2024 Week 3 Preview

Winners

Fransburg (2-0), Batavia (1-1), Marshfield (2-0), Holley (2-0), Linn County (2-0), Tooz Town (1-1)

Prediction Record

Last Week: 3-3
Overall: 6-6

This is pointless and I’m helping exactly zero gamblers.

2025 Divisions (if they were made today)

A little bit of movement here. For the time being, I used power rank as the tiebreaker when teams had the same all-play record. The Lumberjacks and Pirates are dominating with 21-1 all-play records. Marcot really did a number on his defending champion team by ghosting us. Lawson has a big hole to dig out of (Also, I still haven’t heard from Marcot…hope he’s okay.)

Week 3 Matchups

With all of the hype surrounding the return of EA Sport’s College Football game, I considered upgrading my gaming system to get it (and the newest Madden.) Then I read the reviews for Madden and decided to skip it. I didn’t really need to spend $500 on a PS5 and then another $140 on a couple of games that might not even work.

I last played Madden seriously on the PS2 around 2006. Then I had a bunch of kids and I couldn’t really justify playing (and I didn’t want to absorb withering glares from my wife while she did all of the work with the house and kids while I scouted some “generational talent” in the draft.)

But now I have more time because my kids are teenagers (well, 67% of them are) and they have their own stuff going on. But the more I read about it, the more I learned that the game has gotten worse since 2006. The graphics are obviously better, but features that I enjoyed like building a stadium, custom teams, etc were now gone! And apparently it’s buggy as hell! I also learned that my favorite thing to do – play the college football game and import my draft classes into Madden – isn’t a possibility anymore. HARD PASS, EA.

Instead, I dusted off my PS3 and ordered NCAA Football 08 and Madden 08. I also had to order new controllers because mine didn’t work anymore. This was an investment I could afford to make.

I began in college. I didn’t want to pick the Florida Gators because in 2007 they were supercharged. Unfortunately, NCAA 08 doesn’t let you create a school (thanks, Obama.) I already started to feel the burn of missing features. I couldn’t make the Oswego State Great Lakers. I also couldn’t create the Hamline Pipers, my grad school in St. Paul, Minnesota. To solve this, I took over the Minnesota Golden Gophers, figuring they’d have their work cut out for them in the Big 10 with the likes of Michigan and Ohio State (turns out Iowa and Penn State were also very good back then.)

My first game of the 2007 season pitted me against Bowling Green. I was down 25-21 with less than a minute left and I engineered a heroic drive to score the go ahead touchdown with three seconds left.

They returned the ensuing kickoff 104 yards for a touchdown to beat me 32-28. It was an “instant classic” game so I can relive it whenever I want.

Anyway, I created some players, like Josh Hammond, who ended up going to rival schools (Michigan.) But now I’m in the year 2014 and I’ve won 5 national championships in a row, so I’ve pretty much turned things around.

The best part of it is exporting my draft classes into Madden 08. Fun fact – Madden 08 does let you create your own teams and stadiums, though there are a limited supply of logos (fewer than when I used to play Madden 06 on the PS2.) It’s an extremely cumbersome and time-consuming process, but I replaced every NFL team with created teams. I have all of the SCUFFLE Immersion teams, as well as other teams from other fantasy leagues I’ve played in. The Batavia Colliders have won two Super Bowls and lost one (now I just simulate the playoffs.)

So my process is this: I play the full season of college football and export my draft class. Then I play the full season of Madden. Then I put all of the stats into a spreadsheet and upload them to a database. The eye-rolls I get from my family are easily in the top 5% of historic eye-rolls. It’s fun for me. It takes me back to the days where Adam and I were roommates, and we did something similar (with our friend Ryan Peters, who was always the Wisconsin Badgers. I heard him triumphantly shout ERASMUS JAMES after a sack so many times that it created a new neural pathway in my brain.) I like the idea of continuing the careers of some of my favorite players. Currently, my two starting wide receivers are former Golden Gophers.

I mentioned that I created Josh Hammond, who went to Michigan. He got drafted by the Cleveland Battery. I didn’t have the capital to trade up for him because I traded up for QB Adam Franssen (Ohio State) the previous season. Running Back Jason Enright just graduated from Texas so he should be available in my next draft. If you want to be a part of this history, then comment below and let me know what position you usually put yourself at (I remember Enright played running back in high school, as it was his profile photo for a while.)

Marshfield (2-0) @ Holley (2-0)

While both teams are undefeated, Marshfield is once again the highest scoring team in the league. Kyler Murray is good again, and Saquon Barkley continues to clown the Giants. Plus, Jordan Mason gets to fill in for Christian McCaffrey and there isn’t much difference in the 49ers production from that position. With the complete absence of a running game in Dallas (and the Cowboys playing from behind), it’s looking like CeeDee Lamb will also prove to be a wise investment.

Holley is a spirited squad with CJ Stroud but they have the wrong usually-injured-running back in Gus Edwards. They want JK Dobbins, who is also usually injured, but he plays for the Banthas. The Pirates should win this one (but the real question is where will RB Jason Enright be drafted in Madden?)

Fransburg (2-0) @ Dingle (0-2)

Dingle is going to need one of those insane 5-TD days from Patrick Mahomes to secure a win. Even if he does that this week, much of the production should be muted by Lamar Jackson, who’s looking to bounce back this week against the porous Cowboys. The (r)EvoLUtion are finally wising up and starting Andrew Van Ginkel this week. The only question mark is Tyreek Hill, who will be receiving passes from, I dunno, Skylar Thompson or something? I’m tired of seeing that fencing pose, man. Hopefully Tua will retire with all his monies so that he doesn’t Junior Seau himself.

