The red-hot GloriousBastards won for the third straight week and for
the fourth time in five weeks. Too bad the one week during
this 5-week stretch when they did not finish at the top, they were
last, otherwise the team could be in the middle of an epic comeback
but at this stage it might be too little too late. This week
was fairly close once again and Bas only finished 8.5 pts ahead of
FE in 4th place so every starting decision counted to determine the
top 4. Josh Jacobs missed the previous week to injury so Bas
played it safe and started AJ Brown this week instead of a gimpy
Jacobs and it paid off big time. Brown scored a TD and over
100 receiving yards for 18.5 pts, easily beating Jacobs with 9 pts
on the bench so that alone was the difference between 1st and
4th. Since his bye week, AJ Brown has been performing very
well with Tannehill at QB, averaging 17.4 pts per game in the last 4
weeks. The top scorer for Bas was once again M Thomas with
12-128-1 on MNF to edge the competition on top of LB Leonard with 12
pts in that same game. Leonard was an early and expensive
draft pick but he leads all defensive players by 2.8 pts per game so
he has been worth the investment. This week Bas started Jayon
Brown at LB to go along Leonard because Roquan Smith is
injured. That injury proved to be a blessing in disguise
because J Brown scored 15 pts which is likely to be more than Smith
would have scored. The other big games on offense were from E
Elliott (23.25 pts) and Kittle (19.5 pts). Elliott has now
cracked the top 5 RB in the rankings so far, and Kittle took over
the top TE spot in the PQBFL over Kelce and Hooper (Dec).
The Admirals had a good week with 154.5 pts and second place but
unfortunately Wax was not far behind so Adm could only shave one
rank-point against Wax in the standings. It’s not every day
that the top starter is a defense but such was the case for Adm with
the Vikings scoring 23.5 pts on the road against the Chargers, which
makes it even more surprising given that the Chargers are not a bad
offense. Not only the Vikes scored a TD, but they created a
mind-boggling 7 turnovers with 3 INTs of Rivers and 4 fumble
recoveries. As it happened in previous weeks, Adm got a double
payout from that game with the Vikings defense + DL D Hunter in the
starting lineup and Hunter sacked Rivers once and he forced two
fumbles. Starting RBs for Adm had productive games with 2 TDs
each for Gurley and Ingram and for icing on the cake they both
scored a 2-point conversion. D Adams also had a big game with
19 pts and TE Andrews contributed with 11.5 pts which was in excess
of his weekly projection. The main black spot for Adm this
week was the dud from A Cooper who only caught one pass with the
Cowboys running at will all game rather attacking with the
pass. At the rookie position Adm has thrown the towel on
Haskins who only scored double digits once all year prior to this
week so he was benched in favor of DK Metcalf. Metcalf
responded with a TD but he only had two receptions, meanwhile
Haskins had his best game of the year on the bench with 20.5 pts;
benching Haskins deprived Adm of first place.
WaxOnWaxOff finished near the top but Kamara failing to have a big
game on MNF once again means Wax had to settle for less because of
their underperforming franchise player. It is amazing that in
a game where the Saints score 34 pts and lead all game long, Kamara
could not do better than 89 total yards and no TD. Most of
Wax’s scoring came via L Jackson as usual with a 44-point feast off
the lowly Jets. L Jackson now leads all QBs by 5.2 pts per
game, just shy of McCaffrey’s (Old) dominance at RB with 5.5 pts per
game more than D Henry (Beaud). Besides Kamara, Wax started
Ronald Jones which was a bad move; Jones was limited to 4 pts while
both A Peterson and J Conner scored double digits on the
bench. The coach also made a mistake of which WR2 to
start. D Westbrook only scored 3 pts and on the bench S
Shephard scored 15.5 pts. Backup A Miller also scored 19.75
pts but it would have been more of a stretch to start him unlike
Shephard. At least starter Ty Hill scored a couple of TDs to
lead Wax’s team for anybody not named Jackson with 22.25 pts.
LBs Kuechly (19 pts) and TJ Watt (12 pts) both did well this week
and while they have been inconsistent this year, nonetheless they
rank LB5 and LB6 near the end of the season so the result has been
satisfying overall. At rookie because of Guice’s season-ending
injury, Wax had to start Deebo Samuel who had been playing very well
recently with 5 straight double digit games. However he chose
the wrong time to stink with only one reception this week, given
that first place was within reach for Wax this week.
