Shank victory leads Horsemen to .500, Mayfield returns


The Horsemen would only have two players reach expectations in week 4 but, lucky for them, Pork Shanks had zero. With each week, it becomes more and more apparent that the 3 time champions are no longer the super-team they seemed from 2015-2017. With only one top 5 player thus far, things have looked pretty grim. It’s matchups like this that keep the hope alive that they’ll still be in a position to make a playoff run when everyone starts to finally click again – and maybe when Antonio Brown finds a team.

It wasn’t a particularly interesting matchup. It seemed moderately well in hand for the Horsemen most of the way through. However, it really all came down to Monday Night Football where the great Andy Dalton could send the Horses spiraling out of control into 1-3 for the first time in team history. All he had to do was score 34.6 points to claim victory for the newcomer Shanks. He was terrible. It was a performance so awful that Andy Dalton has been considered as a potential hall of famer (despite only one start for the Horsemen in week 4 of 2018 where he would score 30.8), depending on how this season ends up, after scoring only 3.6 points and leaving the ball everywhere except in his receiver’s hands.

Adrian Peterson has likely seen his last start for the Horsemen until week 9, at best, with Le’Veon Bell’s bye week passing. He was miserable, just as every Oklahoma grad playing for the Horsemen has been in the past. Everyone deserves a second chance, though… Stafford would head back to waivers for his bye week immediately before game time, and Baker Mayfield would return to the team to watch Daniel Jones play like he was Baker Mayfield himself.

What’s more troubling than the struggles of the offense as a whole is the struggle of the quarterback position. Through 4 games, the Horsemen have seen the worst scoring from the quarterback position in franchise history. And it isn’t even particularly close. The 13.60 PPG at the position is about 9.1 points below the average in prior years and 4.4 points below the worst prior year, an abysmal 18.0 in 2014.

The Horsemen would not score less than 106.1 in all of 2018 and have now scored below 96 in two games straight… but a win’s a win. The Horsemen are now tied for first place in the Dainty Division with literally every other team in the Dainty Division… which should make for a tense home stretch for everyone.

 

Next up on the docket are the Drunken Aces, formerly known as the Tenacious Taco Tasters. The last time these two teams met was week 11 of 2018 – which turned into the 5th biggest beat down in franchise history and the most in the 15 game history of these two teams – where the Horsemen would defeat the Aces 147.1 to 79.8. Cam Newton, Stefon Diggs, Leonard Fournette, Julio Jones and Antonio Brown would all score more than 20 points en route to victory. Things have obviously changed since then, but the firepower still exists to trounce as they trounced in the past.


Believe it or not, this Drunken Aces team is the 2nd highest scoring through 4 weeks in franchise history (102.2). Their best ever was last year (104.2) – where they edged this team out by 2 points and started out 3-1. Their current 1-3 start matches their worst start in franchise history, which has now happened 4 times in the 8 years of the Cosmopolitan Outlaw League. In contract, this Horsemen team averaging 104.8 is scoring significantly less than the standard scoring years of 2013 and 2015 – and 21 points less than last year’s strong campaign.

The Horsemen are 11-4 all-time against the Aces, including an extremely sad championship loss from back in a time (2014) when the Aces were ‘good’ and averaged 99 points per game on the year. They have seen the playoffs once since that year, and don’t appear on a trajectory to end their 3 year streak of drought in 2019.

Baker Mayfield returns to the team after clearing waivers unclaimed and will battle it out with Daniel Jones this week in practice to figure out who’s to be the suitable starter. Courtland Sutton is primed to make his first start to the Horsemen as the musical chair of flexes has churned many a mediocre performance unlike years past where only bye weeks could break up the solid core lineup.

The Aces bring in Kyler Murray, for what looks to be a duel of Sooner quarterbacks, after much frustration with Aaron Rodgers’ inconsistent performances and the potential loss of Davante Adams for the week. A loss this week sends the Aces to 1-4 for the third time. They have lost every week 5 in which they entered 1-3. The 2015 Nosebleeds are the only 1-4 team out of 13 to claw their way back to the playoffs. This looks like it could potentially be season ending if they can’t get past the Horsemen in this spot.

ESPN gives the Horsemen a 54% chance of victory to Fantasypro’s 56.4%. They are currently favored by 7.8 points. Despite their questionable showing as of late and shoddy 2-2 record, the Horsemen have been favored 20 consecutive games going back to last year.

 

 

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