Week #8

FlyingElvis won for the second time in 4 weeks but with OldNo7’s continued success, FE remains more than one rank-point per week remaining in the season, lagging by 11 rank-points with 10 weeks to go, which is hard to overcome.  FE was able to snatch first place this week despite Corum being on bye and FE only having drafted one college player so in the end FE was not dinged for the strategy.  Almost everybody on offense outscored their projection except rookie B Young who nonetheless came very close with 13.5 pts and it was his second best game and first win of his NFL career so hard to complain.  The two main contributors for FE were Etienne who scored 22.25 pts thanks to another long TD this week and Kittle who scored 17.25 pts despite not even scoring a TD because his stats were impressive: 9 rec for 149 yds.  This was a great last minute lineup substitution by the FE coach to bench Goedert which was the difference between first place and 4th place on this call alone.  Defense was less impressive but got the job done anyway; A Donald, Wagner, and D James scored double digits.  It’s only TJ Watt who disappointed with 5.5 pts and the Ravens were so-so with 7 pts against the Cards. 

OldNo7 finished top 2 for the third straight week and expanded their lead in the standings to 2 rank-points.  But the best news of the week might be the potential emergence of rookie Will Levis who scored 37.5 pts on the bench.  He was supposed to share duties with co-QB Malik Willis but it did not really happen.  It seems the Titans still intend for Tannehill to return as starter when healthy but that might seem foolish.  Time will tell, also Levis will not play the Falcons every week but his first game was impressive nonetheless.  Considering that Old’s best rookie Smith-Njigba only ranks 14th best rookie in the PQBFL, it is one position of weakness for Old and if filled by a top option such as Levis then it might be what Old needs to run away in the standings and leave Beaud and Prof in the dust.  Cousins was lost to injury so his score of 21.75 pts this week will be his final contribution, but with Dak and Lawrence as backups, Old can certainly cope.  Old was boosted this week by continued top production from CMC (19.75 pts), Kamara (21 pts), and Ty Hill (22.5 pts); those guys are not slowing down.  Old could have finished first if Amon-Ra did not play at less than 100% because he was ill and scored 11.25 pts on MNF which was less than his projection, and also Old had an incomplete lineup like FE because college QB McCall was injured.

ProfessorMJ tied Beaud for third place at exactly 169 pts and lost ground to Old in first place.  While the arrow is pointing up for Old’s rookie situation as mentioned above, it’s the opposite for Prof due to Cousins’ injury which will almost certainly be negative for Addison.  The Prof star rookie produced at a high level perhaps for one last time, scoring 18 pts and increasing his season average to 15.4 which would be equivalent to WR6 meaning excellent value not only as a rookie but also as a WR.  With Cousins out and Jefferson’s return to health perhaps a couple of weeks away, the arrow is definitely pointing down.  Besides Addison, the only other major big game on offense was AJ Brown who scored 27.5 pts to offset some of Hurts’ fireworks (Beaud) while the others in Prof’s lineup were mediocre or disappointing such as Pollard only scoring 4.5 pts in a game where the Cowboys led all the way and scored 43 pts.  Pollard has dropped to RB19, right outside starting material, which is quite poor for a franchise player.  Prof did better on the defensive side this week with everybody scoring at least 9 pts, led by Oluokun with 15 pts and the Jets beating the Giants solely with their defense and scored 13.5 pts. 

The BeaudoinBrothers had a chance to beat FE and finish first this week but D Adams fell flat on his face on MNF with only one reception for 11 yds for a dreadful 1.5 pt display of uselessness.  He was not the only one on offense to come up short, the Bros’ RBs Cook and Walker only combined for 11.75 pts and Kelce with the rest of the Chiefs were not in their element with only 8.75 pts.  Only Hurts put up good numbers with 33 pts and climbed from QB4 to QB2 in the PQBFL, which is not far from where he was ranked by most people before the season started. The Bros were in the hunt prior to MNF mostly due to individual defenders who all beat their projection.  Dugger was the best of the lot with one INT and one sack, L Wilson also had an INT and more tackles than Dugger, while L David did not have a turnover but he had the most tackles+assists of all with 14.  Buckner also made his presence felt with a sack and forced fumble.  Only the Bills did not outperform but 9 pts was still not too bad. 

The GloriousBastards scored an excellent 161.25 pts this week but unfortunately it was the highest scoring week of the season and Bas got beat by all 4 teams above them in the standings.  Not even the Cowboys scoring 20 pts could not save Bas this time.  They could not make up for duds from Josh Sweat (2 pts) and M Fitzpatrick (2 pts) although for the latter it was injury-related because Fitzpatrick got hurt and exited the game early.  On offense another one who was responsible for Bas falling short was Pierce who only scored 3.75 pts.  At least this week he outscored his teammate Singletary but that’s not saying much.  Being stuck in a RB by committee on this Houston team is not ideal and Pierce fell to RB27 in the league.  Aaron Jones who was benched was even worse with 2.25 pts and Ja Williams as well (3 pts).  The only RB who was worth anything this week was R White who showed signs of life with over 100 yds from scrimmage but most of it was because he was active in the passing game with 7-70; his rushing remained mediocre with only 39 yds on the ground.  Most of Bas’ offensive scoring this week was via the air with 27.75 pts by Herbert, 20.5 pts from Chase, and 18.75 pts from D Smith who has been struggling in the shadow of AJ Brown since week #3 but at least this week he could score more than 11 pts for the first time since he did it in weeks #1-2.

