Week #3

Before MNF it did not seem like ProfMJ was going to be able to catch up with OldNo7 in first place, but Jake Elliott made all 5 of his kicks and the Eagles defense was dominant by allowing only 174 total yards to the Bucs plus they got a safety for a total of 19.5 pts which propelled Prof to their first win of the season and they now rank first in the standings through 3 weeks.  It was not entirely smooth sailing with a rocky game from Geno Smith with only 1 TD and 1 INT for 13.5 pts, also the coach started B Robinson (5.75 pts) leaving three RBs on the bench who scored double digits (Mattison, Conner, and Swift).  In addition CD Lamb (7 pts) and M Andrews (5.75 pts) barely scored more than half of their projections so they were a drag.  However K Allen made up for their lack of production with a massive 18 rec 215 yds game plus a passing TD for 38.25 pts.  Because of this game, K Allen is the highest scoring non-QB in the league so far and he might be able to keep up the pace now that M Williams (Adm) is out for the year.  On defense M Garrett had a slow start in weeks 1-2 with only 11 pts total but he exploded for 23 pts this week. 

OldNo7 had a good chance of winning the week but just like in week #1 Old was edged at the finish line by a late surge by an opponent; Old had to settle for second place.  Old had the courage to start K Cousins and the coach was rewarded with 29.75 pts in a losing effort by the Vikings.  Cousins leads the PQBFL with an average of 25.8 pts per game so far.  Both Old’s starting RBs CMC and Pacheco scored a TD, Amon-Ra did not but beat his projection nonetheless thanks to a strong stat line of 9-102, and Ty Hill was unstoppable again with 24.75 pts.  LB TJ Edwards has been a positive surprise so far this season, he scored 19 pts this week.  His worst game was not bad at all with 12 pts in week #2 so he now ranks LB3 so far in the league.  If Old did not win this week we can point the finger at the lack of viable TE with Kmet scoring 4 pts and Njoku was barely better on the bench with 5 pts.  Old has no other TE and both of them are in the top 10 so far.  The situation is equally problematic at ROO with Smith-Njigba scoring only 1.5 pt this week and Old having nobody ranking higher than ROO19 but at least there is hope on the horizon because W Levis remains on the bench and with the Titans struggling perhaps they could move on from Tannehill at some point. 

The BeaudoinBrothers had an uneven week with several good games on offense offset by porous defense which resulted in 3rd place.  The biggest blunder of the week was starting the Jaguars defense which were expected to have a good game against the Texans at home but instead they were horrendous with 37 pts and 366 yds allowed, no turnover, no sack, and they even had a kick blocked on their own special teams to end up in negative territory.  Meanwhile the Bills defense was benched and scored a whopping 32.5 pts.  The rest of the Bros’ defense was also erratic with nobody scoring more than 7.5 pts until LB Logan Wilson saved the day on MNF with 2 INTs to help Beaud beat FE.  Offense was generally quite good for Beaud this week except for missing rookie Richardson who was out and backup Kincaid only scoring 2 pts, and Hurts playing with the flu and underperforming his projection with 18.25 pts.  The leader of the week was D Adams scoring 33.5 pts and RB K Walker having a pretty good game himself as well with 23 pts to move up to second best RB in the PQBFL if we ignore a couple of RBs who have only played one game (A Jones and Ekeler). 

FlyingElvis scored 155.75 pts this week which would normally be high enough to finish in the blue but it was not worth more than 4th place this week because week #3 turned out to be the highest scoring week of the season so far.  QB J Allen did not beat his projection but at least he scored more than 20 pts, and A Cooper almost did as well with 20.75 pts but at least for Cooper it was far in excess of his projection so he provided an important boost to the FE offense.  The greatest outperformance was not even Cooper, it was a freaking kicker with Matt Gay making 4 FGs over 50 yds for 17.5 pts.  FE also received unexpected contribution from his rookie Mims who scored a meaningless TD on a kickoff return when the Broncos were already getting blown out.  The RB injury issues were directly related to FE finishing no higher than 4th because while Etienne had an adequate day with 11.5 pts, backup Gibson was useless with 24 total yards and a fumble lost for a goose egg.  FE is hoping that Cam Akers can be active for the Vikings sooner rather than later unless Ekeler comes back to health.  The best on FE’s defense was A Donald who had a strong MNF game with 13 pts but it fell short of catching up with the Bros.

The Ballers had their best result of the season so far with 138.5 pts and fifth place which allowed them to move up to 6th in the standings tied with Wax and ahead of Adm and Dec.  L Jackson was expected to be throwing the ball a lot in a new style offense this year but the results are not compelling and also not overly exciting with the Ravens losing at home against a depleted Colts team.  But at least, L Jackson was back to his old self via running (not throwing) and had over 100 rushing yards and 2 TDs on the ground which helped him to a score of 24.25 pts which was solid.  WR D Samuel benefited from Aiyuk’s injury and was targeted 12 times by Purdy and caught 6 passes for 129 yds, one of them being a TD.  Diggs also had a good stat line of 8-111 but unlike Samuel he did not score so he fell just short of his projection with 13.5 pts.  The Ballers are still missing Cooper Kupp but getting 33 pts out of the WR position was not all that bad.  What Ball needs is rather a RB but it’s not in the cards with J Jacobs having another subpar game with only 6.5 pts which was actually his best game of the season.  Jacobs is rotting as RB22 in the PQBFL at the moment.  Javonte Williams was even worse with 5.25 pts and his story was almost identical as Jacobs: it was his best game of the year and he ranks RB24 so he’s not getting the job done.  Jeff Wilson remains injured and considering how wild the Dolphins RBs are running perhaps there is hope for Ball but it’s a crowded backfield so it’s unclear how much Wilson will benefit and whether he’ll get a significant share of the pie.

