2023 Week 5 Preview

Winners

Batavia (4-0), Culver City (2-2), Marshfield (4-0), Fransburg (3-1), Holley (3-1), Madtown (1-3)

Lol, Madtown was listed here last week only to have it reversed on Thursday.

Prediction Record

Last week: 6-0

Overall: 15-9 (.625)

I ran the table last week! Eat that, Ben Pershey!

2024 Divisions (if they were made today)

Nobody changed. It’s interesting because generally all-play record is pretty closely correlated with points scored, but Culver City has scored the most points in the league and is second in all-play record to Batavia. Linn County is the only unvictorious team and they have the worst all-play record as well. Take away Josh Allen and this team falls apart!

Week Five Matchups

Would you believe me if I told you I was still dealing with an ear infection? It started on September 12th. Really neat! I’ve been through 3 rounds of antibiotics and I’m on my second round of steroids. I tried to schedule an appointment with the ENT (ear, nose, and throat doctor) and I scored a sweet December 27th appointment. This rocks! I love American health care!

Though I’ve been listed as questionable for the last month, I still report for game day (aka work). It’s not enough to keep me down, only enough to force me to ask 4th graders to repeat their questions since my hearing is diminished.

In other news I’m sure you don’t care about, our homeowner’s insurance is about to renew, and because we live in Florida and we have to care about wokeism or whatever instead of insurance, our quote more than doubled. Do any of you pay north of $8,000 for homeowner’s insurance? I’m guessing that’s a no. So now we have the enviable task of scheduling a 4-point inspection (costs money) so that we can then think about applying for insurance quotes from like the 2 other companies that still operate in Florida, in hopes they offer a cheaper deal (unlikely) without making us get a new roof. Keep in mind we live in Gainesville, not on the coast. All the insurance costs of living on the beach without the beach.

So anyway, I’ll just solve this problem of being priced out of my house by trying to buy a smaller house. Oh wait, interest rates are about to hit 8% for the first time in 23 years. So I could sell this house, buy a smaller house, and pay the same amount.

Also my student loan repayments are restarting. THANKS O’BIDEN.

So what’s this have to do with fantasy football? Not much, but since nobody else signed up for this week you’re compelled to listen to my rants. I did figure out the solution to my problem though: make significantly more money. Working on some ideas. If you think of anything send it my way.

Oregon (3-1) @ Holley (3-1)

Look at these juggernauts doing battle! The Hawks are coming off of two consecutive huge scoring weeks (though previously most of the scoring was done on their bench.) They have the goods, let me tell you. They did a very fast turnaround from Futile Franchise to Contender. CJ Stroud has been a revelation, and the Hawks have made the Colliders look like frickin‘ idiots for taking Bryce Young before him. Now that Daniel Jones is well and truly cooked, the Hawks can confidently start Stroud every week. I wonder if the Hawks will start Achane this week after watching him score 20 on the Bills. I think he’s startable. Add him to the other RBs of James Cook (serviceable) and Kenneth Walker (good) and the Hawks have an enviable backfield.

They also have some surprise studs at wide receiver. Nico Collins was drafted at 3.01 in 2021 and he’s gone nuclear this season. They traded for Romeo Doubs (picked 3.11 last year) and he’s also played the hero role. Chris Olave has been reliable (except in week 4) and Courtland Sutton is relevant again. The Hawks have a good squad and are favorites to win the Bronze Division.

Oregon started strong but have faded a bit. After getting a miracle win against the Marauders, they did NOT come to play against Batavia, scoring only 119 points. Deshaun Watson did them a favor by not playing, forcing them to start the better quarterback Anthony Richardson. He returned from a concussion to dominate the fantasy scoring once again. He seems better in the NFL than he was at Florida. It’s weird, because I watched this guy and he truly sucked. But now he’s pretty decent (he still has a low completion percentage.) Still, I think it says something about coaching and how it’s pretty important.

Josh Jacobs finally came alive last week, so the Dream Team has to be grateful for that. Najee Harris had his best game of the season, but only scored 7.05 points. At wide receiver they’ve got Drake London, who is limited by a truly awful quarterback. They are getting unexpectedly good production out of Hollywood Brown who is laboring away in Arizona so people forget about him. The 49ers offense has seemingly forgotten about George Kittle, the Dream Team’s $33 tight end, who is averaging 4 points a game. That’s worse than Darren Waller. Yikes.

I think the Dream Team have the ability to bounce back but this week I’m going with the Holley Hawks.

Batavia (4-0) @ Tooz Town (1-3)

If ever there were a chance to take down the mighty Colliders, tis this week. Batavia is without several players due to bye or injury or both. Trevor Lawrence kind of sucks, and is the 19th ranked quarterback. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s not what you want. What you want is a quarterback that’s at least in the top-12 since all teams start 1 of them. The Tooz Town GIMB have three quarterbacks rostered who have scored more points than Trevor Lawrence. I hope he gets his head out of his ass!

The Colliders have McCaffrey (thank God) this week, but are forced to start some bums, like newly acquired Curtis Samuel and perennial bench warmer Kenneth Gainwell. They’ll also be forced to start Jameson Williams because they have literally nobody else. Here’s to hoping he gets at least one catch.

On the GIMB side of the ledger, Zack Moss has been a pleasant surprise, though that might end abruptly if Jonathan Taylor plays this week. Bijan Robinson has been an effective player but the GIMB probably hoped for more than 1 TD out of the first overall pick. Last week Deebo Samuel scored 0.60 points against the Cardinals. He’ll probably be needed more this week against the Cowboys. Calvin Ridley only caught two passes last week, but one was a touchdown pass that I saw on my phone right before the church service started. The GIMB have some good players and certainly have a lineup that can score some points. I’m almost tempted to give them a chance at the upset. Their lineup is chock full of guys who are actually playing this week. But I’m going to say the Colliders pull this one out because they deserve good things.

