Week 1 Power Rankings
And just like that we are underway.
Tyreek Hill went bonkers. Alvin Kamara ran roughshod. And Josh, who owned both of the week’s top scorers, romped his way to a Week 1 victory over Erik, scoring the second-highest point total in Week 1 history with 137 points. It was the most points in Week 1 since Jess opened 2014 with 142 points en route to an eventual championship. Had it not been for Matthew Stafford’s lackluster four-interception performance on MNF, Josh might have claimed the record for most points in a single week. For now, that record still belongs to Trevor’s 152-point Week 9 in 2011. But if it’s any consolation, Josh will still walk away with the season’s first $10 weekly prize. You’re already 25% of the way to recouping your investment!
As for the rest of the league, we saw a record five triple-digit scorers as Josh, Jess, JT, Alex and Samantha all topped the 100-point mark. With a league average 90.8 ppg in Week 1, it was a huge turnaround from last season in which just three team owners scored more than 80 points. Unfortunately, four of this year’s five 100-point scorers played each other, which means two team owners deserving of a win ultimately lost—Alex and Samantha.
For Alex, it was an especially close 101-102 loss to JT, pending a possible stat correction of course. It’s a particularly bitter loss considering Alex’s defense, the Saints D/ST, scored a dismal -9 points. Had he played literally any other of the 31 defenses in the league, he would have won. That’s rough.
UPDATE: Stat corrections have come in and JT is in the clear. He takes the win.
Meanwhile Samantha, in her Worst League debut, acquitted herself well if ultimately unsuccessfully in a 100-116 loss to Jess. Her 100 points are tied for the fifth-most points by a team owner in his/her first week and the most since Josh scored 119 in his 2014 debut. Ultimately, she came up short. But it’s worth noting to her or any of the other Week 1 losers that two of the last five champions started 0-1. Rest assured, it’s early.
Finally, in the remaining games Geoff and Greco both scraped out wins despite below-average scoring thanks to matchups with Trevor and Brandon, both of whom scored a paltry 66 points. For Trevor, it was his fifth-straight regular season loss dating back to Week 10 of last season. And in a stunning reversal of years-long trends, Nick upended Gray by a final score of 97-62, just his third-ever defeat of Gray. This was also Nick’s first Week 1 win since 2014.
Now that we have a week of games in the books, let’s take a look at our first Power Rankings of the season. Keep in mind these rankings are likely to change drastically in the first few weeks.
Josh takes the top spot followed by Jess, JT and then fellow 0-1 team owners Alex and Samantha. Finally, Nick rounds out the top-6, which as a reminder is the number of teams that will make the playoffs this season. After Nick, it’s Erik (another 0-1 team), then Geoff and Greco (two 1-0 teams). Finally, Brandon, Trevor and Gray bring up the rear, three teams that collectively averaged just 64.7 points in Week 1.
In Week 2, our premier matchup will feature the #2 and #3 teams in the Power Rankings, Jess and JT, facing off for the right to start the season 2-0. Meanwhile Samantha and Gray, two 0-1 teams, will battle to avoid falling to 0-2.
Lastly, it’s worth pointing out that since our last post ranking all 84 team names in league history, we’ve seen some great new team names added to the league. They include Hey dARNOLD!, SaNu Girl and Gone Gurley—all great additions.
