Week #3

The GloriousBastards got back into the hunt after a rough 2-week start and won week #3 by a decent margin over Dec.  The biggest lineup change of the week was Justin Fields starting for the Bears but this is not what powered Bas to the top, quite the contrary.  J Chase was benched for the first time and he scored 20.25 pts while starter Fields looked awful and only scored 3.25 pts with a paltry 68 passing yards.  Thankfully he did not turn the ball over.  Ju Herbert was the one slow out of the gate with only 22.25 pts in weeks 1-2 combined and he topped that score in week 3 alone with 35.5 pts to lead the Chargers to an impressive road win in KC.  Both Bas RBs scored although the jury is still out on whether the level of performance will continue because almost all Gibson’s scoring was on one play alone: a 73-yard reception for a TD.  That was the only pass he caught all game and on the ground he was not effective with 12 rushes for 31 yards.  D Swift scored as well but J Williams (Dec) was almost equally involved with a split of carries 14 to 12.  The difference is that Swift caught 7 passes which helped boost his stats.  After being in the shadow of Lockett in weeks 1-2, this week it was DK Metcalf who scored while Lockett was quiet which helped Bas beat Dec. 

The Decepticons finished in the top 3 for the third straight week and are now in sole possession of first place in the standings.  Dec was not particularly dominant this week but came out on top of a tight pack from 2nd to 4th place due to a few key performances, led by C Kupp who started because D Hopkins was banged up and Kupp responded with 24.75 pts.  He is the PQBFL’s top WR so far this season – perhaps Dec’s GM would take back his comments during the draft about not liking the choice of drafting Kupp because R Woods was already on Dec’s saved team and it was not optimal to own two WRs on the same team.  Woods has been nowhere to be found so far this season and ranks WR36 in the PQBFL.  The other big game was the Saints D who neutralized the Pats including an INT returned for a TD and 21 pts.  Like C Kupp, the Saints are the surprise leaders at their position through 3 weeks in front of the Broncos (Bas).  The rest of Dec’s lineup was adequate but nothing impressive for example Mahomes threw 3 TD passes but also 2 INTs; Mixon did not find the end zone, Miles Sanders carried the ball only twice all game compared to Hurts 9 times, and as mentioned above Lockett did not do much with 5.5 pts.  On defense it was a similar story, other than the Saints there were a few lukewarm games by N Bosa and P Queen with 6 pts each while DB J Adams was better with 13 pts.

After a nightmare start of the season, WaxOnWaxOff showed signs of life with 3rd place this week.  First round pick Josh Allen had not done the job in weeks 1-2 but he exploded for 40.5 pts this week even against the supposedly good defense of Washington.  After a stunning dud in week 2 Kamara bounced back with 15.75 pts this week and both WRs Ju Jefferson and DJ Moore outscored their projection with 19.75 pts and 14.25 pts, respectively.  The RB2 spot continues to be a problem for Wax and will probably remain so but 6.25 pts from C Edmonds was not an utter disaster either.  The main letdown this week was Hockenson who started very hot unlike the rest of Wax’s team but he was a non-factor this week with only 2 receptions for 10 yards.  Defense was the reason Wax did not finish at least 2nd this week because everybody underperformed except for M Jack who scored 10 pts, more or less in line with his projection, but others did not do much for example 6 pts from the Steelers D against the Bengals, 4 pts from Chase Young (with A Donald scoring 11.5 pts on the bench), and 6 pts from B Baker.  Almost everybody expected Baker to be the top DB in the PQBFL but so far, he has only been worth borderline starter, ranking DB8. 

The Ballers have been on the uptrend from 9th to 6th to 4th place this week with their best finish of the season.  It was all defense for Ball this week with the Browns making the Bears look like a high school team with a total of one net passing yard all game and 9 sacks.  DB Malcolm Jenkins returned a TD for an INT and the Ballers’ LBs did they part as well with 16 pts from Kendricks and 12 pts from Milano.  On offense the Ballers shot themselves in the foot by starting Goff instead of a A Rodgers and it cost the team two ranks: Ball would have finished 2nd so Wax and Dec can send a thank you card.  Goff did not turn the ball over but he also did not score a TD in a completely pedestrian game of 7.25 pts.  Rookie QB Mac Jones struggled like all other rookie QBs this season by throwing 3 INTs and hurt the Ballers’ chances to reach 2nd place.  Diggs and McLaurin did not reach double digits but the RBs did despite D Cook being sidelined: Z Moss did a fine job as his replacement with 12.5 pts and Barkley is getting warmed up, he scored a TD this week and finished the game with 12.75 pts. 

The Admirals scored 136.25 pts this week, pretty much in line with this week’s league average so they logically finished a middling 5th place.  WR Mike Williams has been quite a catch for Adm this season, he started this week and scored 27 pts – who would have thought they he would be WR2 in the PQBFL at this stage.  D Adams also had a great game with 23.5 pts but that’s more standard for him.  His teammate A Jones also got the job done with 11.5 pts but co-RB D Harris did not with only 0.75 pt because the Pats decided to throw the ball all game to play catch-up instead of running which is normally their strength.  We rarely speak of kickers in this summary but how about the NFL best kicker Tucker who did it again, this time with a game-winning 66 yard FG to give the Ravens the win and push Adm right ahead of ProfMJ this week to earn an extra rank-point.  It was needed because defense was atrocious for Adm this week with a total of 16.5 pts for the 4 individual defenders and team defense combined, the worse being Washington with negative 2 pts, something we won’t see often this season given the rule changes to increase team defense scoring.  WFT did not have a turnover or a sack and allowed 43 pts and almost 500 yards of total offense, the only black mark missing on their sheet was that they did not have a kick blocked on their special teams.

