Week #11

FlyingElvis won for the third time in 4 weeks and for the 4th time in the last 7 weeks to cut part of the lost ground due to the week #10 stumble.  FE is now back within striking distance of Prof, 6 rank-points behind first place with 7 weeks left so FE is again in control of their own destiny.  This week FE easily crushed the competition by beating everybody by at least 30 points and topping 200 points.  While most teams are reeling with injuries at the RB position it was an absolute bonanza for FE this week with no less than a jaw-dropping 9 TDs from RBs and a total of 76.5 pts at the position.  At QB the absence of L Jackson was barely noticed with J Hurts scoring 27.5 pts as a decent replacement to lead the Eagles to a nice win against the normally above-average Saints defense.  FE had a big day not only on offense, but also on defense.  The Pats started things off with fireworks on TNF with a shutout of the Falcons, 4 INTs, 4 sacks, and a TD, for a total of 30.5 pts.  Thanks to this game and with the Bills D (Prof) falling flat this week against the Colts, the Pats have taken over the top spot as best defense in the PQBFL by the slimmest of margins over the Bills, 12.1 to 12.0 pts per game.  The rest of FE’s defense was more inconsistent, B Wagner was a tackle machine again with 17 pts but Q Williams, D James, and V Bell all underperformed their weekly projection with scores between 2.5 pts and 7.5 pts.

The Ballers finished second with a season-high 174 pts to move up to 7th place in the standings in front of the GloriousBastards, and they were able to do so even without a college player because Slovis was out to injury.  Ball was seemingly overly excited about C Newton’s return to Carolina by starting him and he indeed had a good game with 30 pts, however it was still the wrong decision to bench A Rodgers despite being banged up because Rodgers did even better with 41.5 pts.  Thankfully it was a moot point because Ball was not going to beat FE in any event this week.  Gronk returned to action for Ball but it also turned out to be bad timing because Ertz made his presence felt with the Cards for the first time since the trade with 22.25 pts on the bench, making Gronk’s 9.5 pts look modest in comparison.  The rest of Ball’s offense was decent with Cook, Diggs, and McLaurin scoring 4 TDs between them and scores between 15 and 16.5 pts.  The only laggard was Barkley who did next to nothing on MNF but Ball did not need him anyway to beat Wax.  Defense was also excellent for Ball this week with the Bucs scoring 16.5 pts by keeping the Giants in check which explained Barkley’s poor score, but the best of the bunch was DL Chris Jones who sacked Prescott 3.5 times for 23 pts including a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.  Rookie Micah Parsons could also be counted as part of Ball’s defense and he beat Mac Jones 16 to 10.75 pts but it was more by luck for the coach who had not submitted a lineup before Jones played on TNF.

WaxOnWaxOff finished in the top 3 for the third time in 4 weeks and have been gradually climbing the standings, now in 4th place and moving closer to Dec who is struggling.  Wax was handicapped like many other teams, not having a healthy DL to start this week with A Donald on bye and both C Young and M Sweat injured – hard to blame Wax here as they rostered 3 DLs unlike some other teams gambling with only 2 DLs.  The team leader this week was J Jefferson who scored 28.5 pts; after a moderately slow start he is now WR6 in the PQBFL which is high enough to justify his draft status as a third round pick.  Wax’s second WR Deebo Samuel has done even better this year so far, a pleasant surprise at WR4 and this week was a decent game 12.5 pts however it definitely came with major question marks.  Not many WRs can score 12.5 pts by catching only one pass in the game – Samuel was instead used as a RB with 9 carries for 79 yards and a TD.  This will not be sustainable if he does not return soon to being a pass catcher.  Hockenson scored 8.5 pts this week which is pretty much the same as his season average 9.1 pts which places him TE6, some would have expected him to do better than this because he’s less than 1 point per game ahead of guys who were cheaper before the season started such as Ertz (Ball), H Henry (FE), and Gesicki (Prof).  The second highest scorer of the week was surprisingly rookie E Moore who for once his TD was not in garbage time, it was a game-tying 62-yard reception late in the 3rd quarter of a loss by the Jets.  Moore is now ROO7, another positive surprise who has been helping Wax recover from a slow season start especially because Moore is critical to Wax keeping up in the standings due to not having any rookie depth.

