Chunky Monkeys (4-1)It's no surprise that the Monkeys are atop the league in wins and Points For. With a roster that boasts premium players at every position, Evan's team is once again a juggernaut. Last year's 8-5 finish seems like the low end for this year. Jamaal Charles has been the best running back in the league and even though Trent Richardson has been tragic, it hasn't exactly hurt the run game. (Coach Evan has put Richardson on the bench for WK6.) The passing game has been stellar as Calvin Johnson, Julio Jones, and Randall Cobb serve as an awesome unit. Semi-backup Torrey Smith has stepped up his game too, providing double digit games every week for the first time in his career. At quarterback, Michael Vick has gotten the bulk of the starts -- spelled by a touch of Russell Wilson -- and when Vick's played, he's been stellar.
All this and up-and-comer rookie Giovani Bernard is on the bench, biding his time. Plus Evan has Josh Gordon, who could transform into a top tier option soon too. The Monkeys have scored at least 110+ points each week, and their one loss was when Buffy went for 127.4 points in WK1. This is our early season favorite guys, as usual. UPDATE: Looks like Julio Jones is possibly out for the year! That'll hurt, especially with Megatron on the mend, but Gordon should be able to approximate some of Jones' numbers. Losing a top tier player may not hurt the Monkeys all that much, much to the chagrin of the rest of the league.
Dirty Birds (4-1)
The Birds won five games all of last season and barring a historic setback, they will match that total shortly. After dumping 152.0 points in WK1, the Birds have been over the century mark in three of their next four weeks, and a win in WK by 0.6 points gave them the confidence to start thinking about the post-season. All this despite facing the second toughest schedule so far. The Birds have been land bound this year, paced by the awesome running attack of Adrian Peterson and LeSean McCoy, who combine to average 39.9 points per game, and are #2 and #3 on the RB rankings. With Matt Ryan providing steady leadership, and keeping his starting edge on Andrew Luck, the Birds have righted a ship that went far off course last season.
And even though Larry Fitzgerald hasn't exactly bounced back as expected, the almost all tight end receiving corps of the Birds have given Matt Ryan enough quality targets to keep defenses respectable. Jordan Cameron, drafted by Buffy but inexplicable cut -- perhaps after being mocked in the draft review -- has turned out to be a savior for Dirty Birds as he's filled in the gap left by Rob Gronkowski. Rookie Tavon Austin has been slow to start, to put it mildly, but with the strongest running game in the league, the Birds are poised to challenge for the division lead. Finally.
Tiiite End Jammers (2-3)Like the Birds, the Jammers were 5-8 last year, and were at the back end of the division. They were pounded by the harshest schedule last year so this year's decent schedule is a respite. They've gone over the century mark three times -- two wins plus a loss by 0.7 points -- but have really bad the other two weeks. This team is still a bit in flux. When everything is going right, it's big games by from the receivers -- Demaryius Thomas, Antonio Brown, Marques Colston, Pierre Garcon -- and a revitalized Fred Jackson and DeMarco Murray. The latter two are the #5 and #6 RBs in the league right now, which has to be an early season surprise. They've stepped into the breach to fill in for a disappointing Maurice Jones-Drew. And should one of them falter, rookie Le'Veon Bell is on hand to pound in some touchdowns.
Add it all up and the Jammers have two top six RBs and three top thirteen WRs. So why all the instability? Well, all fingers point to Colin Kaepernick, who has been averaging 17.2 points per game, but after a 40.8 point WK1 explosion, he's been pretty wretched. Backup Andy Dalton is still on the roster, but he can hardly be trusted to step in and do much better. For now, the Jammers will rely on their boom-bust offense and hope Kaepernick returns to his late 2012 form. All in all, the Jammers are in the mix and much better off than last season.
LA Buffy (2-3)
Ouch. After two straight Super Bowl appearances -- with one win -- Buffy probably hasn't seen a losing record in some time. They lost two games all of last season but are already at three this year. Are they in a tailspin? Are the fans losing hope? Short answer: Hardly. Four of their five opponents have gone over the century mark this season and Buffy still boasts an above average PF. They've hit some rough patches when they don't go over 100+ points but are consistently high scoring. Buffy has been a contender for too long to fall off so quickly. Sure, Arian Foster and A.J. Green are off to slow starts -- and Danny Amendola has been injured -- but Wes Welker and Victor Cruz are picking up the slack as the #5 and #6 WR/TEs. And Matt Forte is averaging 17.8 points on his way to becoming a top four running back.
We're pretty sure there are better options than the somewhat flailing Eli Manning out there right now, but Roger never worries about that position and heck, Sam Bradford -- one of three QBs on Buffy's roster -- has been putting up top ten QB points. No seriously. he's #8 with 24.5 points per game. We are wondering why Jared Cook and Matt Schaub are on this roster though. And how much does Roger regret cutting Jordan Cameron to pick up Ben Roethlisberger back in WK1?!?
Athena Nike (1-4)Well, this is no good. Our new owner, who came into the season with talent everywhere, has stumbled to a 1-4 record and is on a four game losing streak. Ante Up lost five games all of last season. What gives? Well, before we look at Frank's roster, we cant overlook scheduling, which has dealt Athena Nike opponents who have averaged 128.54 points per game. At 642.7 PA, Nike has over 20 ppg more than his next closest PA competitor. Nobody can consistently win versus that -- we've seen it before. Still, it's safe to say that Athena Nike hasn't exactly been putting up their best efforts. In fact, they are the lowest scoring team in the league so far, by a small margin. Just about every player on the team has been slow to start or a disappointment. Aaron Rodgers started the season off with 34.0 and 47. points but then went on bye and returned with only 37.1 points total in two games. Good, but only top five good, not best player in fantasy good.
The only receiver of note has been Cecil Shorts, who is barely a top twenty option. Roddy White has been a mess -- no double digit games yet -- and Steve Smith and Emmanuel Sanders aren't the answers. But heading into the season, this team was hoping to ride a stellar running game anyway. How'd that work out? Well, Ray Rice has bookended two nice games with three injured ones. That's not good. Alfred Morris has been outscored by Pierre Thomas, Bilal Powell, Danny Woodhead, and the list could go on. And let's not get started about C.J. Spiller, who hasn't been anywhere close to the gamebreaker from last season. Spiller has 41 points on the season, for an average of 8.2 points. Ouchies. The good news is first round draftee Montee Ball has been stellar… Oh wait. The good news is that backup QB Philip Rivers has found his fantasy relevance again -- he's outscored Rodgers so far -- but that doesn't help since he's not going to play except during the bye week or a Rodgers injury. The punishing schedule has to let up, but is Frank out of the playoffs already?
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