Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Deere? Week 4 Fantasy recap

We have finished Week 4 and a third of the fantasy football regular season! This week we saw somebody bag a Cougar, a couple’s quarrel, and a wacky, weird week of fantasy football. If you want to read about exactly how weird it was, I found a great recap of fantasy football on the Ringer website here. If you want our league-specific recap, keep reading! It’s a good one!

Provo Cougar Go Cougs came in hoping to continue his unbeaten streak against England Excessive Force, who shook off a rough start to the season to reel off two straight victories. England Excessive Force made some wide-scale changes to his roster shortly before tipoff, rostering Daniel Jones and Wayne Gallman of the New York City Giants and starting them immediately. It ended up paying off twofold, as Daniel Jones threw a touchdown to Gallman, who fell into the endzone for another one, and the two players scored 34.1 fantasy points together in the game. Provo Cougar Go Cougs started the week off rough, as the Packers defense cost the team a point in the Thursday night game, and it didn’t get much better from there. Go Cougs players scored one total touchdown before the Sunday night game, when Zeke Elliott and Dak Prescott took on the New Orleans Saints with a chance to take the lead for the Provo Cougars. They followed the same pattern the rest of the Go Cougs team set, leaving plenty of points on the field and losing a low-scoring slugfest to the Saints. Provo Cougars Go Cougs saw his unbeaten streak end, as England Excessive Force won this matchup 69.3-61.7.

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Nothin Runs like a Deere was in line to take advantage of a Provo Cougars loss, and went up against Team John’s Winners. Team John’s Winners has had some terrible matchup luck, as he has the fifth-most points scored, but a league-high 419 points scored against him thus far in the season. Once again, Team John’s Winners was frisky throughout the day. He was perhaps the only fantasy beneficiary of the Cowboys-Saints slugfest, as Will Lutz put four field goals through the uprights for 14 fantasy points. Matt Ryan continues to rely on tight end Austin Hooper to move the ball, and that connection  paid off for John’s Winners as Austin Hooper caught 130 yards and 13 fantasy points off of Matt Ryan passes. On the opposite sideline, Nothin Runs like a Deere got a surprising amount of production out of Corey Davis, who scored a touchdown and 15.1 fantasy points in a Titans passing offense that was a bottom-feeder through the first three weeks. Todd Gurley is no longer the dominant fantasy force he was the last two years, but he proved he is still a top-flight running back with 19 fantasy points and two touchdowns. Unfortunately for Team John’s Winners, all his efforts weren’t quite enough, as Nothin Runs like a Deere used the Steelers’ defense to pull away late Monday night. Nothin’ Runs ran away with this one, 112.8-93.7.

Goin’ In Blind reclaimed her lead as the “top female” in Week 3 and was looking to continue that streak against Links Dawg Pound, who has had some unfortunate injury luck with both Cam Newton and Saquon Barkley going down in consecutive weeks. Christian McCaffrey got back on track for Goin’ In Blind, racking up 23.9 fantasy points  with 179 total yards and a touchdown. He’s the top running back in the league right now with Barkley out, and his stats reflected that. Meanwhile, Links Dawg Pound took full advantage of a Detroit Lions-Kansas City Chiefs game that was billed as a shootout, and it lived up to every expectation. Kenny Golladay was the top receiver for the Lions, with two touchdowns and 67 yards, bumping his fantasy output to 18.7 points. For the Chiefs, LeSean McCoy barreled into the end zone and gained 14.9 fantasy points along the way. In another cruel twist of fate, Links Dawg Pound was bit by the injury bug yet again, as Mitch Trubisky left his game after only scoring 0.4 fantasy points, which was more than enough to sink Links Dawg Pound. Goin’ In Blind moves to 3-1, 78.3-57.3.

