I've Seen Enough
Three weeks.
Normally, that isn't enough time to draw meaningful conclusions about a fantasy football season. Players get hurt. Matchups matter. Good teams have bad weeks, bad teams occasionally stumble into good ones, and every owner can still convince themselves that whatever is currently going wrong is temporary.
Fortunately, I've never been burdened by patience.
After three weeks, patterns are beginning to emerge. Three teams remain undefeated. A few others are showing signs that they might actually know what they're doing. One division is beginning to look considerably better than another. Some teams have discovered offenses. Others continue searching.
Week 1 can be dismissed as an anomaly. Week 2 might be coincidence.
By Week 3, I start taking notes.
THE UNDEFEATED
Pork Chop Express, Consolation Kings and Cerebral Ballsy are the last three teams standing at 3-0, although they've taken different routes getting there.
The Chops have been the most convincing offensively, scoring 119, 122 and 135 points and now sit at 376 total points for the season. More remarkable is what's happening at wide receiver. For the third consecutive week, the Chops have rostered the highest-scoring WR in the league. Zay Flowers started the streak in Week 1, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba apparently decided sharing was unnecessary and has taken the honor in consecutive weeks.
Three weeks. Three league-leading WR performances. I'd call that unsustainable, except they will probably find another top-notch receiver buried on their roster before I finish writing this.
Cerebral Ballsy has taken the quieter route. They've scored at least 100 every week and handled Tortuga 111-71 this week to remain unbeaten. There hasn't been one absurd explosion carrying them. They just keep putting respectable numbers on the board while waiting for everyone else to make mistakes.
That's annoyingly effective.
Then there are the defending champions. Consolation Kings moved to 3-0 with a 112-53 demolition of Fat Cats behind 37 points from Bijan Robinson. Unfortunately, the victory came with a rather significant receipt: De'Von Achane scored one point before tearing his ACL and is done for the season.
The Kings have enough talent to survive losing an important player. Whether they have enough to survive losing Achane is a different question.
For now, they're undefeated. I'll allow them to enjoy that until additional evidence becomes available.
THIS LEAGUE IS EASY
Rumor has reached the League Office that following Tortuga's 121-point victory in Week 1, someone aboard the good ship Tortuga suggested that “this league is easy.”
I admire confidence.
I admire evidence more.
Since solving the SCL after one week, Tortuga has scored 92 and 71 points while losing twice. Cerebral Ballsy provided the latest continuing-education seminar with a 40-point beating this week.
There is an important lesson here for new teams entering the SCL: one victory is an encouraging beginning. It is not mastery.
Welcome to the league.
GEOGRAPHICAL INEQUALITY
Three weeks have also provided enough evidence to suggest that not all divisions are currently contributing equally to the reputation of this organization.
The Cactus East division has combined for eight victories and 1,284 points, averaging 107.0 per game. The Chops are 3-0, Los Perros Locos is 2-1, Who Is You is 2-1 and even Baby Got Dak has managed to contribute a victory.
Then there is the Sagebrush East.
Three wins. 961 points. An 80.1-point average.
Even those three victories require some explanation because two came this week when Sagebrush East teams played one another, guaranteeing somebody had to win. Against teams outside their own division, the entire Sagebrush East has collectively produced one victory.
The good news is that redemption arrives immediately. The Cactus East and Sagebrush East divisions meet again in Week 4 after Cactus East swept the opening round in Week 1.
Perhaps Sagebrush East will respond.
Perhaps I'll prepare another paragraph.
BABY STEPS
While several teams are beginning to establish themselves at the top, Do Not Panic continues its own remarkable journey.
Week 1: 37 points.
Week 2: 55.
Week 3: 59.
That's three consecutive weeks of improvement. At this pace, Panic could eventually become mediocre—maybe even by Thanksgiving.
The 59 points raised their season total to 151, which still leaves them comfortably last in scoring. For comparison, the Perros have scored 392 points this season and the Chops have 376. But I prefer to focus on progress, and four additional points are technically four additional points.
Panic isn't alone in its offensive struggles. Deez Nuts, Golden Tate Warriors, and Baby Got Dak join them as the four teams that have yet to reach 100 points in any game this season.
At the other end are Cerebral Ballsy, Los Perros Locos and Pork Chop Express, who have yet to score fewer than 100. Three weeks isn't enough to know exactly what these teams are. But I'm developing suspicions.
THE POINTS WERE THERE.
Perros entered Week 3 as the league's top-scoring team after leading the SCL in points in each of the first two weeks. That streak ended with a 112-106 loss to Who Is You, and the frustrating part is that the winning points were sitting comfortably on the bench.
Jacoby Brissett scored 30. Jalen Hurts started instead.
Fantasy football is a fascinating exercise in spending several days researching every conceivable variable before discovering Sunday evening that the correct answer was the guy you didn't use.
Deez Nuts accomplished something similar. The Nuts lost 72-67 to Uncle Bucky while Wan'Dale Robinson's 12 points sat unused on the bench. There were several places those points could have gone. Any one of them probably changes the result.
The points existed.
I cannot make you use them.
THE GOTHAM STOCK EXCHANGE
Meanwhile, Gotham Rogues appear to be participating in a different competition entirely.
The Rogues have now completed four trades in the first three weeks, which means everyone should probably check their messages because another offer is presumably being constructed as you read this.
There have already been some interesting early returns. The Rogues sent the 49ers D/ST to Ballsy for Tony Pollard. Pollard scored 10 this week. The 49ers defense scored minus-three.