ProfessorMJ had another above average week with 147 pts but 4th place was not enough to keep FE at bay, making the standings a bit more interesting.  As mentioned above the Bills defense was a key reason why Prof finished slightly behind Wax with the Bills getting blown out and scoring into negative territory -1.5 pt.  Prof was also affected by college QB Sam Howell’s injury and having drafted a college RB as backup, those do not score as much as QBs.  Breece Hall only scored 3 pts which probably cost Prof 3rd place this week.  On offense Brady had the best score with 18.75 pts but it was below his projection and more was expected at home against a bad team like the Giants so he can also be blamed for Prof’s 4th place.  At RB D Henderson was on bye but Prof did not miss a beat because C Edmonds (Wax) is injured which benefited Conner who scored 13.25 pts, not far behind Chubb (17 pts) who is also benefiting from an injury to a teammate (Hunt – Dec).  At WR Ty Hill and M Evans scored 14.5 pts and 15 pts respectively which was needed to edge Adm who was not far behind Prof this week.  Prof’s other receiver M Andrews also had a busy game with 8 receptions and 12.5 pts despite L Jackson not playing.  The best player on defense for Prof was by far Roquan Smith who came off from his bye in as great shape as ever with 19 pts – his second best performance of the season. 

Week #11 was a mixed bag for Adm, losing some ground to Wax but jumping over Beaud in the standings to reach 5th place.  Adm cannot wait for the return to health of K Murray who missed a third game and backup Mayfield is playing injured as well and was limited to 5.5 pts against the Lions in a sorry offensive display.  Fortunately Murray should return soon to boost Adm’s chances for the final stretch of the season.  A Jones also missed the game to injury but D Harris came back, however he was not used as much as teammate R Stevenson (Beaud) which was not good news for Adm.  Gaskin had to start once again and he provided a much needed 13 pts this week thanks to a TD and almost 100 yards from scrimmage in a rare good game on his part.  Receivers picked up for the slack for Adm this week, starting with D Adams who scored twice for 24.75 pts, Mike Williams scored a long TD 50+ yards and 17.75 pts, Kittle had a short TD and a double-digit game, and even rookie Waddle scored a TD for 17.25 pts.  Adm was held back mostly by the Vikings defense, they beat the Packers but it was just about the only positive thing we could say about them.  They failed to create a turnover and allowed 31 pts to finish the game with a zero. 

The GloriousBastards avoided the bottom 3 this week but fell behind Ball nonetheless because they finished 4 spots behind Ball with only 126 pts.  On the plus side, Bas was able to edge Beaud on MNF with LB D White matching his weekly projection with 10.5 pts and kicker Succop making all 6 of his kicks for 10.5 pts as well.  Unlike other teams, Bas did not have notable players out to injury except perhaps DB Fitzpatrick; backup Bates is normally not a big downgrade (less than 1 pt per game difference) but Bates did not get the job done this week with only 4 pts.  The real injuries costing Bas were an intra-game injuries, not injuries to players not in uniform.  First it was once again the comedy of GB’s starting the wrong rookie which continued.  The coach made a last-minute change to start Fields but he got knocked out early after scoring only 1.25 pts while J Chase scored 10 pts on the bench.  The second injury was WR CD Lamb who scored only 3.5 pts before exiting with a concussion.  Co-WR DK Metcalf was not injured but he continued to struggle like the rest of the Seahawks offense with 5.5 pts.  The only two players which helped Bas avoid the bottom 3 were Herbert who had a good game against the Steelers with 37 pts and RB Swift who is the only player of any value on the Lions team and scored 19.25 pts in a losing effort.  Swift is now RB11 and only 0.1 pt per game from being top 10, not bad at all for a 6th round pick. 

