Associated Fantasy

"Its fine to have ability, but the ability to find ability in others is the true test" -Lou Holtz

Legion of Defense 

Around the Legion with Nexecutioner: Week 3

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LEGION – Three weeks into the 2018 season in the Legion of Defense – dubbed the “VS Season” because of the new divisonal alignments and format – and some early season storylines are already starting to emerge.  A couple of teams are still undefeated (Suspension Freaks 3-0-0, The Cavalry 3-0-0), as well as a couple still looking for their first win (Gotta Big D  efense 0-3-0, Battering Rams 0-3-0); some defensive stud players are performing as expected, while some surprise performers are emerging; and there’s still 3 weeks to go before the schedule switches to ladder scheduling within the divisions.  Here’s a look at the season so far.

One Hit Wonder?

BIGDOGINTEX’s Week 1 Defense of the Week performance put the league on notice, scoring 94.5 points – still the top score of the season – on the strength of IDP of the week Von Miller’s huge 34 point night.  But in week 2 Miller along with the team cooled off a bit when they ran into week 2’s Defense of the Week, Roxteady.   Then came Week 3’s disappointing 23 points (adding insult to injury they only lost by 2.5 points), The Big Dogs are still in the top half of the league in scoring, but they’ll need to find some consistency to correct their 1-2 record.

 

High Profile Agents MIA!

Are we at a point where we will see Aaron Donald Benched?  After putting up 0 points through 3 weeks we have to wonder about 2017’s Defense of the Year Sleeper Agents’ 2nd round selection.  Ryan Kerrigan is another high draft pick (4th round pick) that has stuggled this year, and was rightfully benched in week 2.  Donald and Kerrigan should have been low floor picks, but the changes around their respective teams have left them scoreless in the Legion.  After week 3 the Agents are 1-2 with the lowest points scored in their division, they either need their struggling stars to figure things out or find other sources of production.

 

The Champs have Finally Arrived

The Defending Champion Mighty Pats scored 71 points combined in the first 2 weeks to start their season 0-2. The Pats beat that number by 22 points in Week 3 with their 93 point score, behind the breakout performance of Darius Leonard earning The Mighty Pats their first Defense of the Week this season.   It was also the first time ever that two teams were named co-Defenses of the Week as the Pats had to share their honors with Suspension Freaks whose 75 points didn’t quite match up to the Pats’ score, but their performance matched them all the way down the stat line.

 

Best Game of the Season (to date)

The honor goes to week 3’s matchup between Suspension Freaks and the Chinese Bandits.  After the Sunday night game, the Freaks were up by 8 points, but the Bandits still had Lavonte David (4pts for the year) and Sean Davis (2pts for the year) in the breach for Monday night. There was hope; at half time the lead was cut down to 5 keeping the Bandits’ fans in excitement and the Freaks’ fans in fear.  Just like the MNF game, this one would go down to the wire, but the overall depth of the Freaks’ point getters proved to be too much to handle for Mack, Jordan and friends, and the Bandits finished with a stinging loss, 73-75 hoping for a midweek stat correction to overturn the outcome while the Freaks went on to earn their co-DotW with the Mighty Pats.  The Freaks and Bandits finished the week as the 2nd and 3rd teams in the Legion with records of 3-0 and 2-1

 

Luckiest Team In the League

Proving the old addage that luck is a talent, Gates of Delirium have scored 81.5 points in 3 weeks – no, not in each week, in all 3 combined.  The league average is sitting at 146.5 and the points leader is at 194.5.  Gates are under the league average by almost 65 points, but despite the lack of scoring Gates of Delirium sits at 3rd in their division with a 2-1 record.

 

Rock Solid

After a disappointing 5-7-1 2017 campaign in their debut season, Legion sophmore Roxteady is off to a good start.  The week 2 Defense of the Week – their first – is riding a 2-1 record and sit in first at the top of the Centurian Division standings.  They are 2nd in the league in scoring, lead the league in interceptions, and rank 5th in sacks, and tied for 2nd in fumbles forced and recovered.  Could we be looking at an emerging Legion powerhouse?

Team Defense Tiers

How They Rank:

1)Bears 2) Rams 3) Jets 4) Steelers 5) Browns 6) Dolphins 7) Titans 8) Seahawks 9) Vikings 10) Panthers/Ravens

How They Were Drafted

1) Jaguars 2) Vikings 3) Rams 4) Eagles 5) Texans 6) Saints 7) Ravens 8) Lions 9) Chargers 10) Panthers

*Bears were an 11th round pick

**Jets, Steelers, Browns, Dolphins, and Titans were undrafted. Steelers are sure to be a hot FA target this week.

 

ALL IDP LEGION TEAM (To this point):

Position Player Points Team
DL Myles Garrett 43 Suspension Freaks
DL JJ Watt 38 Roxteady
LB Khalil Mack 56 Chinese Bandits
LB Darius Leonard 46 Mighty Pats
LB Von Miller 41 BIGDOGINTEX
DB Harrison Smith 27 Insane Clowney Posse
DB Denzel Ward 26 Insane Clowney Posse
DP Cam Jordan 34 Chinese Bandits
DP Darron Lee 32 The Cavalry

 

The Sack Race

The Bandits only had a single IDP sack in week 1, but have climbed back up with 3 in week 2 and 5 in week 3 and currently rank 3rd in the sack race with 9 sacks total.  In week 1, the Clowns went sack crazy putting up the current season high of 7 sacks which puts them in the record book tied at 8th for the single game sack record. They’ve cooled off since then, only recording a single sack in week 2, and 2.5 in week 3, but the Clowns are still sitting in 2nd with 10.5 total.  After a solid 6.5 sacks in the opening week The Freaks also took a week 2 slide (2 sacks), but took over the sacks lead in week 3 adding another 6 sacks for a total of 14 sacks on the year.