Week #8
OldNo7 won for the second time this season and jumped into a tie in
third place with FE. It’s been a while since Old has been top
3 in the standings almost at mid point of any season. Old is
currently one of the healthiest teams in the PQBFL and with the
return of Dak it made an impact with his 25-point performance in the
win against the Bears. McCaffrey had a slow start with the
49ers last week probably due to lack of time to learn the playbook,
but this situation rectified itself quite quickly this week with 1
TD passing, running, and receiving for a total of 28.75 pts which
was by far his best game of the year. The trade from CAR to SF
might turn out to be the spark that Old needed for their franchise
player. However the even bigger contributor this week was
Kamara with 31 pts who had not previously scored more than 13 pts in
any week so this was a drastic improvement. Even kicker Nick
Folk had his best game of the year with 4 FGs over 40 years and 5/5
FGs in total plus an extra-point. Old was in a dead heat
before MNF with Sam Hubbard remaining going against Joe Mixon
(Beaud) and it turned out not to be close at all. Hubbard was
active from the get go early in the game and easily distanced Mixon,
Hubbard having his best game of the year with 17 pts.
The BeaudoinBrothers failed to win week #8 but nonetheless beat Wax
by 4 rank-points which means that Wax’s 8 rank-points lead after 5
weeks has completely vanished in 3 weeks: Beaud is now tied in first
place with Wax. However Wax easily hold the tie-breaker by
having outscored Beaud on average with 157.3 pts per week compared
to only 150.2 pts per week for Beaud. This week’s result was
particularly satisfying for Beaud given that Kelce was on bye and
Irv Smith got hurt and scored 5.25 pts. Also Bryce Young was
on bye and backup Will Levis had a tough matchup against Tennessee
and got blown out and even finished with a negative score.
This week most of Beaud’s scoring was from the Eagles QB-WR duo
Hurts and AJ Brown who connected three times in the first half for a
TD, together they scored 73 pts before slowing down in the second
half. Derrick Henry has also been a major reason for Beaud’s
recent improvement. After scoring 7 pts or less in each of the
first two weeks, Henry has scored double digits in every game since,
and week #8 was his best game yet with over 200 yards rushing and
two TDs for 31 pts. He is typically getting better as we get
deeper into the season and this year seems to be more of the same
from him. Co-RB Mixon did not deliver on MNF as mentioned
above with only 4.75 pts but even if Beaud had started R Stevenson
(11.75 pts) or M Sanders (12.5 pts), Beaud was not going to beat
Old. On defense all three of Beaud’s DBs were injured this
week so Beaud traded to acquire K Moore from Prof, Moore did score
10 pts this week which was fine, but it turned out to be useless
because it did not even come close to having an impact on the
rankings this week.
ProfessorMJ finished in the blue for the second straight week and
got out of last place in the standings, now 4 rank-points ahead of
Ball and even closer to 7th than 9th, by moving to within 3
rank-points of Dec in 7th. Prof scored 154.5 pts this week
which was the team’s best score so far, and could have been better
if Burrow had not scored a pedestrian 15.5 pts on MNF with most of
it coming in garbage time during the 4th quarter. Also Prof
did not have a college player to start because Boutte was on bye and
Smith-Njigba missed due to injury. While Prof continues to
lead the league in injury points, at least Swift came back this week
and scored 7.75 pts, but the main injury situation was in Dallas
with Elliott (Wax) missing the game which opened the door to Pollard
who took the opportunity to score 31.25 pts, so Prof at last
benefited from an injury this time around. Also similar
situation in Jax with now James Robinson out of the way, Etienne has
the full load and was heavily involved in the offense to finish the
game with 162 yards from scrimmage and a TD. In the first four
weeks, he scored 6.25 pts or less in every week, while in the last 4
weeks he did not score less than 7.5 pts at any time. This
week his 18.5 pts were better than his total of the first 4 weeks
combined and he has now climbed to ROO8 in the league. Kyle
Pitts also deserves a mention because overall he’s been a poor draft
pick but at least this week he was active with 5-80-1 so the hope is
that he has now turned the corner.
