Week #1


The Admirals stormed out of the gate with a win this week, something they had not done all of 2019 so year 2020 is already an improvement and we barely got started.  It was notable that Adm was able to win despite starting injured DL D Hunter and that the Vikings defense was abysmal with 41 pts and more than 500 total yards allowed, and not a single sack or turnover.  Almost all Adm’s production came from receivers with D Adams scoring 33.75 pts in that game against the hopeless Vikings, while A Thielen scored a couple of TDs in the 4th quarter during garbage time.  TE M Andrews also picked up where we left off last year with two more TDs; it’s clear he remains a key red zone option for L Jackson.  It was not entirely smooth sailing for Adm however and they needed further boost on defense to edge Wax at the finish line with double-digit scores from J Bosa (11 pts), Jaylon Smith (12.5 pts), and B Baker (15 pts). 

WaxOnWaxOff started the year on the right foot and came close to winning this week when N Fant made fun of the label “weakness” in the post-draft analysis for Wax’s TE position by scoring a TD and catching 5 passes for 81 yards, all in the first half of the late MNF game to give Wax a shot at first place.  Unfortunately Fant was fully accounted for by the Titans defense in the second half.  It was not until the very last drive of the Broncos with only seconds left that Fant was targeted for the first half of the second half and he could have given Wax the win with a catch but the pass was incomplete.  As will be the case countless times this season, L Jackson was Wax’s team leader with 28.75 pts against the poor Browns defense but WR Ridley was not far behind with 26.25 pts thanks to 2 TDs and 9-130.  One has to wonder if this is the year that Ridley will surpass Ju Jones, yet Ridley was much cheaper than Jones in the draft.  High prized rookie Burrow was ok but not great with 13 pts and he failed to lead his team to the win late in the 4th quarter when his TD pass to AJ Green was nullified by a pass interference call and to add insult to injury the kicker missed the easy FG to send the game into overtime which would have given extra playing time and some easy points to Burrow to beat Adm.

The BeaudoinBrothers started 2020 with a score of 138.5 pts which was below expectations but franchise player D Henry was used and overused all night long on MNF despite limited success, to bulldoze his way to a small margin win over Bas and Old simply by the sheer number of carries (31) he got on a frustrating night; also he did not get either of the 1-yard TDs which went through the air.  It was a much easier day for R Wilson who was the highest scoring starter in the entire PQBFL with 34.75 pts and given the weapons that the Seahawks have, it is the Bros’ hope that the Seahawks game plan will favor the air attack far more in the future than the typically conservative game plan with too many running plays.  TE Kelce provided the Bros a decent game on TNF with 6 receptions and a short TD while Butker made all 6 of his kicks in that same game.  However the main culprit for the Bros not coming close to the top was M Thomas who had his worst game ever with only 3-17 and no score.  Individual defenders were not very impressive either with only 3 pts from Garrett, 6.5 pts from Littleton, and 4 pts from JJIII.  Thankfully the Ravens picked up some of the slack with a 15-pt effort against the Browns. 

The GloriousBastards finished 4th this week, tightly sandwiched between Beaud and Old in the rankings.  Most of Bas’ production was on the ground with 5 TDs combined from Josh Jacobs and E Elliott while most other PQBFL teams had at least one struggling starting RB, if not two.  Things were rougher through the air for GB however.  Because C Sutton was out to injury, Bas started ODB and with a poor showing of 3-22 it seems nothing has changed from last year: he is no longer a top WR like he was in New York.  Early indications are that the offseason has not helped anything at all about bad timing with Mayfield.  At TE Kittle got banged up and only finished the game with 6.5 pts which was barely half of his weekly projection.  Brady was close to his projection and he threw 3 short TD passes but his two INTs doomed the Bucs in a loss against the Saints.  Goff and Haskins did not do better on the bench for Bas so unless the team makes a trade, they will live and die with old man Brady at QB.  Defense was nothing to write home about for Bas this week and in fact before MNF the projections had Bas in third place, but M Fitzpatrick only scored 2 pts which cost the team to drop to 4th. 

OldNo7 was projected to finish first before the week started but disappointed with 5th place.  It would have been hard to start A Rodgers against the (supposedly) tough Vikings defense rather than Wentz against the lowly Redskins… errr Football Team?  But that call alone was the difference between 1st place and 5th place because Rodgers scored 37 pts on the bench and seemed like he was in MVP form while Wentz struggled with 11 pts due to three turnovers.  Despite not starting Rodgers this week, we can expect him in the starting lineup sooner rather than later so things are looking up nonetheless for Old.  McCaffrey was his normal self this week with 21 pts and co-starter RB M Gordon was fine with 86 total yards and a short TD but his lost fumble was very costly given the tight race with Bas and Beaud.  All three of Old’s receivers underperformed relative to projections with 12.25 pts from Ty Hill, 8.5 pts from A Robinson, and 5 pts from Higbee.  It was a similar story on defense with the Bills, Buckner, Schobert, and Poyer all underperforming with the exception being B Martinez who matched his projection with 12 pts.  The one who came in with high expectations and was able to easily exceed them was rookie CEH who was quite impressive and was the highest scoring rookie of the week with 18.5 pts. 

