Week #10

After 5 weeks, Wax seemed to be running away with the PQBFL title early, then after a slow down in weeks 7-8 they squandered their lead, but have now re-asserted their dominance with two consecutive wins in weeks #9-10 to take a commanding lead of 11 rank-points over Beaud.  Rarely have any teams lost a double digit rank-point lead at the top, and even less so, if the lead is greater than the number of remaining weeks which in this case is 8.  Wax won this week even without a fully healthy Josh Allen who was mistake-prone with 2 INTs and 1 fumble lost but finished the game with 17 pts.  Wax won because all four position players RB-WR scored a TD and in the case of C Kirk, he scored two.  Kirk has been one of Wax’s most valuable players this season because after him, Wax’s WR3-4-5-6 are a quartet of horrible WRs ranking between WR38 to WR47 in the PQBFL.  Kirk was drafted in the 15th round so he was cheap, and his regular contributions have been invaluable for Wax: Kirk ranks WR13 in the PQBFL, far exceeding his draft status.  A similar thing can be said about Jamaal Williams who was Wax’s 17th round pick and started on numerous occasions for Wax due to E Elliott being banged up.  Williams has benefited from Swift injuries during some games but this week Swift was active and Williams was adequate with 59 yards rushing and a TD.  Williams ranks RB11 in the PQBFL which is also far better than expectations considering that Swift was a second round pick by Prof.  At WR Ju Jefferson even outscored Kirk 27.5 to 25.25 despite scoring only 1 TD because he had monster stats 10 rec for 193 yds which got boosted by the game going into OT. 

The GloriousBastards finished second and took advantage of FE’s QB woes to eat into FE’s lead in third place; Bas is now behind FE by only 2 rank-points.  The GB coach took the difficult decision of benching Ju Herbert and started Fields instead because of the Bears’ matchup against the Lions and it paid off with Fields scoring 31.5 pts by running almost as much as passing (147 yds on the ground, 167 yds in the air).  Also both starting WRs easily beat their projections with D Adams scoring 23.25 pts and Gabe Davis 16.5 pts.  RB D Pierce was less productive mostly because of a fumble lost and no TD but his 122 yds from scrimmage saved him from a poor score.  Bas’ true rookie Olave was pedestrian with 5 pts, leaving rookie QB Pickett on the bench with 15.75 pts which cost Bas the win this week because Bas was only 5.5 pts behind Wax.  Bas would have also probably beat Wax if M Fitzpatrick was not injured this week, compounded by the fact that J Bates was on bye so Bas had no DB to start.  This is the peril of only drafting 2 DBs and instead going overboard at other positions such as rookie where Bas drafted 5.  Anyway Fitz’s absence did not hamper the Steelers defense too much as they dominated the Saints and held them to a meagre 10 pts and less than 200 total yards so the Steelers ended the game with 16 pts.  This was better than the top individual defender Wagner who scored 13 pts. 

The Admirals finished 3rd in a close contest against Old and Ball mostly because of an unlikely contributor: rookie C Watson.  In the first 9 weeks of the season, Watson missed 3 to injuries and in the other 6 he only totaled 20.75 pts.  This week out of nowhere Watson woke up and caught three TD passes for 29.3 pts to jump to ROO10 in the rankings, almost starter status.  This was a boon for Adm who had not received any production from anybody at the position until now with the other two rookies on Adm’s roster scoring less than 1 pt per game on average so far this year.  With K Murray missing the game to injury Adm was fearing a terrible week but Tannehill came back from his own injury right in time and he was able to perform adequately with 22.5 pts to make a big impact for Adm’s result.  The rest of Adm’s offense was forgettable, Chubb was ok with 10.75 pts but Adm’s newly acquired James Robinson was on bye so Adm had to suffer with Gainwell being forced into the lineup and only scored 1 pt.  At WR both D Samuel (4.5 pts) and Waddle (7.25 pts) were far below their projections, and while TE Knox was not, his 6.75 pts was nothing special.  Adm’s strength before the season started was supposed to be defense and Adm went back to their forte in week #10 with Crosby scoring 14 pts to extend his lead as the PQBFL’s top DL.  At LB Devin White had his best game of the season with 20 pts and moved up to LB4 in the league.  With J Bosa still out and B Martinez who decided to retire mid-season, Adm started Deion Jones as defensive flex.  His trade away from Atlanta has not been too bad for him so far and he scored 11 pts this week for his best effort of 2022 in his new team uniform with the Browns. 