The Admirals were projecting to a subpar week before MNF but
league-leading RB Nick Chubb saved the day with 2 TDs, a two-point
conversion, and more than 100 yards rushing to slightly edge Dec in
4th place and left Wax in the dust behind. The team leader for
Adm was Waddle with a stat line of 8-106-2 who took maximum
advantage of the juicy matchup against the Lions to score a total of
25.25 pts. Waddle might be in the shadow of Tyreek Hill (Old)
but nonetheless he ranks WR9 so far; it is surprising that this
offense has been able to sustain two top 10 WRs. With Mike
Williams on bye, Adm started Jeudy which was a rare appearance in
the starting lineup for him, and with rumors that he’s being shopped
around by the Broncos, it did not affect his play with 14 pts thanks
to 6 receptions and a TD. Kyler Murray had a decent game as
well with 24.75 pts including 3 TDs but he was mistake-prone with 2
INTs which were critical in the Cards’ loss in MIN. With Penny
out for the year and D Harris coming back to health, Adm must get
production from Harris because Adm has no better option but the
worry is that Harris might have lost his top dog RB status in New
England since his injury. This week he was outscored by
Stevenson again, and same for the number of carries (16 to
11). On defense Adm has seen better weeks, Crosby was not bad
with 8 pts but he did not get a sack, Blake Martinez has not done
much since signing with the Raiders (4 pts this week), and Byard
also had a poor game with only 4 pts.
The Decepticons had their second best score of the season with
141.75 pts but week #8 was also the second highest scoring week in
the PQBFL so it was no better than 5th place. With Mahomes on
bye and Tua Tago possibly still woozy, Dec feared the worst at the
QB position this week but thankfully the Lions were on the schedule
for Tago and it paid off with 32 pts, making Mahomes completely
expendable if only for one week. Hopkins coming back from his
suspension has made a big difference at WR for Dec who does not have
much bench strength, and Hopkins was dominant this week with 12
receptions for 159 yds and a TD. Kupp topped his projection
again with 18.25 pts but got injured during garbage time when the
coach should have rested him. The rookie position has been a
headache all year for Dec and this week Dec started Pickens who had
a goose egg despite the Steelers playing from behind all game long,
and Doubs was benched and scored 13 pts. Doubs and Pickens
currently rank ROO10 and ROO13 which is not good enough to be
starters but not awful either, however Dec simply has not gotten
much production from them when they started, including now injured T
Burks. The kicker position is rarely relevant but in a week
when Dec lost against Adm by only 1.5 pt, the zero scored by the
Raiders and kicker Carlson did not help matters.
WaxOnWaxOff finished 6th for the second consecutive week and with
the team’s struggles, Wax has now completely squandered their lead
in first place. Josh Allen had a chance on SNF to salvage a
decent 4th place if he had played to his projection, or perhaps even
finishing 3rd place if he had a very strong game. His first
half was not bad with 2 TDs but in the second half he was held
scoreless and threw 2 INTs to finish the game with 17.25 pts, the
first time all year that he failed to reach 20 pts. Jamaal
Williams had to contend with the return of Swift but he scored 2
short TDs which easily allowed him to beat his projection.
Barkley also scored a short TD but his rushing yardage of 53 was the
same as Williams and not good enough by his standards. In
contrast Ju Jefferson had good stats 6-98 but unlike the RBs he did
not score so his 10.75 pts fell short of expectations. C Kirk
was even worse with only 3-40 for 6 pts and after some early success
in weeks 1-3 he has been trending down since week 4 and now ranks
WR23. The issue is that Wax has nobody better to start at WR
so Kirk will most likely remain in the lineup. Defense was
better than offense for Wax this week, the Cowboys scored a
defensive TD, Nick Bosa had a sack, Warner did as well plus he had
12 tackles+assists, and Budda Baker was active tackle-wise too with
8+2. Defensive rookie Nakobe Dean was nowhere near those
levels with only 1 point so the first week of Wax without injured
Breece Hall did not produce miracles.
