Week #7

ProfessorMJ destroyed the competition with a season-high 203.25 pts to easily finish in first place this week.  Prof scored a total of 9 TDs not counting college, with contributions from both offense and defense.  To kick things off on TNF, in a sign of things to come LB Oluokun scored a TD on an INT return along with 14 tackles + assists for 27.5 pts and Prof never looked back.  M Garrett had the exact same score 27.5 pts but instead of a TD he had 2 sacks, 2 forced fumbles, and one blocked FG and he was easily the difference maker in a tight game won by his team.  The Eagles defense had a very low projection due to their matchup against the Dolphins but they surprised by holding the Fins to only 10 pts and less than 250 total yards.  On offense, M Andrews scored 2 TDs on top of AJ Brown who had 1 TD but with better stats than Andrews (10-137 for Brown), and on MNF Addison put the final exclamation point to end the week just like it started with an even higher score than Oluokun, with Addison scoring 2 TDs of his own with 29 pts to climb up to ROO4 in the league.

OldNo7 finished in the top 2 for the fourth time in 7 weeks and now sit atop the standings by a slim margin over Prof and Beaud.  From memory Old has never been in first place as late as week #7 in the entire history of this long-suffering franchise which is currently in its 24th PQBFL season.  Could this finally be the year that Old wins the crown?  After the games last week, McCaffrey seemed to have been the first notable injury for Old this season but it was a false alarm, he played on MNF and easily outscored Aiyuk (Beaud) to secure second place in what looked like a tight matchup before the game started but in the end it was not.  On offense all Old starters scored double digits (except Kmet) even including rookie Smith-Njigba who took advantage of DK Metcalf’s absence (Wax) to have his best game of the year with 14 pts.  Kamara also had his best game with 14.75 pts while Ty Hill scored over 20 pts for the 5th time in 7 games.  As noted above the only exception was Kmet who had a goose egg despite the Bears scoring 30 pts – perhaps Kmet has chemistry with Fields but not with the Bears backup QB.  On defense Old’s coach benched the 49ers defense because they were playing against the Vikings, and instead started the Browns against the Colts.  While the latter were involved in a high scoring game, nonetheless the Browns scored a key TD and created 4 turnovers so they easily beat the 49ers and this coaching call alone was the difference between 2nd and 3rd place. 

The BeaudoinBrothers had a decent third place but lost out against their two main competitors in the standings so it was not an entirely satisfactory result.  The Bros did not expect to finish at the top this week with CJ Stroud on bye but thankfully backup rookie TE Kincaid had by far his best game of the year with 12.75 pts thanks to 8 receptions for 75 yds.  Veteran TE Kelce was the top scorer of the week for Beaud with 25.75 pts with a monster game racking up almost 180 receiving yards.  Only one other Beaud starter could reach 20 pts this week and it was Hurts who did so by being a bit banged up but 22 pts almost matched his projection.  His score could have been better but he had two more turnovers which is in stark contrast to his 2022 season where he was mostly playing mistake-free football.  The Bros’ WRs were an issue this week, Aiyuk disappointed with only 7.75 pts despite Deebo Samuel (Ball) being injured, and D Adams did not reach 10 pts even though the Raiders played from behind all game and had to throw.  On defense, L David had another start with L Wilson on bye and he delivered again with 15.5 pts.  David might stick around the starting lineup a bit longer than expected because he’s now surprisingly ranking ahead of Wilson, LB14 vs LB17.  The Bills defense were a big let down, they had a high projection against the toothless Pats offense but the Bills allowed 29 pts and could not even stop the Pats in the last 2 minutes after the Bills had taken the lead so they are the prime reason why the Bills lost. 

WaxOnWaxOff finished in the middle three (4th-5th-6th) for the sixth consecutive week with 4th place and is now surprisingly within reach of FE and Bas, only 4 and 5 rank-points behind those two teams in the standings, despite injuries hitting Wax more than others.  This week LB Bolton came back to Wax’s starting lineup after having missed 3 games but he got re-injured after scoring 9 points and now he’s lost for several weeks.  Rookie A Richardson acquired by trade was supposed to come back in 4-8 weeks but now he’s out for the rest of the year so no help is on the way.  With rookie Roschon Johnson also injured, Wax started Musgrave who scored 5.5 pts but he too got injured in the 4th quarter and will probably miss a couple of weeks.  RB Barkley played and scored a TD for 13.75 pts but got banged up again, he might not miss time but it cannot possibly be positive for his upcoming outlook.  Wax’s two best scores of the week were Hockenson 15.25 pts on MNF thanks to 11 receptions and C Kirk on TNF who scored the game-winning TD late in the 4th quarter for a total of 15.5 pts.  After week #1 it seemed that perhaps the WR1 in Jax would be Ridley (Beaud) not Kirk, but after 7 weeks Kirk is easily outscoring Ridley 11.7 to 8.0. 

