Not to be confused with the the Old Spice Red Zone, Tom Coughlin's Green Zone or the Green Mile, which is how long the last 20 yards of the field looked to the Giants this week. Picture a league, a league beyond sight and sound, a league finished with its draft/auction/debacle, a league that has entered the Regular Season Zone. It was a week like any other week for the Paladin Cat Fantasy Football League - a league lost in the mists of the Twilight Zone for over 10 years and counting. Almost all the teams in the league went about having their normal every-day scores, completely unaware that just four of their member would put up any score out of the ordinary. And yet two of those four extra-ordinary teams were destined to meet.
Before we look in on these two extra-ordinary teams, lets look at the top 10 scorers among running backs: CJ Spiller was a 3rd round pick (Turd), Alfred Morris a 7th rounder (Wombats) and the subject of three different attempted waiver pickups, Adrian Peterson (Semi-P) went for $35 in the auction though he could have been kept for $31, Ray Rice (Disaster) was a $47 keeper, Stevan Ridley (Dunder Mifflin) was a first round pick, 8th overall, Kevin Smith (Wombats) a second round pick, Arian Foster (Dale's Doormats) went for $49, Matt Forte (Turd) went for $41, Frank Gore (Semi-P) was a first round pick (third overall) and Michael Bush (Disaster) went in the fifth round. Spiller, Morris, Smith and Bush were not in the starting lineups.
Parenthetically, in addition to the myriad of waiver selections for Alfred E. "What Me Worry" Morris, we had several teams put in for Ashlon Jeffrey. Let me iterate here, because I would not have thought it something I needed to say - a player needs to be a free agent in order to be eligible for waivers. If a player is already on another team, you can't get him just by increasing your waiver offer from $31 to $40 (you know who you are). Sub-parenthetically, two other oddities in the waiver process: the Hundering Turd spent over half their budget on a man with 13 yards rushing on 5 carries; and for the first time in the history of our waiver auction, Dale's Doormats have bid on and won a player, spending $1 on a back-up tight-end. These two teams have left the Twilight Zone and officially entered .... the Danger Zone (cue the Kenny Loggins).
Among the other strange bits of flotsam and jetsam that washed up during week one, you had Eagles QB put up 27 points despite 4 interceptions a 51.0 QBR, his team scoring 17 and barely edging out the Browns. Conversely, the Bears QB put up 25 despite leading his team to 48 points and a 98.9 QBR and Patriots QB scored only 21 despite a 117.0 QBR in their rout of the Titans. You may also note that $3 auction team Jets QB put up 29, 4th best in the league for week one, but even less likely was the Jaguars QB putting up 24, a pick that was widely ridiculed by commentators on this league. Congratulations are also in order to all owners - 30 team QBs were drafted - the two that were not selected came in 31st and 32nd in fantasy points for week one. Speaking of the Eagles QB, picture a man, a man with a career QB rating of 80.3, a man who has never thrown for more than 3303 yards in 9 "full" seasons, a man who has started all 16 games in a season exactly one time, a man equally likely to finish 8th or worse in QB fantasy points as he is to be a top 4 guy, and yet a man who routinely goes for among the most money in the auction. (do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do)Among the WRs in week one, the leading scorer (Ogletree) was undrafted, as was the 3rd leading scorer. #2, Julio Jones, was a keeper (Bandits) for $15. Lance Moore was a 4th round pick by the Turd. Andre Johnson went for $18 to Dunder. Demaryius Thomas went for $38 to Dale's Doormats, though only because he was the last WR on the blocks. Brandon Marshall went for just $11 to the Fatties. Pierre Garcon was a 4th round pick by the Bandits. Jeremy Kerley remains a free agent. And Jeremy Maclin was a second round pick by Pep & Cheez.
The top TEs featured two keepers in Graham and Gronk at 1 and 3, with two free agents at 2 and 6 (Pitta and Lewis), Gonzalez went in the 5th round, Tamme in the 7th, Hernandez was auctioned for $7 and Bennett in the 5th. Vernon Davis went for $20 but only because he was at the end of the auction. Among kickers, 7 of the top 14 kickers from week one are still free agents. And among Ds, #1 and 6 scorers are still free agents. Congrats to the Sprockets for picking up #32 ranked KC D.All of that is to set the scene. If you saw your name in the lights above more often than your opponents, chances are you scored more than they did and, as Joe Thiesman will tell you, that is the key to winning in football, real or imaginary.