The Ballers tied OldNo7 in 4th place with 133 pts and increased their lead over Prof in 8th place in the standings.  The coach was missing in action this week, it is unclear if he would have chosen to start A Rodgers against the tough Dallas defense or not, but in the end Rodgers outscored Goff 24.5 pts to 12.25 pts so keeping Goff as starter by default cost 1.5 ranks because Ball would have beat not only Old but also Adm.  D Cook was Ball’s top scorer this week with 24 pts, he was contained most of the game by the Bills except on one run late in the 3rd quarter which accounted for 81 of his 119 rushing yards which was a TD as well.  In that same game, Diggs did not score but he was productive all game long unlike Cook, thanks to 12 receptions for 128 yds.  But the Ballers not only scored big on the offensive side of the MIN-BUF matchup but also on defense with LB Kendricks scoring a late game TD which pushed it in OT and eventually gave the Vikings the win.  For the rest of the lineup, Ball had injury and bye week issues.  First off Zach Ertz got injured after only scoring 1.5 pt, kicker McPherson was on bye and Prater was not healthy enough to return this week, and at DB both Ju Simmons and L Ryan were injured while J Abram who was recently cut by the Raiders was signed by the Packers but only had a secondary role in that game and had a single tackle on special teams, nothing on defense.

OldNo7 had another fairly average week so it is fitting that Old would fall in the standings to 5th place overall behind Bas.  It was the 5th time in 10 weeks that Old finished 4th or 5th, the rest being 2 wins and three weeks in the red so pretty much right down the middle overall.  Unlike some other teams which fielded an incomplete lineup this week, Old did not have any holes but nobody lit up the scoreboard so Old could not finish top 3.  Prescott was the best of the lot with 20.25 pts which was ok but his 2 INTs held him back.  McLaurin was given a rare start and the coach benched Godwin which turned out to be the right decision by a slim margin 15.25 pts to 14.5 pts but in the end it paid off as Old tied Ball rather than finish closely behind.  Ty Hill scored a TD but he did not beat his projection because he only had 44 receiving yards in a game when Tua Tago spread the ball around quite well rather than key in on Hill.  M Andrews was on bye and Njoku was injured which forced Higbee into a rare start, and Stafford was not even the QB so it was not promising.  As it turns out, perhaps QB Wolford is better suited for Higbee because he had the most receptions on the team (8) and yardage not too bad either with 73.  To complete with the offensive side for Old, rookie D London caught a TD and scored 11.75 pts.  It was refreshing because after a hot start in weeks 1-3, London was stone cold from weeks 4-9 with an average of only 3.9 pts per game during that stretch.  On defense Old had a so-so day, the 49ers did well with 11 pts but individual defenders were nothing special for example Sweat with 5 pts and Sneed with 6 pts, but they were the only options at DL and DB anyway because others were injured or on bye.

The Decepticons finished 6th which allowed Adm to distance Dec in 6th place in the standings.  It was not expected to be a fantastic week for Dec because the team had a whopping 7 injured players on defense plus two on bye, leaving only 2 active ones.  J Baker (9.5 pts) and Jayron Kearse (6.5 pts) did what they could but at half strength this was a major drag for the ‘Cons.  The Rams defense cannot be injured so they did play, but they were porous against the Cards even without Kyler Murray and lost the game.  The Rams only had 2 sacks and no turnover for 3.5 pts.  However defense was not even the worst news of the week for Dec.  C Kupp had a terrible outing without his QB Stafford with only 3 receptions for negative yardage after 3 quarters, and then got injured and he’ll be out a few weeks, wasting his trade potential.  RB N Harris and Fournette both failed to reach their already low projection, Fournette scored but to add to Dec woes he threw an INT.  Needless to say, Fournette should focus on running not throwing.  Mahomes is the only player who showed up for Dec with 34.25 pts in a solid game against the Jaguars.  Hopkins was not too bad with 10-98 but he did not reach the end zone so his score of 14.75 pts was in line with his projection.  Both TE Schultz and rookie Pickens slightly beat their projection because unlike Hopkins they scored a short TD.  *** UPDATE *** Dec finished 7th not 6th because of a late stat change for L David who scored 7 pts not 6 pts