WaxOnWaxOff benefited from a breakout game by rookie Stroud who scored 23.25 pts in an impressive win against the Jaguars but Wax could not do any better than 6th place.  It certainly was not Ju Jefferson’s fault for Wax’s below average week because Jefferson scored 22.25 pts and rarely has a day off, but Burrow’s health continues to affect him and he only scored 5.5 pts this week which stings.  Unlike other injuries this one was known in the preseason so it was buyer beware and it’s more difficult for Wax to blame bad luck, unlike missing S Barkley which is very painful considering that starting RBs Dillon and Herbert combined for a paltry 2.5 pts this week and that’s even with Aaron Jones (Bas) missing the game which meant the door was wide open for Dillon to capitalize on the increased opportunities.  Hockenson had a busy day with 8-78 but he lost a fumble.  The Vikings coach is very pissed off at the Vikings’ turnover woes and he mentioned that anybody could be benched so it would be interesting to see if Hockenson could ride the pine as a punishment despite leading all TEs in the PQBFL so far, 0.1 pt per game ahead of Kelce.  On defense the Patriots kept the Jets in check and allowed 10 pts and less than 200 total yards for a PQBFL score of 17.5 pts while individual defenders were all average in a tight range between 7 pts (Curl) and 10 pts (Okereke).

The Decepticons finished in the red for the third week but at least it was with the team’s highest score of the season with 132.5 pts.  The most impressive starter was rookie TE Sam LaPorta who scored 20 pts but even that was peanuts compared to 43.25 pts on the bench by rookie Achane.  In all honesty it would have been hard to start Achane considering he had not done anything in the first two weeks despite being recovered from his preseason injury LOL.  Perhaps J Taylor and Montgomery will come back from their injuries soon and that graduating a rookie RB will not be necessary, but having LaPorta + Achane might be more production at the rookie position than Dec really needs.  Dec almost graduated Kendre Miller this week which would have been a waste, nonetheless the RB situation is dire at this point for Dec with only 5.75 pts this week from E Mitchell and Br Hall combined.  At WR, with Waddle injured and the coach who decided to bench their best WR Doubs (WR17 in the PQBFL), the result from veterans D Hopkins and Lockett was poor this week with only 11.75 pts combined.  Defense had a couple of bright spots with the Chiefs easily disposing of the Bears with 16 pts thanks to 3 sacks and 2 turnovers, and Zaire Franklin continuing on his tackle rampage with 19 more points this week.  He ranks LB2 in the league so far, right behind TJ Watt.

The GloriousBastards fell from first place all the way down to fourth place in the standings because of a bad week finishing 8th.  As mentioned in this column last week, I guess the Cowboys defense are not the 1985 Bears after all.  This week they came up small with only one point in Arizona so that made a huge difference to the Bastards’ result compared to weeks 1-2.  DL Cam Jordan was nowhere to be found and scored zero and LB Warner was weak with only 4 pts.  Offense was marginally better for Bas with 31.25 pts from Ju Herbert but he lost Mike Williams (Adm) for the year so it will not help going forward.  Also J Chase was able to score 19 pts despite Burrow not being 100% but Bas fellow starting WR D Smith did not do as well with only 5.25 pts.  At RB, the injury to A Jones was painful because backup R White only scored 3 pts due to losing a fumble.  Rookie Bijan also had an off week with only 5 pts so he dropped from ROO4 after 2 weeks to now ROO7.  While college players are rarely key to any PQBFL team’s success, it’s worth mentioning that Caleb Williams was the best of all college starters this week with 10.75 pts and he is also the league’s top college scorer so far with an average of 9.8 pts per week.  Interestingly Bas also has the second best college player in the league with Jayden Daniels warming up the bench right behind C Williams with an average of 9.7.

After a good start in week #1, the Admirals crashed with 8th place in week #2 and even worse this week with last place.  The Admirals will not recover from not having Chubb although the good news was that his knee was not as destroyed as previously feared so he could still hold some decent value in 2024.  D Henry is not missing games but he seems to be playing injured, this week he only scored 3 pts which is something that almost never happened in his days as a star franchise player for the BeaudoinBrothers.  Graduating rookie Gibbs to RB was useful this week because he scored 6.75 pts which is more than what backup RBs did (Penny zero, D Harris 1.25 pt) plus Zay Flowers (who remains at the rookie position) continued to perform at the starter level with 10.5 pts which is pretty much his season average so far (10.7).  That is good enough for ROO7 tied with Bijan who was drafted far earlier than Flowers.  On MNF the pair of defenders Devin White + Winfield both scored in the double digits but it was a vain effort because Adm was already trailing too far behind other teams by then, and the 3 pts scored by Higgins also on MNF was the bigger issue that defense could not make up for.





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