Week #17

With third place in week #17, the BeaudoinBrothers won the 2020 PQBFL title.  Many teams provided a good competition in the final week such as Wax, FE, Adm, and Old all scoring between 130 and 140 pts and Beaud needed to beat 3 out of 4 of those teams to secure the crown and Beaud was able to distance all of them thanks to 153.25 pts.  It was not so smooth however because things started on the wrong foot with the 1pm games notably CD Lamb and Amari Cooper both being ineffective.  Then at the TE position Goedert missed the week when he was the most needed with Kelce is danger of being rested, until news came out that he would be in uniform unlike many of his teammates.  However Kelce never saw the field so the Bros needed their big guns to perform in the 4pm games, most of them in the TEN-HOU game with D Henry, AJ Brown, and David Johnson going head to head.  All of them delivered by scoring 4 TDs and yardage was healthy as well, 120 yds for D Johnson, 151 yds for AJ Brown, and a whopping 250 rushing yds from D Henry who did exactly the same as 2019 with a monster game in week #17 to clinch the title.  R Wilson had a rough going against the 49ers and he did not reach his projection but he nonetheless led the Seahawks to victory with two short TDs in the 4th quarter to post an adequate score of 18.25 pts. 

The Decepticons needed to beat Bros by 5 spots in the final week to win and they got their part done by finishing first in week #17 but in the end it was not enough.  This was Dec’s third win of the season compared to only two for Beaud but the difference maker is that the Bros were slightly more consistent during the season and Dec finished 2 rank-points back in what was quite a good effort given that Dec finished the season with the third most injury points while Beaud had the fewest in the entire PQBFL so it’s safe to say Dec might have won the league if they were not hit as much by the injury bug in the middle of the season for example when Chubb and Carson both missed some time, not to mention Ju Jones.  The Decepticons finished the year quite healthy by being the only team in week #17 not to reach 100 injury points and might have needed a couple more weeks to leap over the Bros.  In week #17 Dec was without Mahomes but Brees had a decent game with 3 TDs no turnover despite not having M Thomas or Kamara to help the offense.  Both Dec RBs Chubb and Montgomery scored a TD and had over 100 yards from scrimmage to beat their projection, and C Godwin was dominant with 2 TDs and over 100 yards in part because M Evans got injured during the game so Godwin was able to have a bigger piece of the pie.  On defense the Rams had a monster game to make their way to the playoffs with a TD, a safety, a blocked kick, and they barely allowed 200 yards of total offense to the Cards.  The Rams were not that good in the first 11 weeks of the season as they ranked 6th at that time with an average of 7.0 pts per game, but they averaged over 13 pts per game in the last 6 games to finish top defense in the PQBFL, ahead of the Ravens, Colts, and Steelers. 

The GloriousBastards needed a mini-miracle to win the league but since the Bros did not have a bad week all Bas could hope for was to secure 3rd place and perhaps beat Dec in second which did not happen.  Nevertheless Bas finished in the top two for the third straight week and similar to Dec they would have needed more time to continue their late season push; they came up short like in 2019.  Most of the production this week came from Brady (36.5 pts) and Herbert (35.75 pts) who both scored 4 TDs and had over 300 yards passing.  In the Raiders’ game, Josh Jacobs scored 2 TDs and Waller added another one to help Bas beat Beaud.  However Bas was hampered by their WRs this week which cost them first place, the biggest problem was DK Metcalf being held to only 4 pts while teammate Lockett (Dec) caught 12 balls and 2 TDs leaving Metcalf with crumbs.  Also Diggs only played in the first half of his game so it was hard for Diggs to score his usual 15+ points and he finished with 7-76 without a TD.  One coaching call which went wrong this week was Bas surprisingly started the Broncos defense against the Raiders instead of the Chargers who were playing the Chiefs’ B team.  The Chargers easily outscored the Broncos 9.5 to 0.5 which cost Bas first place.  The rest of Bas’ defense was nothing impressive with the best scores being as low as 6.5 from D Davis and M Fitzpatrick, the most disturbing being Roquan Smith only 3 pts which was his worst game of the season. 

WaxOnWaxOff needed to beat Bas by two spots to finish third but the opposite happened, Bas beat Wax by two so Wax had to settle for 4th place this season.  Wax was in the race at the top for a long stretch of the season but when Burrow went down to injury Wax’s chances all but vanished.  Backup rookie C Young was serviceable as his replacement, in fact if he was a DL instead of a rookie, he would have finished DL6 in the entire PQBFL which is not bad at all.  His 2021 saved value might actually be higher than Burrow especially in light of the injury.  Young should join a strong group of saved LBs for Wax, this week TJ Watt was rested and finished the season as LB10, and the starters this week both did well with 16 pts from Cunningham and 15 pts from F Warner.  Those guys finished LB4 and LB12 respectively, which is definitely saved player material.  Franchise player L Jackson finished the season on a high note with 27.75 pts and helped the Ravens make the playoffs, however at QB10 in the league he was not worthy of a starting QB, let alone franchise player.  That will most likely be Kamara who caught covid and missed the game this week but he finished as the second best RB in the PQBFL if we exclude McCaffrey who hardly played all year.

