Week #13

After letting FlyingElvis remain not far behind during weeks #9-12 where FE actually performed 3 rank-points better than Prof, in week #13 Prof seemingly threw the knock-out punch with Prof’s first win since week #4, combined with FE barely avoiding last place.  Prof now leads by 12 rank-points with 5 weeks left, quite a comfortable lead.  Brady had not scored more than 18.75 pts since week #8 but he was back on track this week with 32.25 pts to lead the charge.  Rookie T Lawrence was benched for the first time because of M Gordon’s injury (Old) which improved the prospects of rookie J Williams; Williams responded with almost 200 yards from scrimmage and a TD.  Conner is another one benefiting from an injury to a teammate (C Edmonds – Wax) and he did well again with 16.25 pts, his 6th straight double-digit game, after doing so only 2 of his first 6 games.  Chubb was on bye and Henderson missed the game to injury but luck struck because backup Pollard happened to score on a long TD in the TNF game and the backup lineup had already been set.  Prof’s receivers were a bit less successful than running backs, K Allen scored twice but Ty Hill only had 2 receptions and M Andrews was barely more productive with 6.5 pts.  On defense J Hicks had a rare start at LB and responded with a monster 21-point game.  On MNF the Bills D did just enough to edge Adm at the finish line with 10 pts. 

The Admirals finished second in consecutive weeks to take possession of 4th place in the standings.  As noted a few weeks ago the return to health of Kittle has been a boon on the team and it was even more obvious this week with 33.25 pts from Kittle with a stellar game 9-181-2.  K Murray is also now healthy like Kittle, and he was just behind with 32.75 pts.  This duo will help Adm down the stretch and with Dec 7.5 rank-points in front, if Adm keeps it up, perhaps they have an outside chance to close the gap to 3rd place.  On MNF Adm almost beat Prof with D Harris scoring a long TD in the first quarter, but unfortunately for the rest of the game he was far less active than R Stevenson (Beaud); for the entire game Stevenson outrushed Harris 24 carries to 10 carries, so the lack of opportunities left Adm just short of Prof by one point.  The other RB Gaskin was back to his mediocrity with only 4 pts so that was costly, and D Adams’ bye week was an issue as well because Adm does not have depth at WR.  Jeudy started and only scored 7.75 pts.  On defense Oluokun had a strong game with 15 pts and DB Winfield did too with 12.5 pts however the combo of DLs J Bosa + M Crosby continues to be a drag, this week they combined for only 7.5 pts.  They rank DL9 and DL11 in the PQBFL which is not great to begin with, let alone one of them being used as defensive flex. 

OldNo7 finished third for the second time in 4 weeks and suddenly sees daylight as a possible exit from last place with Ballers only one rank-point ahead and Bas only 2 rank-points ahead so Old has a legitimate shot at 7th place.  Life without McCaffrey was fine this week with replacement player A Mattison scoring 15.25 pts which was better than CMC has been averaging this year.  However Elliott being banged up was an issue with only a score of 3.75 pts and Dak did not do much better with 9.5 pts which was less than half his weekly projection.  The reason Old was able to finish in the top 3 was because of receivers, D Johnson scored twice for the Steelers in addition to 100+ receiving yards, while C Godwin had a huge statistical game 15-143 but did not reach the end zone.  Also L Thomas made his presence felt back on the field with a TD, however he might have re-injured himself so it could be a short-lived boost for Old who will have to resort back to Higbee at TE.  On defense, Old’s four individual defenders were all average in a tight range between 8 and 9 pts which was slightly below their combined projection.  The highlight of the defense was the Chiefs holding the Broncos to only 9 pts in addition to scoring on an INT return for a total of 18 pts. 

