Jordan's 2009 Power Rankings - Week 2

In week 2, two teams stepped out of the pack and staked a claim to the top spot in our Power Rankings. The Rocky Brook Oilers got 246 yards from scrimmage and 2 touchdowns from Frank Gore, and another 18 points from the amazing Drew Brees to stomp the Georgia Satellites 85-59. The Midwest Marauders, who lost a close one to Rocky Brook week 1, plowed the Fight-in camels by 50. Leading the way were two guys we mentioned in this space last week – Chris Johnson (31 points) and Andrew Johnson (19 points).

On the down side, it is rather surprising to see the Dangerous Minds and Georgia Satellites lying prone at 0-2. Mike and John are not used to this – it will be interesting to see how these two masters respond to this early-season adversity.

This weeks Rankings…

1. Rocky Brook – They’re 2-0, and coming off a spectacular week. Early season analysis has them sitting second in Game Points (153) and third in Total Points (210), but that Week 1 win over the Marauders gives them the tiebreak advantage.
2. Midwest Marauders – They are first in Game Points (156), and first in Total Points (224). But, they are 1-1, so this is as high as we can place them this week. They have Johnson and Johnson leading the way. Tomlinson looks like a second round swing and miss, but Fred Jackson has been brilliant. Hugh has a championship look this year.
3. Northboro – Two solid weeks have the Phoenix at 2-0, with contributions coming from all over the roster. Last week, Greg Jennings whiffed against Cincinnati, but Chad OchoCinquo has a solid week and Phillip Rivers has been terrific. Northboro left 50 points on the bench, playing Michael Bush over Tim Hightower and Cedrick Benson (141 yards). This week they get a test against the undefeated Spies.
4. Northern Spies – Statistically, the Spies come out 6th in our analysis, but they get a boost for showing up in week 3 undefeated. The Spies are thoroughly enjoying Adrian Petersen’s spectacular performances, but they are having trouble sorting out their RB2 and RB3 slots. Calvin Johnson has been excellent. This week, they face a very solid Northboro club.
5. Fight-in Camels – Tony is riding the wave of a great week 1, but this is a team with serious questions. Brian Westbrook and Tom Brady are both under examination by Fantasy Owners. Could these two players be in for down years? Brady looked lost against a ferocious New York Jets blitz scheme last week, and Westbrook’s injuries seem to be serious enough that he’s having trouble playing through them. With McNabb on the shelf, and unlikely to be completely healthy for weeks, Westbrook is bound to be the focus of opposing defenses through the good weather weeks.
6. Dangerous Minds – They are 0-2, and looking to sort out a mess. Moss, McNabb and Braylon Edwards have been pretty quiet so far. Percy Harvin has scored both weeks, so he may provide some help off the bench. McNabb and Matt Hasselback, who Mike picked up on waivers last week, are both banged up. The record for blowing up quarterbacks is held by a Northboro club that had six starting QBs go down with injuries in the first six weeks. I finished that sad season with Doug Flutie at the helm. Cutler had a decent game against Pittsburgh last week, so the solution may already be here.
7. Georgia Satellites – Look no further than John’s first round draft pick to pinpoint the difficulties in Georgia. Matt Forte has been a bust so far, but his struggles are largely due to his playing Pittsburgh, who is a wall, and Green Bay, who stacked the box all afternoon to stop him. Beyond Tony Gonzalez, the receiving corps is a mess. With Matt Ryan, Gonzalez, and Roddy White headed to New England this week, I’ve got a cold beer on ice for Mr. Nelson – kickoff’s at 1:00 pm Sunday, big guy.
8. Garvey’s Gangsters – The Gangsters have been reduced to jay walking and parking violations so far. They are last in Game Points, next to last in Total Points, and they are 0-2. They’ll try to get off the matt against a Dangerous Minds club that needs a win.
   
   

Jordan's 2009 Power Rankings - Week 1

In 2008, the Nelson saw one team finish over .500 during the regular season. The rest of the league finished either at .500 or a couple games below. In week 1 of 2009, no team scored 70 points, and every team but one scored at least 50.

This type of parity is really unusual. I have played in a number of leagues over the last twenty years. I have friends who have played in about a dozen more. Rarely do you find a league where more than a couple of owners really know their stuff, and consistently build teams that are threats to win the title.

Going on very little data, we can quickly gather that this year is going to be another scrum. No one made a statement in week one. To your laser-eyed correspondent, however, some emerged more equal than others. This week’s Power Rankings…

1. Fight-in Camels – They scored 107 total points last week, and had two good things happen. Roy Williams had a great game for Dallas, setting him up for a possible comeback year. And Ladanian Tomlinson went down with an ankle injury in week 1, increasing the value of Darren Sproles. The bad news is the injury to Donny McNabb, because Tony typically ties his fantasy team performance very tightly to the Eagles. Akers, Westbrook and Jackson are all here, and will be affected if the Philly offense struggles.
   
