The Birth of a Rivalry

The thought crossed management’s mind after a 30.5 point showing by Carson Wentz that this might be a little bit tougher week than initially imagined. And it sort of was. And that’s to say that an expected blow out turned into only a 34.7 point victory.

The Dangerous Angels leave this game disappointed, but with a lot of promise. The youth movement on the squad in Godwin, Njoku and Michel all contributed heavily to the final line – all bringing touchdowns. The Dalvin Cook recurrent hamstring injury has also thrust Latavius Murray back into a starting role while Devonta Freeman’s groin surgery brings Tevin Coleman to the front of the lineup. They’ve only scored less than 100 points once (in week 3) and still have at least 3 teams on the schedule that will struggle to reach the century mark in any given game.

The season is far from over despite what seem like grim odds at making the playoffs.

And for the Horsemen, this is just the beginning. They’ve now reached 5-1 for three consecutive years and have set a team best in PPG through 6 at 134.9 (obviously… since the move to 1/2 PPR).

With only one more gimme left on the schedule, the Horsemen will need to find a way to squeeze out at least one more win to clinch a playoff spot.

The week Horsemen fans have been waiting for all season is finally here. In a season marked by the basic expiration of the once great rivalry game against the Nosebleeds (due to fear of ‘bleed management to put anything at stake and the potential division realignment that would move them to the Dainty South), we see a new one born.

Midway during the 2017 season (which saw another Horseman championship), the 3rd and Unpredictable front office was rendered homeless by Hurricane Harvey and were forced to travel several blocks in torrential rain by boat and several more by foot down E. Horsemen Creek before taking shelter at Electric Horsemen HQ for several weeks. In a hurricane party gone wrong, they drank many beers and missed many days of work while forging this new rivalry. It still has no name or anything on the line… but it will soon.

The Electric Horsemen have struggled with 3rd and Unpredictable historically. At 3-4-1 all-time, their winning percentage against the ? is only worse than the 3-5-1 record against Strictly Southern. Week 7 is generally a good time to play Horsemen, as they’ve gone 2-4 in team history – their only worse week a 1-5 week 11 record. But struggle isn’t what they’ve done this year. Despite two keepers unavailable for the majority of the season, they’ve pieced it together and created the top scoring team in the league – and the top scoring team in league history. This comes with an asterisk, though, as it likely would not be better than the 2013 3rd and Unpredictable squad without 1/2 PPR. 2013 was a long time ago. 3rd and Unpredictable has not outscored the Horsemen through 6 weeks in any other year or in any of the last three complete regular seasons.

Leonard Fournette remains sidelined with a hamstring injury that’s kept him out all year and even if Le’Veon Bell had reported to the team by now, he’d be on his bye week. This great set up is only magnified by the loss of Antonio Brown (WR4) to a bye week. Next man up brings Emmanuel Sanders (WR9) into the standard WR slot beside Julio Jones (WR8) and a pair of rookie RBs will also get their shot to earn more time when the rest of the team shows up.

3rd and Unpredictable is completely healthy until Deshaun Watson gets himself killed and they have Kamara fresh coming off a bye after a hugely disappointing game a couple weeks ago that would begin a 2 game slide for the preseason #2. In the last 2 weeks they have fallen from 95% to 74% odds of making the playoffs, losing to the Extreme Baby Throwers and expansion surprise Dangerous Angels (see above). There isn’t a more important victory on the schedule than beating the Electric Horsemen – and they’ll meet again in week 12.

The Horsemen are 4.7 point favorites (the smallest line since week 13 of 2016 and the 30th straight time they’ve been favorites) with a 58.7% chance of victory with ESPN and 68.8% with Fantasypros.

After what is quite possibly the first 5-0 week in history, picks go to 22-8 – destroying all years prior… just as the Horsemen are destroying all teams now.

• Legs With Holes @ Nosebleeds. Legs just get worse and worse. There doesn’t seem to be any reason to the majority of their transactions, and it looks like a complete housecleaning has occurred over the last week. Keeper Marlon Mack was released just in time to get healthy – and his prized first draft pick, Rashaad Penny, was released just in time for this most productive game of the season. He’s also not chasing QB points anymore, moving to Alex Smith from Mitchell Trubisky – before moving from Alex Smith to the elite Joe Flacco. I don’t think it matters if he adds a kicker. The Nosebleeds are moving on up (+12% from last week) and are looking to challenge the Horsemen for the division lead. LWH are a gimme to just about every team, especially the Nosebleeds.
• Drunken Aces @ Extreme Baby Throwers. The experts think the Extreme Baby Throwers run away with this one, but I humbly disagree. They expended a lot of energy upsetting 3rd and Unpredictable and are likely running on fumes, and when you smoke that many cigarettes when you’re running on fumes only disaster can ensue. The Aces surprise this week and get back over .500.
• Bumpy’s Berries @ Straight Laced. The Berries season has been marred by injury and heartbreak, but despite having the least points of any team in the league this year (including Legs With Holes) they’ve managed a 3-3 record and are somehow still in contention for a playoff spot – if not the division title. It doesn’t look like they’ll be healthy this year, but the Laces are reeling after a loss to the Heavy Pistols… and drop another one – to fall a little closer to LWH in the bottom of the standings.
• Heavy Pistols @ Strictly Southern. The Pistols meet the 2017 runner up at an extremely opportune time. Aaron Jones, Davante Adams and Juju are on bye, while TY Hilton may not be quite back to 100%. Leaning on… Blake Bortles… and… James O’Shaughnessy… and… Corey Clement… the Pistols pull off a second straight upset – and this one the biggest of them all.
• Closet Hillbilly @ Dangerous Angels. Closet Hillbilly’s prized handcuff is on bye and everyone else on the roster seems pretty boom or bust. Maybe this is too many upsets for one week, but Dangerous Angels were hot last week and put up their best performance of their year. We like them to keep the week over week improvement going and upset the Hillbilly.