The GloriousBastards came out on top of a tight range in 4th-6th place with only 1.75 pts in front of Beaud and 1.5 pts in front of Wax, which allowed Bas to jump back in front of Ball in the standings.  Ju Herbert pounded the Bengals on the road for an important win and scored 27 pts for GB to push his way up to QB3 in the PQBFL.  The rest of Bas’ offense was fairly in line with projections, with A Gibson being the best of the bunch with 14.25 pts, followed by CD Lamb with 14 pts, and Jo Jacobs with 12.5 pts, those three guys outscoring their projection by one or two points.  This was offset by DK Metcalf underperforming again with only 8 pts to drop to WR19 in the league.  D Waller missed the game to injury which slowed Bas down because backup Engram finished the game with 4-61-0.  Defense was equally average as offense, M Fitzpatrick being the only one with a good game (14 pts), while D White scored 11 pts which is fine but 11 pts is not enough for someone drafted so early.  LB Cunningham was also drafted early and he’s been an even worse disaster this season (LB26) and this week he hit rock bottom by being suspended for tardiness.  With Jayon Brown on bye that left D Davis as the only remaining choice for flex LB and he only scored 7 pts.  Last but not least, it’s worth mentioning again with Ju Fields out to injury that J Chase had another ho-hum game with 8.5 pts.  After a very hot start he has not scored more than 10 pts in his last 5 games.

WaxOnWaxOff had a weak of extremes so it’s fitting they finished right in the middle in 5th place.  Ju Jefferson was the best on offense with 11-182-1 thanks to Thielen’s intra-game injury so Jefferson was able to gobble up the lion’s share of targets, and TJ Watt was the leader on defense by being on Lamar Jackson’s back all game long: 3.5 sacks and 6 QB hits, plus one forced fumble, for a total of 25 pts.  Watt recaptured the LB1 spot in the PQBFL in front of Wagner (FE), perhaps this time for good.  On MNF Josh Allen had the opportunity to lead Wax possibly to 3rd place but the weather conditions did not cooperate and he only scored 11 pts.  The RB situation for Wax keeps getting worse every week, this time Wax scored a grand total of 2 points at RB, with 4 injuries including Kamara, in addition to replacement player Ingram only scoring 2 pts, and Ronald Jones finishing the game with 1 carry for 2 yards and 1 reception for zero, which was a goose egg.  The situation was equally problematic for WR2, with D Samuel injured and DJ Moore on bye, Wax started Marquez Callaway who is not someone who should be part of any PQBFL roster, this loser cannot even perform without any WR competition on the Saints team and this week he only caught 1 reception for 13 yards despite the Saints having to throw all game long.  There was a bit of good news at rookie however, last week it was noted that E Moore did not do anything with the return of Zach Wilson at QB, but this time he benefited from C Davis getting injured and was able to put good stats on the board with 6-77-1 despite having a bad QB so there might be hope after all.

At the image of the season, the BeaudoinBrothers came up on the losing side of a tight pack once again, and lost ground to Wax in the process and dropped to 6th place despite having scored more points overall than both Adm and Wax on the entire season.  Beaud finished close behind Bas and Wax - it would not have happened if DB Landon Collins had not missed the game to injury.  He was healthy all year, but missed the one week when he was needed due to J Chinn’s bye week.  However this could have been avoided if the coach had started R Wilson instead of D Carr who was held scoreless at home against Washington while Wilson threw for 2 TDs.  Kelce was also to blame with a terrible game of 4.25 pts, the irony being that on the bench Goedert who had to start in week #12 during Kelce’s bye and scored only one point then, well this week he exploded for 25.25 pts on the bench, so go figure.  The Bros continued to experience pain at the WR2 position with Aiyuk starting and he did not deliver the goods even with Deebo Samuel out, scoring only 5.75 pts in the process which was better than other options on the bench A Cooper (4 pts), Shenault (4.5 pts) and Claypool (4.5 pts).  This is a nice collection of underperformers, making the absence of M Thomas and Ridley costly.  One of the few bright spots was rookie Zach Wilson having a rare multi-TD game with 3 TDs and scored 19.5 pts.  Also the Colts D shut out the hapless Texans for 21.5 pts and Chandler Jones had a double-digit game during M Garrett’s bye week which was timely. 

