Week #10

WaxOnWaxOff jumped back into the race with a dominating 160.5 pts performance in what turned out to be the second lowest scoring week of the season and easily beat Bas by over 30 pts for the win.  Kamara was the team leader with 23 pts thanks to scoring all three of the Saints TDs while the rest of the Saints team had crumbs.  Co-RB RoJo was not far behind with 21.5 pts in large part because of a back-breaking 98-yard TD run which put the Panthers away.  Even RB L Jackson made some attempts at being a QB this week although he did not have a choice since his team was playing from behind and he came up short again but at least he scored 22.75 pts.  WR DJ Moore has had a very up and down season but this week was up with a TD and 16.75 pts although he still languishes as the PQBFL’s 26th best WR which is not sufficient for starting WR level.  Rookie Burrow as not expected to have a great week against the Steelers; he cracked double digits but failed to reach his projection.  Offense was good enough for Wax such that defense did not need to contribute.  Other than the Steelers D, TJ Watt, and Te Edmunds which handled the Bengals easily, A Donald and F Warner did not do much.

The GloriousBastards were stuck in a tight range before MNF but LB Roquan Smith came through with 18 pts to easily distance the Ballers, Dec, and Old; Bas finished with 130 pts which was the season’s lowest score for 2nd place.  Diggs and Jacobs did the most damage on offense with 21.5 pts and 22.25 pts, respectively, while Herbert scored over 20 pts for the 6th consecutive game despite losing yet again.  Herbert has been helped by a poor Chargers defense which forces him to throw and this week starting the Chargers D hurt Bas because they scored a goose egg which was still better than the negative score of the Broncos on the bench.  Besides Ro Smith, the rest of Bas’s defense was nothing to write home about with 8.5 pts each for Ja Brown and Ro Harrison while DL C Jordan was limited to 3 pts.  E Elliott was on bye so Bas started Edmonds but since Drake (Prof) was back to health for the Cards Edmonds was not expected to score big and he ended the game with 6.25 pts which was below his projection.  Bas also started the wrong QB with Brady scoring 31.25 pts on the bench.  Goff but did not throw a TD and finished with 10.25 pts. 

The Ballers finished top 3 for the third straight week and have quietly moved only 2 rank-points behind OldNo7 in 5th place.  It was not pretty however in fact Ball was only 12 pts away from finishing 7th place due to the tight pack between 3rd and 7th place.  Ball had lots of issues this week including a goose egg from AJ Green and Jared Cook, plus not having an active kicker.  With C Jones on bye Ball had to start Dunlap who only scored one point.  However when a team that barely hits 120 pts can finish third that means only a few outperformances can make a big difference.  On TNF N Hines crushed his projection with 2 TDs and 20.5 pts which was easily worth 4 rank-points alone.  D Cook struggled on MNF with only 9.25 pts but the Ballers would not have finished 2nd even with a TD from Cook.  D Hopkins scored a miracle TD at the end of the Cards game to give his team the win and that play alone was the difference between 3rd and 6th place for Ball.  Besides Hines, the Ballers’ other key contributor was rookie Swift who scored a TD and had almost 150 yards from scrimmage for 18.25 pts to help Ball beat Dec.  We should also mention the TD from the Bears special team on MNF which made a difference this week to make up for the fact that their defense was not dominant.

