2023 Week 10 Preview

Winners

Oregon (8-1), Batavia (7-2), Culver City (6-3), Cleveland (3-6), Marshfield (7-2), North Point (4-5)

Every Gold team won. Every Bronze team lost. Every day we inch closer to the grave.

Prediction Record

Last Week: 3-3

Overall: 31-23 (0.574)

Muddling along, being average, inching closer to the grave.

2024 Divisions (if they were made today)

Bestine got the cursed (wrong) pick but at least they scored a bunch to move up in next year’s division race.

Week 10 Matchups

Don’t forget we’re approaching the trade deadline. After kickoff on Sunday, Enright will no longer be able to separate you from your best players. Please send your best players to me instead, so I can keep pace with the pesky Dream Team, (r)EvoLUtion, Krakens, and Pirates. The Hawks are also pretty good but I didn’t mention them because I thought it would be funny to exclude them (and to see if Jeremy reads these articles.)

But why read an article when you can write one? Sign up today! I imagine Ryan and Ben had tremendous amounts of fun doing it. You can have fun too!

I’m having a grand old time with my Immersion team and my uninterrupted streak of never being able to select a good quarterback. Did I pick Bryce “2 pick-sixes” Young when CJ “5-TD” Stroud was right there for the taking? You know that I did. Did I trade up in the draft a couple years ago for the can’t miss Trevor Lawrence, who is being outscored on a per-game basis by teammates Will Levis and Joshua Dobbs? Of course. The only players worse than Lawrence are my other drafted QBs Bryce Young and Mac Jones. I need to hire a consultant.

At least Maxx Crosby is earning his franchise tag. ONTO THE GAMES!

Oregon (8-1) @ Batavia (7-2)

Oregon’s only loss this season is to the Colliders. Seriously, do I have to do everything myself? Nobody else wants to chip in and hand these guys a loss? I think someone did earlier this year but it got Thursday-reversed. Oh well.

I refuse to believe that Najee Harris can have two good games in a row. And I don’t like that Tyler Allgeier. And Gardner Minshew? Please. More like Gardner Minsuck amirite?

The Colliders have to start a stupid Trevor Lawrence against the 49ers so he will either have the best game of the season or he will turn it over 5 times. I am starting him because I am fine with both of these outcomes for different reasons. Ideally he’d have the game of his life and still lose.

They also get to start Christian McCaffrey and Austin Ekeler in the same backfield again, which is finally starting to play out the way Josh envisioned it. If they can stay healthy, and you add a recovered Justin Jefferson back into the fold in a couple weeks, then the Colliders could have a nice little playoff run.

IT STARTS THIS WEEK. Colliders win! Colliders win! Oregon is EXPOSED for the paper tiger they are.

Fransburg (6-3) @ Bestine (3-6)

Fransburg traded away half their team and now they’re on a losing streak! They shipped Gus Edwards off to the Banthas and Gus was so mad that he scored five (5) touchdowns in the last two games! Now the (r)EvoLUtion have to start bums like Javonte Williams and Rhamondre Stevenson.

This is not the same team that posted 208 on Bestine in week 4, winning by 94 points. Oh no, my friend. This is a team in search of an identity. Lamar Jackson is getting benched in favor of Jared Goff. I think we all know how that’s going to work out, given the Laws of Fantasy.

(r)EvoLUtion? More like (d)EvoLUtion, amirite? Haha, nailed it.

Anyway, I’m going to menace Ryan once again by picking his team to win. GO BANTHAS!

Marshfield (7-2) @ North Point (4-5)

Listen, nobody gives Jason a harder time than I do in this here rag. But the Pirates are good again. And I appreciate how Jason comments on all my articles. Makes me feel seen, you know? Some of you could learn from his example.

The Chitons are without their only good player, Jalen Hurts (donut). The Pirates roll in with a terrifying lineup that includes Justin Herbert, Saquon Barkley, Alvin Kamara, and Jonathan Taylor. They are also starting the latter day Devon Achane in Keaton Mitchell. I think he will suck. But I do like the receivers now that they have Davante Adams to pair with Jordan Addison.

What will the Chitons do without their Brotherly Shove play? Lose, that’s what.

