The white hot GloriousBastards won for the second straight week and
also for a league-high 4th time this season. Four weeks ago
Bas was 20 rank-points away from first place and odds of winning the
league were slim to none but now Bas is only 9 rank-points behind
with 5 weeks left so there remains hope. If Bas only had to
contend with Wax it would be easier, but unfortunately the pesky
BeaudoinBrothers have also been trending up and Bas only beat Beaud
by a single rank-point each of the last two weeks. This week
Bas was one of the 4 teams having a college player active which was
a nice bonus and Caleb Williams ended his season with 6.25 pts and
the top COL in the league by a decent margin 8.4 to 7.0 (J Hall,
Dec). Part of the reason why Bas has improved recently is the
better play from rookie Pickett. In his first 5 games from
weeks 4-8 he did not score more than 8.5 pts in any given week, but
since his week #9 bye, his lowest score has been 10.25 pts which is
pretty much the average of the top rookies in the league (K Walker
10.9 – Ball). This week pretty much fit this pattern with
Pickett having a decent turnover-free game with one TD and 13.5
pts. The Raiders duo of D Adams and J Jacobs was the key for
the win this week with 2 TDs from Adams and 1 from Jacobs; they
scored 48.25 pts combined. After missing 4 games to injury J
Chase had an ok game with 11.75 pts which was better than Bas’
backup WRs. As we approach the home stretch Bas is healthier
than other teams with only 34 injury points earned this week, the
lowest of the league.
The BeaudoinBrothers gained some ground on Wax but lost a bit
against Bas in what was a mixed week, that said finishing second
place is nothing to complain about. After three consecutive
weeks of poor results for AJ Brown from weeks 10-12 (2.25 pts, 5
pts, 8.25 pts), Brown found the end zone twice for 28.75 pts.
His QB Hurts had his best game of the year with 39 pts and he could
have kept going if the game had been closer. DK Metcalf got
another start for Beaud and unlike the previous week where he was
outscored by Pittman on the bench, this time Metcalf did far better
19.25 pts compared to only 2.75 pts for Pittman who was benched
again. The reason Beaud did not win this week was the play of
RBs. Mixon was slated to start but he was held off again due
to his concussion so the starting spot defaulted to Stevenson who
did not do much as a replacement with only 6.25 pts. Franchise
player Henry was even worse with only 3 pts because the Titans
played from behind all game. On defense the Broncos benefited
from the injury to L Jackson and once he was out of the game the
Broncos dominated the Ravens until the last minute when the Ravens
scored their lone TD. Nonetheless the Broncos scored 14 pts to
move up to DEF6 in the league in one rare bright spot in the chaotic
Denver season.
ProfMJ played troublemakers this week by finishing ahead of Wax but
below Bas and Beaud which was of consequence at the top of the
standings. By beating Ball by 4 ranks this week, Prof moved
from 8.5 to 4.5 rank-points behind Ball and still has a chance to
avoid last place this season. This week the top score came
from an unlikely source: the Browns defense / special team scored
not 1, not 2, but 3 TDs in a complete domination of the Texans for a
total of 32 pts. Burrow was not far behind with 29.25 pts and
Pollard showed that the can score like the league leaders despite
being backup to Elliott with 20.75 pts this. Actually Pollard
is only backup in theory because in practice he’s RB4 in the PQBFL,
far ahead of Elliott who is RB14. Heck, RB4 is sometimes
franchise player material and yet nobody thinks of Pollard as
franchise player quality. The second starting RB for Prof was
Jeff Wilson which was a mistake because he only scored 1.25 pts
while Swift seems entirely recovered from his injury thanks to his
14.25 pts scored on the bench. At WR, K Allen had his best
game of his injury-riddled season with 17.25 pts while M Evans is
giving way more and more to Godwin (Old); Evans scored 6.75 pts this
week which was his 4th straight single digit game.