The Decepticons did not have high hopes with Mahomes on bye but escaped with 4th place despite a low score and beat the Bros by 1.5 rank-points to move closer to first place.  To make matters worse with Mahomes out, Brees got injured during the game and finished with only 7.5 pts but the Browns RB duo took care of business with 11 pts (Hunt) and 15.5 pts (Chubb) in fact Dec would have beat the Ballers if Chubb did not intentionally run out of bounds to avoid scoring a TD late in the game.  Chubb’s return to health will make a major difference for Dec in the second half of the season because Hunt has shown that he cannot match Chubb’s level of production even if he is the featured RB.  At WR with Ju Jones on bye Dec had to start R Woods who was pedestrian with 6.5 pts and even Lockett was not in his element with only 9.25 pts.  At TE Hurst was also on bye and the timing was perfect for Hooper to come back from an injury but he only caught one pass.  The rookie position is another one where Dec is getting better but it’s not because of recovery from injuries, it’s because Tua Tago is proving that he can be a starter in the NFL; this week he scored 17.5 pts in a win against the Chargers.  The ‘Cons started the wrong defense by benching the Rams due to the matchup against the Seahawks, and the 49ers started against the Saints but only scored 3.5 pts compared to 11 pts for the Rams.  Individual defenders JJ Watt, Leonard, and Baker all failed to reach their projection but J Adams bailed them out with 2 sacks and 17 pts.

OldNo7 was well positioned to finish near the top before MNF but A Robinson came up short with only 8 pts and Old fell to 5th place.  OldNo7 is back to having a difficult situation at RB with McCaffrey being sidelined again after playing only one game in week #9, and this week Gordon and J White combined for only 4.25 pts with all three other RBs injured.  A Rodgers led the way with 26 pts in a win against the Jaguars which was much harder than anticipated, and Old’s only other TDs were from K Allen (10.75 pts) who did not reach his projection and the Colts defense which cemented their stronghold as the PQBFL’s top defense by beating the Titans on the road.  OldNo7 was not only hampered by injuries but also rookie CEH was out on bye and backup K Murray only scored 4 pts which was tied for being his lowest output of the season.  On defense, Buckner, Schobert, and Poyer all scored about equal to their projection but B Martinez did not with only 4 pts which dropped him to LB4 in the league.  Another disappointment was E Engram who only scored 2.75 pts – far more was expected of him with a young dynamic QB.  He currently ranks TE13 in the PQBFL.  The second best offensive player this week for Old was surprisingly Zane Gonzalez who was 4/4 on FGs plus two extra-points for 12 pts. 

The BeaudoinBrothers struggled in their worst week of the season with 6th place tied with the Admirals as they only scored 108.5 pts and got the short end of the stick with Ball, Dec, and Old not far ahead.  With three RBs out to injury and Gurley on bye the Bros traded for Fournette who only scored 2.5 pts as he was completely outplayed by RoJo (Wax) which cost the Bros.  Things started badly on TNF with D Henry not scoring a TD and AJ Brown dropping a potential TD pass on a bomb and only finished the game with 2 pts.  Things got worse at WR on Sunday with M Thomas only catching 2 passes – between his injuries, Brees’ age and injuries, and Thomas’ own foolishness fighting teammates in practice, he was an awful first round pick.  Goedert was supposed to be one of the league’s best TEs while Ertz was out especially with a juicy matchup against the Giants but he came up small with 4-33 during Kelce’s bye week.  A bad week for Beaud could have been salvaged by the Ravens defense on SNF but the Ravens let the Pats run at will, did not create a turnover, and only sacked Newton once to end the game with 2.5 pts which was critical with the Saints D on the bench scoring 11.5 pts.  That call alone would have been worth 2.5 ranks because Beaud would have finished 4th.  However the one call that the coach made right was (at last) QB where K Murray started and scored 29 pts including his lucky TD hail mary pass at the end of the game while R Wilson turned the ball over three more times on the bench with a final score of only 4.25 pts when he had not scored less than 20.25 all year.