FlyingElvis had a so-so 4th place and beat Dec and Beaud, but lost
more ground to Bas who are now breathing down FE’s neck in the
standings with two weeks to go. The top scorer for FE this
week was S Barkley which has not been the case for a long
time. Barkley scored a season-high 22.75 pts; playing at home
against the Dolphins is the medicine any struggling player
needs. The coach made the right call to start Prescott against
the Rams (22 pts) instead of A Rodgers against the Bears (15.5 pts)
and in fact the coach was nearly flawless this week with the
exception being K Drake exploding for 33 pts on the bench compared
to only 6 pts for Fournette but this is hardly a call that the coach
will second guess himself or lose sleep over. The more
difficult call to make was who to start in replacement for injured
Marvin Jones and the coach went with Mike Williams who was able to
score 13.5 pts with the Chargers’ lone TD in a game where they were
destroyed so Williams was the only Charger with decent stats this
week. WR Beasley was sent to the bench in favor of Williams
and Beasley only scored 1.25 pts despite the Bills beating the
Steelers. On defense the Pats were less dominant recently but
they came back on the right track as they played a weaker offense
this time they scored 18.5 pts including a TD against the
Bengals. DL Heyward scored 10+ pts once again but he was leap
frogged in the DL rankings by D Hunter (Adm) as the league’s top
DL. LBs Kendricks and Wagner also scored 10+ pts to round out
a good defensive week for FE besides S Williams who scored a
season-low 3 pts at DB.
The Decepticons finished in the middle of the pack but most
importantly beat Beaud by a small 3.75 pt margin to further improve
their odds of winning the PQBFL championship. Mahomes and
Kelce did not connect for a TD but both had good stats to beat their
weekly projection: 24 pts for Mahomes and 18 pts for Kelce. RB
C Carson took advantage of the season-ending injury to R Penny (Wax)
who had been gradually eating away at Carson’s touches. Carson
is now again the clear bell cow in Seattle and he scored 2 TDs and
over 100 yards rushing for 22.25 pts which helped mitigate banged up
Cook who played injured and was limited to 3.5 pts. At WR the
injuries to Ridley and M Evans means Lockett was back in the
starting lineup despite playing poorly recently with only 13 pts in
4 games between weeks 10 and 14. However this week he scored
20+ pts to provide an important contribution on top of C Carson from
the Seahawks to eclipse the Bros. At the rookie position D
Jones missed another game and so far D Lock had done a fine job in
replacement but for the first time Lock did not deliver with only 3
pts (no TD and one INT). At LB the coach made a brilliant call
to start Z Cunningham for a rare time and benched D Jones and it was
the difference to beat Beaud, with Cunningham scoring 16.5 pts to 10
pts for Jones. The other starting LB was Littleton who scored
12 pts which was the 8th time in the last 9 games he reached 10
pts. The rest of the Rams defense did not do nearly as well as
Littleton, in fact they sucked big time with 44 pts and almost 500
yards allowed, no sack, no INT, and no fumble recovery. This
complete disaster was worth minus 3.5 pts.
The BeaudoinBrothers continued to struggle with 6th place and
further bad starting lineup calls this week in a season where the
Bros have self destructed after having a big lead in the standings
earlier this season. At QB the coach played safe with R Wilson
on the road in Carolina and he was not bad with 21.5 pts.
However J Winston on the bench destroyed the Lions with 40.5
pts. At RB it would have been hard to bench D Henry due to his
recent success, but he was limited to 7 pts while A Jones scored 2
TDs and 16.25 pts on the bench. He must be one of the RBs
leaving the most points on the bench in the history of the PQBFL
given how many times he’s been benched and TDs have been raining
left and right, he is RB4 and has been benched in favor of D Henry
and N Chubb more often than not. At WR A Robinson continued to
be a decent substitute to injured Thielen and TY Hilton, in fact
both of those came back from injury this week but Robinson and J
Landry stayed in the starting lineup. Robinson was the best of
the bunch with 14.25 pts and Landry was second best but 6 pts was
not very good, at least it was more than Thielen and Hilton who were
rusty. Defense was nothing to write home about this week,
first off on TNF the Ravens scored 5.5 pts against the Jets which
was far less dominant than expected. DL Ingram had an INT and
L David a forced fumble, but they only modestly beat their
projection while Schobert (5 pts) and Amos (3 pts) fell way short of
their projection. Rookie K Murray was also a disappointment
with only 14.75 pts given that the Cards scored a whopping 5 TDs but
Murray only scored one of them due to Drake (FE) scoring the other 4
TDs on his own.
