Week #4

The Ballers started great with a win in 2018 week #1 which was their very first week in franchise history but had not returned to the top since.  The drought has come to an end this week with a close win over Bas, Beaud, and Old.  As a result the Ballers are now playing above .500 and are tied in 4th place overall with Dec.  Almost all production this week came from three players who lit up the scoreboard with a combined 9 TDs: Prescott 4, Mixon 3, and Cook 2.  Prescott’s high scoring was nothing new but Mixon had not done better than 7 pts (week #2) and was not worthy of franchise player until he exploded for 34 pts this week and moved up to RB11 in the rankings.  Defense was not very good for Ball this week except for Wagner who did enough to move Ball to the top.  At rookie it is interesting that the coach was benching Swift in favor of Zack Moss who ended up sitting to injury, so by default the starter went back to Swift who scored a short TD and had his best game of the season with 9.25 pts. 

The GloriousBastards were looking at an average week until Kittle had a monster 29.5 pt game on SNF to jump ahead of Beaud and Old and almost beat the Ballers.  This was quite a return to form for Kittle who had missed weeks 2 and 3 to injury and he now took over TE1 in the PQBFL far ahead of Jo Smith (Wax) who is TE2.  Rookie Herbert matched Kittle’s output with 29.5 pts and he is looking like the real deal despite not winning a game so far.  It would be shocking to see Tyrod Taylor replace him as QB once Taylor is healthy.  The rest of the offense was so-so, notably Goff started with 14.25 pts with Brady on the bench who scored 37 pts.  It was understandable with the Rams playing the Giants but this call easily cost Bas first place.  RB Elliott could not reach double digits because the Cowboys were playing from behind all game and Josh Jacobs only scored 6 pts against the tough Bills defense.  On defense, Bates and Ro Smith each scored 13 pts as the top scorers.

The BeaudoinBrothers scored a decent 155.25 pts and were able to withhold a late push by OldNo7 on MNF with two TDs from Gurley but it fell short of beating Bas.  Beaud nonetheless benefited from Wax and Dec’s struggles this week to move up to second in the standings only one rank-point behind Wax.  R Wilson came off his lofty scoring of the first three weeks with a more human 20.25 pts against the Dolphins which was a mild disappointment.  The big scorers for Beaud this week were A Cooper (28.5 pts) and CD Lamb (22 pts) who combined for 3 TDs on 17 receptions; having two receivers from the same team normally means that one will do quite well and the other will not, but this week was the exception to the rule because it was Gallup who was left with the crumbs.  On MNF Kelce and Butker could have helped Beaud to first place but they did not do much with 6.5 pts from Kelce and Butker missed another extra point and will soon find his way to the Bros’ bench in favor of J Myers.  Had Beaud started Myers instead, they would have beat Bas by a hair.

OldNo7 tried a comeback on MNF with 34 pts from A Rodgers but fell short.  Rodgers was playing without injured D Adams but none of it mattered as he shredded the Falcons injury-plagued defense.  The only reason he did not score more is simply because the Falcons offense was mostly held in check so the Packers did not have to air it out more than they did in the second half of the game.  M Gordon had started the week well for Old with 2 TDs and 22.5 pts on TNF but this week the injury to McCaffrey turned out to be very painful because Old did not have anybody else to start besides Gordon as all RBs were injured except Kerryon Johnson who only scored a single point.  It is very easy to imagine that McCaffrey could have scored 12.75 pts or more, and Old would have finished first instead of fourth.  At WR both Ty Hill and A Robinson scored a TD and scored double digits while Engram was close with 8.75 pts.  On defense everybody was good but not great, with scores ranging from 7 pts to 13 pts for the 4 individual starters and the Colts team defense which leads the entire PQBFL through 4 weeks in the team defense rankings. 

The Admirals finished in the middle of the pack with 133.75 pts which is right about the league’s average this week and also the average for the season so far, which was a reasonable bounce back from last place in week #3.  QB D Watson is still struggling but found a way to beat his projection slightly with 23.75 pts and now the hope is that with coach O’Brien fired he will be let loose more often to kick start the offense.  In that same game, another struggling team the Vikings has been hampering A Thielen for better scoring but this week was fine with 19 pts and moved Thielen up to WR6 in the PQBFL which nobody can complain about.  TE Andrews scored 2 TDs and Ingram scored another one on his own, plus the long TD by rookie Jeudy who finished the game with 13 pts, for a grand total of 8 TDs for Adm.  Normally so many TDs would see a team near the top but Adm was doomed by awful defense.  First off the Vikings started and only scored 3 pts with the Eagles on the bench scoring 13.5 pts.  Individual defenders scored a total of 20 pts combined for an average of 5 each, the best of them being LB Jaylon Smith with 7 pts but it was only 2 tackles 5 assists and he played like a useless loser like the rest of the Cowboys defense. 