2. Northboro – The proud owners of the Stephen Cup squeezed out a win against the Dangerous Minds – the first time they’ve beaten the commish in a few years. Northboro has some balance and some bench – they scored 98 points total on the week. No one in the starting lineup scored over 13 points.
   
3. Dangerous Minds – They lost by a nose hair to Northboro week one – a game so close it took until Tuesday to determine the winner. The commish got 99 points from his guys in the first week, and has Percy Harvin and Patrick Crayton on the bench to spice up the starting lineup. Mike’s QB is on the shelf for a while, and Jay Cutler looks like a project. It’ll be interesting to track Mike’s waiver picks over the next few weeks.
   
4. Rocky Brook – Tom started the year by leading the league in scoring week 1 – 68 points will get you a W about 85% of the time in this league. There are two questions surrounding this team. First, the bench looks thin – 18 of his 28 bench points came from Joe Flacco, whose ass will not rise from the Oiler pine unless something hideous happens to Drew Brees (31 points!). Second, Brees scored almot half the team’s points by himself. He’s awesome, but he won’t score 31 every week. Tom needs Stephen Jackson to score well, and Jackson has precious little help in St. Louis right now.
   
5. Northern Spies – They are 1-0, but what goes for Rocky Brook also applies here. The Spies got 27 from AP, who is just a stud. They have even worse bench issues than Tom. That said, I love the starting lineup here, especially if Leon Washington gets some playing time over Reggie Bush. This is a good team that will struggle with the bye weeks.
   
6. Midwest – The Marauders had a good showing week 1, but were undone by the Brees explosion against hapless Detroit. This club will look better in the next few weeks – Tennessee will not be running Chris Johnson against Pittsburgh again until the playoffs. In fact, Johnson faces only 2 really tough run defenses the rest of the way – the Jets in week 3 and the 49ers week 9. The key to this team is Andre Johnson. If he performs as expected, Midwest is going to be a handful.
   
7. Garvey’s Gangsters – After scoring 37 points in the first week, it would have been easy to place them last in this week’s rankings. But they got 51 points from their bench, and that bodes well for the team’s outlook going forward. Rich should be praying that Delhomme gets his mojo back in Carolina, because Steve Smith is a very important player on this club.
   
8. Georgia Satellites - John is like the Yankees – they start slow and get better as the playoff draw near. He scored 61 points total between his starters and his bench. We look for better days from the seven time champ.

Taking Home the Hardware

Welcome to the 2009 Nelson League Blog! I'm glad to be back with you after a long offseason!

The Northboro Steroids collected the Nelson Trophy on a sunny Sunday afternoon in beautiful New Jersey - the third championship for the franchise and the first since the Clinton administration. Then they dug in, and with the Brains of the Outfit linked up through Skype, they drafted the 2009 Northboro Steroids.

The resulting team was handed the Stephen Award for The Worst Draft in the Nelson for 2009. This was controversial. Let's take a look:

Phillip Rivers - 34 TDs in 2008. One of the top 5 QBs in the NFL according to every list I had access to. I had him fifth on my list behind Brady, Manning, Brees and Aaron Rogers.

Deangelo Williams - 20 TDs in the 2008. The #1 running back in our league in scoring.

Larry Fitzgerald - The #1 receiver on most preseason draft boards. He was clustered in the top group with Moss and Calvin Johnson.

Stephen Gostkowski - The #1 kicker on most draft boards. Brady is back, so more singletons this year, but two years ago he kicked 72 extra points. I can live with that.

Greg Jennings - The #1 receiver in pass-happy Green Bay. He had 1292 yards and 9 TDs last year. He was #4 on my board.

It's a little hard to improve on that part of the club. I contend that these were the best players available at the #5 slot.

The part of the team Stephen didn't like was this group:

Jonathan Stewart, Darren McFadden, Cedrick Benson - These guys will spend the most time in my RB2 and RB3 slots this year. Stewart had 10 TDs last year, and only a preseason achilles injury and the stout Philly run defense is keeping him on the bench in week 1. McFadden has been handed the starting job in Oakland after a terrific preseason. Benson resurrected himself in Cincinatti at the end of the year. He's a pounder, and he's the only option in the Bengal running game. I'm hoping for Red Zone love there.

Chad OchoCinqo, Josh Morgan - These guys are the #3 wide receiver in some combination. Everyone in San Francisco, who was badly burned by the Michael Crabtree disaster in the draft, is pointing to Morgan as a key to the San Francisco offense. He's never done it, but he has the tools to be an elite receiver. Ocho is the big question mark, and that pick was based on the preseason football I watched this year. I saw a guy whose pride was hurt by his poor performance last year. I saw a guy who is on a mission. And, more importantly, he has his Quarterback back after a year on the shelf. I'm hoping for big things there.

Is this the worst team in the league? In the Nelson, where competition is so fierce that strange bounces and weird happenings decide championships, it could very well be. But DeAngelo Williams just ran 11 yards for an early score against the Eagles. Let's play some football and see how this works out.