Bestine (1-3) @ Madtown (1-3)

Bestine threw in the towel on the season by trading away Travis Kelce to the (r)EvoLUtion. They also unloaded the massively overpaid Tyler Lockett. They essentially got a pair of second rounders in return for the salary dump (though they took on Aaron Rodgers and Nick Bosa in the swap.) The Banthas seem to planning for the future, knowing they have to pay more than 25% of their cap towards penalties next season. The move alleviated some of the financial strain that was set to come down in 2024.

Ryan stated that Kelce was “old as fuck” and I can see the wisdom in moving him. After all, this is probably Kelce’s last season. Why do I say that? Let’s look at the facts. This whole Taylor Swift orchestrated romance is to raise his profile so he can become a big time actor like The Rock. You’ve probably noticed he’s in every commercial now. The NFL gains the eyeballs of the hard-to-get teen girl demographic and Kelce becomes even more famous than he already is so he can launch an acting career. He and Taylor will release some statement about their amicable parting of ways near the end of the NFL season and we’ll all move forward. Kelce, like the Banthas, is planning for the future.

Can they win without Kelce? They can this week!

Fortunately they have Kirk Cousins, who can’t win real NFL games, but can put up fantasy numbers. They would prefer to be starting Joe Burrow, I’m sure, but Burrow is worse than their other quarterback, Desmond Fucking Ridder. Just goes to show how hard it is to play NFL football when you’re less than 100% healthy.

Nobody in Ohio can have nice things (rightly) so Tee Higgins is also injured. This leaves the Banthas with a starting WR duo of Stefon Diggs (good) and Adam Thielen (surprisingly good.) At running back they roll out James Conner and D’Andre Swift, which is working at the moment. Their Kelce replacement is Irv Smith Jr. That’s a downgrade if I ever saw one.

Still, they paid Chris Jones, who has 3.5 sacks in his 3 games back after holding out in real life. I think they have the juice to defeat the BADtown MaFRAUDers this week. Yes, I know I’ve used that joke before. It just feels right.

I think Breece Hall versus the Broncos is a TASTY matchup for Madtown, but I’m not sure it’s enough to overcome Bestine, even without Kelce.

Let’s give it to the Banthas by a score of 103-101. There won’t be any decimals in this one.

Fransburg (3-1) @ Linn County (0-4)

Linn County will probably win a game this year.

It won’t be this week, though. Through savvy management, Fransburg went from a good team to a title contender. Getting the third best running back, Kyren Williams, for one American dollar, was an inspired move. As was drafting Puka Nacua. Franssen saw the separation at quarterback into a top-tier and ponied up for Lamar Jackson. I also picked up Lamar Jackson. The wrong one. That was fun.

Now they’ve got a weekly winner at tight end in Travis Kelce. Keep in mind, their wide receivers are Nacua, Aiyuk, Chase, and Tyreek Hill. They are going to win a lot of games.

On defense they replaced the 52nd ranked defensive end, Nick Bosa ($21.90), with the 5th ranked defensive end, Andrew Van Ginkel ($1.00). The word you’re looking for is savvy. They saved $20 in cap space on that move and got significantly better.

So, look for Fransburg to fucking curb stomp the Lumberjacks. Yikes.

Culver City (2-2) @ North Point (1-3)

The defending chumps are having a tough time of things. While Hurts continues to perform, and the Eagles continue to win, much to the dismay of their long suffering fans, Tony Pollard has fallen off his early performance. And while Mattison showed signs of life last week he also had his lowest snap share of the season. Uh oh.

Meanwhile the Krakens are putting up points. Derrick Henry bounced back by rushing for 122 yards and a touchdown and by also throwing a touchdown pass. Raheem Mostert cooled off as he seems to be ceding ground to Devon Achane. Terry McLaurin recovered a fumble for a touchdown, so that’s nice, and AJ Brown went apeshit. Look for him to curb any success that Jalen Hurts has this week, as the passes will likely go to him.

The pundits might be wondering what’s wrong with Mahomes, who struggled against the Jets, but there’s no better team to get right against than the Minnesota Vikings. Mahomes should be able to pass all day on them, and will probably need to because the Vikings can also move the ball on offense. For those reasons, I suspect that Culver City will have no opposition this week.

Cleveland (1-3) @ Marshfield (4-0)

Marshfield is the only undefeated team outside of Batavia. They are 8th in scoring. For their part, the 1-3 Battery are 4th in scoring. Cleveland lost last week, despite getting 30 points from Josh Allen, and that feels like the same experience we saw with Allen on the Lumberjacks. I refuse to believe that Pirates quarterback Russell Wilson has gotten back into form and I think a game against the Jets will show us what he’s really like.

So, Cleveland wins the QB competition this week.

The Pirates did get Alvin Kamara back last week, and he scored in double digits despite being largely inefficient. The dude caught thirteen passes. What’s more amazing than that is that they only went for 33 yards. Presumably the Pirates will have Saquon Barkley back this week, and maybe even Jonathan Taylor. Those are three very good running backs on paper.

If Taylor plays this week I’m officially intrigued. Otherwise, I like the averages to play out in Cleveland’s favor. Come on Ben, put an end to Jason’s reign of terror!

In Closing

I started this article by whining. But I’m going to end with good news. I don’t have to work tomorrow! Why? Because it’s UF’s homecoming, and all the schools in Gainesville are closed. So I’m going to crack open a cold one, watch a terrible Bears game, and enjoy myself.

Also, my 8-yo is really into making homemade stickers these days. She asked me what kind of sticker I wanted and I said a football one. She made this:

Enjoy the games, everyone!

© 2023, Josh Hammond. All rights reserved.