9/15/20 – Ben Ulrich, Senior Fantasy Sports Correspondent - Without even a hint of a COVID setback the 2020 NFL and BSL seasons are off an running! With any luck the end of 2020 will be much kinder to us all than the start of 2020. Everyone here at the Occasionally Intermittent Bugle is hopeful that a full and complete 2020 BSL season for the Crazy Diamond League, Four Star Daydream League and Two Lost Souls League can be run through to its full conclusion in December. We will continue to cross our fingers and toes and ears and whatever we have to in order to make that happen. In the meantime we will do our best to bring you news, stats, interesting tidbits and as always a little more info on the Commissioner’s teams than any others (but since he is the editor, that is to be expected!). So lets start of our 2020 coverage with the 22nd season of the CDL!
Last years final 2 teams, the 1st time Champion Killer Tomatoes and the 5-time Champ and now 6-time runner up Uncanny X-Men got off to pretty solid starts posting the 3rd and 2nd highest scores of the week respectively. As always we start off with Week 1 division matchups so getting off to quick start is that much more important. The X-Men took down the Kashyyyk Kommandos in a very important division matchup as we expect these 2 teams to be on top of the Madden-Knox division again this year. The Tomatoes took down Brahma Bulls. The Tomatoes are looking to repeat in what always seems as a wide open Shula-Landry division. But the best start goes to the Week 1 Team of the Week in the CDL, with the BSL’s highest score of the week, the Guilder Dread Pirates who come up just a few points short of the CDL’s 28th all-time 200 pt. game but we have a feeling that putting up 197 in week 1 is just fine with the Pirates owner. Elsewhere, the MLT Predators, New York Jints and Goldrush Hounds (all south Florida owners) start off the 2020 season also (1-0).
Over in the FSDL, we find our closest game of the week that should NOT have been the closest game of the week. After a LOT of hemming and hawing the Sinister 36ers decided to start LB Jayon Brown (TEN) at the DUP position on Monday Night instead using their depth chart and plugging in LB Jerome Baker (MIA) as they had been planning to all week. Not only did it cost them a win and that finance point bonus as well as falling behind in a division where EVERY game is big the Halas-Noll, Baker would also have been the Defensive Player of the Week scoring just under 20pts in week 1 with a career high in tackles. Adding Oops to more Oops, the 36ers also had the would-be FSDL Special Teams Player of the Week on their bench as well in K Joey Slye. And for that, the Defending Champion Scarlet Widows are now (1-0) while the 36ers start (0-1). Keeping the winning alive in the Krakower household was the Hebrew Hammers and their 8th consecutive division win (we know because Dave asked us to look it up) with a win over the newly christened Burke’s Law (formally the Vanquishers of Valhalla). We would like to point out as well that there was only 1 division team the 36ers would have lost to and they played them , oh well… we will have a talk with the guy who makes the schedule!! The FSDL’s Week 1 Team of the Week was the Midway Monsters. The Monster ranked in our top 3 FRSL preseason Power Index (in the preseason article that no one read because we didn’t have time to finish it… another oops) and it looks like we had it right as they posted an FSDL high 175 this week while taking down the Crazy Bisons (we know, Bison is already plural! Talk to Rob not us! We keep telling him!). Just 5 points less than the Monsters in the scoring column was the Jedi Knights with a solid win over the Seminal Vesicles. In the other 2 games the Toad Lickers took down the ‘should be better than this’ HitMen who only managed just under 118 this week… even WITH 22 from Mahomes, a great start in RB Chris Carson, oh and the (see above for why) FSDL Defensive Player of the Week DB Jamal Adams. The HitMen struggled aside from those 3 guys and a sold outing by young TE TJ Hockensen. We expect the HitMen to do better in the coming weeks. And lastly, the exec committee run Lucky Dog got out hot with a win over China Open Faces by about 15 or so.
Lastly over in the TLSL, the ownership group for the CDL’s X-Men (who didn’t start the aforementioned Jerome Baker), and the FSDL’s 36ers (who as you already know also didn’t start Jerome Baker), apparently either have better coaches on their TLSL franchise staff or their LBs are a little less deep because Hallelujah, the Defending and now 6-time Champion Avengers DID start Defensive Player of the Week Jerome Baker on their way to the TLSL Team of the Week Award putting up a solid 176 in Week 1 in their big division win over the always pesky St. Pete Minutemen (2-time winners and 4-time title participants themselves). Oddly, this is the 3rd consecutive season that The Avengers have taken home the Week 1 ToW award. Not sure what to make of that but we just report the news not opine on it (much). Elsewhere in the TLSL, the FL Nittany Lions dropped The Cossacks in the 2nd closest game of the week in the BSL but just 1.28 pts. Other winners in week one starting off (1-0) are the Omaha Players, the Evil Empire, The Electric Mayhem and Sea Dragons. Week 2 is approaching quickly and as usual after 1 week a heap of injuries, most notable to top WRs Michael Thomas, Kenny Golladay, Chris Godwin, and RBs Le’Veon Bell, Miles Sanders and Marlon Mack could take the 2020 train off the tracks quickly for their owners if the players aren’t back soon! Keep an eye out for more news and updates in the coming weeks. Until then, keep your bad mojo locked in the closet and lets hope we can end the 2020 BSL season as successfully as we have just started it!