Week #4

The BeaudoinBrothers finished first for the second time in 4 weeks and took sole possession of first place in the standings with a solid season-high 181.25 pts.  For the first time of the year the Bros’ top 3 players were active and healthy for 60 minutes: Hurts did not have the flu, Kelce is recovered from his knee injury, and rookie A Richardson cleared the concussion protocol.  Hurts and Richardson made their presence felt with 28.25 pts and 29 pts respectively, and while Kelce was not as dominant but least he reached a double digit score which is far better than what the Bros’ backup TEs can score, which is not much.  Before the Sunday 1pm game had even started the Bros were already in excellent position due to defense.  On TNF, Packers LB Quay Walker was tackling everything in sight with 20 pts without any sack or turnover – it was all tackles and assists.  And during the early Sunday game in London, the Jaguars defense recovered from their terrible showing one week earlier with a TD and holding the Falcons to only 7 pts.  The rest of the Bros’ defense was weak with only 11 pts combined from Buckner, L Wilson, and Delpit, but the offense did just enough to carry Beaud to victory with low double digit scores from J Cook, K Walker, D Adams, and even kicker Bass.

The GloriousBastards were headed to 4th place before MNF started but LB J Brooks took charge with a big game including 2 sacks and a total of 17.5 pts while benefiting from pedestrian games by starters from Prof and Old in that SEA-NYG matchup to sneak into second place.  Bas’ success was tied to the Cowboys’ defense performance in an exact replica of the first few weeks of the season: if DAL does well, Bas finishes top 3, if they do not, then Bas is in the red.  The Cowboys had their third monster game in 4 weeks, this time scoring 2 TDs and holding the Pats to only 3 pts for a total of 32 pts.  So far this season they scored 90 pts (avg 22.5 pts) which is more than even potential MVP player CMC (Old) who has 89.75 pts.  The only two players to have outscored Dallas this season are Ju Herbert and Josh Allen and they barely outscored DAL with 94 pts each.  Unreal.  Not only J Brooks was lights out and the Cowboys even more so, but Roquan Smith was not bad himself with 15 pts and DL Josh Sweat also beat his projection with 9 pts.  Offensive output was more modest, other than Ju Herbert scoring 20.75 pts, A Jones came back from injury but did next to nothing with 1 pt while TE Freiermuth only had 7 receiving yards and got injured.  RB Pierce and WR Chase + D Smith were all held out of the end zone so despite reasonable stats, they collectively failed to reach their projection.

ProfMJ had an outside chance of beating Beaud on MNF but the more D Jones was playing, the more Prof was sinking because of his never ending turnovers so he was going backwards such that Prof lost to Bas and almost lost against Old too.  Late in the 4th quarter D Jones who already had 3 turnovers by then, fumbled again and because it was 4th down it did not matter who recovered the ball but thankfully for Prof, the Giants recovered so it was technically not a lost fumble and that allowed Prof to hold on by a hair 0.25 pt over Old.  That MNF game illustrates how Prof will struggle to compete at the top with their trio of QBs: D Jones and Carr now rank 22nd and 24th out of 25 active QBs (ignoring K Murray and A Rodgers) while G Smith is no better than a middling backup QB, ranking QB14.  Except for the Eagles which was not overly impressive, Prof had a good day from defense with all 4 starters scoring between 8 pts and 16 pts (Garrett + Mosley + Oluokun + K Hamilton).  On offense it was the receivers which led the way with 32.75 pts from AJ Brown who finally woke up after a modest start and rose to WR6 in the league.  TE Andrews also scored twice for 20 pts and is now the best TE in the PQBFL ahead of Kelce. 

