Week #8

FlyingElvis won for the second straight week and the team is now tied with Dec in second place and within striking distance of Beaud in first place.  FE is peaking as the team has gotten healthy with the return of S Barkley and H Henry, among others.  This week could have been even better if the coach had started A Rodgers (30.25 pts) instead of being lured by the recent improvement of K Cousins until he only scored 9.5 pts this week as a starter.  Barkley is back in the saddle with 16.75 pts this week and Fournette continues being a serviceable RB2 with his 5th straight week with 9.75 pts or more (after scoring no more than 7.5 pts in each of the first three weeks).  At WR after a couple of subpar weeks 6-7, C Kupp exploded for over 200 receiving yards and a long TD and his 26 pts led FE this week.  On defense there is nothing new on the Pats side who continued scoring at will, this time with a marginally better offense (Browns) than their recent opponents such as the Jets and Dolphins, but it did not stop them from scoring another TD and 16 pts.  Rookie Singletary is also now healthy and scored a TD and 11 pts for his best game of the year. 

 

The Decepticons were in the driver seat all week until MNF when rookie D Bush was outscored by FE’s C Heyward 12.5 pts to 7 pts which meant FE beat Dec by the slimmest of margin 0.25 pt.  If Dec’s coach had started Daniel Jones at the rookie position instead, it would have been no contest because Jones scored 32.5 pts on the bench.  WR M Evans also scored over 30 pts but at least he was a starter rather than on the bench so he was the top scorer for Dec this week.  While Dec has had to suffer through several injuries recently, at least their bad luck was tempered by KJ Costello and D Brees coming back to health in the exact same week that Tua Tago and Mahomes missed a game to injury.  Brees’ 25.25 pts were key because backup Brissett stunk up the joint with only 7.25 pts which actually helped to slow down the Bros who were left with crumbs at WR (TY Hilton) and TE (Ebron) on the Colts, due to Brissett’s suckness.  At the college position, Costello was playing awful before his injury and week #8 was the first time this year that he looked like a real QB, this time passing for over 300 yards and 3 TDs. 

 

The Ballers finished in the blue for the first time this season with 3rd place to build on last week’s improvement which was 5th place.  So the Ballers have now earned 12 rank-points in the last couple of weeks after being limited to only 10 rank-points in the first six weeks.  There were a few new contributors for Ball to achieve this success.  First off, at WR Ju Jones has been fine all year although not excellent, but WR2 has been an issue for the Ballers until now when Golladay scored 2 TDs and finished the game with 23 pts, even better than Ju Jones with 17.5 pts.  Rookie Miles Sanders has mostly been a disappointment so far but he scored 19.75 pts this week which is the second time in three weeks that he scored double digits so he is starting to show some improvement.  Even RB bust Joe Mixon was able to crack the 20-rushing yard mark this week with 66, after not being able to exceed 17 rushing yards in 4 of his first 7 games.  Mixon also scored a TD for the second straight week and perhaps with the upcoming return of AJ Green the Bengals offense will be able to move the ball better and therefore help Mixon. 

 

The GloriousBastards finished in the top 4 for the fourth straight week with 144.25 pts this week so they solidified their 4th place in the standings, far behind Dec and FE, but far ahead of Adm.  GB did not expect this to be a fantastic week because the team was hampered by not having a college QB to start since both had the same bye week so 4th should be considered adequate in the circumstances.  J Goff carried Bas to a decent week thanks to his 27.25 pts against the weak Bengals and WR M Thomas was the other Bas player to score over 20 pts with a short TD and 11 receptions for over 100 yards.  The Colts were bottled up all game by the Broncos defense but at least RB Mack was able to score the Colts’ lone TD and his total yardage approached 100 yds so nothing to sneeze at.  In that same game RB Lindsay did not do as well with only 6.25 pts and in fact it’s the Broncos’ other RB R Freeman (Beaud) who scored the Broncos TD.  Lindsay having to share the load is definitely capping his potential so far this year.  After missing three games due to a concussion, D Leonard is now clearly recovered, he scored 15 pts last week and now 14 pts this week.  He is now almost back on top of the LB rankings as should be expected, only 0.1 pt per game behind Kuechly (Wax). 

 

The BeaudoinBrothers had a rough Sunday with many underperformers and at one point were projecting to finish last while Dec was projecting to finish first which would have been an unmitigated disaster for Beaud.  Fortunately RB A Jones bailed the Bros out of major trouble on SNF with his huge game 226 total yards and 2 TDs, most of the yardage being on the receiving end including a long TD reception in the 4th quarter to beat the Chiefs on the road.  Jones finished the game with 31.75 pts and if he had scored equal to his projection of 11.4 pts, the Bros would have finished last so it is clear that he contributed to 4 rank-points all by himself this week.  Co-RB D Henry did not fare as well despite the Titans being up most of the game.  Henry did not score a TD and fumbled once to finish with only 3.75 pts.  Receivers were particularly problematic for Beaud this week.  Thielen was out to injury so A Robinson started again but the result was not as good as his previous two games.  This time Robinson only scored 8 pts and TY Hilton was held in check all game by cornerback Chris Harris until the game-winning catch to set up a FG late in the 4th quarter; it was only Hilton’s second reception of the game and he finished with only 4.5 pts.  LBs L David and J Schobert were both on bye last week and returned in strength this week with 24.5 pts combined to earn valuable points that were needed to beat Adm and Wax who finished only 2 pts and 1.25 pts behind Beaud.