WaxOnWaxOff had a better week #13 than weeks 11 and 12, but missed
the top 3 nonetheless and saw its lead in first place dwindle down
to only one rank-point. Defense is what saved Wax from a
disastrous week, led by Dallas who scored a TD and 18.5 pts against
the Colts. N Bosa was not far behind with 3 sacks, 4 QB hits,
and 1 forced fumble for 18 pts. H Smith had his best game of
the season with 16 pts while the LBs were a bit lagging behind other
defensive positions. Wax was far less dominant on offense
however which explains why they could not keep up with Bas and
Beaud. Josh Allen had the best score on offense for Wax with
16.75 pts but it was below his projections with 2 TDs 1 INT.
Ju Jefferson scored 15.75 pts which was fine but a bit below his
season average. The same could be said of C Kirk’s 11 pts, not
terrible but slightly below projection and average. S Barkley
did a bit better in relation to projections with 12.75 pts but Ja
Williams did not, he scored a TD (again!) but this time he let Swift
have more touches than in previous weeks so Williams did not gain
much yardage. The bigger underperformer for Wax was probably
TJ Hockenson who ended the game with only 4-33 which was his worst
output since joining the Vikings. One possible optimistic
turnaround for Wax which could matter from now until the end of the
season is the rookie position. N Dean did not start this week
but he scored 7 pts on the bench. This matters because since B
Hall went down to injury, no rookie for Wax has scored more than
2.25 pts, whether as starter or on the bench. If Dean can
gather more than a couple of points per week due to increased
playing time, it will definitely help Wax in the final stretch.
OldNo7 finished 5th and jumped back over Dec after losing 5th place
overall to Dec one week ago. It would have been better if Old
had started the 49ers defense who handled the Dolphins offense at
home with 19.5 pts, but instead Old went with the homer choice of
Chiefs D in an equally difficult matchup in CIN and it backfired
with the Chiefs scoring a goose egg. That call was the
difference between 4th and 5th this week. While the 49ers had
a good defensive game, one Dolphin who was loose was Ty Hill who
scored a long TD and caught 9 passes for 25.25 pts. With this
effort Hill climbed to WR4 in the PQBFL ahead of Ju Jefferson
(Wax). At QB Old benched Prescott (20.5 pts) in favor of
Lawrence (15.25 pts) which was a mistake but not as damaging as
benching the 49ers. Last week we questioned whether McCaffrey
was done being a star RB and this week he responded with 17 pts,
scoring one TD and having good yardage both on the ground and in the
air. So much for his early demise. One which is
undoubtedly over the hill is Kamara, unlike CMC, for Kamara there is
no debate and this week was more of the same with 4.5 pts.
Since his 31 pts in week #8, Kamara has scored a total of 18.5 pts
in the subsequent 5 weeks for a dismal average during that period of
not even 4 pts per game.
FlyingElvis has not been able to keep up with Bas which is running
away in 3rd place and not making up ground on Wax and Beaud, and now
after week #13 the best FE might be able to hope for is to finish
the season in 4th place. L Jackson got injured early in the
game after only scoring one point and since Winston has still not
come back as the Saints’ starter despite Dalton not having much
success, FE might be without a QB for the rest of the season so they
have to look over their shoulder to see if Old or Dec will catch
up. However it would be easy to point out to the QB situation
as the only reason why FE has slowed down. J Taylor is simply
not performing like a franchise player, he scored 8.5 pts this week
and dropped to RB15 in the league. Ekeler has been having a
franchise player worthy season but this week was not so, with only
5.5 pts. WR A Cooper has done well with Brissett at QB so
hopes were high that the arrival of D Watson might further propel
him in the top 9 WRs but Watson was catastrophic this week and
Cooper suffered the consequences with only 6 pts. Thankfully
co-WR Lamb picked up the slack with 16.5 pts and he was the only
offensive player into the double digits if we don’t count rookie G
Wilson; Wilson had a good game with 16 pts. He has been fairly
stable this season and ranks ROO5. Perhaps one could argue
that kickers are offense too so in that case kicker Gay made the cut
too for FE with 11 pts. On defense the Ravens scored 11 pts
and Oluokun scored 16 pts; both of them regularly show up as good
performers on the stat sheet, but the true surprise this week was
Chandler Jones who was called into action due to the injury to Aaron
Donald and out of nowhere Jones exploded for 20.5 pts. Where
has he been? His score of 20.5 pts is exactly the number of
points he scored from week 5-12 and he has not missed games to
injury during that time span.
