Wide around the middle

After four weeks of Jea Football League action, every team has at least one win, and every team has at least one loss.

That means that just two games separate the three 3-1 teams at the top of the standings from the three 1-3 teams at the bottom.

Then there's that wide middle, the four 2-2 teams who haven't quite figured out where their season will go. There's Explosion, winner of two in a row and the league's top scorer (by just five points). And then there's Hahne, so impressive in the first two weeks but quite literally missing since.

Still, with nine games left to play before the start of playoffs, anything can happen.

Week 4's games were pretty dull, with the lone exception being the Practice-Green Trees game. Even that was pretty much decided going into Monday night (Brandon Marshall would've needed to grab 16 points to tie). In each of the other four matchups, the winners had a triple-digit score while the losers finished with totals in the 70s.

Several of the top individual performers apparently thought it was still 2006. Gates, LT, and TO had 27, 28, and 32 points, respectively. But alone at the top was the fantasy newcomer Arian Foster, who tallied a nice 33 points after sitting out for the first quarter. That helped lead Practice? to its first win.

We talkin' 'bout Practice? Yes, and he begins our Week 4 recap:

Practice? 133, Trees 121


After losing two games in which he scored the second- and third-most points of the week, Practice? was probably wondering if a win would ever come. Really, there's only one way to ensure a win in head-to-head fantasy football: score the most points in a single week. Well, that's just what Practice? did, scoring 133 and making Trees the week's Hard-Luck Loser. That's a new JFL term to describe a team that lost while scoring in the top four for the week.

Trees would have beaten seven of the other teams in the league.

But Trees, who still has the league's easiest schedule so far, finally had an opponent score more than 85 points, and it came back to bite him.

The cynic might say that Trees would've won if Adrian Peterson wasn't on bye week (Laurence Maroney got 1 point as his replacement), but let's just be glad that Practice?, the league's second-leading scorer, finally got a win. It's only fair.

Ants 101, Republic 72


The other 0-3 team going into Week 3, Ants, also snagged his first win of the season. Ants has scored the second-lowest number points in the league, but his opponents have scored the second-highest number of points. That's a recipe for some tough losses, but this week was the first exception.

He ran into Republic, who has the league's lowest average score (83.25) after four weeks. Some tough performances from quarterbacks have really hurt Republic so far.

Ants and Republic each had quarterbacks finish with negative totals. Cutler had a minus-3 before leaving with a concussion, and Anderson had a minus-2 before being benched. If that wasn't enough, Ants bye week running back Lynch had eight yards and a fumble for a minus-2.

But nice days from Jones-Drew (24) and Calvin Johnson (20) helped Ants get a win during top QB Romo's bye week.

Fartsicle 128, Hahne 72

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Remember Weeks 1 and 2 when Hahne scored 133 and 143 points? He was the leading scorer each of the first two weeks and looked unstoppable. Then something happened in Week 3. I don't know what it was, but his team stopped showing up.

Last week, he started a player who was inactive on his way to finishing at 53 points, the lowest total in Jea Football League history.

This week, he tied for the week low with 72 points. The culprit this time wasn't a late scratch but two starters on bye week! We can assume that he didn't check ESPN even once in the past week. That means chances are good he won't be reading this blog, either. But just in case: WAKE UP, HAHNE!

But seriously, inactive owners are no fun, and we miss you, Hahne. So if you or someone you know is friends with Hahne, please remind him to check out his roster once a week to move bye week players to the bench. Well, unless he doesn't care about the fate of his $20 entry fee. If that's the case, keep on doing what you're doing!

Would it have mattered in Week 4, though? Probably not, because Fartsicle had a solid 128 points to grab his second win and finish in second in points for the week.

Explosion 115, Steeles 78


Steeles' streak of 110+ points per week ended in Week 4 thanks to an implosion at the running back positon. With WR1 Andre Johnson already on the Steeles bench with an injury, the vaunted Steeles running backs weren't much help. They combined for 18 points.

The good news for Steeles, though, might be on the QB front. He finally had a QB2 score in double digits (Gradkowski, 14). In fact, his QB3 for the week, Kevin Kolb, also scored in double digits (12) on the bench. Kolb will be the Week 5 starter, so things could be looking up.

Meanwhile, Explosion followed up his 174-point outburst last week with another triple-digit day, helping pull him out of the funk that emanated from his 0-2 start to the season. He's now the the league's top scorer and the highest-ranked 2-2 team.

Screech 110, When 79


LT is back! The 11th-round draft pick scored 28 points to lead Screech to a victory. And thanks to Trees' loss to Practice?, the Screech is now in first place. True, only eight points separate first and third, but still!

