i can only write if there is an impending deadline

 The ghost of Benjamin Nen-yahoo came to me in a dream last night. He said to me, you have to make a power rankings before the season starts. I said, well they don't play on Wednesdays so I have another day. He said nuh uh they changed that this year. I said oh really. He said yes. I said well I don't wanna listen to you. He said yeah but you wanna write the power rankings still. I said yeah but it has nothing to do with you. He said well I'm telling you to. I said well now I don't want to. He said your friends will be disappointed and I know that because I came in their dreams too. I said ew gross. Then I woke up and wrote the power rankings 14 hours later. 

 

1 New England Harbor Turds

Mediterranean Gecko

 

I have to rank these fellas number 1 after I killed one last year unintentionally. This is my pathetic attempt at breaking the curse that I am convinced has been put upon me by the lizard spirits that surround us. These spirits drove Josh Jacobs to (allegedly) beat a woman and made Puka bite another. Yes I have forwarded this information to their lawyers, I am sure that the courts will understand and no punishment shall be handed down. 

It's officially here. The moment to crown the offseason champions. And it goes to none other than the New England Harbor Turds.  Now you may be wondering, is this a good thing? Recent history says yes, I correctly predicted last year's winner. The previous two... well not quite. I picked this team in 2025 and Darrian in 2024. So they have a 33% chance of winning. Which is better than the completely random chance of 10%. Basically I'm saying I'm Nosferatu. Or someone else, can't remember the guy that predicted the future a lot.

 

2 2019 LSU Tigers

 

I promise you that I'm not making these up and am actually just using information I found by googling "cool lizards". The lava lizard is real. It's on Galapagos Island. It likes lava. It does pushups. If this lizard was a person they would either make your tailgate electric or you would hate them. I haven't really decided but they're number 2 because they have a cool name.

Missed the top spot in the rankings for the sole reason that it is of the author's opinion that you cannot claim to be the 2019 LSU Tigers if you don't have Joe Burrow on the roster. Also dinged for the other sole reason that I do not like LSU very much right now. They also might be in 2nd because of process of elimination and I did not take my time on this. Yes I did have multiple weeks to do this and put it off to the last second. 

 

3 Washington Sewer Pipes

Frilled Lizard

 

These things look badass. They would freak me the fuck out if I saw one. Fun fact, they live in Australia. Because why wouldn't they. I have looked it up and I can't find whether or not they can use their frills to wind surf across the outback, but I would assume that's the only evolutionary purpose they could have. Not something stupid like attempting to scare off predators. Because if that is their purpose, then they would never be eaten. The population of them would explode which would be incredibly problematic for the Australian ecosystem. So obviously they don't scare anybody. Except for me.

On one hand this does like a really good roster. On the other, I swear to god when ESPN totals their projections they are actually randomizing the total instead of actually adding up the individual totals. Now I've checked this many times and my calculator always agrees with what I see, however I believe my calculator has been hacked by Mickey Mouse. The individual player projections look exactly like every team that is project 106 but this one is higher. I don't get it. Something doesn't make sense. 

 

4 Death By .500 Cuts

Perentie

 

So you would think that komodo dragons would be pretty high up considering they have dragon in the name. However this is just the better version of them. They're only slightly smaller, but instead of sitting around like lazy boomers waiting for their wives to bring their sandwiches, they actually hunt like a real man. I'm only 4 lizards in and I'm kinda getting desperate to be honest. One of the sites I was using sucked after telling me about lava lizards.

This team gets a boost because I do quite enjoy the name. That's really the tiebreaker with the club listed below, which has managed to spell strip wrong. I tend to struggle with big words myself so I somewhat sympathize, but that word is only four letters. Expect this team to spend the entire rest of the season between 5 and 7. They are after all a .500 club. 

 

5 Jed's Strib Club

Thorny Devil

 

They are only one letter away from my high school nickname. They look really weird. Also heard that a lot in high school. This lizard and I are a kindred spirit. I presume they were not the lizard spirit that has been haunting me for roughly 9 months. I think I'm pretty tight with the thorny devil spirit. 

