The GloriousBastards became the third team in the league to win
back-to-back weeks after Beaud (4-5) and FE (7-8) did it earlier
this year. With FE’s debacle this week the Bastards find
themselves closer to 3rd place than 5th place after previously
seeming to have no shot at the top 3. GB finishing first was
much better than expected given Josh Jacbos was a late scratch for A
4pm game and Bas could not put AJ Brown in the starting lineup in
time. The coach also had the balls to start freakin’ Sam
Darnold because he was playing at home against the Dolphins and
benched Goff & Brady which paid dividends with Darnold
outscoring them both with 18.25 pts. At RB E Elliott got his
best game of the season with 17.75 pts and after a slow start he now
has 4 straight games with 10+ pts. M Mack came back to health
and scored a short TD although if he had stayed injured it would
have been better because Ekeler exploded for 25.75 pts on the
bench. WR M Thomas continued to produce like a machine with
23.5 pts and perhaps it’s crazy to say but the Saints scored 46 pts
in that game so Thomas could have actually done better than just
catching one of Brees’ 5 TD passes. Defense was an important
factor for Bas this week with both the Broncos D and LB Leonard
scoring touchdowns to make up for weak games from LB R Smith (2 pts)
and DL C Jordan (3 pts).
WaxOnWaxOff had a good week with second place but lost ground to Bas
in the standings, so this week at least served the purpose of
distancing Adm and Old behind in the standings which means Wax took
a good grip over 5th place. Similar to Bas, this week was not
so high scoring for the team despite a high finish and Wax had some
issues, first of all Kamara who has been stuck in neutral for quite
a while, got worse this week instead of getting better.
Besides his games missed to injury, Kamara had scored between 4.5
pts and 9 pts for 7 straight weeks until this week he broke the
trend to the downside with only 0.5 pt: only 43 yards from scrimmage
and a fumble lost. Ro Jones also did not do much with 5.75 pts
plus Ty Hill and S Shephard failed to reach double digits. L
Jackson had a tough matchup against the Bills and slightly
underperformed his projection with 23 pts. So actually how did
Wax manage to finish as high as second place? First of all
Ertz took advantage of the injury-riddled WR corps of the Eagles on
MNF and gobbled up a good chunk of Wentz’s passes with 9 receptions
including 2 for a TD to lead Wax for the week, but that required
overtime because Ertz actually had not done much until the last 2
minutes of the 4th quarter which is when he scored his first TD,
followed by the TD in overtime. As good as Bas’s defense was
this week, Wax was even better because everybody contributed, from
the Steelers scoring a TD, A Donald 4 passes defended, Kuechly 12.5
pts, TJ Watt an INT, and Bethea 14.5 pts on MNF to double his weekly
projection.
The Decepticons were not dominant this week but took sole possession
of first place by beating handsomely the Bros and FE who finished
8th and 9th which was almost a perfect outcome for Dec. As
it’s been the case several times this season for Dec, when a key
player gets injured the team benefits from perfect timing when
someone else comes back from injury at exactly the same time to
produce as well as the previous starter, which mitigates the bad
luck. Rookie D Jones missed week 14 to injury but D Lock came
out of nowhere and is now starting in Denver and scoring well too,
his 24.5 pts this week led Dec, even outscoring Mahomes who was
limited to 14.75 pts in New England. Kelce scored in that game
but it required a trick play to do it because it was a TD run not a
TD reception. Injuries continued to hit Dec so it’s not all
clear skies ahead however, with M Evans scoring on a bomb but
getting injured on that play; it was his only reception of the game
and he finished with 12 pts. Defense was key for Dec’s success
this week as for GB and Wax, particularly the Rams holding the
Seahawks to only 2 FGs and no TD on SNF which kept Russell Wilson
(Beaud) out of the scoring sheet and busted the Bros’ chances for a
middling result for the week. At DB J Adams who is the top DB
in the PQBFL missed the game to injury which affected Dec because
backup L Collins only scored 4 pts which is why Dec missed out of
2nd place.
The SunshineBoys broke out of their long funk with 4th place and
were only 5.25 pts away from second place so could have easily
finished in the blue for the first time in franchise history.
As it’s been the case for most of the season D Watson did well this
week with 25 pts so he is not the reason for Sun’s improvement this
week (he was as good as usual), it was rather some previous
underperformers who all put up a decent result at the same
time. After missing a couple of weeks to injury D Freeman was
rusty last week but this week he did much better with 13.75 pts, his
best result since week #6. M Gordon also scored double digits
for the first time since week #10 with 12 pts in an easy win in
Jax. Edelman reached the 20-point threshold for the second
time of the season which was his 9th straight game with double
digits; unlike others on Sun’s team has has not been a
disappointment this season ranking WR4 in the PQBFL. The
problem has just been that he’s been benched way too many times in
favor of ODB and JJSS who were drafted ahead of him. This week
he was forced into the starting lineup because of JJSS’s injury
while ODB continued to play poorly with only 3.75 pts. To his
defense news have now emerged that ODB has been playing hurt which
makes sense given that he’s ranking WR30 in the league which is
unfathomable for a player like that if he is healthy. Defense
was also decent for Sun this week with the Packers, Dunlap, K Clark,
and L Alexander all scoring between 9 and 9.5 pts each. Even
rookie Pratt scored a season-high 8 pts in part because he’s playing
more snaps since the Bengals waived veteran LB P Brown.
