Week #1

The BeaudoinBrothers started the 2021 season with a bang by scoring 191 pts to lead the league is a high-scoring affair as the PQBFL averaged 153.3 pts per team while last year the highest scoring week was week #3 with 140.0 pts; the difference cannot be explained simply by starting college players in 2021 unlike 2020, as they do not score 13.3 pts on average.  The Bros took a commanding lead on Thursday night with A Cooper showing that CD Lamb (Bas) will not relegate him to backup status by scoring 31.75 pts which was the highest offensive score by a non-QB in the entire PQBFL.  The only non-QB who topped A Cooper was Chandler Jones with 32 pts but unfortunately he was benched in favor of Garrett who scored a respectable 9 pts to go along a decent effort by LBs D Bush and I Simmons who combined for 28.5 pts.  On offense R Wilson threw 4 TDs against the tough Colts defense and rookie Z Wilson recovered in the second half with 2 TDs after a horrible first half.

The Decepticons came from behind on MNF to edge ProfessorMJ by a single point to take second place.  Patrick Queen was key in the comeback with 13 pts including a sack on MNF.  On offense, almost everybody scored a TD starting with 4 from Mahomes which is not surprising, but 2 TDs each for D Hopkins and T Lockett possibly made an even bigger impact in pushing Dec over 180 pts this week.  At RB Mixon had a good season start with 150 yards from scrimmage and a TD and even TE Everett scored a TD for Dec.  M Sanders did not score a TD but he had a 2-point conversion instead, so that left rookie N Harris as the only Dec offensive starter from key positions who did not find the end zone - he was limited to 4 pts against the Bills.  This could be a concern for Dec because all 3 other rookies on Dec’s roster scored 3 pts or less so it’s only one week but so far Harris will have to step it up otherwise Dec might have one of the weakest groups of rookies in the PQBFL. 

ProfessorMJ did not finish higher than 4th all of last year but already did better in week #1 with the team’s first top 3 finish in franchise history.   The expansion year struggles seem to be a distant memory with Prof scoring a whopping 183.25 pts and if it was not for M Andrews’ poor game on MNF with only 3 receptions for 20 yards, Prof would have easily beat Dec to finish second, and finishing first would not have been impossible with a TD from Andrews.  Acquiring Brady by trade before the draft was a “win now” move rather than an investment for the future so Prof did not want to wait one more year to build and Brady responded immediately with 30.5 pts.  Prof has a weakness at RB (on paper) behind Chubb (2 TDs this week) and will have to rely on D Henderson.  It was unclear what the split of carries with S Michel would be and the answer could not have been more positive for Prof with Henderson outrushing Michel 16 rushes to 1 and also scored a TD to finish with 12.25 pts which was the 10th best RB score of the PQBFL – more than Prof could have hoped for.  At WR Ty Hill had a big game with 29 pts and K Allen did not score but a stat line of 9-100 was almost sufficient to top his weekly projection.  Rookie T Lawrence had a poor game against the weak Texans with 3 INTs but his garbage time TD at the end was his 3rd TD so he nonetheless finished with 22 pts, the highest rookie score of the week. 

OldNo7 started the 2021 season in the top half of the standings with a strong 167 pts and 4th place.  Dak Prescott did not show any ill effects of his gruesome injury last year with 30.25 pts on the road against an excellent TB defense.  However the same cannot be said of first round pick Elliott who struggled for only 3.25 pts and just like last year, he looks worse than Pollard and does not pass the eye ball test.  McCaffrey was back to form with 15.5 pts without even scoring a TD but if Elliott continues to struggle, it’s backup M Gordon who will need to start for Old; Gordon was surprisingly the highest scoring RB in week #1 with 17.75 pts on the bench.  Both starting WRs for Old scored a TD with AJ Brown having more modest stats 4-49 than Godwin with 9-105.  It did not matter much which WR Old started this week because all 6 WRs on Old’s roster scored a TD and caught at least 4 passes.  Also if we count rookie WR DeVonta Smith, that’s 7 out of 7 for Old receivers scoring a TD in the opening week, on top of starting TE Logan Thomas who scored Washington’s lone TD. 

The GloriousBastards started the season in the middle of the pack with 5th place and despite a huge game from Waller on MNF, Bas fell short of beating Old.  Waller had an eye popping 19 targets and converted 10 of them into receptions for over 100 yards plus a TD, are there still PQBFL voters who would stick to their vote of Kittle being ranked ahead of Waller?  Bas says thanks to this gift from heaven being able to save Waller, although it was not enough this week for a top tier performance because Bas had holes particularly at the RB where Gibson had a decent game with over 100 yards but he fumbled twice and lost one of them.  Mike Davis also started and he was useless like the rest of the Falcons’ offense.  However all hope is not lost for Bas because on the bench J Jacobs and D Swift scored 14.25 pts and 16.5 pts, respectively so RB depth might turn out better than anticipated.  At WR CD Lamb was busy as expected with 7-104-1 while DK Metcalf was a slight disappointment despite scoring a TD with only 4 receptions in a low-volume game for the Hawks.  Rookie WR J Chase was the highest scoring non-QB rookie of the week with 17.75 pts in a key effort to beat the Vikings. 