The Ballers finished in the bottom 3 for the 7th time in 13 weeks
with 123.75 pts. Star rookie Walker got injured during the
game after scoring only 3 pts and if he misses time it will be
painful for Ball. Rookie Jameson Williams did play his first
game of the season for the Lions this week but he did not catch a
ball so it does not sound like he will produce until 2023.
Unlike other teams, Ball had a college player to start this week but
Uiagalelei was benched early in the game by Clemson before he could
score anything. The Ballers had the bare minimum of 4
defensive players to start this week and Simmons started by default
and scored 19 pts to lead the entire squad of Ballers including
offense this week. The best offensive player was Diggs with
16.5 pts followed by A Rodgers with 14.25 pts but it would have been
better to start Goff who scored 22.225 pts on the bench.
Sooner than later the Ballers’ coach might not even have that choice
to make because Rodgers is broken and once the Packers are
eliminated we might see J Love. One small good news for the
Ballers was the resurgence of Akers who scored 2 TDs and 15 pts for
the Rams. He has not been trustable recently so he was on the
Ballers’ bench but at least it gives a chance for some value in the
2023 season. Starters D Cook (11.75 pts) and Patterson (5 pts)
did not do as well as Akers this week.
After two above average weeks (11-12), Dec went back to the red with
8th place. The Chiefs were surprisingly not able to move the
ball in Cincy and Mahomes finished the game with only 18 pts.
He still clings on to his QB1 ranking in the PQBFL but the last 2
weeks give pause for concern. Dec’s best player this week was
Lockett who had a Kupp-esque performance of 22.25 pts but it was far
from being the case for G Pickens who was elevated from ROO to WR
and he had one measly reception this week – poor for a rookie, even
worse for a WR. The real rookie WR Burks was better with 9.25
pts but not enough to carry Dec on his shoulders. Both RBs for
Dec were mediocre with N Harris scoring 7.5 pts. As RB24 he
probably cannot wait for the season to end and lick his wounds;
there is no chance he comes back to Dec as franchise player.
The other Dec starting RB Montgomery did better with 10.5 pts but
that’s only because Herbert (Bas) is out to injury so it’s highly
uncertain Montgomery’s 2023 value is anything to get excited
about. The Rams have had a difficult season on offense, but
what about their defense? Dec only drafted one defense so they
had to rely on the Rams every single week and it’s been horrible
with the Rams being close to the bottom at DEF15, only 0.3 pt per
game ahead of the Packers and Chargers so they have a chance to
finish dead last. If there was one defense one would not want
to rely on every week, it would be the Rams.
The Admirals crashed to last place with a league-low and season-low
82.75 pts. Coincidentally the previous low for the league was
84.5 pts, also from the same Adm in week #6. Because of their
bad week, Adm were unable to capitalize on Dec’s weakness this week
and dropped to 4 rank-points behind Dec in the standings in 6th
place. With K Murray on bye, Adm had to choose between D
Watson and Tannehill. It would have been justifiable to start
Watson after his long suspension but Adm went the safe route with
Tannehill who easily outscored Watson 14.25 pts to 3 pts so it was
the right call. At RB Chubb has not been able to keep up with
Josh Jacbos (Bas) and Chubb’s status as RB2 in the PQBFL seems
cemented by Chubb’s own slowdown which leaves him far behind
Jacobs. Chubb scored 6.5 pts this week which was the second
time in three games that he could not reach 7 pts. Adm has not
had a viable second RB to start for many weeks due to D Harris’
injury, and James Robinson has not panned out with the Jets.
This week Robinson only scored 0.75 pt in the starting lineup.
The situation is equally poor at WR with all 6 WRs failing to reach
double digits (one of them injured); D Samuel was the best of the
bad lot with 9 pts and co-starter Waddle was the worst with 1.25
pts. The only player to show up for Adm was C Watson who had
his 4th straight game of 17.5 pts or more with 21.5 pts this
week. Defense was terrible like offense for Adm with scores
ranging from 3.5 pts for the Colts to 7 pts for Byard.
