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So, uh, this is how it ends for some of us, right? Today’s the day? Maybe tomorrow? I mean, it’s playoff season. Some of you aren’t going to make it past today, you big damn heroes. You tried for weeks and weeks, months and months, and now you’re left with nothing but gas station nacho cheese sauce in your mouth. [holds back tears] It was nice having you. You’ll remember the time we started Chester Rogers as WR1, right? [thousand mile stare] And Toevid, we’ll always have Toevid, right? [clears throat] I, uh, I didn’t think I’d get this emotional. But, let’s think about the future — the brightness of playoff teams hoping for Cam Newton to run for 2 TDs, or the prayers for Zach Wilson to hit Jamison Crowder deep in the endzone. The animal sacrifices being made to keep Jonathan Taylor’s knees healthy for 4 more matchups. [sniffs] Ah, now I’m back in the holiday spirit. Let’s see if we can’t keep your teams on track with a little bit of Razzball magic: 

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Ah, week 14 — we are fully into the second trimester of making that fantasy football championship baby. Or something like that. Fantasy football is often called the imaginary sports management game where luck plays the biggest role — there are so few games and the season is over so quickly that even the best laid plans crash to the ground and never recover. Kind of like my idea for a Kentucky Fried Chicken cryptocurrency. ENYWHEY. If we were creating a life form, like some sort of quasi-intelligent football being named “Brad” that pumped nacho cheese through his veins and was born with a Chargers logo on his head, we’d be six weeks from calling Brad a viable embryo. Yet here we are, prepping for the fantasy football playoffs already. Sorry Brad — this whole season is gonna be wrapped up before you can show us that your nacho cheese-powered body is in the best shape of your nascent life and ready to play running back for the Seahawks. 

Let’s see if we can do anything to help your fantasy teams this week! 

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There’s a certain je ne sais quoi to alternative styles of football. There’s the charm of the ol’ hook-and-ladder, which invariably works in those games against Uncle Rich that take place after he sobers up from the noon Thanksgiving slate. There’s the Statue of Liberty play, known as the go-to trick play for every blue, white, and red-blooded upstate New Yawker who still wear their high school letter jacket (and no, they didn’t letter in football). There’s the Cleveland Steamer, famous amongst Odell Beckham Jr. for…reasons. 

And then there’s the “Dead Arm,” when the team simply…doesn’t pass the ball. 

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I’ve never really been a gardener. Sure, I’ve cultivated a trio of kids and seen them through school and a pandemic and managed to throw my back out only minimally while doing so. But plants? Those things are hard. Kids grow up to move around and make their own choices and watch Avatar: The Last Airbender like you still want to do at age 40. But plants (part deux)? They just grow where they’re planted. My neighbor has hostas that he just walks the lawnmower over like it’s a horror movie. But sometimes, he gets generous and tears a couple out and leaves them out for some neighbor to transplant. The last time I tried to transplant some grapes from my best friend’s ancestral home in Central Europe, I killed them in a month. Sometimes organisms just aren’t meant to move. But this week, we saw our good friend Gardner Minshew make his Philadelphia Eagles debut in relief of Jalen Hurts. Jalen, who was…hurt… has been an exciting fantasy QB all year due to his proclivity to just air the dang ball into the air like he was being sponsored by Space X’s telemetry tracking systems. Now that former Jags’ QB Gardner Minshew gets to step in for a bit, we saw another exciting performance for fantasy managers lucky enough to risk their teams on The Constant Gardner. 

Let’s recap the Sunday games for Week 13 of fantasy football. 

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“Dream on.” — Steven Tyler. “Keep dreamin.” — Freddy Krueger. 

I love dreaming — it’s where my fantasy teams aren’t complete garbaggio due to massive injuries. Right now, there is a team that had an awesome draft by going Jonathan Taylor/Justin Jefferson/Cordarrelle Patterson/Pat Freiermuth/Lenny. OK, maybe your team didn’t draft like that — Pat Freiermuth in the 4th round? How was that possible? But for the rest of us that were drafting sensibly, we’re entering the Nightmare on 13th Week, a spine-tingling time where our teams that are held together by the warriors named Boston Scott and Kendrick Bourne try to make the playoffs. Can we here at Razzball do anything to save your season? Let’s find out after the jump!

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Deep in the nacho cheese-smelling depths of NFL Headquarters somewhere under the Mojave Desert, one of the expert schedulers thought, “Russell Wilson vs Ryan Fitzpatrick…the Chef versus the Magician in Prime Time!” And then 2 months later Fitzmagic is benched for an undrafted QB who wasn’t in the league for two years…that’s Taylor Heinicke bee-tee-dubya. OK, the Magic Man is dealing with a messed-up hip, but it’s tough to argue that his NFL career isn’t over. Meanwhile, Russell Wilson broke a finger and the resulting surgery took him out of commission for a month. When he returned to action, Gordon Ramsey would have kicked him out of the kitchen immediately. In the two games since returning to the field, Wilson had completed a combined 51% of his passes with no TDs and 2 INT. With so many fantasy teams staring down the playoffs and one of the top quarterbacks failing, did we see a resurgence of Russ’ skills? Let’s check in to see how Monday Night Football went. 

