Midseason Update

Halfway through the regular season, already! Here’s my take on things, now that we’ve reached the midway point.

The Alphas:

These four have established themselves as the elite over the first 7 weeks, and they are the current favorites to emerge as league champion.

TBD2: Easily the surprise team of the year. Despite draft day projections that placed them at the very bottom of the league, TBD2 actually leads everyone in scoring and have posted the biggest blowout in 4 of 7 weeks, including the last three straight! Lights-out play from QBs, WRs, and RBs has made them a balanced and dangerous squad.  It’s still a month away, but right now it appears the Week 12 rematch with the CPC’s will determine the regular season champion.

ChalicePastryCarnage: Led by a powerful RB duo – the best in the league – the CPC’s have rolled to an undefeated record. In fact, they have yet to be really threatened. They may not escape the regular season unscathed, however: a tough end-of-season schedule includes only two matchups with teams with losing records, and rematches with both TBD2 and Cool Runnings.

Cool Runnings: The anti-Minions? Doubling down on the Colts has been the Cool’s greatest strength, and right now with Indy rolling, the Running look near unstoppable. Of course, it also may be a potential weakness; Week 10 is a likely loss, and the team may be uneasily positioned as a boom-or-bust playoff team. Luck-ily, the schedule is favorable and they are riding high at the moment.

Obese Geese: They may have struggled a bit more than expected out of the gate, but very few adjust over the course of the season as the Geese do. They have more depth than anyone and that will work in their favor more and more as injuries take their toll and bye weeks roll on through. Look for a strong end-of-season push from the Geese.

The Middle Class:

These teams sit semi-comfortably mid-table, and are still dangerous and quite capable of putting it together. If disaster strikes, however, any one (probably only one) could also wind up out of the playoff hunt wishing they’d had another break or two fall their way.

Yakety Sacks: The Sacks have an eminently capable roster that has been up-and-down so far. While their performance has been a bit underwhelming, they are balanced, project really well on paper, and shouldn’t be taken lightly. Watch out for them if the Eagles ever fully take flight; with the two best components of that offense, they could quickly become a scary, scary matchup.

Quality Contorl: An unbalanced roster that has yet to fully click; the base is solid but without any reliable ground game, the Quality have been living dangerously throughout the first half of the season. Nevertheless, late emerging RBs are often the easiest position to correct at the end of the season, and if they patch that flaw, they’ll be an increasingly tough opponent with a full war chest of top-end WRs to lead the charge.

Stars: Last year’s champs have been busy trying to rebuild the machine. They are scoring just fine, but have been fairly unlucky with their results thus far. Their upside might be a bit lower than everyone else mentioned thus far, but that doesn’t take them out of the conversation; any team with a one-two punch at QB-RB like the Stars is always capable of putting it together provided a few supporting pieces go off.

The Long Shots:

These teams are in bad to awful shape. It’s likely that only one, or maybe two of these teams will nab a playoff berth. The rest will find themselves checking out early, thereby lowering the collective amount of time we spend viewing Yahoo’s sluggish websites and desperate advertising.

The Schmuckernators: A collection of top-end talent with mediocre results. The RB situation is a hot mess right now, the schedule is entering a rather tough stretch, and yet we shouldn’t entirely discount this team. After all, as noted above, running game flaws are sometimes correctable and they still have a bit of time to more firmly establish their spot in the playoffs, when anything can happen. It just would be nice to see some evidence of putting it together before fully trusting this team.

Bacon Cheeseburgers: There’s a common theme among this group; devastating injuries and suspensions. Losing a first-round pick is a tough hurdle to overcome, and the Cheeseburgers haven’t. But they’ve also had rotten luck with more points scored against them than any other team has; their current overall point total would put them in 7th place rather than 11th. So they have a bit of hope, if they can find enough victories in the remaining six games; four wins might do it, but their margin for error is growing ever slimmer.

Z Power: Three losses of fewer than 4 points shows just how close this team could have been to contention, or at least playoff conversation. But, those early season troubles only seem to be compounding; injuries are starting to mount, and the future of this season appears less and less promising. Barring a shocking come-from-behind victory tonight, the Z’s look to be in the midst of a lost season and seem to hold only the faintest of playoff hopes right now.

Cactus Watch Out!: After a strong start out of the gate that made breaking their playoff drought look possible, the Cacti have come crashing back to earth on a four-game losing streak. The overall talent level on this team is thin, and their ability to put points on the board has seemingly disappeared. The next two weeks will determine the fate of their season; the Cacti have two straight matchups with current one-win teams, and a sweep will keep their playoff hopes alive. Otherwise, a first playoff appearance seems exceedingly doubtful.

Minions: And at last we hit rock bottom. Outside of their Week 4 debacle (22.70 points! Most weeks, a team will have at least one player score that many!), the Minions actually haven’t been quite as bad as advertised. A transcendent QB like they have can occasionally will this team to victory. But, oh, did that one week hurt, since they are now last in points scored and behind in any tiebreaker situation. Their hopes for a repeat appearance in the playoffs look mighty dim right now, barring one of the greatest of turnarounds we’ve seen in league history.