Week 4 Power Rankings
Tier 1
1- Sporty Strauss (3-0) [+1]
2- Las Cabras (3-0) [+1]
Tier 2
3- Cooper Troopers (2-1) [+2]
4- Shepherd Goods Choppers (3-0) [+2]
5- $traight Cash Homie (2-1) [+2]
6- The BamOs (1-2) [-5]
7- Ornery Otters (1-2) [-3]
Tier 3
8- Win’s Up Doc (2-1) [+1]
9- DTC Porkchop Express (0-3) [-1]
10- The Pullies (0-3) [-]
11- Wait ’Til Next Year (1-2) [+1]
12- Minnesota Moose Knuckles (0-3) [-1]
(Tier 1) Sporty Strauss FINALLY takes the top spot, and an apology should be issued for keeping him at #2 for so long. It’s a spot the team has earned. It’s long-awaited for manager Michael Strauss, who has taken a stranglehold of the toughest division in the League of Leagues. Strauss ‘sports’ one of the only well-rounded rosters in the entire league. 2 (hopefully) good QBs. 3 great RBs. The top receiver in the league. A young tight end. It was a smart draft from a smart guy, and nobody’s catching him having an awful week unless his QB has a BYE.
All alone with Sporty Strauss in the top tier is Las Cabras, also 3-0. They rolled the Cooper Troopers in the dominant, defining win of the early season. The Matchup of the Week could have been more exciting down the stretch, but Cooper’s troops couldn’t find a way to march to victory on MNF. Cooper Johnson might be heartbroken by the loss, but the undefeated teams aren’t. Las Cabras and the Sporty Strauss will be watching each other’s scores every single week throughout the season. They are the two favorites to obtain a BYE, and don’t undersell the importance of a BYE in the season-long contest. Getting a BYE means you’ll score at least 9 points towards the 3-Sport Counter. Winning only one playoff game with a BYE means they’ll get either 12 or 15 points by getting 1st or 2nd.
A 3-0 record should make these teams as excited as Aaron Rodgers watching Mason Crosby kick a field goal.
(Tier 2) In a strange quirk, EVERY division has a 3-win team, a 2-win team, a 1-win team, and a winless team. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be. This means there is one more undefeated team to throw into BYE contention. The scrappy Shepherd Goods Choppers. The Choppers, despite scoring more points than any other team, including Sporty Strauss and Las Cabras, are still a step behind roster-wise. There are still serious concerns about them, especially without Christian McCaffrey for a couple of weeks and a defense that won’t be scoring exorbitant amounts of points every week. Lucky for Jordan Dye, he gets the league’s grotesquerie, the MN Moose Knuckles, rolling into town in RIVALRY WEEK.
$traight Cash Homie has also surprised this season. In a dynasty league, JaMarr Chase has been the steal of the draft. He has some legit young talent at QB and WR, but there has to be real concern about his backs as the season goes along. But having a kicker that hits 66 yarders does help.
Rounding out Tier 2 are two of the biggest disappointments of the season: the Ornery Otters and The BamOs. At only 1-2, these teams aren’t out of it by any stretch. But they are the only two teams to grace the top of the Power Rankings, and have proved more than beatable. Sam Alakija’s BamO’s are razor thin once you get past their first flex. The Otters are too reliant on WRs, which isn’t bad long-term in dynasty, but the trade off is having weeks like last week the WRs all shit the bed (with an injury or two mixed in).
(Tier 3) Wait ‘Til Next Year escaped the doghouse. He fled the Tier of Tiers, reserved for terrible teams coming off of terrible weeks. He got a win! While it was against the Moose Knuckles, it’s still a bit of momentum for a team in desperate need of something good to happen.
And we have a new trend! The bottom team in the Power Rankings has won each of the past two weeks. Does this mean the MN Moose Knuckles are poised to defeat the Choppers!? There’s a chance! All we know is every time either the Vikings or Browns pass the ball at US Bank Stadium, we’ll hear a groan from Chris Hall’s seat since he has both Cook/Mattison and Chubb and needs big games from each to crawl up the gutters of the League of Leagues.