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After Jonathan Taylor made me do the TD stutter last week, I get to do another 4 T-Banger for Leonard Fournette. Let’s do a montage! [cue wavy lines and St. Elmo’s Fire starts playing] Last year, Leonard Fournette was going to be the RB1 on the Jacksonville Jaguars, and right before the regular season, the Jags dumped him for…nothing. The guy who had been the face of the team in 2019…and being the face of the Jags isn’t saying much…but the guy who was the offense for the lackluster 2019 Jags was without a job in 2020. He got picked up by the Tampa Bay Buccanneers, a team that was lush with running backs. Like, you couldn’t wave a covid stick in that training room without hitting Ronald Jones, LeSean McCoy, or Dare Ogunbowale. Lenny jumped in with the team, took some time to buy into the system, and by the 2020 Super Bowl run, he had found his footing. Fast forward to 2021 [record scratch] — Lenny’s stepping in when The Goat doesn’t have his A-Game. Tom Brady was merely mortal this week with 226 yards in the air, while Lenny went for 100 on the ground and 3 TDs and another 7 catches for 31 yards and a TD. Not bad for a guy that was taken as your RB2 or FLEX in draft season this year, right? 

Let’s see who else made the news for Week 12 Fantasy Football: 

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Are we all hydrated from post-turkey shenanigans? Are you ready to run headfirst into your fantasy football Sunday with nothing more than your dual-chambered drinking hat? Make sure you’ve got some Fanta loaded up and cross your fingers that you’ll still be in the playoff race come Week 13. Let’s see if we can’t help you stay alive (commence the disco dancing). 

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What’s up Turkey Day fans? Hopefully you’re enjoying a ridiculous amount of food and libations in a safe place with people you enjoy today. It’s holiday fantasy football and I’ve been around the community long enough to know it’s just us degenerates sitting at the table playing 500. Did you keep score? Nah, me neither. Pour another libation and turn the TV on loud, it’s going to be a long day. Let’s see if we can’t save our fantasy football teams while we’re at it. 

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SEO titles? Whatever. Prime time football has been anything but exciting this year as the matchup makers somewhere in a private bunker in Norad provided Santa tracking and NFL scheduling. “The Giants are a fun team!” Somebody shouted and everybody agreed, and 11 weeks into the season, NFL fans were treated to a 30-10 drubbing on prime time football. OK, Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski were out there doing their thang (which is basically calling each other on the phone and pretending to be somebody else) but everybody else basically treated it like a scrimmage game. Over on ESPN 2, Peyton and Eli welcomed several puzzling guests on to their show after running out of guests like Russell Wilson, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, and so on. Instead, the fans of Monday Night Football were treated to analysis by former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice while the usual broadcast crew couldn’t pronounce “Chris Godwin” correctly, favoring the moniker “Goodwin” for the Super Bowl-winning, Pro Bowl-making, 5-year veteran of the league. And we wonder why armchair journalists writing on semi-serious fantasy football sites are the ones getting all the love. [sigh] OK, let’s see if we can make sense of anything for your fantasy football teams. 

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It’s hard to believe that 2 months ago, Donkey Teeth was sleeping in a dumpster outside of Krispy Kreme and burning expired donuts for heat. One day, his muscle shirt got singed by the flame of a glazed gone wrong. The scorch marks on his only shirt formed the shape of a running back, and that scorch mark turned into a prophecy. Donkey Teeth placed two bear claws on his hands and found the nearest internet-equipped machine where he typed, “Jonathan Taylor RB1” to all the people who would listen. Now that November has arrived and Donkey Teeth has upgraded his abode to a camper that he parks in a Taco Bell parking lot, it seems like people are finally understanding the meaning of Donk. Let’s see what other news we can dig up from the Sunday slate: 

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Elevensises. Eleven from Stranger Things. 7-11. Turn it up to…eleven. All right, now what’s your favorite Dungeons and Dragons race? Did you say “Halfling?” I knew it was Halfling! OK, now that I’ve scared away the normies, let’s jump in and figure out what the front door to do about our teams on this, the [checks notes] 11th week of fantasy football. What a coincidence — I didn’t even plan that lede to go with the eleventh week. I suppose that’s what happens when I start writing at the 11th Hour. I’m done, I promise! Meet me after the jump. 

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