jimmy G comes in and wins the game. That guy is awesome at winning regular season games. I feel like the 49ers will be better with him at the helm, until they get to the playoffs of course.

I still think the 49ers should have drafted Justin Fields. If he had competent coaching (ie, Kyle Shanahan and not whatever the Bears have been doing) then he’d be even better now.

Enjoy the games everyone!

© 2022, Josh Hammond. All rights reserved.