If you haven't noticed yet I'm barely looking at the rosters when I write these rankings. At the time I'm writing this I still haven't actually looked at 2 or 3 of them. Though one of the ones I didn't look at was my own. Also my writing may make it evident that I'm writing this from the bottom up and won't re-rank if I see a worse team that should be lower. But you know what's great about power rankings? I can do whatever I want. The "power" in power rankings refers to the power the author has to bend reality to whatever they want. 

 

6 TD Merchants

Rhinoceros Iguana

 

This would be higher if the rhino horn was an actually reasonable horn. But it's kinda a pathetic horn. The idea of having a lizard with a rhino horn is a cool enough idea though to be 6th. One site has this ranked as 1st. That's utter horse shit. Really? This one? I mean you could do worse. At least they didn't say a green anole as their favorite. If someone ever claimed that they should be banned from discussing lizards forever.

Drafting RBs does tend to be the meta for this fantasy league. There is no doubt about that. And the 2 starting RBs aren't bad at all. However, I have never seen a roster so full of guys I wouldn't drop but would never wanna start in my life. Once Charbonnet returns from injury, the flex spot will become and hair-pullingly frustrating spot of which RB2 on their team will happen to be the one that scores this week. 

 

7 day one or one day

Texas Spiny

 

This holds a soft spot in my heart because I saw a lot of them while playing disc golf in Texas. You may have guessed that based off the fact that they have Texas in the name. Fun fact, that's a total coincidence. The Texas in their name isn't because of the state, it's just because they thought it sounded nice. That's a lie. Some buffoons see them and think it's the horned lizard. Those guys are idiots.

 Another year another draft where they look decent for a few rounds before an outlandish pick derails the whole process. No I did not copy and paste that from last year's preseason power rankings. Maybe some year we'll remember this and not start to freak out when the first few rounds look good. But we won't. No one here learns. No one changes. We are who we have always been. And always will be.

 

8 DAWG FOOD

Marine Iguana

 

Every single list that ranks lizards puts these guys way up the rankings. As a newly minted lizard expert, I don't get it. It is cool that they swim, but guess what. A lot of lizards swim. So what makes them special? Nothing. That's what. And they're not even the coolest on their island. They share an island with the lava lizard and komodo dragon (pretty sure don't feel like fact checking). Boring.

2021 called. They want their fantasy team back. Team meetings for DAWG FOOD can't be held later than 3pm because the roster is scared they're gonna miss the early bird specials at Bob Evans, then miss their bedtime 6 o'clock news. Cub scout troops wait in the parking lot for their practices so the boys can get their "held the elderly cross the street" merit badge.  

 

9 Just Gibbs Maye A Reason

Fantastic Leaf-tailed Gecko

 

It's not that fantastic. It's a gecko that got a leaf stuck on its tail. Sometimes when you combine two things you create something greater than the sum of two parts. This is not that. This is simply a lizard that has a leaf stuck on its tail.

Two giant issues with this team, and both are very valid I swear. First reason, they're 1st in the ESPN power rankings which is a very bad sign. Many pundits agree that it's actually better to be 10th in the preseason, which this unbiased author agrees with. Second, the GM has a terrible model and is very obnoxious about it. Third and I'm not going back to edit the first sentence, the title of something should not capitalize an article. The 'A' should be an 'a' and it's disturbing. Kids read this. Do better. 

 

10 Women Respecters

Crested Gecko

 

I googled stupidest lizard and this was the result. That aptly describes this manager.

These guys may suck on the field this year, but the clubhouse leaders Puka and Josh Jacobs have taught these men how to respect women. Training camp drills included holding open doors, respectfully using ma'am when addressing women, and flash card sessions to better remember the facts during debates in favor of feminism. When asked if they support women's suffrage, they all said no until they learned the difference between suffering and suffrage, then they said yes.