FlyingElvis was able to eke out 6th place thanks to a defensive TD and 4 turnovers by the Chiefs D against the Pats offense on MNF for a total of 18 pts to beat Wax and leave Prof and Dec in the rearview mirror.  FE did not have a kicker to start because Boswell’s bye week moved due to covid and FE’s other kicker M Gay was waived before the beginning of the season.  The good news is if the Steelers do not miss another game, FE only expected a single goose egg at the kicker position and it’s now done and over with.  FE was stunned by another injury to a RB, this time newly acquired Ekeler went down after scoring only one point.  M Sanders did not do a lot better despite the Eagles winning with only 6.25 pts.  Cousins was so-so with 13.75 pts and surprisingly it was backup Bridgewater on the bench and was the best of FE’s bad QBs with 24.5 pts.  FE’s WRs were not an issue this week with 18 pts from M Evans despite being slowed down by an injury, 15.5 pts from D Parker even without scoring a TD, and Hockenson almost scoring double digits thanks to a short TD.  On defense both LBs were tackling machines with Kendricks 7 tackles 5 assists and T Edmunds 8 tackles 4 assists.  However at DL with the unscheduled bye week for C Heyward, D Lawrence had to start and he stunk like the rest of the Cowboys with 3 pts. 

WaxOnWaxOff had their first bad week of the season with only 112 pts and if it was not for L Jackson’s running, things could have been worse.  Jackson finished the game with 29.5 pts because of 53 yards rushing and a long TD on the ground.  The only other bright spot was RB with Kamara scoring again for 15.75 pts and he continues to lead all RBs in the PQBFL after 4 weeks.  Ro Jo scored double digits for the first time this year, taking advantage of the injury to Fournette (FE).  However Wax’s receivers were awful, DJ Moore only scored 4.25 pts and Ridley who was leading the PQBFL WRs after three weeks shockingly failed to catch any of his five targets against the Packers for a mighty goose egg.  Fant was not that great with 6.75 pts but his performance can be excused by an injury.  On defense things were not great either with 5 pts from the Bucs who almost lost to the Chargers and their rookie QB.  H Smith only scored 3 pts because he went out early, however unlike a slew of other players it was not because of injury, but rather because he got ejected from the game. 

ProfessorMJ could not follow up from the decent week #3 and finished 8th in week #4, dropping back to last place in the standings.  With all three rookies injured it was hard to compete and Prof might have been able to beat Wax with a rookie; at least Prof barely beat Dec on MNF when Crosby redeemed himself late with a 48-yard FG after missing an extra-point earlier in the game.  With the Titans on bye, Prof had to start the god-awful Cowboys defense who almost scored the most negative possible score for a team defense with -3 pts.  At least they sacked Mayfield twice in their only two defensive highlights of the day.  Prof’s LBs were far better with 12 pts from J Hicks and 15.5 pts from KJ Wright.  On offense it was more of the same: Josh Allen was dominant with 27.5 pts, RBs were weak with only 2.75 pts from Drake and Conner’s bye forced Mattison in the lineup but thankfully he scored a key TD on one of his few carries which helped to edge Dec.  Golladay was benched in week #3 because the coach was unsure how healthy he was and his 14.75 pts in week #3 convinced the coach to start him in week #4 and Golladay rewarded the coach with 13 pts which beat his projection.  The problem is that backups McLaurin and Fuller both did better on the bench with 15.75 pts and 18.25 pts.  With starter Kupp scoring 16.25 pts and the other backup on the bench Crowder scoring 12 pts, Prof actually had 5 WRs on the roster who scored double digits which is a rarity.

The Decepticons followed up the week #3 win with a catastrophic last place in week #4 in an injury-riddled disaster, starting with 1st round pick N Chubb who went down early in a game where the Browns rushed for 307 yards and Chubb only had time to carry 6 times for 43 yards (average per carry 7.2) before exiting.  Who knows how many points he could have scored if he had stayed healthy.  The only silver lining to Chubb’s multi-week injury is that it will benefit backup K Hunt who will no longer be on the Dec bench and could get the lion’s share of the Browns rushing attack in the next few weeks.  Star LB D Leonard also left the game early this week after only scoring one point which had a major impact on Dec’s last place since they finished only 2.75 pts behind Prof.  Things could have been salvaged in the last game of the week by either TE Hurst or DL G Jarrett but they both failed to reach their projection by scoring 6.5 pts and 4 pts, respectively.  This was the first time that the ‘Cons finished last since 2017 week #4 so exactly three years.  The new longest active streak of avoiding last now belong to Beaud who finished last in 2017 week #7 so soon to be three years as well.   Dec was affected by WR Godwin being out to injury and Ju Jones being hobbled, both starting WRs Lockett and Woods failed to get the job done with only 11.5 pts combined.  

 

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