The Ballers beat Sun by two spots this week to increase their lead
in the standings to 9 rank-points with 2 weeks to go so they are
almost assured of finishing 8th. Julio Jones and Miles Sanders
scored almost half the points of the entire Ballers team. Ju
Jones benefited from C Ridley’s injury (Dec) and finished the game
with 13-134-2, while Sanders benefited from Jo Howard’s (Old)
injury; Sanders got the majority of carries, he caught 6 passes and
a TD each on the ground and by the air. Mixon and Ju Simmons
scored 13 pts each which beat their projection, but the rest of the
Ballers’ lineup was quite subpar, starting with Breida who only
touched the ball 6 times (4 rushes, 2 receptions) lost one fumble
and fumbled once more but out of bounds. He finished with
negative points with his sorry performance. Golladay was held
to 3 catches no TD, Zuerlein only had one extra point no FG, and the
Titans defense did not do the job at home in a big game against the
Texans which has eliminated their chances for the AFC South title,
although they still have a chance for a wild card. The Titans
D finished with only one point despite 2 INTs of D Watson, in part
because their special teams allowed a FG to be blocked early in the
game which ended up being the difference in that game since they
lost by 3 against the Texans. With M Jack injured the coach
started Christian Jones at LB but he’s injured too so he was the
wrong choice at defensive flex. That said, the backups at DL
or DB did not do much on the bench so Ball could not have beat Beaud
anyway.
OldNo7 finished in the bottom 4 for the third straight week and with
Adm’s 2nd place, Old has effectively lost any chance of finishing
anywhere but 7th place in the standings now trailing Adm by 9
rank-points. McCaffrey shook off bad weeks 13-14 with a strong
25.5 pt game this week to lead Old in scoring once again, thanks to
2 TDs and almost 100 yards rushing and receiving each. The
same cannot be said of L McCoy who was expected to shoulder the load
due to Damien Williams’ injury but no such thing. McCoy only
carried 6 times for 16 yards and no reception. Wentz had a
half decent game with 21.5 pts but it required a laborious comeback
to beat the Skins which was not very impressive. All three of
Wentz’s TDs were in the last 20 minutes of the game including a last
minute game-winning TD. Wentz was partly to blame for putting
his team in the hole with 3 fumbles although only one of them was
lost. Both WRs Hopkins and Godwin reached double digits but
underperformed relative to their lofty projections, scoring 11.75
pts and 11 pts respectively. The Bills defense was dominant
again with 18 pts and that was without even scoring a TD. They
held the Steelers in check with only 10 pts and 229 yds allowed,
caused 5 turnovers and sacked the QB 4 times. One of those
turnovers was an INT from Poyer who scored 10 pts, but the rest of
Old’s defense was shitty with only 1 pt from Mack, 1 pt from
Buckner, and 5 pts from Jaylon Smith. It is also worth noting
that not only Gostkowski is out for the year to injury but Old’s
other kicker Maher was waived by Dallas so Old will play the rest of
the season with no kicker.
The SunshineBoys returned to last place after a good week 14, so Sun
now has finished last for the 7th time in 15 weeks. The team
did not even finish that close to OldNo7 so this week was a lost
cause all around. Even though both M Gordon and D Freeman were
healthy and starting, both sucked with no TD, low yardage, and
Gordon lost 2 fumbles. ODB finally scored double digits which
was only the third time he did since week 3, but Edelman’s streak of
9 straight 10+ pt games ended with a dismal 2.25 points. At TE
the coach started injured McDonald but backup Ji Graham only scored
a single point on the bench so it did not matter. Dissly’s
season-ending injury in week #6 has been costing Sun in a major
way. Defense was the only bright spot for Sun this week
particularly the DL starting duo of K Clark and Dunlap.
Together they finished with 9 tackles 5 assists 3 sacks 1 pass
defended and one forced fumble for a total of 29.5 pts. The
Packers were not bad with 8.5 pts and a win against the Bears but LB
L Alexander only scored 2 pts and E Jackson 6 pts so depth was
simply not there beyond the DLs. Most likely rookie LB Pratt
will be a saved player next year because after starting slow he’s
been scoring better than healthy veteran LBs on Sun’s team,
including 9 pts this week for Pratt.
