Fantasy Football: Le’s futbol takes over as the league leader
As someone who takes a lot of stats classes, I crunched the numbers, and I have lost a total of a fifth of all of the games of the Tartan Fantasy League. Ordinarily, I would try and mitigate this humiliating statistic by pointing out that Sports Editor Marika Yang has lost somewhere on the order of half of all of the games, but unfortunately I cannot even do that this week because I was bested by Yang herself.
She showed me last week how to drop players and I got rid of my inactive players, so don’t anticipate me writing this column ever again. If nothing else, trying my hand at pretend-football has led me to be concerned for the health and wellbeing of real-life football players because at one point literally half of my team was taking a sick day. I suppose that’s rich, coming from someone who, as she is writing this, is extremely sore from an exercise class that was called, I kid you not, “Mild Cardio.”
Anywho, on to what actually happened this week. This week saw a major upset in the rankings. I dropped a STUNNING four places in the rankings, finishing in eighth place. Visual Editor Tracy Le is now first place, unseating publisher Caleb Miller, now in second place. Yang and Pillbox editor Michelle Madlansacay both rose three spots in the rankings, reaching fourth and fifth place, respectively. Photo Editor Lisa Qian also dropped one rung, ending up in seventh place. If I lose again next week, I promise to learn what a running back is so I can make these articles spicier and more informative for you guys.
GOAT but Ironically over Slugs, 97.10 to 79.36
Assistant Pillbox editor Izzy Sio’s GOAT but Ironically beat out Operations Manager Adam Tunnard’s Slugs. This does not surprise me, as I have heard directly from the horse’s mouth that Tunnard does not even know who is on his autodrafted team, where Sio is a verifiable imaginary football enthusiast. Sio’s team had two high scores, earning 22.00 points from Los Angeles Rams running back Todd Gurley and 20.06 points from Patrick Mahomes, quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs.
Sio’s third-ranked team has proved to be impressive, as Mahomes earns the title of best quarterback in the league for the third week straight. Sio lost to Tunnard in Week 3, but more than paid him back in kind with this decisive victory. Sio will go on to play Yang’s Gin and Bear it, while Tunnard will face off against me. He is not prepared, and he will be crushed, mentally and emotionally.
futbol over Last Manning Standing, 151.42 to 131.50
This game led to Le’s futbol unseating Miller’s Last Manning Standing from its long-held spot at the top of the league, which means that Miller’s team name now should read Second to Last Manning Standing. Le and Miller were the top scorers this week, so their faceoff was an exciting one. The fantasy football website’s game-summarizing algorithm tells me that this week, Miller scored the most points anyone has ever scored without winning thus far.
Both teams over-performed their projections, due in a large part to their high scorers. Le got 32.90 points from Nick Chubb, running back for the Cleveland Browns and 30.30 from David Johnson, running back for the Arizona Cardinals. I am impressed and I don’t even know what a running back does! futbol will take on Qian’s TARTAN FANTASY and Last Manning Standing will face off against Madlansacay’s mmichelle123.
mmichelle123 over TARTAN FANTASY, 111.90 to 90.00
Madlansacay’s mmichelle123 pulled ahead of Qian’s TARTAN FANTASY right at the end of the weekend. She scored a lot on Sunday, after a relatively poor performance on Thursday. Both teams had three starters earn them zero points. I would recommend to both Madlansacay and Qian making Yang sit down with them and teach them how to drop players, as she did for me!
Madlansacay’s team was led by Philadelphia Eagles tight end Zach Ertz, who scored 26.50 points, and football-player-who-I-know-because-he’s-hot Odell Beckham, Jr. scored her 19.30 points. Qian will take on Le’s winning team futbol and Madlansacay will compete against Miller’s second-ranked Last Manning Standing.
Gin and Bear It over newz, 64.82 to 63.46
Unfortunately, now I have to relive the reality of the 1.36-point margin that means I have to write this article. This match-up was hard-fought and close, so the fact that my mythical football team sucks at the very least spiced up the league. New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, who I will call out because he was supposed to be good, earned me no points but Yang’s New York Jets defense earned her negative three points, which I did not know was possible.
Yang’s team had two players, Allen Robinson, wide receiver for the Chicago Bears and Jared Goff, quarterback for the Rams, who each earned her more than 20 points. I had zero players who accomplished the same feat. Next week Yang will face Sio’s GOAT But Ironically and I will beat Tunnard’s Slugs.
The next issue will be our final issue of The Tartan for the semester, and thus the final installment of Fantasy Football in 2018. I hope that I will make a last minute comeback, or I will have to live with the shame of losing until next year. This might be an issue, because I, for one, would not respect the authority of an editor that finished last place in a fantasy football league. So this is a desperate plea to my players, whose names I do not remember, to put it all out there. The respect of my colleagues here at The Tartan is on the line.