Oatrick McGonagill and Win’s Up Doc scraped together a HUGE dub. He now goes by the monicker “The Vet,” because he’s out there putting otters and piggies to sleep every week. He might need to read the Hippocratic Oath again, because he’s just been killing the souls of his league mates out there for two weeks. Now, he’s got Wait ‘Til Next Year in a crucial game on the docket, but it’s yet to be determined if he can beat out a team that doesn’t have a beast or animal in its name.
And then there’s poor DTC Porkchop Express. It’s been a brutal start the the season, and now Craig McCall faces The BamO’s in an absolute “loser leaves town” matchup. This game was supposed to be a showdown between two top teams, but instead it features the two biggest disappointments fighting for a much-needed win to save their season. Both teams sacrificed football dollars for other sports, and that has come back to haunt them like MN Vikings kicker history.
Week 3 High Score
Las Cabras (Trevor Pearson and Jordan Sinclair)
165 points
Notes: What a great time for the goats to become the GOAT of the week. There is no other game the entire season that Las Cabras would want to be the highest scoring team, and the squad got it done.
Week 3 Low Score
Ornery Otters (Korey Koob)
109 pts
Notes: A fall from grace. An otter in peril. After being the top dog two weeks back, Korey Koob has tossed back to back stinkers and is in danger. However, his division was tough and moving on to playing the soft middle of the league (like $traight Cash Homie this week) is just what a (non-Oat) doctor ordered.
Week 3 MVP
Justin Herbert
Wait ‘Til Next Year (Kyle Ooms)
30 pts
Notes: Wait ‘Til Next Year needed this. Herbert is the primary ingredient to his (stinky-so-far) recipe every single week. He needs big games from the young star, and the second year QB delivered in a big way. If Kyle got an average game from Herbert, and he would have put himself at risk of getting knuckled by the moose. And nobody, not even Steph, wants that.
Week 3 LVP(s)
Ty’Son Williams
The Pullies (Eric Herm and Peter Sorensen)
Wait ’Til Next Year (Kyle Ooms)
Notes: The Pullies are in for it this season. The double whammy of JK Dobbins and Gus Edwards getting hurt has left The Pullies starting Ty’Son Williams and Mike Davis at RB. It’s a vomit-inducing group of RBs that hasn’t been supported well enough by the rest of the roster thus far. It seems the Pullies are going nowhere. Every week the pull tab shows 3 L’s without even a hint of a W.
Current Playoff Seeding
Playoffs
Shepherd Goods Choppers (4) - BYE
Las Cabras (2) - BYE
Sporty Strauss (1)
Cooper Troopers (3)
$traight Cash Homie (5)
Win’s Up Doc (8)
Consolation
The BamOs (6) - BYE
Ornery Otters (8) - BYE
Wait ’Til Next Year (11)
DTC Porkchop Express (9)
The Pullies (10)
MN Moose Knuckles (12)
Current Playoff Matchups
Playoffs
Win’s Up Doc (6th) at Sporty Strauss (3rd)
$traight Cash Homie (5th) at Cooper Troopers (4th)
Consolation
MN Moose Knuckles (12th) at Wait ‘Til Next Year (9th)
The Pullies (11th) at DTC Porkchop Express (10th
Week 4 Matchups (!!Rivalry Week!!)
Sporty Strauss (1) vs Cooper Troopers (3)
Las Cabras (2) vs The Pullies (10)
Shepherd Goods Choppers (4) vs MN Moose Knuckles (12)
$traight Cash Homie (5) vs Ornery Otters (8)
The BamOs (6) vs DTC Porkchop Express (9)
Win’s Up Doc (8) vs Wait ’Til Next Year (11)
Notes: Not everyone was able to find a rival to, but the League of Leagues has some great games this week. Other than Las Cabras vs The Pullies, the battle of the two co-owned teams, every game means something. We’ve got a battle of two top-4 teams. We’ve got another top-4 team with injuries giving the lowest-ranked team a chance.
Then we have 3 matchups of teams in the middle of the league facing off against against each other. DTC Porkchop Express may not have a win, but his team is far from awful. The other two games are between teams with one or two wins and are imperative to win and get a Head-to-Head tiebreaker against a team you might be trying to sneak into the playoffs again.
On top of that, we have some of the best of friends trying to hurt each other. It doesn’t get better than that.