FlyingElvis finished in the bottom 3 for the first time this season
and got caught from behind by OldNo7 in third place. During
the draft FE stated that he wishes Mostert gets injured all year so
that FE can earn injury points, and that if he had to start Mostert
it would be a bad sign. With Ekeler on bye, the RB2 starter
this week was… Mostert. He has not been bad so far this year
but this week was not his best effort with 5.5 pts so FE would have
been better with backup Singletary who did marginally better with
7.75 pts. But the real problem was franchise player Taylor who
did not score, did not catch a single pass, and also lost a fumble
to end the game with only 3.25 pts. He has dropped to RB23
which is catastrophic for any healthy franchise player, or perhaps
he’s playing banged up after missing weeks 5-6. At WR Lamb was
productive with 15.75 pts and newly acquired WR A Cooper was almost
as good with 5 receptions for 131 yds and a TD, the only thing that
held him back was that Cooper threw an INT. The concern with
FE’s trade is not Cooper himself but rather whether FE should have
traded L Jackson instead of Hurts? The Ravens beat the Bucs
this week but it was not smooth sailing with 238 passing yards and
two short TDs for 22.25 pts which was barely above Jackson’s
projection. In his defense, Bateman and M Andrews were playing
hurt so Jackson had to manage the offense with limited
weapons. At rookie, FE decided to start Malik Willis once it
was known that Tannehill would not play, but similar to the 2021
crop of rookie QBs which were not impressive, Willis only scored
0.75 pt due to a shockingly weak 6/10 passing for 55 yards and one
INT. On the bench was G Wilson who scored 11.75 pts which
would have been enough to beat Wax so that call was costly.
The Ballers finished in the bottom 2 for the 4th time in 5 weeks and
sunk to last place in the standings. The coach was missing in
action this week so the lineup stayed the same as week #7. A
Rodgers got the start despite the harder matchup in Buffalo and was
outscored by Goff 16 to 11.5 pts. Diggs was on bye in week #7
so he remained on the bench this week and his 18.25 pts were
wasted. Thankfully both starters Higgins and St-Brown had
decent games with 13.25 pts and 10.25 pts. Kicker Prater was
injured in weeks 5-6-7, returned to health in week 8 but remained on
the bench by default. Starter McPherson had a poor game with a
missed extra-point and a missed FG for -1.5 pt while Prater scored
7.5 pts which was a swing of 9 pts. The one position where the
Ballers normally do not have starting decisions to make is RB and
this week both D Cook (16.75 pts) and Hines (9 pts) beat their
projection by a healthy margin. Rookie Walker scored a TD and
topped double digits but with his ever increasing projection, he was
nonetheless a bit short due to rushing for only 52 yards from
scrimmage. On defense it would have been mind boggling for
Ball to start the Packers in Buffalo but yet they outscored the Bucs
defense 5.0 to 1.0 because the Bucs could not contain the Ravens
(453 total yards allowed) and also lost a fumble on special teams.
After winning week #7 the GloriousBastards continued their
roller-coaster season with last place in week #8. J Chase was
out to injury so this was a drag, but he was the only injured player
of the entire Bas roster so it’s hard to pin the lack of performance
due to injuries only. Bas started Sutton who played poorly
with only one short reception, while leaving Boyd on the bench with
10.75 pts. However what to make of Davante Adams final stat
line of 1 reception for 3 yards and one rush for minus one
yard? This was a stunning display of ineptitude by Adams and
the rest of the Raiders’ offense. That goose egg by the
Raiders in New Orleans also resulted in Josh Jacobs having a poor
4.5 pts so him and Adams together scored 5.5 pts compared to their
combined projections of 31.2 pts. The best offensive player of
the week for Bas was, hold your breath, Micah Parsons. Nobody
on the “real” offense cracked double digits but Parsons scored a TD
on a fumble return. With Herbert on bye, backup Mills was poor
with 7.5 pts leaving Fields on the bench with 27 pts. D Pierce
was a bit better than his teammate Mills and scored a short TD but
ended the game with only 9.25 pts because he only rushed for 35
yds. Actually there was one offensive player who scored double
digits rather than none at all, although college is not the
traditional source of scoring. Caleb Williams scored 11 pts
this week and he took over the top spot of all college players so
far this season in front of Stroud (Wax).
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