Snappers 134.5, Guns 100: Both teams had monster QB, RB, and WR performances, but Guns were let down by a kicker, defense and two TE’s that combined for 4 points.
Weasels 127, Torpedoes 111: Weasels had 45 RB points, Torps had 40. What’s that like?
Yankees 121.5, Mayhem 88.5: As I’ve said many times, when your Mr. Irrelevant kicker is your leading scorer, you are not primed for fantasy success (it also doesn’t help when you leave your QB1, RB1, WR1 and TE1 on your bench).
MSG 99.5, Factory 76: MSG lost two WRs to injury and started Drake Maye over Trevor Lawrence but still won easily, thanks to Factory leaving Ken Walker on their bench.
Chumps 88, Great One 81.5: If it wasn’t for the defenses, Gretzky would’ve had this one in a walk.
SOL 88, Maulers 73.5: The teams’ five starting WRs combined for 15 points. Their three TEs combined for 40.5 (and one of those was a goose egg).
Before we get to the good stuff, I want to recap the practice squad (PS) rules for our newbie as well as our veteran owners who still don’t understand how it works.
- You can put any player on the PS at any time. There is no restriction for rookies only, and there never has been.
- Adding a player to the practice squad is a $10 fee. The week 1 fees have been assessed manually by yours truly, but going forward the fee will be automatic.
- If a PS player has not been on Active or Reserve status this season, his EXEMPT flag is set to Y.
- EXEMPT = Y means the player can be a bonus 4th keeper for next year’s draft
- You can see a player’s status history on the website for the season by clicking the player name > Full Profile > Service Time (not available in the app that I can find).
- If at any time their status was either ‘Active’ or ‘Reserve’, they are EXEMPT = N.
- A player’s EXEMPT status is reset to N when they are returned to the draft pool, meaning that veteran players who were not exempt last year can be exempt this year (see: Josh Jacobs).
- Players can be kept on the PS for multiple years. Most of us dump last year’s PS player and replace him after the draft but that’s not a requirement.
As always, please reach out to me if you have any questions. Unless your name is Rick . . .
And now without further ado, the return of the always imitated, never duplicated . . .
Ruminations and Cogitations (Pony Up! edition)
Week 1 Awards: The Hard Luck award goes to the team that posted the highest score in a loss, if that score would have won at least one other game. For week 1 the Hard Luck goes to Torpedoes, who lost while scoring 111.
Conversely, the Dumb Luck award goes to the team that posted the lowest score in a win, provided that score would have lost at least one other game. Our Dumb Luck winner for week 1 was a tie between SOL and Chumps, who both won with 88.
The Bench Mob goes to a team whose bench outscored the starters. Mayhem gave it a run but Kelce and Rashee bailed them out Monday night, so no Bench Mob this week.
The rarest award is the All In award, which goes to a team whose bench scored 0 points. It usually doesn’t happen unless a team gets into a bye week/injury crunch, so if you got it in week 1 you’d be in serious trouble. Fortunately no one did.
The Bad Beat award is the only subjective award, handed out by the Commish when a team loses on a gut punch or other bizarre play. No Bad Beat this week but I almost gave it to our newbie for losing on the T.J. Watt pick 6.
Team of the Week
| QB | Caleb Williams | Snappers | 36 |
| RB | Derrick Henry | Guns | 34 |
| RB | Swift/Walker | Weasels/Factory (bench) | 31 |
| WR | Christian Watson | Chumps | 26 |
| WR | Jalen Coker | Mayhem (bench) | 25 |
| TE | Isaiah Likely | Torpedoes | 23 |
| WR/TE | Justin Jefferson | Gretzky | 23 |
| PK | Evan McPherson | Mayhem | 19 |
| DST | Steelers | Chumps | 26 |
| Total | 243 |
Week 1 Overreactions
- My biggest Week 1 overreaction is not to overreact to week 1. As evidence I present week 1 of last year when the Patriots lost to the Raiders, and we all know how those two teams ended up. Week 1 is a f*cking liar, and the NFL in September is basically the real preseason.
- Your 2026 TE1 (non-Trey McBride edition) will be . . . Dalton Kincaid.
- Mayhem’s owner will regret drafting Justin Herbert over Trevor Lawrence only once, but that will be continuously.
- I said it two years ago but I stand by it.
With so many slow starts and injuries by guys who were held out of preseason, I bet in a few years NFL teams will start playing starters in preseason again
— R&C, week 2, 2024
- Yeah right, like Tom Cruise has ever been to an NFL game before. Ten bucks says he can’t name more than five NFL teams.
Top 5 Plays of the Week
5. The aforementioned T.J. Watt pick 6
4. Josh Jobe picked off a horrible Drake Maye decision to seal the Seahawks win
3. Parker Washington made a nice diving catch for the TD
2. Buffalo’s Greg Rousseau with the game ending sack/fumble
1. Ken Walker went full Riggo on 4th and 1
For you young bucks, here’s the Riggo reference from Superb Owl XVII. One of the greatest plays in Superb Owl history.
Last week was week 1 of the college football season, and the two schools I attended – SMU and Florida State – faced off in their conference opener, which still sounds ridiculous to say. SMU was favored – which sounds even more ridiculous – and pulled out a gutty 27-24 win despite a turnover margin of -4, something only one FBS team did all of last year.