ProfessorMJ had a slowdown this week with 6th place and fell behind Dec in the standings.  The only starter to materially exceed its projection was kicker McManus (4 FGs, 2 extra points) and the rest was sub-par but not necessarily terrible.  Many starters did enough to avoid finishing in the red, for example Brady was limited to two short TDs but he had a lot of yardage and no turnovers.  Keenan Allen was the opposite, he scored a short TD but not much yardage during the game.  Both RBs Chubb and Drake did not find the end zone but had borderline ok yards from scrimmage of 84 and 57.  On defense it was similar with some modest scoring but nobody awful with Burns, R Smith, CJ Mosley, and the Bills defense all scoring between 8.5 and 10 pts.  The main underperformer this week with T Lawrence who struggled with 1 TD and 4 turnovers so that game alone robbed Prof of several ranks in an otherwise fairly tight week.  Lawrence remains ROO2 in the rankings which is fine, but for a franchise player he will need more separation with ROO3-8 who average 7.5-10.2 pts per game whereas Lawrence is barely above at 10.7 pts. 

FlyingElvis finished in the red for the first time of the season with a disappointing 7th place.  With Lamar Jackson playing against the Lions, his weekly projection was sky high but he came up small with only one TD and one INT, and his yardage was not eye popping either with 287 yds by air and 58 yds on the ground, not bad but more was expected.  Both backups Hurts and Cousins on the bench scored more than Jackson which is not a good sign, and Jackson was nonetheless FE’s top score of the week.  There were a couple of decent outings from Ekeler (14.75 pts) and Thielen (14.5 pts) but the rest of FE’s starters did not get the job done.  First off Marquise Brown who had a good season start, stunk up the joint against those same Lions with only 3-53 and some drops.  Franchise player J Taylor is becoming a concern – he is doing well when he gets the ball (10 rushes for 64 yards) but the problem is that he’s not getting the ball often enough because backup Hines (Ball) is too involved, Hines got 6 rushes and 5 catches so he matched Taylor’s 11 total touches, and it’s Hines who scored on the ground, not Taylor.  After three weeks, Hines leads Taylor 6.7 to 6.6 pts per game, fine for a backup like Hines but unacceptable for a franchise player like Taylor.  Another high value player who is problematic is Kyle Pitts who was limited to 2-35 against the Giants defense which is disturbing.

The BeaudoinBrothers struggled in week #3 with 8th place which is something which did not happen all of last year so not exactly a sign in favor of the Bros achieving their elusive three-peat.  PQBFL champions simply do not finish 8th all that often, if at all.  If it was not for OldNo7’s injury problems, the Bros might very well have finished dead last, something which has not happened since 2017 – an active streak of 56 consecutive weeks of avoiding last place, still far from the record of 92 consecutive weeks (2011-2017).  The Bros were actually not that far from 5th place and they had a shot until A Cooper was flat on MNF with only 3-26.  The major problem this week was again Zach Wilson with no TD and 2 INTs for a negative score which doomed the Bros.  Many players had decent stats on offense for example Kelce 7-104, D Henry 144 total yards, and 8 receptions from Ridley, the problem is none of them scored so the Bros finished the week with only 2 TDs, a far cry from their 10 TDs in week 1 and 9 TDs in week 2.  And yet the dismal result might have been avoided if the coach had started M Garrett who sacked Fields 4.5 times while Chandler Jones started and was held sack-less.  So in weeks 1 and 3 alone, the Bros left a whopping 9.5 sacks on the bench, and the one week they started both DLs in week 2, that was the week that both did not do anything.  So right now Garrett and Chandler Jones are the top two DLs in the PQBFL but the Bros have very little to show for it. 

OldNo7 finished last for the second straight week, this time was more about injuries than anything else.  The week started in the worst possible fashion with franchise player McCaffrey getting injured after scoring only 3.25 pts and it sounds like he will miss a few games.  As if it was not enough, 3rd round pick AJ Brown got injured early in the game and finished with a goose egg which killed Old’s chances.  Prescott scored 3 TDs, CEH one TD, Godwin and L Thomas scored as well so it’s not like offensive starters were awful but it’s hard to recover from an intra-game injury, let alone two.  Defense was also nothing to get excited about, the 49ers did not create a turnover against the Packers, only had one sack, and allowed 30 pts including the last minute drive for the Packers win.  LBs Schobert and Murray had an awful total of 8 pts combined which many defensive players can exceed alone, and Poyer had an INT but only 2 tackles so even him could not beat his weekly projection.  Only Sam Hubbard beat his projection on defense with 11 pts.  If McCaffrey misses any significant time it looks like 2021 will be a write-off and Old will earn lots of injury points to look forward to 2022.





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