Linn County (1-8) @ Madtown (2-7)

The Lumberjacks finally have touchdown machine David Montgomery back after a three week absence. That should help. Geno Smith has turned back into a pumpkin, as we all knew he would after last season’s surprising excellence resulted in him earning a big payday. Last week he scored 0.32 points, reminding us why his teammate punched him in the face and broke his jaw lo these many years ago. He’s worse than Trevor Lawrence, if you can believe it.

Micah Parsons continues to average a sack a game for the Lumberjacks, which is nice, and Aidan Hutchinson returns from the bye this week.

With Tua Tagovailoa on the bye, one would expect the Madtown Marauders to put Sam Howell out there. Howell is better than Trevor Lawrence, if you were wondering. But you know who sucks? COOPER KUPP! That’s distressing! After missing the first four games of the season, Kupp came back and looked to be himself, with 12.50 and 18.35 points in his first two games. Since then the Rams have imploded and every offensive player has gotten injured including Matt “Dave” Stafford. Kupp has put up 3.85, 3.85, and 4.80 points in the last three games. Madtown sucks! The Trade Bounce is over! They are back to their old ways!

It’s time for Linn County to CHOP DOWN the Marauders for their second win of the season.

Tooz Town (1-8) @ Holley (6-3)

The Hawks have the unstoppable CJ Stroud and they get the unstoppable Foye Oluokun back from the bye. Their defense is pretty good and I like their chances against the GIMB.

We may be seeing the end of the Zack Moss era in Indianapolis as Jonathan Taylor rightly takes over the bulk of the work. But at least the “always start no matter what” running back Aaron Jones is actually back to playing. The GIMB are sorely lacking at WR with Deebo Samuel, blocking machine and decoy extraordinaire being paired up with Christian “straight up shitty” Watson. The good news for the GIMB is that the Cowboys remembered they are a passing team, so Dak Prescott has posted three straight 20-point games. The GIMB have finally noticed an put him in the lineup.

Still, I’m going to pick against the GIMB until they do something to demonstrate they can win another game this year. They’re averaging 120 ppg, which is about what the median bench score is.

Cleveland (3-6) @ Culver City (6-3)

The Krakens don’t have Mahomes so in theory this would be the week to strike. The Battery will probably win the QB competition with Josh Allen easily besting Baker Mayfield, but Mayfield will be good enough given the rest of the lineup.

Some crazy shit would have to happen for the Battery to win. Like, Jerome Ford and Ezekiel Elliott would have to score 4 touchdowns for some reason. I do think DeAndre Hopkins is much better with Will Levis throwing the ball. Levis seems to understand that Hopkins is far better than any other receiver they have. Ryan Tannehill would prefer to bounce around and get sacked. What a jagoff that guy is. Can’t believe he was once a Collider. Like Geno Smith, the game has passed him by.

But Hopkins is past his prime, like the other wide receiver suiting up for the Battery, Michael Thomas. At least Thomas makes a ton of money to not catch any passes (seriously he was blanked last week.)

This all lines up for a Culver City romp. Cleveland will DEFINITELY be the team that misses the playoffs in the Gold division. And they may wind up with the ignominious Gold to Bronze fall. But at least they’ll have a bunch of fourth and fifth round draft picks to work with next year. And being in the Bronze isn’t so bad. You can always beat up on the Lumberjacks and GIMB while you’re there.

In Closing

My gas grill is broken, and so am I. I’ve had it for about 16 years, and I’ve replaced the diffusers a couple of times and the grates once. But now the actual burners have disintegrated. Have I talked about this before? Maybe. Anyway, the grill that cost $299 sixteen years ago goes fro about $599 now, so I’m looking to see if I can replace the burners instead. They didn’t have them at the Ace Hardware so I have to figure out which ones to get online.

And then I have to figure out how to install them. Maybe watch a YouTube video or something. But it’s been killing me to not have my grill. It’s hard enough to figure out what to make for dinner when I have my full lineup available to me. Now my cooking game is marred by injury.

Anyway, like Robert Frost said, nothing gold can stay. Hopefully I can rehab my grill and return better than ever.

Enjoy the games everyone!

© 2023, Josh Hammond. All rights reserved.