Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Why couldn’t the Seahawks have started the season this way? The defense definitely leads the way but the offense finally showed up to play, at least part way through the game.

Here’s the shocker from our league: Logan has the longest active losing streak. He’s still well out in front of everyone and his team is very strong so I don’t foresee any problems with him making the playoffs. There are now three teams tied for first (Logan, Luke and Dad.) Andy is coming up strong through the ranks with his three game winning streak. Next week’s featured matchup is Dad vs Luke. They’re both part of the three way tie for first right now.

Power rankings for week 8:

1. Logan (+2)
2. Austin
3. Luke (-2)
4. Dad (+2)

On to the weekly awards…

The Seahawks had a bye week last week, but there wasn’t any shortage of NFL news including a broken clavicle for Aaron Rodgers. Fake SportsCenter had a great suggestion for a replacement QB.

In our league, Logan posted the third highest score but lost to the top score so his perfect streak is over. I consider this a bit of karma payback for his win last week with the second lowest league score. In fact, the top three teams all lost … and retained their top three positions. Things are a little tighter though with Austin and Andy tied for 4th and only one game behind Luke and Dad who are tied for second. Next week the top four teams all play each other so we’ll see how that shakes out. Please make sure you stay on top of your rosters with all the injuries and bye weeks.

Power rankings for week 7:

1. Luke (+1)
2. Austin (+2)
3. Logan (-2)
4. Jim (+3)

On to the weekly awards…

Seahawks! Now THAT was a fun game to watch. I liked the up tempo pacing of their offense (even if it does screw up my 30-second skip button between plays). The downside is that it means that their defense might not get a huge rest on drives that are duds. That did turn out to be the case in the first half so I was worried that we’d see another second half defensive breakdown, but that obviously didn’t happen as the offense set a franchise record for most second half points. The injury to Chris Carson was a big blow though. He looked like their featured back for the first four games but now they have to continue the search. Hopefully Procise and Rawls can get healthy and get moving downfield.

Logan’s domination of our league continued this week as I failed to even make him nervous. Dad and Luke are tied for second place and the rest of us are lagging behind them. Tim is still searching for his first win. Could he do it against undefeated Logan?

The Yahoo draft day projections had Logan in 6th and Dad in 8th which is a great data point to show how ineffective those rankings really are. Of course MY power ranking formula is my more valuable and accurate. We have four weeks in the books so it produces some results now:

1. Logan
2. Luke
3. Austin
4. Ben

A couple important notes for our league:

• Bye weeks start this week so make sure you have a full roster.
• Remember that our reminder emails aren’t working anymore. If you want reminders, that feature is available from the Yahoo website and/or the phone app.

On to the weekly awards…

The Seahawks are 1-2. At least they scored a touchdown AND an extra point. There were some flashes of offense but it clearly wasn’t enough. After the game, I told a Packer fan that the odds weren’t looking good for a Seahawks/Packers playoff game. The Seahawks were pretty good odds for winning the Super Bowl before the season. Kudos if you were smart enough to bet against that. I’m not saying you can predict a season from 3 games, but they clearly aren’t dominating the league early on, even against teams like the 49ers.

Our league had low scores for the first two weeks but that ended this week with almost everyone breaking 100. Logan is the last man standing with an undefeated record. I’ll take the next shot at him in Week 4.

The Seahawks got their first win of the season. Barely. Against the 49ers. That’s hardly inspiring. They also got their first touchdown of the season but we’ll keep waiting for that first extra point. It was nice to see Russell Wilson happily scrambling around though. Jimmy Graham has a total of 4 catches for 9 yards this year. Hopefully they can get him back on track and/or he can get through whatever injury is slowing him down.

In our league, all four of the undefeated teams faced each other. Logan and I came out on top so we are now the only undefeated teams left. Logan is leading our league in roster moves already this year. He has 5 and the next highest is 2. I think his mid to late season roster moves were really what set him apart last year so maybe we can gang up on him this year by being better about picking people up off waivers.

The Seahawks Packers game is always a favorite of mine since we have so many friends who are Packer fans. While we had fun watching with a good group of people, the game felt like kind of a dud. Neither team could really get anything going but the Packers pulled out the win. I’ll keep waiting for the first Seahawks touchdown. Maybe next week.

The first week in our league was underwhelming. There were a lot of low scores and everyone under-performed according the Yahoo prediction (which means nothing but still…) Andy, Luke, Logan and I have started down the path toward an undefeated season. Trying to remember what happened last year? Here were the final standings:

1. Logan
2. Austin
3. Andy
4. Ben
5. Tim
6. Jim
7. Dad
8. Luke

For the record book, I’ll leave last season’s stats up for a week or two.

This has been a very frustrating season to watch the Seahawks. They were supposedly playing an easy game and ended up playing terribly. It feels like somebody flips a coin before each game and they’re either a Super Bowl contender or the Browns. They better not lose to the 49ers. Ugh.

Congrats to Logan for winning our league! He had the highest total point total in the playoffs and ended with a six game winning streak, so it’s hard to argue that he deserved the victory. The final standings are:

1. Logan
2. Austin
3. Andy
4. Ben
5. Tim
6. Jim
7. Dad
8. Luke

This is Logan’s second championship and breaks Austin’s attempt for a 3-peat. Here’s an update on our championship count since 2007:

Jim – 1
Ben – 2
Luke – 2
Andy – 1
Austin – 2
Logan – 2

I’ll probably have more stats for you in a couple weeks.

There are two different Seahawks teams that show up to play. This week it was the good one and they won solidly over the terrible team that always beats them: the Rams. The Rams were in quite a bit of disarray after the firing of their coach but they kept up their streak of ridiculous trick plays. I loved Pete Carrol’s fake punt when it was totally pointless and unexpected. That’s about 100 trick plays for the Rams to 1 for the Seahawks. Kick ’em while they’re down. I support it… except for the ending of that play with Ryan unable to run and carry a ball at the same time and then ending up in the hospital. This team is goofy this year. This article does a good job of summing it up.

In our league, Logan beat me and Austin beat Andy. I know that this happens to everyone, but I literally made a last minute roster change that lost me the game. AUGH. Every time I do that, I think “This is dumb. I always regret it.” But then I go on to convince myself that this time is different. I need to write a bot that automatically undoes my last roster change. But I’m not bitter.

Austin and Logan will face off for the championship. Sound familiar? It’s a repeat of last year’s championship game. That time, Austin edged out Logan for the win. The power rankings say that Logan has the advantage, but we’ll see who comes out on top this year.

1. Logan
2. Austin
3. Ben
4. Andy