So far, the Screech has been the most consistent team through four weeks, for whatever that's worth. Points so far: 117, 107, 116, 110. But that could easily change with bye weeks now here in full force, so don't get cocky, Screech!

For When, it was a disappointing week in which just three of his starters scored double digits, and the leading scorer only had 17.

Other notes

• For more stats than you'll know what to do with, check out An's stat page, already updated with fresh numbers from Week 4. 
• It's way too early to think about playoff chances, but let's do it anyway. If all remaining games were decided by flipping a coin, the three 3-1 teams would have about an 82 percent shot at making the playoffs, while the 1-3 teams would get in about 36 percent of the time. You can look at all that here. 
• Finally, put on your parka and visit Club Zero, a graveyard of sorts for the players who score 0 points (or less--yikes!). 

They've made a huge mistake

Five teams will consider Week 3 "the one that got away."

In the case of two of the matchups, a 93- and a 73-point blowout, it was the one that got really far away really fast.

But in the other three contests, each of the losers could've won if they had made a single roster switch. That's the case many weeks, of course, but it's hard for the losers not to think that they've made a huge mistake.

Let's look at the numbers.

Republic 101, Fartsicle 88


Team Fartsicle is your clubhouse leader in the battle for "Worst Roster Move of the Season." He picked up a new tight end, Dustin Keller, and had nearly four full days to make two clicks and add Keller to his active roster. But, inexplicably, Keller sat on the Fartsicle bench all weekend. He didn't sit on the Jets' bench, though. He went for 98 yards and two scores, which was good enough for 21 points. Add 21 points to Fartsicle's score, and he's won the week. Oops!

On the other side of the matchup, Republic scored enough to snag his first victory, even though the two top scorers on his team (Benson and Cassel) combined for 42 points...on the bench.

Explosion 174, Ants 81

If Fartsicle hadn't left his TE spot empty, his score would've been much higher. If Ants hadn't left his D/ST spot empty, his score would've been slightly lower!

Yes, the "Move of the Week" could be Ants picking up the Dolphins defense and then keeping them on the bench while they finished with minus-2 points. Now that's the way to stay out of Club Zero.

It wouldn't have mattered either way, though, as even Ants' combined bench and starters would've lost to Explosion by 67. Or look at it this way: take Explosion's three top scorers for the week (Collie, Wallace, and either QB) and bench everyone else. That game would've been closer, but Explosion's three starters still would've beaten Ants' 10 starters, 83-81.

Trees 126, Hahne 53


Do you like battles between unbeaten teams? How about dull, lopsided victories? Well then you probably enjoyed Trees-Hahne about as much as you loved Steelers-Bucs.

It's tough to figure out this Hahne team. He was the league's leading scorer in each of the first two weeks, and then he sets the Jea Football League record for lowest single-week scorer (previous low: 64). Ouch. Part of it was his own fault, though. He started Jerome Harrison, who was inactive because of injury. And that minus-3 from the Bucs' defense didn't help much, either.

The rest of it was just consistent suckiness from his entire team. Look at these numbers from his running backs, receivers, and tight end: 2, 3, 0, 2, 2, 2, 2. That's gonna make things difficult. His lone bright spot was from Peyton Manning, who scored nearly half of the team's points (26). Oh, and while we're piling on here, know that Hahne's bench outscored his starters, 54-53.

For Trees, victory came easily despite benching Anquan Boldin (33 points). Trees is one of only two remaining unbeaten teams. (Steeles is the other). But how can Trees be 3-0 when he's sixth in the league in points scored? He has the easiest schedule in the league so far. Opponents are averaging 67.3 points per week against him. The team with the next highest opponent point total is the other 3-0 team, Steeles, whose foes are averaging 92.3 points per game. Ah, the joys of head-to-head fantasy football!

Steeles 119, Screech 115


Now here is how a battle between unbeaten teams is supposed to go down. Well, I would've preferred to win, of course, but this one came down to the final minutes of the Monday night game.

Sure, I could've started Matt Ryan (19 points) instead of Sam Bradford (11), but where's the fun in that? Going into Monday night with a 10-point lead, I knew anything could happen. Steeles needed to outscore me by 11 to win, and he ended up with 14 more Monday night points, thanks mainly to a 10-point night from Johnny Knox.

But it was up for grabs as Green Bay drove down the field, needing a field goal to take the lead. That would've meant points for my kicker, Mason Crosby. Instead, the Packers fumble and give the ball to Chicago, which orchestrated a drive that set up a field goal for his kicker. That's a 6-plus point swing that truly was the difference. Good game!