The Blow-Ins BLOW. Get it? I came up with that just now. It’s not Lawson’s fault, though. Regardless, they will not win many games this year. Especially not this one.

Batavia (1-1) @ Oregon (1-1)

The game within the game to pay attention to is the epic showdown between Bucs RB Rachaad White and Bucs RB Bucky Irving. Bucky? Makes me think of the guy on the Disney musical ZOMBIES who leads the cheer squad. Girl dads will know what I’m talking about.

The Colliders had a bunch of scary injuries last week that seemingly resolved themselves. Hopefully we’ll see another connection from fantasy football’s best QB-WR stack: Darnold and Jefferson. I’m extremely annoyed that Aaron Rodgers’s nepo-hire Allen Lazard has 3 TDs on the year, including one on Thursday, but I still think the Colliders have enough juice to win this game. Deshaun Watson is cursed and his sexual assaults cannot be overshadowed by his play on the football field anymore because he also sucks shit as a quarterback.

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

North Point is only averaging 119 points per game, most of them coming from Chris Godwin, who I traded to them for a bag of chips. STUPID. See for yourself:

Granted he went against two of the worst pass defenses, but still I had something of value in my $6 Chris Godwin. And I threw it all away so I could start the wrong WR3 every week.

The Battery is 0-2, but they’re a strong 0-2. I can’t see a path for the Chitons to win this one, but you never know, it is a cursed Cleveland squad we’re talking about. Perhaps if Ben Pershey ritualistically burns his Deshaun Watson jersey he can cleanse the Cleveland Battery squad from the surplus detritus sloughing off the Great Pacific Garbage Patch that is the Cleveland Browns.

Come to think of it, I know Ben Pershey. And from what I know, he’s NO fan of sexual assault. I bet he doesn’t even have a Watson jersey. Let’s give this one to the Battery.

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

Achane, Gibbs, and old-ass Kamara have proven to be a deadly running back trio for the Lumberjacks. But Bestine answers with the aforementioned JK Dobbins, who’s averaging like 10 yards per carry (until he explodes his knee and some new ligament nobody’s ever heard of) and the ageless wonder that is James Conner. I watch NFL Red Zone while I write lesson plans and grade papers every Sunday, and last Sunday I heard the commenter refer to Conner as Concrete Conner more than once. It seemed like he was trying to make Fetch happen.

Joe Burrow briefly escaped the tidal forces of Bengals incompetence when he led his team to the Super Bowl, but unfortunately he was not able to achieve escape velocity. Now he’s 0-2 and I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets hurt this week. Zack Moss became mediocre the minute he signed with Cincinnati. These are the immutable forces of the universe.

Linn County is doing their best to overcome mediocrity, and hot damn if their defensive end is putting up 4.5 sacks in a game I think this might be their year. I’m sure Ryan will appreciate me picking against him.

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

It’s a battle of “town” based teams! What is a town, you ask? Well, the dictionary defines it as “an urban area that has a name, defined boundaries, and local government, and that is generally larger than a village and smaller than a city.” I could see both of these squads getting downgraded to “village.” Madtown is on its way to hamlet.

In the genre of Dallas Cowboys one of my favorite motifs is “guy gets paid way over market value and proceeds to suck.” We’ve got that going on with Tooz Town QB Dak Prescott (and a legacy of the motif has returned in Ezekiel Elliott, who is rostered by the Pirates for some reason.) Dak got his bag and decided that Will Levis production was enough of an effort for the GIMB.

My friend Ben Esty used to tell girls at the bars we frequented that it was his friend’s “coming out party” to imply I was gay back in the early 2000s, when that kind of bro-posturing/gay panic was more of a thing. I couldn’t help but think about it last week when Marvin Harrison Jr went off for 130 yards and 2 touchdowns on just 4 receptions. Tooz Town has to be excited that the first pick in the (fantasy) draft is meeting expectations, unlike the first pick in the NFL draft (Bryce Young), who just got benched.

But let’s go back to Dak Prescott. You know who’s scoring about the same as him? That’s right, Madhamlet Marauders QB Justin Herbert. Man, I thought that guy was going to be good, but Jim Harbaugh is like, “Listen, we’re going to run the ball all the time since our QB sucks.” The Marauders are at least getting “mad” production out of their own former first pick, Breece Hall. Hall did it again on Thursday night, but unfortunately his backfield mate, Rhamondre Stevenson, added an unhelpful -0.25 points on the night.

It’s for this reason and this reason alone that I’m going to pick the GIMB. I promise I won’t do it too often.

In Closing

I’m a little disappointed to be wrapping this up because it means that I have to start my school work. I tend to spend several hours on it every Sunday, so when you factor in my work outside of contract hours, I think I’m making about $0.26/hr. I need to either leave Florida (plausible) or quit my job and just focus on fantasy football (still looking for a way to do this because the $0.26/hr does contribute to the mortgage, unfortunately.)

Can you do a “pay off my mortgage” GoFundMe? What if your only catastrophe is ennui? Think people would still contribute? Nah, better save that for when I need medical care.

Enjoy the games everyone!

© 2024, Josh Hammond. All rights reserved.