As we already know, two extra-ordinary teams were destined to meet this week, and so it was for the Wombats and Dale's Doormats, with the Wombats alertly leaving Tony Romo on the bench to heighten the tension, leaving it for Flacco to engineer the comeback on Monday Night. As troubling as Chris Johnson's 4 yards on 7 carries are, the Wombats have Alfred Morris (the flavor of the week for the Shanahans), Kevin Smith and Marshawn Lynch. The Doormats got a very encouraging game from RG3, though the Skins won't play the Saints again this year, as well as Doug Martin, Arian Foster, Demaryius Thomas and even bench guys like Randy Moss and Alex Smith. 
And as we continue to wend our way through the bizzarre and the sublime, the early leader in the points race is Semi-P. Even stranger, this is no illusion, with Atlanta QBs living up to the hype for one week at least, Adrian Peterson and Frank Gore doing their thing, Austin, Gronk and Chicago Kickers also in double-digits. They have no RB depth at all, which will be a problem at some point. It may be a while before we see David Wilson on the field again. Only Larry Fitzgerald and Dallas D disappointed this week, but don't they always? (They don't?) Dunder Mifflin was the unfortunate team to go against this behemouth, and got a total of 2 points from Welker and Cedric Benson and only 20 from Detroit QBs. Other than those 3 spots (QB, 2RB and 1WR), the two teams were 61-61, even with Vernon "Equinox" Davis not quite having the ups. Not that I'm into sadistic beastial necrophilia (that would be beating a dead horse), but if Dunder had only scored more points...Fatties again look strong, or at least big-boned, putting up 91 despite only 21 from Brady and 1 from Ryan Williams, alertly leaving $43 auction RB MJD on the bench. It didn't cost them, but it could have if I/T had started either Nate Washington over Heyward-Bey or Heath Miller over Jermaine Gresham.
The Red Bandits put up a sterling 82 against the Sprockets (not Serling 82 though), easily good enough to edge them out with Marm Sanchow and Reggie "Jeb" Bush tied behind their backs. For the Sprockets, having to pick between Legarrett Blount and Kendall Hunter was like choosing between asparagus flavored shots and asparagus. And having only one team D and having that D be the 32nd ranked D in fantasy football, well, one gets what one deserves. Natural Disaster overcame Fragile Fred Jackson's injury (a 30-year old RB gets hurt? Eerie!) and only 9 points from their four WRs combined to edge out Pep & Cheez. The good news for Pep & Cheez is the depth of their WR corps, getting 8 each from Admiral Jordy Nelson, and "Dez Dispenser" Bryant as well as 12 from Brandon LaFell, 14 from Ashlon Jeffrey and 15 from Jeremy Maclin. Obviously Jeffrey or Maclin would have been enough for the W. Also good news, Charles and Sproles both looked healthy, which is particularly good because neither Redman nor Mendenhall played for the Steelers and Bernard Pierce and Taiwan Jones combined for 1. Yep, they have 4 RBs on their bench and totaled 3 points. The Disaster's 4 RB bench scored 31, so they got that going for them, which is nice.
Second to last and second to least, the Turd put up 81 to edge out the Camel Jockeys, getting 31 from Brees, 18 from Forte and 8 from McGahee. The best news of the week for the Turd, even better than winning one game perhaps, was the injury to Fragile Fred Jackson and the 18-point effort from CJ Spiller. The Camel Jox had little to cheer about, starting with Victor Cruz running from the ball like it was a 300-pound salsa dancer. They did have sufficient points to earn a tie had they elected to start Ben Roofiesberger against Denver instead of Old Man Rivers against Oakland. McFadden and Greene looked healthy and strong, but getting 3 points from their three bench RBs was cause for concern (and the axing of one of said RBs). And lastly, we come to the defending champion Gumpsters putting up a mere 77, a score good enough to beat just 3 teams in the league, but (do-do-do-do, do-do-do-do) they were playing against one of those teams! Brokerage got a total of 5 points from the 5 RBs on their roster, though they did get 27 from Vick and a decent performance from Harvin, AJ Green, DeSean Jackson and Danny Amendola. For the Gumpsters, they got a 63-yards FG from David Akers, 14 from Bradshaw and 303 yards passing from Cam "Sir Fig" Newton and another defensive TD from Ed Reed to cement the win. The strange thing is that with all these performances, they got only 77!
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