The Reindeer Gamers played a lovers’ spat of a game with Lookin 2 Winovich. As the league commissioner, I don’t have a ton of hot takes, but in Week 2 I said that the Patriots defense wouldn’t be able to continue to produce fantasy points the way they did against the Dolphins in Week 2, when they scored 35 points. The Dolphins are terrible, and I thought the Patriots’ defensive output was an aberration. While they haven’t reached 35 points again, the New England defense is on pace to be one of the best fantasy defenses of all time through four games. They scored 23 points on Sunday via  four interceptions, five sacks, a blocked kick, and a touchdown against a solid Bills team. Chris Carson also scored 14.5 points of his own and didn’t fumble the football in a game for the first time this season. The Reindeer Gamers saw Jared Goff throw for an insane 517 yards, 68 attempts, and two touchdowns on Sunday, but was undone by three interceptions and a fumble, leading to an average 20.8 fantasy points from Goff. This matchup was extremely tight, but the Reindeer Gamers had a chance to win Sunday night when the Saints and Alvin Kamara took on the Dallas Cowboys. Alas, Alvin Kamara was underwhelming in the game, leaving the Reindeer Gamers three and a half points short of victory. Lookin 2 Winovich wins again, 82.8-79.5.

Albuquerque Cat Killas took on Better Luck Next Time, and with both teams at 1-2, they both needed a victory to try and stay relevant. Albuquerque Cat Killas saw Leonard Fournette of the Jaguars finally live up to his billing as a top running back for this season. Fournette rushed for over 100 yards for the first time this season…and decided to do it again in the same game, finishing with 225 yards rushing and another 20 yards receiving for 24.5 fantasy points. We previously mentioned the Lions-Chiefs game as a shootout, and while it was a high-scoring affair, Pat Mahomes was left out of the touchdown department for the first time this season, limiting his total production to a pedestrian 18 points. Better Luck Next Time had a similar story as the Cat Killas, as a premiere running back, Nick Chubb of the Cleveland Browns, went off, scoring three touchdowns and 183 total yards, leading to 36.3 fantasy points. Carson Wentz also overcame a tough Packers defense to get to 19.7 fantasy points for Better Luck Next Time. Better Luck Next Time had better luck this week, winning 97.5-77.1.

I am the Goat was shooting for his first victory of the season against Low Fat Greek Goedert, and got off to a great start in the Thursday night game. Aaron Rodgers scored 25.4 fantasy points in the game to finally display his offensive prowess in the season for the first time. In other important Thursday news for I am the Goat, Melvin Gordon finally decided to come back to the Chargers team, which may bump Austin Ekeler out of a starting running back spot for the mighty billy goats. Ekeler seemed determined to keep it his gruff going though, as he hit endzone paydirt twice and hung 122 total yards up for 24.2 fantasy points against the Dolphins. Greek Goedert was also the beneficiary of Aaron Rodgers being awesome, as Davante Adams caught 180 yards of Aaron Rodgers’ passes and scored 18 fantasy points along the way. Lamar Jackson also showed once again how fun he can be and scored 24.4 fantasy points for Greek Goedert, but she was still nine points behind I am the Goat heading into Monday night’s game.  Fortunately, the Steelers relied on the legs of James Conner, who caught a touchdown, gained 125 yards, and earned 18.5 fantasy points in the contest to get their first victory of the season. Low Fat Greek Goedert left I am the Goat still winless on the season, winning 110-100.8.

We didn’t have nearly as many triple-digit scores this week, but we still had some solid showings. Nothin Runs Like a Deer had the high score of 112.8, with Low Fat Greek Goedert close behind at 110 and I am the Goat with his first triple-digit score of 100.8. We’re starting to get into tiebreakers now, as five teams sit at 3-1. In the event of ties, the standing are based on number of points scored for the season, so Nothin Runs like a Deere takes the top spot from Provo Cougar Go Cougs. We also have a new “top female” champion, as Low Fat Greek Goedert has 21 more points on the season than Goin’ In Blind. These are also the current playoff standings if they were to begin today. The rest of the teams are somewhere between 3-1 and 0-4, so nobody is too far behind. Keep working at it! When I played two years ago, a friend of mine went from 0-5 to 7-6 to make the playoffs. So there’s still hope for everybody! Make sure to check your lineups frequently as we are getting into the bye weeks and the worst thing you can do is leave someone on bye in your starting lineup.

As always, let me know if you have any questions.