The Decepticons finished in 5th place and lost a tight contest against Wax for 4th place because on MNF RB E Mitchell did not do squat (negative yardage) even with CMC not being 100%.  Mitchell’s projection was not that high but if he had only scored 2.5 pts Dec would have finished fourth instead of fifth.  It did not help that D Montgomery was injured and that Breece Hall was on bye so clearly Dec lost one rank due to this, not to mention the GM having drafted 3 DLs with the same bye week so Dec had not one, but two goose eggs this week.  After the first 6 weeks Mahomes did not look like his dominant self but the Dec coach stuck with him rather than start Tua Tago and this paid off this week with Mahomes finally having a big game with 36.25 pts while Tago did not get into the expected shootout in Philly and was limited to 12.25 pts on the bench.  J Taylor started slow after coming back from injury but he now seems fully recovered and had his best game of the season with 15 pts.  At the rookie position, with Achane out for many weeks and after LaPorta was elevated to TE, not much remains but at least Jayden Reed scored a short TD this week to beat his modest projection.  On defense the leader of the week was Z Franklin; he continues to lead the PQBFL among all individual defenders, this week his 12 pts were adequate but a bit short of his season average of 14.7.

The Ballers finished 6th with 120 pts and avoided the red but lost ground against both Dec and Wax, the two closest teams in the standings.  After a sub-par week 5-6, QB L Jackson had a breakout game with 33.75 pts against a decent defense (Lions) so he easily crushed his projection and had by far the best score of the week for Ball.  He scored almost double what the second best did this week which was Waller who scored a TD in addition to good stats 7-98 for a total of 17.75 pts.  Up until this week Waller had not made waves this season but he quietly ranks TE4 in the league so far, behind heavyweights Kelce-Andrews-Hockenson so Ball can be fairly satisfied by Waller’s contribution so far.  Rookie R Rice also had a good game with 13 pts and has now moved up to ROO9 ahead of Bijan (Bas) so Rice now qualifies for starter-level rookie since he has cracked the top 9.  At RB Josh Jacobs had his worst game of the year with 4.25 pts but the good news is that for RB2 which has been a problem all year for Ball, Javonte had his best game of the season in contrast to Jacobs.  Javonte did not score a TD but he ran effectively with 5.5 yards per carry and almost totalled 100 yards from scrimmage.  

FlyingElvis finished in the red for the first time this season and saw their hopes of a 2023 PQBFL title take a big hit in the last 2 weeks, dropping from 5 rank-points away from first place to now 12 rank-points behind.  One would have to check the record books, but a double-digit rank-point comeback has possibly never been achieved.  FE did not expect miracles this week because rookie B Young was on bye, but FE certainly expected better from Mims than catching no pass at all, and rushing for negative 11 yards.  WRs were equally problematic, A Cooper only scored 4 pts despite the Browns scoring 39 pts, and M Brown was barely better with 5.25 pts.  At least both of them should see their regular QB come back from injury in the next couple of weeks – Watson and K Murray have been missed by FE’s WRs.  RBs were a mixed affair, Etienne scored two more TDs to consolidate his spot as the second best RB in the PQBFL, but Ekeler does not seem fully recovered from his injury and scored a modest 3.75 pts, the most striking being that he only caught one pass for one yard.  QB J Allen has not put it all together yet, he leads the entire PQBFL with 22.6 pts average so it’s hard to argue that he has not been worth a franchise player spot, but this week again he turned the ball over twice and his comeback attempt against the Patriots was too little too late; Allen did next to nothing the entire first half.

Instead of bouncing back following last place in week #6, Bas had another terrible week with 8th place which put a massive dent in Bas’ chances (even worse than FE), now trailing the top 3 teams in the PQBFL by 10.5-11 rank points.  The 2023 season is quickly unraveling after Bas was sitting pretty in first place after 5 weeks.  This week Freiermuth was injured and Okonkwo was injured so Bas had an incomplete lineup.  In addition, with Bijan touching the ball only once all game long, it was pretty much another dead spot in the Bas lineup.  Fields missed the game to injury but regular Herbert starter was active.  A high scoring affair was expected in KC but Herbert came up small with only 7.75 pts to kill Bas’ chances.  Ju Herbert was the second highest scoring player in the PQBFL as of one week ago barely behind Josh Allen but because of this week alone he dropped to QB6 – a below average starting QB.  At WR J Chase was on bye so it certainly did not help Bas’; backup Pickens was fine with 10.25 pts but C Watson was poor with 3-27-0.  Defense was the only thing that helped Bas avoid another last place, J Brooks scored 14.5 pts, and Fitzpatrick + Josh Sweat also joined him in the double digits, while Roquan Smith barely missed the cut with 9.5 pts. 

The Admirals finished in the bottom 2 for the sixth consecutive week, and considering what Adm’s projections were before the week started this result was entirely expected.  Early in the week the projections were below 100 but after it became apparent that D Watson would be able to play, in the end Adm did not have the dis-honor of having a sub 100 projection after all.  However as it turned out, Watson would have been better off staying on the bench because at least Adm would have earned injury points.  Instead Watson started but quickly exited before scoring any points which resulted in Adm scoring less than 100, as the projections had warned.  At RB with D Harris and Chubb injured plus D Henry on bye, Adm had to start Penny who was a healthy scratch again.  Only J Gibbs could save face with an impressive 17.5 pts despite the Lions getting crushed by the Ravens.  Gibbs was by far the best player for Adm this week, a distant second were the Dolphins defense who scored a TD and managed a respectable 11.5 pts against the high powered Eagles, and DB Winfield who also scored 11.5 pts and continues to lead all DBs in the league, being one of the very few bright spots to Adm’s season.  Adm now leads all other teams by almost 200 injury points so at least there is next year’d draft to look forward to.





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