 

WaxOnWaxOff made a strong push on MNF to avoid finishing in the basement.  With big games from J Conner, TJ Watt, and the Steelers defense all feasting on the horrible Dolphins, Wax was about to beat Sun, Old, and Adm, but fell just short of beating the Bros.  The Steelers D started on the back foot, allowing 14 pts to the Dolphins in the first quarter but they shut the door after that and the Dolphins did not score anything more, and finished the game with 4 turnovers and 4 sacks.  Two of those sacks were by TJ Watt including two forced fumbles as well on those plays, and Watt recovered one of those fumbles himself.  Conner ran for almost 150 yards and he scored a TD for a total of 17.5 pts which was the third time in the last 4 games that Conner scored over 17 pts.  With L Jackson on bye, Wax was forced to start Rivers in Chicago which is not the best of matchups and as expected Rivers did not do much with 9.5 pts which was below his projection.  Ty Hill slightly underperformed as well with 10 pts; 6 receptions was fine but he did not score.  L Fitz was a lot worse with the Cards being unable to move the ball against the tough Saints D and he finished with only 2.25 pts.  At TE Wax has a major problem developing because Ertz now has 3 straight games without reaching a paltry 4 pts because backup Goedert (Old) is emerging and scoring the TDs instead of Ertz and also robbing receptions.  To make matters worse Wax traded away Hooper to Dec earlier this year and it’s Hooper who has been lighting up the scoreboard, ranking as the top TE in the PQBFL which was unexpected. 

 

The Admirals scored a respectable 136 pts which is more than the league average of 133.9 pts so far this year, but for the first time this season a score above 125 pts was not enough to avoid the red; Adm unfortunately got the short end of the stick in a very close matchup against Wax and Beaud.  There are very few starting lineup calls that could have made the difference so it is not easy to point the finger at the coach for this result.  Perhaps Adm could have started C Kirk (12.75 pts) and instead bench K Stills (4 pts) or Ro Anderson (8 pts) but since Kirk had missed the previous three games to injury it was almost impossible to predict to what extent he would be involved in the offense so the coach played it safe.  Perhaps the coach should have started DL J Bosa who scored 16 pts, but DL D Hunter was previously outscoring Bosa and he was DL2 in the entire PQBFL so benching Hunter was not actually the clearest call to make and anyway D Hunter had a good game with 12 pts.  Perhaps it’s one of the LBs that should have been benched in favor of Hunter for the defensive flex spot, either B Martinez (7 pts) or K Van Noy (5 pts) but starting a LB at flex instead of a DL is not exactly controversial and is quite common.  Adm was able to have a decent week because D Carr had by far his best game of the year with 30.5 pts and now his average is clearly above Garoppolo and Mayfield so after those two guys started for Adm in most weeks, perhaps now Adm has finally found their starting QB for the rest of the year. 

 

OldNo7 had a bad score in an even numbered week like weeks 2, 4, 6, with 8th place this week which was the third straight time that Old finished in the red so Old has seen their lead over Wax in the standings shrink from 9 rank-points to 2 rank-points during this time span.  It is actually surprising that Old could not do better than 8th place given that McCaffrey had a good game with over 20 pts, D Hopkins caught 11 passes for over 100 yards, E Engram scored a TD, and rookie Montgomery who was only averaging 6 pts per game before this week, finally got out of his shell with 17.25 pts.  So most of Old’s big guns delivered, but Old was held back by Wentz who was so-so in Buffalo with only 13.25 pts.  This was not expected to be an easy game but given that that Bills D turned out to be porous for the first time of the year and scored negative points for Old, the insurance combo of starting both Wentz and the Bills failed.  Old would have been better off starting the Saints defense instead who scored 10.5 pts and that call alone for defensive team cost Old the difference between 8th and 5th place so it was huge.  Old was also affected this week by not having a kicker because Gostkowski is out for the year and Maher was on bye. 

 

The SunshineBoys scored 120.75 pts but that ranked last this week, which is the highest last place score of the season.  As it’s been the case for most of the season, D Watson was the top contributor for Sun with 29 pts in a close home win against the Raiders.  JJSS had his best game of the year by taking advantage of the Dolphins and he scored 18 pts.  It is rather ODB who doomed Sun with only 7.5 pts against the Pats, along with both RBs Gordon and D Freeman who could not score double digits and combined for 16.25 pts.  TE McDonald also failed to deliver on MNF against the Dolphins with only 3.75 pts.  On defense the Jaguars were strong with 15 pts against the Jets, but individual defenders left to be desired, J Peppers leading the pack with 8 pts but K Clark, L Alexander, and P Brown only scored 9.5 pts combined which is sometimes  outscored by almost half of individual defenders on any given week.  This bad week combined with the recent success of the Ballers means Sun dropped to a tie in last place with Ball, although Sun holds the tie-breaker by a small margin. 



 

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