The Decepticons finished in the bottom three for the second time in three weeks but were able to gain one rank-point on FE although time is running out for Dec to climb to second place.  It would have been the perfect opportunity to hurt FE while they were down, but it did not happen.  This week was groundhog week for Dec: Mahomes was disappointing (again) with 10 pts, C Kupp was excellent (again) with 21.25 pts, Dec’s RB2 is a problem (again) with J Williams only scoring 5 pts, and N Harris often reaches 100+ total yards like this week but TDs are lacking so 8.75 pts fell short.  One of the few novelties this week was J Mixon who went nowhere fast, only scored 6.5 pts despite a TD because his yardage was very modest and he lost a fumble.  D Hopkins missed 3 games to injury but was back this week; he only caught two passes but thankfully one of them was a TD to salvage an ok day of 10.5 pts.  On defense the Rams were dominant against the Jaguars (even more so than expected) and scored 17 pts.  DL Nick Bosa had a sack and a forced fumble to finish with 11 pts, but he was not matched by either stars D Leonard (4 pts) or J Adams (4 pts) which did not help Dec’s cause.  As Dec is already looking at 2022 because they might be locked in to 3rd place, one good news was the performance of rookie A St.Brown who scored the game-winning TD for the Lions and finished the game with 20.25 pts.  Perhaps he will have value as a saved player next year.

FlyingElvis saw their hopes of a 2021 title go up in flames with a disastrous 8th place finish and if it had not been for windy conditions on MNF making it difficult for WRs such as Diggs (Ball) to perform, FE might have finished last.  The wind also resulted in H Henry scoring zero in that game, but it was less painful than for a top notch WR like Diggs.  The risky combo of L Jackson + M Brown bombed out with only 21 pts when their combined projection was 36 pts in another sorry display of passing skills by Jackson who this time could not be bailed out by his running and the Ravens lost the game.  FE had lots of injuries early in the season before getting healthier and falling to 6th in injury points, but this week was back to being affected by the injury bug with Thielen leaving the game early after only catching one pass for zero yards which definitely cost 7th place.  J Taylor’s excellent season continued, he’s probably the PQBFL MVP given how far ahead J Mixon (Dec) he is in the RB standings and D Henry being excluded from the conversation due to his injury.  Taylor is averaging 18.2 pts per game so far and will for sure be back with FE next year as franchise player again.  The same cannot be said of Ekeler who scored a TD but his two lost fumbles left him with only 7.5 pts this week.  Also rookie K Pitts can be blamed for why FE is not nearer the top, as a second round pick he has not delivered value as ROO12 in the league even with Ridley being out for a long stretch, making Pitts the theoretical center piece of the passing offense but his 6.25 pts this week has been typical of what he has done all season.  He has scored between 3.5 pts and 8.5 pts in 10 of his 12 games.  ** update: Von Bell was downgraded from 1.0 sack and 1 tackle for loss to 0.5 sack and no tackle for loss and therefore finished the week last, 0.5 pt behind the Ballers.  **

The Ballers returned to last place for the first time since week #6 and will have to fight to avoid finishing last on the season.  With A Rodgers and C Newton on bye, Ball had to start J Goff which felt like a hail mary pass, but Goff led the Lions to their first win of the season and his 21.75 pts were definitely not the reason for Ball’s last place.  The problem was D Cook missing the game to injury, Barkley not playing like a first rounder (6 pts this week, RB27 on the season), and T McLaurin having trouble producing on a regular basis without Fitzpatrick throwing the ball.  This week McLaurin only scored 4 pts and dropped to WR18.  Diggs was hampered by the weather as mentioned above and significantly underperformed with 6.5 pts.  Rookie M Parsons started which was once again a surprising call but Mac Jones only attempted 3 passes all game so Parsons easily outscored him 10 to -1.25 pt because Jones had a fumble not lost to bring him into negative territory, so starting Parsons was a good call in the end.  Defense was a sorry affair this week with only 23.5 pts combined for the four individual defenders, with E Kendricks being out to injury having an impact and forcing DB Jenkins as flex with only 4 pts.  Only the Bucs defense reached double digits in their win against the Falcons but they did not dominate them either, allowing 380 yards of total offense and only creating one turnover.  ** update: the Ballers avoided last place by virtue of the stat change to Von Bell (FE) mentioned above **





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