The Admirals finished in the middle of the pack in 5th place but
should consider themselves lucky to edge Old by a slim half a point
and Ball by only 3.75 pts. It would have been tough to bench
Mayfield at home against the Bengals but Mayfield did not do well
with 1 TD 2 INTs while backups Garoppolo (31.5 pts) and D Carr (23
pts) easily outscored him which made a huge difference for Adm this
week given how close all teams finished. Starting Carr would
have meant 2nd place and Garo would have put Adm first. The
rest of Adm’s offensive lineup was hit and miss with 14.25 pts from
Gurley and 16 pts from A Cooper but M Ingram (6.5 pts), D Adams (6
pts) and especially M Andrews (1.5 pt) were not up to par this
week. Like many other teams Adm had a good week defensively
for the most part led by D Hunter who sacked the Lions QB three
times and J Bosa added 2 more sacks. LB B Martinez did not get
a sack but scored better than his projection nonetheless with 11.5
pts and the defensive laggards were the Browns (8.5 pts) and B Baker
(8 pts). Anybody would take 8 pts as the worst defensive score
on any given week so overall it made for a quite strong group of
defensive 5. The week could have been better if the Seahawks
and DK Metcalf had not been held out of the end zone – the rookie WR
for Adm failed to reach double digits but had decent stats with
6-78.
OldNo7 finished just behind Adm and lost key ground in the standings
because it’s Adm who is right in front of Old in the
standings. On MNF OldNo7 had Goedert and Wentz as starters at
home against the Giants which was promising, but Wentz’s first TD
was only in the 59th minute as mentioned above and he needed OT just
to beat the Ballers so Old did not exactly deserve to beat
Adm. Goedert did not do particularly well in that game with
3-41 with Engram still out to injury. McCaffrey had a second
straight so-so week with 11.25 pts and no TD but T Coleman was far
worse: only 6 total yards out of 516 yards from the 49ers offense,
and Coleman ended the game with a paltry 0.5 pt. WRs Godwin
and Hopkins both beat their projection with 35 pts combined which
was the only bright spot on Old’s lineup this week. The rest
was nothing to write home about, Maher missed another FG, the Bills
did not do much with 4.5 pts and lost to the Ravens, rookie
Montgomery lost a fumble, and defense was only marginally better
with 13.5 pts from J Smith and 11.5 pts from Poyer but K Mack (8
pts) and Buckner (5 pts) were not as
dominant.
The Ballers finished 7th and saw their lead over Sun shrink somewhat
but remains a comfortable 7 rank-point lead with three weeks to
go. Joe Mixon was for a rare time the best scorer for Ball
with 20.5 pts thanks to almost 200 yards from scrimmage and a TD for
his best week of the season by far. Second best was TE J Cook
who came up big against the 49ers with 2 TDs despite his game being
cut short to injury and he left the game after scoring 19 pts.
The rest of the offensive starters were considerably below
projections first off Josh Allen who was playing the Ravens so
nobody expected fireworks but he was limited to a short TD, less
than 150 passing yards, and one fumble lost. RB Hines did not
do anything not only because M Mack is back to health but Hines also
lost a fumble so that’s now two reasons why he should not be on the
field. WR Ju Jones had another uninspiring game with 5-66 no
TD, kicker Zuerlein was 0/1 on FGs, and rookie M Sanders only had 69
total yards and finished with less than half of his projection with
5.75 pts. On defense LB T Edmunds was fine with 13 pts but the
Bears D scored a zero despite the win at home versus the Cowboys and
LB Christian Jones had to start with M Jack’s injury and only scored
4 points.
The BeaudoinBrothers were in good position to finish 2nd before SNF
and beat Dec but R Wilson was neutralized by the Rams D (Dec) to
finish scoreless with one INT for 7.25 pts which was his worst game
of the year; that came at a bad time given how close rankings were
this week. To make matters worse, on MNF A Jeffery got injured
and left the game before catching a pass which further doomed the
Bros down the rankings to the lowest they have been all year = 8th
place. Things had started ok especially RB D Henry who
continues to dominate in December like in 2018, this time he scored
2 TDs and rushed for over 100 yards for 21 points. A Jones
also scored 21 pts but the coach started Chubb instead because of
the matchup against the Bengals, and Chubb failed to reach 10 pts so
it was the wrong call to make at RB. While Jeffery’s injury
could not have been predicted, it should be noted that A Robinson
scored 17.25 pts on the bench and that call alone was the difference
between 8th place and 4th place. And what to say of the choice
of starting kicker? Earlier this year the coach tried to get
fancy by playing matchups and starting Myers instead of
league-leader Butker, and the coach got burnt. The lesson was
not learned: Myers started this week just because Butker was playing
against the Pats, Myers missed an extra point and Butker made all 5
of his kicks, a call which would have put the Bros in 5th place
rather than 8th place.
FlyingElvis finished last for the first time of the season and have
now seen the chances of PQBFL title all but evaporate in one week,
sinking to 8 rank-points behind Dec in first place and FE now has to
pay attention to Bas in the rearview mirror. Most starters for
FE underperformed, starting with A Rodgers who apart from his 33 pts
in week #13 has been struggling recently, this week he scored 10.75
pts which was the 3rd time in his last 4 games that he did not reach
11 pts. Barkley only scored 6.5 pts although that was not
entirely surprising given that he has not reached double digits
since week #8 and he is just not the same player as last year.
Fournette also had a bad game with 5.25 pts, same for WR M Jones
with 4.75 pts and while C Kupp scored 12.25 pts which is not bad, it
was slightly below his weekly projection. H Henry scored a TD
which is always a bonus for a TE but he only caught one other pass
besides his TD which is not what you would expect when the Chargers
offense score 45 points. Once again the Pats played a good
offense the Chiefs, and once again they failed to put up monster
numbers like early this season, this time the Pats finished with 4.5
pts. In their last 5 games the Pats have averaged 6.1 pts per
game which is pedestrian compared to other defenses in the PQBFL,
compared to the Pats’ 20.9 pts per game average in the first 8 weeks
which was probably unsustainable.