The Gotham Rogues have since moved Omarion Hampton and Marvin Harrison Jr. to the Golden Tate Warriors for Saquon Barkley, continuing a trading pace that suggests Gotham views its roster less as a team and more as inventory.
Whether any of these deals ultimately work is impossible to know yet.
But while the rest of you are setting lineups, the Rogues are apparently running a commodities desk.
FOOTBALL REMAINS STUPID
Week 3 also provided a couple reminders that the NFL remains committed to making fantasy statistics as ridiculous as possible.
Deebo Samuel finished with 80 receiving yards and a touchdown without recording a reception, courtesy of a hook-and-ladder play in which Mike Evans caught the pass before pitching it to Samuel.
Eighty receiving yards.
Zero receptions.
Perfectly reasonable.
Josh Allen also became the first quarterback this season to record a reception after catching one of his own passes. I congratulate Allen on finally finding a receiver capable of anticipating exactly where he wanted the ball.
THREE WEEKS DOWN
So now we have something resembling evidence.
Pork Chop Express, Consolation Kings and Cerebral Ballsy are 3-0. The Chops' receivers apparently have a weekly reservation atop the scoring leaderboard. Tortuga has discovered that perhaps the league requires more than one afternoon to master. The Sagebrush East division has been asked to contribute. Do Not Panic continues its inspiring climb toward offensive adequacy. The Gotham Rogues have completed more transactions than some teams have even attempted in the history of their franchise.
And the season is only three weeks old.
Week 4 should tell us a little more. The undefeated teams will try to prove that 3-0 wasn't an accident. The struggling teams will continue looking for signs of life. Cactus East and Sagebrush East get another opportunity to settle their regional disagreement.
There is still plenty of season remaining for everything I currently believe to be proven completely wrong.
Fortunately, if that happens, I'll simply assume you finally started listening.
Good luck in Week 4!
Commish
Golden Ticket
The Golden Ticket is beginning to look considerably more competitive than the actual version of Do Not Panic. Panic holds the lead for a second straight week with 522 points, but the gap has opened slightly: Pork Chop Express climbed two spots into second at 495, followed by MaxxCasualties at 487, Consolation Kings at 477 and Uncle Bucky at 474. That's five teams within 48 points of the lead, so nobody should be measuring Panic for a green jacket just yet. The Chops' rise isn't particularly mysterious either—Jaxon Smith-Njigba has already contributed 93 points to their Golden Ticket roster, while Do Not Panic has gotten 112 from Jordan Love and 93 from JSN.
The other end of the standings is becoming less suspenseful. Gotham Rogues remains planted in 16th with 308 points, now 214 behind the lead, while the Warriors are 177 back. The Rogues' Golden Ticket roster has received eight points from Puka Nacua and 11 from Tucker Kraft, which is a wonderful strategy if the objective is to make the rest of the field feel better about itself. Three weeks in, there is still plenty of time for the standings to change. There is considerably less time for some of these rosters to begin showing signs that they intend to participate.
Pigskin Pick'Em
Three weeks in, and Gotham Rogues has managed to trade its way to the top of something without actually involving a trade. The Rogues take sole possession of first at 33-15, one game ahead of Do Not Panic, while Baby Got Dak made the week’s biggest meaningful move—jumping five spots into third at 30-18. Behind them is a six-team traffic jam at 29-19, so nearly half the league is currently separated by four games or fewer from the lead. And then there’s Los Perros Locos, sitting alone at 20-28 and already 13 games back. Picking NFL winners apparently becomes considerably more difficult when you can’t simply start Kenneth Walker and hope for 30 points.
Eliminator Challenge
The Eliminator went hungry this week. Tortuga put its faith in Buffalo and survived, while the rest of the remaining field decided independent thought was overrated and piled onto Kansas City. The Chiefs cooperated, so everyone lives to make another questionable decision next week. After losing half the field in the first two weeks, Week 3 offered a rare moment of peace. Enjoy it. The Eliminator has merely been denied a meal—it has not lost its appetite.
Survivor Challenge
The tribe has spoken, and Deez Nuts and Tortuga have been voted off the island. The Nuts managed just 67 points, while Tortuga’s 71-point performance completed an impressive journey from “this league is easy” after Week 1 to watching the rest of the competition from home after Week 3. Sometimes the island provides perspective.
At the other end of the food chain, Pork Chop Express dropped a league-best 135 points and claimed immunity. The Chops will be safely lounging on the beach next week while everyone else scrambles to avoid the next Tribal Council. The Chops have nothing to fear in Week 4. The rest of you should consider making fire.
Power Rankings
We have a new #1. Pork Chop Express climbs into the top spot after another 100-point performance moved them to 3-0, while Los Perros Locos slips to #2 despite still leading the league with a 130.7-point scoring average. Consolation Kings and Cerebral Ballsy remain parked at #3 and #4, respectively, although I'm obligated to point out that they also own the two easiest schedules in the league. Undefeated is undefeated, but apparently some roads contain fewer potholes.
Further down, Gotham Rogues and Who Is You each climb two spots, while MaxxCasualties jumps three to #9. The Power Rankings were considerably less impressed with Tortuga, who plummets five spots from #6 to #11 after their second consecutive loss and a 71-point performance. And at the bottom, nothing has disturbed the natural order: the Warriors remain #15 and Panic remains #16. Do Not Panic's Power Score has fallen to 66.43, which is getting dangerously close to becoming less of a ranking and more of a cry for help.
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