By Blake Metiva
Fantasy football woes
It’s been five weeks, and I’ve come to a conclusion: I’m not great at this whole Fantasy Football thing. In my league, we’ve played five weeks and lost four of them. My team looks solid on paper, featuring stars like Patrick Mahomes, Brandon Aiyuk, Amari Cooper, Devon Achane, and Kyle Pitts. There’s just one issue: they haven’t produced.
Mahomes has been outperformed by Brock Purdy, Aiyuk has topped 10 points just once, Cooper had his best week on my bench and hasn’t produced since, and Kyle Pitts continues to be the fantasy disappointment he’s been throughout his career. If I were a GM and had drafted this team for the field, I’d be bringing home Super Bowls. But in fantasy? I’m a bottom feeder, scraping for wins.
The roar of ‘24
August 11: The Detroit Tigers are 56-63, ten games out of a playoff spot, and had a measly 0.2% chance to make the playoffs. A team that was down and out suddenly flipped a switch. From the 11th onward, the Tigers ripped off an improbable 31-13 record. The team started the streak with a 15-1 win over the Seattle Mariners and never looked back.
The Tigers were rejuvenated with the return of outfielders Riley Greene and Parker Meadows during the time frame. The Tiger bullpen caught fire along the way with relievers Brant Hurter, Brennan Hanifee and Sean Guenther all flipping the script from their time in Triple-A and posting a combined Earned Run Average 3.39 in the majors. The Tigers continued their hot streak by sweeping the Houston Astros in the wild card round to set up a meeting in the American League Division Series with the Cleveland Guardians.
Spirit open season
The Saginaw Spirit began their season last week and earned points in all three games during their opening week. On Wednesday the Spirit opened the season for the Ontario Hockey League against the Windsor Spitfires in a 6-5 overtime loss. The game was extremely entertaining with the Spirit overcoming three separate one goal deficits to send the overtime. In OT the Spitfires found the back of the net off a shot from the Spits Jack Nesbitt that trickled away from Andrew Oke to ruin the opening night mood. On Friday the Spirit made their way to Sault Sainte Marie to face off against the Greyhounds. The Spirit would bring home a 6-4 win with 2025 top draft prospect Micahel Misa scoring a hat trick. Carson Harmer and Kristian Epperson would score their first career OHL goals. On Saturday the Spirit returned home to the Dow Event Center and routed the Sarnia Sting 6-1.
Michigan football sputters
It’s hard to be mad when your team is 4-2, but the Michigan faithful have been loud about the lack of progress from the offensive side of the ball. The offense ranks 118th in total offense, 129th in passing offense, 109th in turnover margin, 100th in scoring offense, 69th in third down percentage, 76th in completion percentage and 38th in rushing offense. The team has looked to improve under quarterback Alex Orji, but still lacks any form of pass offense. In his three starts he has completed 23 of his 37 passes for 133 yards, one touchdown and one interception.
Senior Donovan Edwards has rushed for 353 yards on 73 carries and has looked far from his potential. The saving grace? Senior running back Kalel Mullings. He’s rushed for 589 yards on 91 attempts and has come up big in the moments most notably breaking off a 63 yard run to kickstart the offense’s game winning drive against USC. If the Wolverines want to compete they’ll need to find some passing offense or the season could quickly go sour.
Curse of the Lions
It’s no secret that the Detroit Lions are a physical football team, but this season has proved it. The Lions have played four teams: the Los Angeles Rams, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Arizona Cardinals, and Seattle Seahawks. Those four teams record in the week following their games against Detroit? 0-4. The Rams were blown out by the Cardinals in Week 2 41-10, the Buccaneers dominated by the Denver Broncos 26-7 in Week 3, the Cardinals demolished by the Washington Commanders 42-14 in Week 4, and the Seahawks were shocked by the New York Giants 29-20 during Week 5.
When Dan Campbell said in his introductory press conference, “and when you knock us down, we’re going to get up and on the way up, we’re going to bite a kneecap off,” it seems he wasn’t kidding.