The Decepticons started 2020 exactly the same way as 2019: 6th place.  Last year it did not prevent the team from leading in the standings for the majority of the season before injuries killed them late, so Dec’s coach is not overly worried about the slow start.  Mahomes was in full control all game but if there is one thing that changed it might be that the Chiefs will run the ball more than before so Mahomes might not score 25-30 pts on a weekly basis like in the past and this week’s 22 pts might be a more realistic expectation of things to come.  WR Godwin scored 10.75 pts which was not bad but more was expected with his new QB especially with M Evans being banged up, but it was Evans who scored the late TD.  Ju Jones probably does not benefit a lot from Ridley’s emergence but it did not prevent him from scoring 16.75 pts which Dec would take on any given week.  The more important issues for Dec might be more at RB instead.   C Carson’s final score of 16.5 pts was excellent but it hides the fact that two scores were on receptions and Carson only carried the rock 6 times compared to C Hyde 7 times.  Carson will not score double digits many times this season if he only gets 6 carries and if he needs to share with Hyde to such an extent.  There was a similar problem in Cleveland: yes the Browns were playing the tough Ravens defense, but Chubb was supposed to be the main RB with Hunt the receiving option.  Chubb did very well with 6.0 yards per carry but he only got 10 carries to Hunt’s 13 carries.  Hopefully that was only because the Browns were far behind and they wanted to keep their workhorse fresh but the split of carries was not exactly the most comforting news.  On defense Dec was very disappointed by the 49ers who lost at home against the Cards and scored in negative territory.  Individual defenders are supposed to be a strength for Dec this year but it was guys on the bench who scored the most with 17 pts from Ja Adams on his new team at DB, and 23 pts from backup LB Jerome Baker who could be quite a steal.  Starters did not do so well, for example D Leonard will have to do better than 9 pts per week going forward. 

FlyingElvis took the early lead in injury points with DB Derwin James being out for the year, while first round pick M Sanders missed the game but should be back soon.  He is sorely needed because FE’s backup RBs are not the most impressive with Fournette and Singletary sharing lots of carries with other runners on their team, and it was in fact the ageless Adrian Peterson who did the best on FE’s bench with 9.5 pts, even outscoring franchise player Barkley who was bottled up all night by the Steelers and finished with 15 carries for 6 yards which brought flashbacks of 2019.  At WR M Evans was benched as a precaution because he was questionable, and he only caught one ball which went for a TD, while backup DJ Chark started and was a bit better with 3-25-1, his stats being helped by the score.  JJSS was glad to reunite with his QB Roeth and caught 6 passes including 2 TDs to provide FE’s best score out of all starters.  FE surprised by starting T Bridgewater at QB and his 21 pts were not too bad, besting D Jones (18 pts) on the bench.  Cousins was the best of the group with 23.25 pts on the bench but only because of late scores when the game was out of hand.  At the rookie position, for a change FE might be helped by injuries instead of being negatively affected thanks to the season-ending injury to M Mack (Wax) so things look more promising for rookie J Taylor.  However this week Taylor did not get the job done on the ground with only 9-22 and in fact Hines did better than him.  Taylor made it up with 6 receptions for 67 yards however.  Individual defense was poor for FE other than Kendricks who scored 10 pts, the other three J Peppers, T Edmunds, and D Lawrence did no better than 4.5 pts and Edmunds got hurt too. 

The Ballers started 2020 below expectations with only 108.5 pts and 8th place.  The first fix will be to bench LB Todd Davis who started this week despite the fact that he’s no longer on the Broncos roster because he was cut at the end of training camp.  That leaves Ball with only 2 LBs which is quite thin and besides Wagner, the other LB Cole Holcomb might not be worth much going by his week 1 score of a single point and Ball might need to use another position for defensive flex.  Rookie D Swift scored a TD but Adrian Peterson took the bigger share of carries so it might be a while before Swift can dominate.  At QB, Ball had the balls (no pun intended) to start C Newton against the Dolphins and benched Dak Prescott.  It turned out to be fairly insignificant because Newton scored within one point of Prescott and actually the highest scoring QB on Ball’s team was Tannehill with 19.25 pts.  Ball’s top player this week was by far D Hopkins.  There were doubts as to whether he would be used as much as in Houston and those doubts were destroyed in week 1 with Hopkins’ stat line of 14-151.  The only thing missing was TDs but he won’t play the 49ers every week so as of now it looks like Hopkins will turn out to be a monster this season.  Franchise player D Cook had a tough time getting yardage but he scored a couple of short TDs to beat his projection.  The Ballers only drafted one team defense so there will not be an opportunity to play matchups; the Bears only scored 1 pt this week against the Lions so if they cannot do better against a below average team, it does not bode well for the rest of the season.

ProfMJ started the expansion team where people expected them: last place.  Josh Allen had a good game with 25 pts thanks to 3 TDs, over 300 passing yards and 57 more yards on the ground.  He will not be the problem for Prof this year.  The issues this week were not so much lack of depth (it’s week 1 after all) but it was that high-priced starters did not do so well.  Conner did not look good against the Giants before going down to injury and being replaced by Snell.  This does not smell good for his 2021 outlook as the injury-prone tag will resurface again.  Drake salvaged his stats against a strong 49ers defense with a score, but Chase Edmunds was perhaps more involved in the offense than anticipated and K Murray ran more than last year.  At WR C Kupp was outplayed by teammate R Woods (Dec) and McLaurin was all right but more is expected than 8 pts.  On defense, Tracy Walker was the lone bright spot with 10.5 pts and Ingram scored 7 pts because of an INT but he was otherwise invisible.  LB Vander Esch got injured after scoring only 3 pts and will help Prof compete with FE for injury points which would be one way to put a positive spin on this.  Rookie Ruggs also got injured but it might only slow him down rather than miss games so it will not help Prof.

 

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