The Girl is Savage

Note: Origianlly written Aug 1st,  and then updated on Sept 15th.

I know exactly what the first text is going to say.

It’ll go something like this:

“GREAT TEAM . . .”

The next text will shortly arrive with this message:

“ . . . if this was 2011.”

Adam sends me this text every year (the date changes from time to time, but the sentiment stays the same), and every year, he’s pretty accurate.

He didn’t this year, but he did mention that Josh Jacobs in the first round was a stretch and the A.J. Green was gonna be a bust.

See . . . I have sort of a problem. I have a tendency to overvalue fantasy football players that are, well, maybe a few seasons past their primes. Especially in the back of drafts when I’m looking at a lot of players I don’t know and suddenly I see Frank Gore just sitting there, totally ignored by the rest of the league.

Which he was, and only picked up by Will this morning as bad news from the Jets about LeVeon Bell's chances of playing next week.

In 2011 Frank gore ran for 1,200 yards and 8 TD’s. Last year it was 599 and 2. He is now Le’Veon Bell’s back up on the Jets. My brother Francesco is a Jets fan, which means every time I scream GO FRANKIE GO, he’s gonna wonder why I’m shouting at him. Cause you know Gore is gonna poach a few down the stretch. I like to call him “Fall Forward for Four Frankie”

This is because I’m a sucker for alliteration, and that’s what Gore does. He hits the defensive line and falls forward for four yards. In pretty much every game he’s gonna give you sixty yards and a 50% chance at a touchdown.

Not in the last few years though. In fact, the last time he broke 1,000 yards, Obama was still the President of the United States and doesn’t that feel like a f@#k ton of years ago?

It was 2016.

I turned 40.

I won a league championship that year.

My team name: “Trump’s Twitter Game”

I thought that was pretty funny in the summer of 2016. I think we all did.

And we were right. It was pretty funny.

So there’s next to no possibility of a Gore resurgence this year, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be looking to pick him up somewhere in the 17th round.

Cause what if Bell goes down?

Bell did go down, Jesus, the things the universe will do to make a joke not funny.

I may have a sickness.

I’m not alone however. Peter also likes to grab the old guys.

I’m gonna let that last sentence just sit there.

Any-hoo, as of this morning, I realized that even multi-billion dollar team owners share the same sickness. Maybe we should all start wearing masks.

So here’s a fun statistic: Imagine a team where the QB throws for 5,200 yards and 39 touch downs. The lead Running Back goes for 1,300 and 17 touchdowns, even the Tight End goes for 1,300 yards and 17 touchdowns.

That’d be one helluva fantasy team.

That’d be the 2020 starting line up of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

If the year was 2011.

Tom Brady, LeSean McCoy, Rob Gronkowski for those of you who are curious.

I tried to find 2011 stats on Mike Evans, but I think he was sick that year. Anyway, it’s kinda creepy looking up highschool stats for someone you don’t actually know personally.

It’s actually creepy looking up highschool stats for anyone really.

But yeah, the Tamp Bay Buccaneers have a GREAT TEAM.

If the year was 2011.

You wanna know what else happened in 2011?

We killed Osama bin Laden.

Discovered water on Mars.

We Occupied Wall Street.

Cocaine sales dropped by 35% as Randy Savage left this world for the Great Slim Jim in the sky.

Heroine sales might have done the same thing, with Amy Winehouse saying no to rehab for the last time, but thankfully Keith Richards was able stabilize the supply and demand curve.

Now, there’s a man who understands a market economy.

2011 was also the same year my brother asked me if I’d like to play fantasy football.

I told him I know nothing about football.

He said it’s easy. Grab a Fantasy Football magazine and draft Running Backs in the first three rounds.

The top three prospects for running back that year?

Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, and yes, LeSean McCoy.

My team that year, I remember VIVIDLY.

Adrian Peterson

Mark Ingram (his rookie year)

Michael Bush

Mike Wallace

Brandon Marshall

Willis McGahee

And Josh Freeman . . . of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. So it all comes full circle.

I don’t remember the tight end, but I’m pretty sure he was terrible.

Anyhoo, I came in last place that year, and instantly became a junkie. Which is weird. You’d think losing that badly would tell a grown man that, maybe this isn’t the game for him.

But no.

Like a millennial at an EDM concert, I caught the virus.

There have been years over the last decade where I’ve managed five teams at a time, making the play-offs in none of them.

Because (and I’ve said this before) I am terrible at this game.

Like ungodly terrible at it.

Except for that one time where I made a silly joke about someone who turned into one of the most dangerous humans on the planet.

But even if Doctor Fauci told me to stop playing for the safety of everyone around me, my eyes would glaze over and I’d spend serious time trying to figure out how to blame New Zealand.

And now I’m the Commissioner of a league. (Not you Cosmic Charlie, rest easy boys)

And for even better funzees, Joann is starting with her first team this year and she’s already better at the game than I am.

And since I’m not in the middle of an election campaign or trying to make myself into a successful podcaster (long story) . . . It’s time to return to THE 40ft POST.

For those of you who are new to the leagues over the last few years, this is a weekly blog about fantasy football. I start with a funny little monologue (see previous sentences), then highlight some football news, injuries, bad decisions (etc.), relay the previous week on my fantasy football teams, then make some silly predictions about the next week.