OldNo7 lost a tight matchup on MNF once again although this time it was not for first place, it was for 2nd-3rd-4th and Old was beat by both Bas and Prof and had to settle for 4th place despite scoring more than 150 pts.  Old’s weakness at the rookie position was in full display with Smith-Njigba only catching 3 passes for a paltry 5 yards on MNF and none of the backups doing better (Levis zero and Anudike-Uzomah 2 pts).  Old can also blame college QB McCall for not beating Prof because he threw 4 INTs.  The best of the week for Old was franchise player McCaffrey who was worthy of his franchise tag with 4 TDs and 35.75 pts to increase his lead as the best RB in the PQBFL by far.  If we ignore Ekeler who has only played one game, CMC leads Montgomery (Dec) by over 7 pts per game which is even more than the Cowboys’ lead at the defense position over the Bills (Beaud).  Old welcomed Kamara back from suspension and predictably he was very involved in the offense with 13 receptions and 11 carries.  The problem is that it all amounted to very little: 84 total yards which was only 3.5 yds per touch, and no TD.  It was also an off day for Ty Hill who only caught 3 passes for 6.5 pts but TE Kmet made up for him with 7-85-2 and a total of 23.25 pts.  Even going back to 2022 Kmet had never scored more than 20.25 pts (and 2021 best week was 11.25 pts, 2020 best week as rookie was 12.75 pts) so it was essentially a career game for Kmet thanks to the insanely awful Broncos defense. 

FlyingElvis could not have possibly been more average so far in 2023: 6th, 5th, 4th, and now 5th so understandably they are right in the middle after 4 weeks.  FE missed Ekeler possibly one last time before his return in week #5 but at least C Akers made his debut in MIN and scored 4.25 pts; it was not enough to move the dial.  Etienne also did not carry the load with only 6 pts.  The one who finally emerged was Josh Allen who destroyed the Dolphins with 43.75 pts and could have done even more in the second half if the game had not been so lopsided.  FE’s other passer rookie B Young did not fare as well and only scored 4.5 pts.  Of the three starting rookie QBs this year, A Richardson (Beaud) and Stroud (Wax) rank #1-2 so far but Young has not perform nearly as well with ROO10 which is not even starter level.  Defense was solid for FE this week but it was not the usual contributors because TJ Watt stood out negatively with only 3 pts, quite a contrast to his average over the first three weeks of 19.3.  This bad game dropped him to LB3 in the league.  The defensive production rather came from the Ravens who dominated the Browns and scored 21.5 pts, and B Wagner who was even more productive than his co-LB in SEA J Brooks (Bas) on MNF with 25 pts.  A Donald did not have a huge game but he had a sack to finish with a double digit score.  FE’s receivers were the sore point of the week with only 1.75 pts by A Cooper and even worse game (1.25 pt) from Kittle.  M Brown started instead of G Wilson this week but essentially had the same score (11.75 pts vs 12 pts) as his FE teammate so the choice of starter did not matter in the end. 

WaxOnWaxOff finished far behind the top 5 teams this week and a distant 6th.  Wax looked like one of the better teams post draft but we’re not even one quarter into the season and already not one, not two, not three, but FOUR teams have at least 10 rank-points lead over Wax in the standings.  It’s already hard enough to catch up with one team when trailing by double digit rank-points, but 4 teams seems quite a challenge.  Franchise player Barkley missed this week again and this was compounded by the benching of K Herbert by Wax’s coach against the worst defense in the NFL the Broncos, and as a replacement Perine and J Warren together scored only a fraction (5.75 pts) of what Herbert did (15 pts) so the coach was to blame as well.  Burrow continued his horrible play with only 2.5 pts and is stunningly the worst active QB in the PQBFL.  Considering that Ju Herbert (Bas) was drafted two spots after Burrow in the second round and that Herbert leads the entire PQBFL, this one pick alone has doomed Wax’s season.  Ju Jefferson had another good game this week with 22.25 pts but his teammate Hockenson did not with only 3 pts because for once the Vikings did not throw a ton because they only had the ball for 21 minutes (vs 39 min for the Panthers) and when they did have the ball, they uncharacteristically ran more than they threw.  And for the first time of the year the Vikings won so it’s worth asking if this is not what they need to do more of going forward.  The best news of the week for Wax was the play of CJ Stroud who destroyed the Steelers with 24.25 pts.