The Admirals made a mini-comeback on MNF with 8-135 from rookie J Jefferson and 2 TDs from Thielen to beat FE and tie Beaud in 6th place.  Jefferson and Thielen actually had Adm’s best two scores of the entire week as Sunday afternoon was painful with almost all players scoring less than their projection, even franchise player D Adams 8-66 with a TD was less than projected against the weak Jaguars, in part because he lost a fumble.  A Jones was farther below projections than Adams was, with 6.75 pts and P Lindsay was useless with 4 rushes for 2 yards and no reception while Gordon (Old) had 11 carries himself, leaving Lindsay on the sidelines for most of the game.  QB Watson had been improving since O’Brien was fired as head coach: 18.6 pt average in the first 4 games, followed by 29.6 pt average in the next 4 games.  However this week Watson was a letdown with only 1 TD late in the game and only 14.25 pts.  On defense the Eagles were awful in their loss to the Giants with a goose egg while the Vikings on the bench scored 13.5 pts but it would be hard to blame the coach for starting the Eagles given the matchup plus the fact that they have easily outscored the Vikings so far this season (6.4 vs 2.3 average); prior to week #10 the Vikings had only scored 7 pts total in 8 weeks for an average of less than one point per week, and they were even worse than the Cowboys.  Individual defenders for Adm all came up short of their projection except star DB Baker who scored 10.5 pts, just a hair above expectations.

FlyingElvis’ nightmare season continued this week, as FE was in position to have a decent result like 5th or 6th place but things deteriorated towards the end with the Pats defense which could only score 5 pts despite the win against the Ravens and LB Kendricks who only scored 3 pts on MNF while he was previously a model of regularity with scores between 8 and 15 pts every week so 3 pts was by far his worst.  In fact even last year he did not score less than 5 pts all year except week #16 when he got injured during the game; we would have to go back to 2017 week #12 to find any game where he performed that poorly so almost three full years.  RB Sanders came back in the lineup with 10.75 pts and M Evans scored a TD for 14.75 pts, however DJ Chark was less impressive with only 6.75 pts in a game where Minshew was missed; Luton did his best but he struggled to move the ball all game.  TE Hockenson was a dud with only 2.5 pts while his previous worst game was 6.5 pts.  He was on a hot streak of 3 straight double digit games from week 7-9 but this time it was H Henry on the bench scoring double digits after his own streak of 3 straight games below Hockenson’s season low of 6.5 pts.  It would have been nearly impossible for the coach to foresee this.  Rookie J Taylor was sent in the action once again but the high prized rookie failed to deliver with only 3 pts as he was outscored not only by Hines (Ball) but even by J Wilkins, both yardage wise, and also in number of carries (8 vs 7).  Meanwhile on the FE bench T Higgins continues to produce with 14.75 pts which was his 4th straight game with double digits.  He has only started once all year for FE – the week where Taylor was on bye.  What a waste for Higgins who is ROO6 so far compared to Taylor ROO12.

ProfessorMJ finished in the red for the 5th straight week and last for the 5th time in 10 weeks.  The only good news was that Prof scored more this week than in weeks 6 and 8 so this week was not the bottom of the barrel but it was close.  Josh Allen deserved better with a decent 26.25 pts including late heroics with a last-minute TD pass to Diggs (Bas) but once again he did not get any support from the rest of Prof’s lineup with McLaurin being the only one to reach 10 pts which was still short of his 14-pt projection because he fumbled once.  Drake rushed for 100 yards which was nice but he also fumbled so his 6-pt game was not enough, and Conner was even worse with only 4 pts in a game where the Steelers led all the way and against a subpar defense like the Bengals.  Prof’s receivers were all below average besides McLaurin, with Kupp ending the game with 7.5 pts which was not very different from W Fuller and C Davis on the bench, and TE Gesicki continues to underperform no matter who is the QB in Miami, with 4 pts this week and no other TE scoring anything on the bench for Prof.  Just when we thought defense could not get any worse, with the Cowboys on bye Prof had to start the Titans which had an ok matchup at home against the Colts but they were blown out of the water allowing 34 pts, over 400 yards of offense, no turnover and they allowed a blocked punt for a TD and finished with -4 pts.  DBs T Rapp and T Walker scored one point each while their projection was 7-8 pts, and DL J Allen scored a season-low 3 pts, all of which made LB J Hicks’ 8 pts look like a monster. 





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