Meanwhile, the Steeles quarterback controversy continues. After two straight weeks of 0 points from his QB2, his third QB2, Josh Freeman, got him 6 points. Freeman's on bye for Week 4, so he'll be dropped for a fourth different Steeles quarterback. Stay tuned.

When 136, Practice 128

The other really good game of the week was the sibling rivalry between When and Practice. "When Practice?" "I dunno, ask coach."

Like me, Practice could've swapped his benched quarterback (Flacco) for his low-scoring starting QB and won the week. But Brett Favre against the Lions seems like a good matchup on paper, so you can't blame him for the fact that Favre only had 8 points.

Practice starts the season 0-3, and you can't say he isn't trying. Instead, blame unfortunate scheduling. A quick look at An's stat page shows that Practice has had the second-toughest schedule so far (Ants has the toughest). That means that Practice has a team that's better than his 0-3 record suggests. In Week 1, he played the team that scored the most points, while he scored the second-most. And in Week 3, he played the team that finished second in scoring for the week, while he finished third.

Meanwhile, big bro (When) got a solid win and sits near the middle of the pack for most statistical categories.

What's next


The byes are here! We've seen empty roster spots that could've helped or hurt a team, but now we get to find out which team will be the first to start someone who's on bye!

Club Zero

Rather than keep this post going on even longer, check out the latest Club Zero additions here.

That was close!

In Week 1, three matchups finished with a spread of five points or less. Week 2 wasn't as exciting as none of the five contests finished within single digits.

Two games were decided by exactly 11 points. The other three had an average margin of victory of 49 points. Ouch!

Don't forget to check out An's stat page, updated each week.

Let's make some random comments about each matchup, starting with my own.

Screech 107, Practice? 96


After scoring the second-most points in the league in Week 1, it was looking like Practice? would finish as one of the lowest scorers in Week 2. Then Frank Gore came along. The Man in San Fran needed to outscore Drew Brees by 23 points to secure a win for Practice?, but that didn't happen. Practice? got stellar value out of his new "second" QB, Michael Vick (24 points), but his top QB Brett Favre (1 point) was a non-factor. Can Practice? bounce back in Week 3 with Vick on the bench?

Steeles 130, Ants 84


When five of your six RB/WR slots are filled with single-digit point totals, it's tough to win. That was the case for Ants, who saw another disappointing day from keeper Maurice Jones-Drew (2 points). For a portrait of consistency, though, check out those Ants QBs. Both Tony Romo (15 points) and Jay Cutler (23 points) had the exact same totals in Week 2 that they had in Week 1. A cool 38 points per week from QBs is pretty solid. However, Steeles nearly got that many from his one QB, Matt Schaub (31 points), but an injury to Dennis Dixon (0 points) likely prevented a week-leading total from Steeles, who finished in second for the week, behind...

Hahne 143, When 86


I thought you two were friends. Hahne, is that how you treat a friend, with a 57-point beatdown? When's leading scorer was his defense with a nice 22-point showing from Pittsburgh. There wasn't much help on the rest of his roster, though. Same goes for the bench. In fact, if When could've started his entire roster, including his bench players, he still would have lost by 28 points. Hahne, meanwhile, rode Jahvid Best's week-leading 43 points to another victory. Hahne is at the top of the standings with a 138 points-per-game average.

Fartsicle 127, Explosion 116


The other close contest was Fartsicle's win over Explosion. But when you look at Fartsicle's bench, it's apparent that he was winning this week regardless. On his bench he had a QB with 15 points, an RB with 20, and a WR with 17. If he had subbed in each of those players for the lower-scoring starters, he would've gained an additional 44 points! As it was, he still had enough to finish with the third-highest score. Explosion, meanwhile, couldn't get it done with a team that basically consisted of two quarterbacks and a tight end. Those three were responsible for more than half of Explosion's points.

Trees 108, Republic 64


Some quarterback tandems help you win. Others belong to Rock'n'Republic, apparently. His two QBs combined for minus-1 points in Week 2, with Vince Young scoring minus-3 before being benched. He's been named the Titans' starter for Week 3, but will Republic ever trust him again? Trees, meanwhile, finished with another low-point win. For the second week in a row, Trees finished in the bottom half of the scoring but still came away with the win.

Get your geek on

Want to look at Jea Football League stats from every conceivable angle?

Well, now, thanks to An, you can! 

Find more stats than you'll know what to do with, all available here. He'll refresh them after each week's games are finished.