FlyingElvis opened the season with 6th place which was a better result than most weeks last year but somewhat of a disappointment because they had a legitimate shot at 5th place before MNF.  Unfortunately L Jackson did not get the job done with more fumbles than TDs and losing the game against the Raiders.  Like many other PQBFL teams this week, FE started a WR who scored twice: Thielen showed that it’s not clear yet that Jefferson is the new WR1 for the Vikings with 9 receptions compared to 5 for Jefferson.  The problem was FE’s other WR JJSS who like the rest of the Steelers offense did not do a whole lot with 4-52.  Franchise player J Taylor was also a moderate disappointment because he did not score but his receiving was enough to move him above the 100 mark in total yardage.  FE made the gutsy move of benching Ekeler in favor of Montgomery and the early results were not encouraging but in the end it was the right call with Montgomery outscoring Ekeler 14.75 to 9.75 pts.  One main weakness this week was the play of high-prized rookie Kyle Pitts who was quiet with 4-31.

The Admirals finished with a subpar 7th place this week due to poor play from receivers and running backs.  Including rookie RB M Carter, plus all 5 of D Harris, A Jones, D Adams, K Golladay, Kittle, none of them could even reach 8 pts this week with the pair of Packers Adams and A Jones being the biggest underperformers with only 9.25 pts combined when their projections were 28.5 pts together.  Adm drafted a couple of backup rookie RBs and Carter was the worst with only 1.5 pts while Gainwell scored a TD on the bench.  Anyway the real rookie starter might be J Waddle sooner rather than later and he was ok on the bench with 8 pts and anyway Waddle was the much earlier draft pick in the 6th round while Carter was not drafted until the 18th round so it seems the Adm coach was lured into a Jets matchup against the Panthers which did not pan out.  Defense was not too bad for Adm with a double-digit score from J Bosa, D Hunter, and B Martinez, while Byard was not far off with 8 pts.  While most teams start a LB at the flex position, Adm did not care and it paid off with the backup LBs on the bench not scoring as high as the starting DL duo, even backup DL Maxx Crosby on the bench scored the highest of all of them with 17 pts.  On offense the only Adm player who showed up to play was K Murray and he did so with a splash by destroying the Titans with 5 TDs and 38.5 pts.  Murray was the top scorer of the week in the PQBFL, all positions combined.

WaxOnWaxOff’s season started like crap even before the TNF kickoff with DK Dobbins getting injured and out for the year, but at least Wax made the wise move of drafting Gus Edwards as the handcuff.  However lightning struck twice before Wax could get started and Edwards is out for the year as well – one too many injury which will be hard to recover from at such a position where the cupboards are bare after the draft and leaves very little for an injured player replacement.  The good news is that in the Cards offensive explosion C Edmonds had an ok game with 106 total yards, the bad news is that Conner (Prof) had more carries (16 vs 12) and that Edmonds did not even start for Wax this week, the starter was fumble machine Ronald Jones who scored minus 2 pts this week.  Not only Wax has issues at RB, but rookie RB Trey Sermon who was expected to have a role to play was a healthy scratch and it was rather the 49ers’ 6th round pick rookie E Mitchell who starred in the game.  At QB Josh Allen will not play the Steelers every week but his accuracy was off and he was limited to 14.5 pts in an inferior effort by his 2020 standards.  At WR Wax was one of the few teams not to score a TD with both J Jefferson and DJ Moore being involved in the offense with a decent number of receptions but were held out of the end zone. 

The Ballers had a solid draft and were showing well with pre-season projections but took one on the chin in week #1 with a disastrous 90 pts, finishing more than 30 pts behind Wax in 8th place.  The Ballers were not expecting the best start ever because it was clear that S Barkley would be eased in the game in the first couple of weeks so his 2.25 pts was not the main concern.  The big letdown was rather veteran A Rodgers who bombed out with -1.75 pts in a terrible game by all metrics and one is left to wonder how much of his offseason frustrations affected his preparation.  Needless to say, in that same game Packers TE Tonyan did not do anything like the rest of the team but at least he had a positive score with 2.25 pts.  Even Packers LB Za’Darius Smith had an awful game for Ball with only one point.  Franchise player D Cook was not too bad with 100 yards and a TD but he lost of fumble and came up short of his elevated projection.  S Diggs was targeted a lot by Josh Allen but he did not score and also failed to reach his projection.  The only good performers this week for the Ballers were on defense: C Jones had 2 sacks and 11 pts, while LB Shaq Thompson had a fun game and did a little of everything against the Jets with 5 tackles, 5 assists, one sack, one INT, and three passes defended for a total of 22 pts. 





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