This is not in any way required reading, and sometimes my humor can be a bit savage (see Amy Winehouse death joke), and I may get way out of line sometimes when talking about Frank’s sister, but the point is that I love and respect you all, and this is solely for the fun of the game.

If you enjoy, awesome.

If you get slightly offended, awesome.

If smack talk and dry humor isn’t your thing, don’t click the link.

If you’re new to The 40ft Post, there are some running jokes that might be a little complicated to explain, so if you get confused, ask a friend. But to answer a few questions, no, Mr. Gold is not really my arch nemesis . . . Yes, Dad still sends me waiver wire suggestions . . . No, Karen isn’t quite the sociopath I make her out to be, and yes, there is a 96% chance that Uncle Frankie is reading this while sitting on the toilet.

Circulation check Frankie, can you still feel those little piggies?

Good boy.

THE BIG NEWS

Well, well, well. Two things we have learned after the first football weekend since human beings set fire to the rain.

One, Joann is an absolutely Savage Fantasy Football player. She has been taking screen shots of every text she’s gotten about her big win, along with showing me all the notification from Yahoo about how awesome her team is.

She did however seem to apologize for being so excited about kicking my ass in week one. Not that she was sorry for winning, but that she was sorry I  lost.

My response was . . . hrmmmf . . . and “Just do me a solid and kick the snot out of my father next week.

She agreed that that was best.

And the second thing we learned after this first week is that nothing changes. I’m still bad at this game, and Frank Gore will taunt me in my sleep until I roster him.

INJURIES AND BAD DECISIONS:

Well, you all know who has been hurt by now, so there’s nothing new there.

Though, to be honest, I’m really bummed about Lindsay’s Turf Toe.

The Bronco’s paid Melvin Gordon III a ton of money to take on the lead back role, and I felt like the true narrative should have been his not being what they wanted him to be and home boy Lindse would come back to the foreground All American Hero Style.

Instead, Lindse hurts one of his little piggies, and Mr. Gordon looks exactly like what the Broncos opened up their checkbook for.

So I'm on the hunt for a new potential flexible running back especially now that Frank Gore has been gotten. Will beat me to him

Muchas gracias, Mr. Will.

But there haven’t been any fingers blown off in the gender reveal fireworks,

And so far . . . 

. . . knock on all the wood . . . 

. . . there’s no direct sign of pandemic disease.

Maybe, with a little bit of luck and an f-ton of purell, we may have a season to enjoy.

Though how much fun was it listening to canned crowd noise? I think during the Tampa Bay game I actually heard Statler and Waldorf from the Muppet Show heckling Gronkowski, though that might have been LeSean McCoy’s great grand children.

WHAT TO WATCH NEXT WEEK:

Obviously the only narrative I’m interested in is how badly my wife beats up on my septuagenarian father and the playability of Phillip Lindasy’s little piggy.

On narrative street we get to see if Tom Brady is gonna come roaring back to life like he used to do after an embarrassing defeat, or if, like we’ve all been saying since the first Telsa rolled off the assembly line: “Brady’s finished.”

(Don’t bother looking . . . it was 2008 . . . the year Brady missed with a torn pectoral . . . that’s why the joke was funny.)

FANTASY LAND:

The Commish: 0-1, 8th Place

Karen’s Handful: 0-1, 11th Place

(Tubba Thor, AKA Savage Beast that is my betrothed): 1-0, 2nd place.

So it was an exciting Week One. All the thrills. I hooked up two wide screen televisions to an actual, honest to god, thirty year old cable splitter, because I don’t throw things away, and it didn’t even make a dent in my coaxial cable collection.

This week we are adding a third screen and possibly streaming The Red Zone from a connection on my phone to an HDMI cable.

If you plan on attending BYOB.

Obviously, as stated before, my teams did not fare well, but that is at the heart of the kind of game I like to play.

I want to play all season. I want to scour the waiver wire at midnight on a Tuesday to see if I can find a narrative possibility that no one has thought of.

I want to stream defenses, tight ends, kickers, and RB2’s.

You lazy people with your good teams and set-em-and-forget-em line ups, you simply do not get to enjoy anything all year except your smug smiles and moist handshakes.

But at least I wasn’t part of both of the biggest blow outs of the week.

I was only on the losing end of one of them.

An oddly enough, both of the winning teams in the biggest blowout games were auto drafted.

I couldn’t possibly bring myself to ever do that, but sometimes I think I might give it a try.

I’ve got a really good smug smile, and my moist handshake is first class.

It’ll get better next week.

. . . and finally . . . 

CRAZY SILLY PREDICTIONs FOR NEXT WEEK:

Allen Robinson gets traded to Washington and now my two top receivers (Karen’s Handful) play for the same team.

Josh Gordon gets reinstated and I have to buy a Seahawks Jersey.

Jordan Reed is the Number 4 Tight End next week until Kittle heals.

Phillip Linsday’s little piggy stops wee-wee-weeing on my narrative and I suddenly have my dream Flex guy back.

My septuagenarian father gets to see the full savagery of my wife unleashed and has never been more proud of me in his life.

THAT’S IT Y’ALL

Circulation check Frankie.

Count them piggies.

Also, if you want to know the joke behind “Karen’s Handful” check out Hannah Gadsby’s comic stand up “Douglas” on Netflix. It’s very very very funny.