The next day, Maulers’ GM posted this in our group chat (we have a group chat btw):
It’s funny, after 20+ years of writing the R&C I always feel like I’ve said everything about myself that I could say, or least reveal publicly without being thrown in jail or the looney bin. And after writing so many words about a life that is as patently uninteresting as mine, I’ve come to believe that you, my loyal readers, must know everything about me by now.
Or so I thought.
Because after reading that post I can only conclude one of two things – either a) I haven’t made myself clear about my college rooting interests, or b) y’all aren’t reading these things. I grant you – option b is the more likely option by far.
So let me state it here and now for the record – Mike had it wrong. There is no situation in which I would root against my Mustangs.
Or, put another way, there is only one game where I would root against Florida State, and that’s when they play SMU.
I didn’t sit through two decades of horrible football to abandon SMU – now or ever. The Pony Express era was just before my time, and by the time I got to SMU they were just coming off the death penalty and were SO BAD. Now that they’ve finally turned it around and can field a top 25 team (thank you transfer portal & NIL), I’m going to enjoy every minute.
FSU was a perennial top 5 team when I got to Tallahassee. They won their first national championship the year after I was there. So I always feel like a bandwagon fan when rooting for the Noles, albeit it’s a considerably lighter bandwagon these days. I’ve always said that my brief time at FSU did not give me an all-encompassing love for FSU as much as it gave me an eternally bitter hatred of the Florida Gators (did I ever tell you about how I almost got kicked out of a game for shoving that damn Gator mascot? That’s a story for another time.)
But I digress. My point is this…
While the Drake Maye play was bad, it wasn’t bad enough to be named the Will Levis Memorial Bonehead Play of the Week. That honor goes to DeShawn Watson for this gem:
Hard to believe he hasn’t played in two years.
Our first Coaching Chowderhead from week 1 was Packers’ HC Matt LaFleur, who took a FG off the board to go for it on a 4th and long 1. Jordan Love got stuffed and the Vikings went on to score 22 straight points.
This season I won’t do the Hoch Watch every week, unless he’s working the Cowboys game, or a game of actual importance. Unfortunately for us, he’s been assigned to Cowboys/Commanders in week 2.
Someone remember do a welfare check on Mike on Sunday.
The Non-NFL Play of the Week was the wonderfully named Hollywood Smothers going over the top to seal Texas’ comeback win over Ohio State.
My Longhorn fandom pretty much depends on who they’re playing, but I hate Ohio State, so HOOK ‘EM HORNS!
The other Coaching Chowderhead from week 1 was Christian Parker, the Cowboys new and much heralded defensive coordinator. I get that he’s young and learning on the job – we’ve all been there – but in-game adjustments are a big part of the job, and after one game he failed miserably.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss . . .
Uni Watch – week 1
Tennessee Titans
I mean, I want to like it. It’s definitely better than their previous unis (RIP flaming thumbtacks). And I get that it’s the same franchise that played in Houston for decades. But there’s just something . . . not right about a team in Nashville wearing those colors. Though I do give them credit for at least committing to it as their primary uniform and not just a throwback.
Denver Broncos
You can probably guess my feelings on this one. I’m not a fan of monochrome unis, especially when they’re all white. But for me the most egregious crime here is startling lack of orange. It’s ok for a team like the Dolphins to make orange an accent color, but you’re the f*cking Orange Crush. Lean into it for God’s sake.
WTF Stat of the Week #1 – the Bears a) fumbled on their third play, b) punted twice, c) got stopped on 4th and 1 on their own 20 – and still scored 59 points.
Trivia question: Name the five US colleges that have produced a president and a Superb Owl-winning QB.
Hints:
- One school has a president and two QBs
- Two schools have the QB winning the Superb Owl before the president was elected.
- One school had the QB winning while the president was in office.
The Commish Track is Demons In Your Choir by The Red Clay Strays.
I’d go to church more often if the music was like this.
Bold choice by Emmy awards to air opposite Monday Night Football. I haven’t looked but I’ll wager that they got murdered in the ratings.
I definitely didn’t watch but I was glad to see former CFFL Babe Rhea Seehorn (week 6, 2017) finally get her Emmy after being inexplicably snubbed for years for her work on Better Call Saul.
This week’s Funniest Vid Ever is the greatest NFL hype video ever, or at least the most honest, courtesy of the Heed The Call podcast.
WTF Stat of the Week #2 – Kirk Cousins has more career TD passes than John Elway.
Former CFFL Babe Cooterdoodle (week 12, 2023) had my favorite fantasy draft expert tweet of the offseason.
And finally, the Babe of the Week category this year is NFL WAGs (Wives And Girlfriends). There are no shortage of babes to choose from, and leading us off is Madison Beer, fiancée of Mayhem draft mistake Justin Herbert.
Apparently she’s a singer, but who really cares?
Well that’s a wrap for this one. It’s good to be back. Thanks for reading (ha!) and we’ll catch you next week. And as the Boss said, “It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.”
Good luck to everyone (almost) in week 2,
The Commish
Trivia answer
- One school has a president and two QBs = Stanford
- Two schools have the QB winning the Superb Owl before the president was elected = Navy, Delaware
- One school had the QB winning while the president was in office = Navy
Ruminations & Cogitations 
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