The BeaudoinBrothers finished in the bottom 3 for the fourth straight weeks with a league-high injury points this week, the hits keep coming with A Cooper catching covid this week and injured replacement C Patterson missing the game as well and not earning injury points, to add insult to injury, no pun intended.  Despite that, Beaud could have avoided the bottom three with a modest performance by R Wilson but he was quite weak again, this time no turnover but no TD either so both his games post injury have been the worst two of the season.  Not counting week #5 when he got injured, his lowest score was week #3 with 16.25 pts and this week he scored a fraction of that with 6.75 pts.  With only two active RBs the Bros had no choice, J Robinson scored a TD to make up for bad stats, and Fournette gave way to RoJo for the TD but between them he was the Bucs RB with ok yardage at 74.  At WR, with the Bros top three injured (M Thomas, Cooper, and Ridley), Pittman started again but this time the Colts did everything on the ground so he was not needed in the game plan and finished with 3 pts to drop back down to WR21, just outside starting caliber.  The one bright spot was Aiyuk being forced into the starting lineup and had his best game of the season with 16.25 pts to soften the blow.  On defense everybody had a single-digit game, even M Garrett did not get a sack which is a rare occurrence for him (first sack-less game since week #2).  The only good game on defense was J Chinn who has been a disappointment so far but 14 pts this week was good for DB standards and it was his 4th double-digit score in his last 6 games, after missing the mark in his first 5. 

OldNo7 returned to the bottom 3 after avoiding such fate from weeks #8-10 with only 117.5 pts, the team’s lowest score since week #4.  The result was not so much a matter of injuries but lots of underperformers, the biggest of which was Prescott with 3 turnovers, no TD, for minus 3.5 pts; while Prescott was not injured himself, Old was nonetheless indirectly affect by CD Lamb and Cooper’s being out.  At RB AJ Dillon was expected to benefit from A Jones’ absence and he did gain almost 100 yards but no TD so he fell short of his projection.  WR AJ Brown has been having an erratic season as WR26, and this week was another poor game on his behalf with only 5-48-0 at home against the weak Texans despite the Titans having to throw all game to catch up and still Brown could not dominate.  In this offensive week to forget, kicker Koo was blanked with the Falcons, and even missed his lone FG attempt of the game to finish in negative territory.  Defense was the only reason why Old could finish quite far ahead of Dec in last place because the 49ers neutralized the Jaguars with only 10 pts and 200 total yards allowed.  At DL the coach started Sam Hubbard who had a fine game with 11.5 pts in the Bengals’ key win in Las Vegas.  Also one rare good news this week for Old was the return to health of college QB McCall who missed weeks 9-10, this week he scored 11 pts which was his best game of the year.

The Decepticons won week #10 despite injury problems but week #11 was entirely another story with Dec crashing to last place and are now very far behind FE in second place, in fact Wax is closer behind Dec (8 rank-points) than the distance between Dec and FE (10.5 rank-points).  The main injury issue was not RB however, because M Sanders came back this week but only scored 4.75 pts because he was not involved in the passing game and because he lost a fumble.  J Mixon continued his good work with 23.25 pts which was Dec’s only double-digit offensive score of the week.  Mahomes was not there to bail out Dec this time around, being back to his futility with only 3.25 pts: no TD and two turnovers.  At least the Chiefs won the game so he was relegated to being a game manager.  The injury problem was rather WR, not RB, with Ju Jones and Hopkins injured and Kupp+Woods on bye, leaving Dec with only one active WR.  This is often the danger of having two WRs on the same team because they have the same bye.  The lone active WR Lockett was pedestrian with 9.75 pts and his teammate Everett had to start as well with Fant on bye, and Everett did not do much either with 4.75 pts.  Even kicker Bass stunk like the rest of the Bills with two missed FGs and only one extra point.  Defense was not a saving grace for Dec with only one player beating his projection, N Bosa scored 12 pts but everybody else was below average most notably LBs D Jones and D Leonard scoring 5 pts each which is quite low for LBs.





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