The Admirals beat OldNo7 in the final week to finish the season in the middle of the standings.  It’s a moderately disappointing result especially because based on weeks #11-13 Adm was red hot and was making a push for the title before cooling off in the last four weeks.  This week D Watson was involved in a shootout with the Titans and scored 29 pts.  It’s been an up and down season for Watson but he finished as the 5th best QB in the PQBFL, 4th if we exclude Prescott, which is not entirely different than his pre-draft status.  A Jones and D Adams helped the Packers get a first round bye with a TD each but A Rodgers spread the ball around too much during the game for either of Jones+Adams to have a huge score, in fact their combined score was a bit less than their projection.  It was not very different for the Vikings where Cousins scored 4 TDs but none of them went to Adm’s receivers Thielen (6.75 pts) and Jefferson (14.5 pts).  In that game the Vikings defense was porous against the Lions and almost lost the game because of them.  This caps a horrible season where the Vikings finished as the worst defense in the PQBFL, even below doormats such as the Titans (Prof), Cowboys (Prof), Broncos (Bas), and Chargers (Bas).  The best defensive player of the week was Maxx Crosby who was key in the Raiders win because he blocked two FGs in addition to a sack. 

OldNo7 finished in the bottom half of the standings by losing to Adm this week.  It was not expected to be an easy task anyway because both Old’s kickers were injured, and because CEH was out due to a minor injury Old had to start rookie LB Murray who did not do much with 3 pts.  A Rodgers did his part as usual with 32.25 pts and finished only 0.3 pt per game behind Mahomes, in fact because Mahomes rested this week and because Prescott hardly played, an argument could be made that Rodgers ended up being the most valuable QB in the PQBFL.  RBs Gordon and J White finished on a high note with a TD each, but this week the problems were unsually at the WR position, normally a strength for Old.  The issue is that both Ty Hill and K Allen were out this week and Old started A Robinson and Di Johnson who both had bad games with only 5 receptions combined for only 11.5 pts.  Old left J Landry on the bench who scored more than Robinson+Johnson with 12.5 pts, and what to say of Antonio Brown who has been on Old’s bench all year but is now starting to wake up; Brown scored a whopping 31.75 pts and might still help Old in the playoffs.  On defense Old had a good week with 2 TDs from the Bills, 2 sacks from Buckner, and another sack for B Martinez.  Buckner’s 13-point performance moved him 0.1 pt per game ahead of M Garrett for the top DL spot this season. 

The Ballers finished the season in 7th place which is the spot they have been locked in for a while but week 17 was not pretty as the team was obliterated by over 50 pts by ProfMJ in 8th place.  You would think with the PQBFL rules in 2020 being such that a substitute is automatically in the starting lineup when the starter is injured, that there cannot be many goose eggs.  It did not matter this week as the Ballers had a shocking 4 zeros.  With Mixon, Cook, and Cohen all out, Kerryon Johnson started and he’s worthless; he did not carry the ball all game, he was targeted once but it was an incompletion.  And what about AJ Green?  How the mighty have fallen.  He was targeted 6 times and did not catch a single pass to finish the season as WR52, only beating N Harry (Adm) as the worst WR in the PQBFL.  At DL the Ballers started C Campbell and C Jones, both of which did not show up on the final stats sheet.  Jones can be explained by a cameo appearance in a meaningless game for the Chiefs, but not Campbell.  The Ballers benched rookie Swift again and starter Moss only scored 1.75 pt, leaving the way to no-name A Williams at RB and Moss saved his energy for the playoffs.  Even Gronk and Hopkins had awful games, scoring 3.25 pts and 5.75 pts, respectively.  The Bears also did not do very well against the Packers with 1.5 pt but they slipped into the playoffs nonetheless.  The only players who showed up for Ball were Ju Simmons who had an INT, Tannehill scored 25 pts and led the Titans to the division title, and Zuerlein kicked 4 FGs including a 57-yarder for 12.5 pts. 

FlyingElvis finished in 5th place this week and 8th on the season as expected.  If the season had a few more weeks FE would have probably gotten out of 8th place but it was too little too late.  From week 1 to 12, FE finished in the bottom 4 in 11 of the 12 weeks, the best finish being 5th place.  Then suddenly from weeks 13-17 it all changed, FE finished 5th or better 4 out of 5 weeks which was the complete opposite.  This week FE almost beat Wax but finished one point behind and it would have probably happened if M Evans did not get injured early in the game, considering the huge scores by Godwin and Antonio Brown after Evans left the game.  FE also started Gallup, probably a bit overly excited by Gallup’s performance the week before but Gallup fell flat on his face like the rest of the Cowboys with 6.25 pts.  Instead, Mike Williams scored 19.25 pts on the bench, or better yet, Marvin Jones exploded for 32 pts on the bench.  Even JJSS with 14.25 pts or D Parker with 12.75 pts would have been better than Gallup so this cost FE 4th place this week.  Cousins was by far the team leader with 38.5 pts and on SNF Hurts could have beat Wax but the Eagles coach benched him in a controversial call, stopping Hurts’ game after 12 pts only.  FE was competitive this week not only because of Cousins, but also because A Peterson and Ekeler both scored a short TD and combined for 19.5 pts. 

ProfessorMJ was able to avoid last place for the second straight week so they finished the season with 8 last places in 17 weeks, thankfully less than half the time.  The most important result for Prof however was that they edged the Ballers in injury points and they will get the first pick overall in the 2021 draft.  Potential franchise player Josh Allen was benched because he was not expected to play a full game which turned out to be correct but he had enough time to score 22.5 pts on the Dolphins while starter D Carr scored 22.25 pts so a tad below.  Josh Allen ends the season as QB4, sandwiched between A Rodgers and D Watson.  This week Prof benefited from D Cook being out and started Mattison who scored 24 pts, far better than regular starter Drake who was a bust as RB18 this season with an average of 9.0 pts per game.  This week Drake scored less than half of that with only 4.25 pts.  At WR McLaurin scored 14 pts to help his team make the playoffs and as WR23 he will probably be cut or saved.  Prof has been poor on defense all year but in one rare good performance DB T Walker had 11 tackles, 2 assists, and one sack for 17 pts. 



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