The week started very well for Dec on TNF when D Montgomery scored 3 times and had over 140 total yards for 26.75 pts.  However on Sunday afternoon things went south when no offensive player could crack 10 pts except for Mahomes who scored 12 but even that was only half of his projection so no reason to celebrate.  Nonetheless Dec was trending for a finish outside of the red for the first time of the season but on MNF, Dec’s Lockett was poor with only 6.5 pts and got easily beat by Wax’s Okereke (13.5 pts) so Dec finished 3.5 pts behind Wax and as a result Dec remains last in the standings.  With 2/4 RBs injured Dec had no choice of starters.  Breece Hall did all he could but with only 9 touches (6 rushes and 3 receptions) he could not create miracles so his 69 yds were decent in the circumstances.  WR Waddle returned from his concussion but he seemed to have taken the week off with only 6.25 pts.  Concussion or not, he has been quite a disappointment for Dec so far with only a ranking of WR32.  At TE Pitts started but he’s a lost cause.  He was already unimpressive with a ranking of TE12 after three weeks and this week he had his worst game of the season with only 3 pts to drop further to TE14 – quite an expensive 4th round pick who does not even seem to be the top TE on his own team considering how Jonnu Smith is outplaying him.  Pitts was drafted with 2024 in mind but it’s worth wondering if his value next year will amount to much.  After seeing rookie Achane explode in week #3, the coach left him on the bench again – almost a criminal act.  Achane responded with 21 pts while Dec started a rookie TE instead – oh the horror.  LaPorta scored 6.75 pts which has cost Dec one rank. 

The Admirals finished in the bottom 2 for the third straight week to continue their downward spiral since finishing in the blue in week #1.  Adm ranks second in the PQBFL in injury points and the situation is not about to improve with bye weeks right around the corner.  This week it was announced that Kyler Murray would not come off the PUP list when he is eligible, and to make matters worse now D Watson is injured.  That left Adm with only one choice as starting QB and it’s not a great one, with Tannehill struggling so far this year.  Fortunately this week he was not bad, in fact the Titans disposed of the Bengals but nonetheless 10.25 pts from the QB position is nothing to write home about.  In fact in that game, the Titans did most of their damage via D Henry who had his best week of the season for Adm with 23 pts to climb back up to RB6.  The problem is that Adm does not have another viable RB to start.  J Gibbs was elevated to RB but he’s still playing second fiddle behind D Montgomery and only scored 4.25 pts this week while Montgomery did most of the scoring.  But that situation pales in comparison to the state of affairs at WR for Adm.  With M Williams out for the year, Adm started Olave and Higgins and they combined for 3.75 pts, an abysmal result by all measures.  While they will not earn injury points, Olave and Higgins are affected by their QB playing injured: D Carr (Prof) and Burrow (Wax).  On the bench Adm had a couple of Chiefs WRs Toney and Skyy Moore who combined for the exact same score as the starters 3.75 pts so there was no way out this week.  To round out the receiving suckness for Adm, TE Knox only scored 1.5 pt in a game where Josh Allen could not be stopped – wow. 

The Ballers finished last for the first time of the season with 105 pts and were caught by Adm and now tied in 7th place in the standings.  The injury situation for Ball is even worse than for Adm with Ball leading the PQBFL by a wide margin over teams who rank 2-3-4 in injury points.  This week L Jackson was not to blame with 27.25 pts which was the third consecutive week where he scored more than 20 pts, so the injury to A Rodgers will not be as painful as at other positions if L-Jax can keep this up.  Ball is looking forward to C Kupp returning however because while Diggs continues to perform like 2 WRs (32 pts this week), D Samuel was hurt and played like a decoy this week with only 0.25 pt and not even catching a pass.  Also looking at the stats of Puka Nacua who is temporarily replacing Kupp as Stafford’s favorite weapon, Ball can only salivate at the upcoming soothing effect that Kupp will have on Ball’s starting lineup.  At LB both Shaq Thompson and J Jewell where injured and Ball started M Golden by default and he laid an egg.  That bum does not belong in the PQBFL – he ranks LB37 out of 40 so far.  At DB Ju Simmons missed another game and backup Sauce only scored 3 pts, which was the third time in 4 weeks that he had that exact result.  At RB Jeff Wilson might come back from his injury soon which is good news, plus Josh Jacobs finally came alive with 16.5 pts this week so there is some hope for improvement.  But J Wilson better come back as early as week #5 because Javonte Williams just got hurt and Cordarelle was a healthy scratch this week so the cupboards are bare for Ball at the RB position.





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