The BeaudoinBrothers had their second consecutive poor week, this week was the worst of the season with only 118 pts and 7th place.  Unlike week #9 where a single coaching call made the difference of 5 ranks, this week there was no potential saving grace.  The Eagles were flat on MNF so the trio of Hurts, M Sanders, and AJ Brown all underperformed with a combined score of 27.75 pts compared to their projection of 49 pts.  This is the danger of having overexposure to a single NFL team, but at RB the Bros had no margin for maneuver because both Mixon and Stevenson were on bye so it was not possible to diversify the offense.  D Henry was healthy and starting but he had his worst game of the year with only 5.5 pts despite the Titans’ win.  That result was not entirely negative for Beaud because it was the Broncos’ defense which limited Henry and the Broncos were given the nod over the Dolphins to start this week, and they scored 8 pts which was in line with their projection.  The problem is that the Dolphins did better with 9 pts on the bench, which would have been enough to beat Dec.  One reason for Beaud’s recent issues is the significant slowdown of rookie LB Devin Lloyd who has been trending down non-stop since scoring 15 pts in week #3.  Starting with week #4, Lloyd has scored 14, 11, 7, 7, 6, 5, and now 4.5 pts.  *** UPDATE *** Beaud finished 6th not 7th because of a late stat change for L David who scored 7 pts not 6 pts

FlyingElvis was playing without a QB because the Saints coach was one week too late to give Winston his job back and FE paid the price with 8th place.  FE was hoping for a miracle with big performances by RBs and receivers but it did not happen except for J Taylor who found his groove back after 5 straight games into the single digits and 2 games missed to injury.  Taylor scored 21.5 pts this week for his best game of the year; perhaps the new Colts’ coach knows  that he’s the best offensive player on the team so might as well use him, unlike the previous coach.  However the other core position players for FE did not do well except Goedert who scored a TD on MNF.  Ekeler ended the game with a weak 6.25 pts and WRs JJSS + A Cooper both scored 4.5 pts, leaving CD Lamb on the bench who went off for 30.5 pts which was a disastrous decision.  Rookie G Wilson was on bye which was painful with backup Pierce earning a goose egg for the first time since week #1.  He has not been a terrible backup rookie so far (16th best rookie) but he chose his timing wrong to have an off game.  On defense FE is almost completely healthy and D James was busy with 16 pts to consolidate his lead as the PQBFL’s best DB, but LBs T Edmunds and Oluokun were mediocre with 6 and 7 pts, respectively. 

ProfessorMJ finished last for the second time this season and sunk deeper into the cellar.  Like many other teams, Prof had an incomplete lineup this week because they recently traded away K Moore to Beaud and bad luck subsequently hit, McKinney got injured in an ATV accident during his bye week so Prof had no DB this week.  It’s never a good sign when the team highest scorer is a backup RB (Pollard) and a LB (J Brooks) but it was the case for Prof as both scored 16.5 pts, the former benefiting from E Elliott being out, while Brooks is good enough on his own to be able to score without help as the PQBFL’s third best LB.  Actually up until week #9, Prof’s highest scoring LB was not Brooks, it was rather J Hicks and he rarely started because he was considered LB4 by the Prof coach.  Finally the coach took a chance with Hicks as a starter this week and it turned out to be his worst game of the season with only 4.5 pts, leaving Bolton on the bench with 9 pts.  With Burrow on bye Prof had to start Cousins on the road against the Bills which was not ideal.  It could have been worse, Cousins had 1 TD and 357 passing yards to lead his team to the win, but his 2 INTs could have been costly and he also had 2 fumbles thankfully recovered by teammates.  The real problem for Prof this week was receivers, M Evans and D Johnson only scored 7.5 pts and 7 pts, and TE Everett could not even do half of that with only 3 pts.  The benching of Pitts did not matter in the end because he scored 3.25 pts so the difference with Everett was only 0.25 pt. 




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