The League: Week 3 Preview

“The League, FX” Courtesy of: FX Studios

We’re heading into week 3 of The League and some storylines are beginning to take shape.  First and foremost is the story of parity.  We are two weeks in (granted, not a large sample size), and we have one team at 2-0 (coincidentally the team I picked as the draft winner), one team at 0-2 and eight teams muddled together at 1-1.  Perhaps more telling is the fact that only 44.5 points separate team #1 from team #10 in overall points scored through 2 weeks.  Here’s how the standings look as of today:

Another interesting takeaway in the early part of the season is the way team owners are approaching transactions and roster changes.  Through two weeks, Puig Destroyer and Impregnable Defense have been very active, totaling 15 and 14 roster activations respectively.  Impregnable has also been very active on the waiver wire, adding, and subsequently dropping, 9 players to date (Team Sherwood is right behind with 8 add/drops).  Only Jew Bo-Lee comes into week 3 action having made no changes to his originally drafted roster, so it seems clear that we’ll continue to see a lot of action throughout the season.

The Wire

After week 1, five teams took to the wire to change up their rosters.  After week 2, that number was six.  Considering the seemingly endless injury reports going around the league, it’s no surprise that add/drops increased.  Here were the moves as of Friday morning:

Impregnable Defense: Dropped Knile Davis, Jonathan Dwyer, Steelers DEF, and Ahmad Bradshaw; Added Da’Rel Scott, Jason Snelling, Broncos DEF, and Greg Jennings.

Team Sherwood: Dropped Raiders DEF; Added Terrelle Pryor

Team Fischer: Dropped Daniel Thomas; Added Coby Fleener

Team Blackburn: Dropped Ronnie Hillman and Sam Bradford; Added Sam Bradford and Bobby Rainey

Techmo Bowlers: Dropped Leonard Hankerson; Added Willis McGahee

Puig Destroyer: Dropped Greg Jennings; Added Steven Hauschka

An interesting week on the wire as many moves were triggered by the shocking Trent Richardson trade.  Techmo Bowlers snatched up the presumed new starting running back for the Browns, Willis McGahee, while Team Blackburn dove a little deeper, grabbing former practice squad back-turned potential backup Bobby Rainey.  Rainey is a very interesting add in deep leagues and dynasty leagues for sure, but in a 10-team standard (which this one is), he seems nothing more than a flyer…but you never know.

The Matchups

Before I get into some of the intriguing week 3 matchups, I want to mention an interesting development that came after week 2 games had concluded.  The battle for last place in week 2 between Team Sherwood and Angry Chunks Shady McCoys was a barn-burner that appeared to go the way of Sherwood, leaving the McCoys as The League’s only winless team.  But as all fantasy players know by now, nothing is final until the dreaded stat corrections are accounted for.

Low and behold, a seemingly inconsequential 12 yard reception that was originally credited to Bills RB CJ Spiller was found to have never actually been his catch at all.  It was Fred Jackson who made the reception in that game (how a mistake like that happens, I’ll never know) and when the error was made right, Team Sherwood suddenly found himself holding the short end of the stick.  His victory became a defeat and he now sits at the bottom of the pack heading into this week’s games.

And speaking of this week’s games, it should be a very competitive week in The League.  4 of the 5 weekly matchups pit two teams that are projected within 15 points of each other.  Puig Destroyer, our only undefeated team, takes on Team Sherwood looking for his first win.  That leaves the rest of the league (all tied with 1-1 records) to battle it out among themselves to try and climb into the top half moving forward.

Check back on Tuesday to see the scoring breakdown from the weekend and the updated standings here in The League!