One early trend I see is that no team came within 10 points of what they were projected to get. An came the closest at 11 points lower than projected, while Josh Lee finished with a disappointing 56-point deficit.

ESPN's projection people apparently cannot be trusted. At least for Week 1.

The statistics really become fun once we're a few weeks in, but props to An for putting this together again.

Revilatilize your roster beginning at noon on Tuesday, Sept. 7

Which Arena League team will
Matt Leinart play for this year?

Unsatisfied with your draft picks? Fear not, overanalytical fantasy football team owner!

Beginning at noon (central) on Tuesday, Sept. 7, the player universe will be at your mercy! You'll be able to drop players (except those on the undroppable list) and add new ones to your roster.

All preseason transactions are through free agency, meaning you can drop and add as you please.

After Week 1's Monday Night games, however, we'll convert to a waiver system. That means you'll:

1. Make a waiver claim (or several) for the player(s) you want.
2. Wait until Wednesday when the claims are processed.
3. See which players you get! (Claims are processed in an "inverse-standings" order, which resets each week. In other words, the last-place team gets priority.)
4. ????
5. Profit.

2 Fast 2 Furious: A draft recap

"Pockets ain't empty, cuz. I gots me Sam Bradford."

IN LESS THAN 80 MINUTES, the draft was over. It took us an average of 32 seconds per pick (we were given 90), meaning what could have taken up to 3 hours and 45 minutes was over in a little over an hour.

Going into the draft, there were several unanswered questions. In a league with two quarterback starters, who would tempt fate by waiting till late rounds to draft their second QB? Who would draw laughs by picking a kicker several rounds too early? Why are there two Steve Smiths? What the heck is a Fartsicle?

Well, we now know two out of four of those answers. That means it's time to put 90 seconds on the clock and do a fast and furious draft recap.

Biggest Steal: Kevin Kolb, Round 7 (Tom)

We'll know for sure after the season is over, but it could be Tom's drafting Kevin Kolb in the seventh round. Kolb was still on the board when Carson Palmer, Eli Manning, Donovan McNabb, Vince Young, and Matt Ryan were drafted. Kolb has some nice weapons in Philly, but his relative lack of pro-level experience apparently scared some other teams. Check back after Week 6 to see just how smart this pick was.

Honorable mention: Kyle Orton, Round 17 (Josh L.). Orton was the 14th-best fantasy QB last season, but he was the 28th QB taken in our draft. Yes, even Sam Bradford went before Orton.

Strangest Pick: Ryan Longwell, Round 9 (Josh L.)

Every year this award has to go to the first person who picked a kicker. I'll keep saying that until the year comes where everyone waits till the last round or two to pick a kicker. I'm guilty, too, since I picked mine in Round 13.

But Round 13 is at least double digits. Let's look at Round NINE where not one but two teams picked a kicker. The first to do so was Josh L., so he gets this year's "honor" after picking Ryan Longwell.

Longwell's average draft position on ESPN is 123rd, but Josh L. apparently was so concerned with his kicker that he picked Longwell at 85. For the record, Don's pick of Stephen Gostkowski at 87 is only slightly better. Gostkowski's average draft poisition is 118.

Of course, I'll be eating my words when I lose to Josh L. because Longwell explodes for 16 points (his season high last year) in a single week.

Best Top Two RBs: Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson (Aaron)

These two guys are pretty good. They finished second and fourth among fantasy RBs last season, and together they were responsible for an average of 30.8 points per game. Solid.

Not-So-Best Top Two RBs: Ricky Williams and Justin Forsett (Josh H.)

These two guys are just OK. Josh H., who has three really good receivers and (for some reason) two elite tight ends, waited till Round 8 to get his second running back. By that point, Josh L. was already deciding which kicker he wanted! Compare Aaron's top two backs to Josh H.'s top two, and you're looking at more than 10 points per game difference. That's huge, but Josh H. could more than make up for it in WR points. Or he could trade one of his two top TEs for a running back. The trading blocks are open, people!

Bye Week "Oops": Andrew and Josh H.

In a two-QB league where you only can have three QBs on your roster, it's important to make sure that none of your signal callers have the same bye week. Andrew, though, has two QBs with Week 9 byes: his No. 2, David Garrard, and his bench QB, Alex Smith. And Josh H.'s top two QBs, Peyton Manning and Matthew Stafford, both take a break in Week 7. In other words, look for Stafford and Smith on the waiver wires during those weeks.

That's it! All in all, it was a great draft with lots of different strategies for who to pick when. Nobody knows whose selections will reign supreme, though, until we play the games. So good luck!