Prior to this week, the Decepticons’ highest score of the season had been 154.5 pts in week #5 which is also the only week that Dec finished in the blue, and this week Dec almost scored as highly with 152 pts but it was only worth 6th place.  Dec finished less than 20 pts away from second place so it’s very clear who could have made a different but did not – Mahomes.  He was fantastically dreadful against a bottom of the barrel defense, being victim of 3 turnovers and had no TD for a grand total of 0.5 pt against the Broncos.  Mahomes alone cost Dec several ranks this week.  The rest of Dec’s offense was in much better shape except perhaps J Taylor 8 pts which was not great, but B Hall carried the load for the Jets with 15.75 pts.  Both Dec starting WRs Lockett and Waddle had a good game with 18 pts and 20 pts, respectively. However as it’s been the case many times this season, Dec started the wrong WR, leaving Hopkins on the bench and he went off for 32.25 pts.  The weekly choice of WR is the main reason why Dec is dead last in coaching efficiency this season, by far.  Teams ranked #1 to #8 are in a fairly tight range from 85.2% (FE) down to 80.3% (Old) but Dec is the big laggard at 75.3%.  I guess the QB choice played a role too such as this week Tua Tago scoring 25.25 pts on the bench which hurt even more considering Mahomes’ suckness. 

The outcome for Wax this week was similar to Dec, perhaps even worst: Wax scored a season-high 149.75 pts but nonetheless finished in the red.  Burrow returned from his bye week in his greatest form of the season after being hobbled early on and scored 28.75 pts in an impressive road win against the tough 49ers defense.  Burrow is still only QB16 in the league but that’s simply because of his slow start, going forward he has the looks of top 5.  In New York the Giants tried to nurse a small lead as long as they could against the Jets without throwing the ball much if at all, which meant relying on Barkley on nearly every offensive play.  Barkley had a mind boggling 39 touches in that game and it was pretty much 3 yards and a cloud of dust every time.  He was able to reach double digits due to heavy volume but he did not reach his projection.  His biggest accomplishment might be that he did not fumble but it still was not enough for the Giants to hang on for the win.  One who will not complain of over usage is RB Jaylen Warren who only had 5 of the Steelers’ 18 carries for 19 yds plus a handful of short receptions.  He remains less involved than Harris (Old) but also not producing much on the few times that he carries the rock.  Wax will have to be patient at RB because K Herbert is not eligible to return from injury until week #10.  TE Hockenson scored 15.25 pts this week but similar to Old and Prof, Wax will feel the aftershocks of Cousins’ injury in the next few weeks.

The Ballers finished a very distant 8th, more than 40 pts behind Dec and Wax.  Part of the reason why Ball barely scored above 100 pts is that Waller got injured during the game but realistically even if he scored 4 TDs it would not have changed the rankings so the problem of his injury will be more in the next few weeks (rather than this week) where Ball will be forced to start Hayden Hurst who hardly scores any points such as this week he had a goose egg on the bench.  L Jackson was also quiet this week despite the Ravens scoring 31 pts.  Jackson did not turn the ball over, but he only had 1 TD and limited yardage for 11.25 pts.  The Ballers’ RBs were adequate with 10.75 pts for Jacobs and 13 pts for Javonte Williams, but the problem was more about the WRs with Diggs scoring 5 pts less than his projection and Cupp having a paltry 4 receptions for 21 yds despite 10 targets.  Defense was also nothing special for Ball with nobody scoring double digits, not even the Bengals who had a good game and beat the 49ers.  They scored 8 pts which was higher than their projection by a moderate margin but still far from being a difference maker.  Chris Jones, Golden, and Sauce all scored 5 pts or less.

The Admirals finished last for the 4th time in 8 weeks and again nowhere near finishing out of the bottom two which has not happened since week #1.  Adm unsurprisingly had the most injury points this week and no active QB to start.  Adm only had two active RBs but at least they did well with Henry scoring 10 pts and rookie (now RB) Gibbs being impressive with 22.75 pts on MNF.  On the other side of the field in that MNF game, Maxx Crosby was also excellent with 14.5 pts to consolidate his DL2 ranking right behind Myles Garrett (Prof).  But Gibbs and Crosby’s heroics at the finish line were not enough to get Adm out of last place in the final game of the week.  It was not enough to overcome the incomplete lineup, not only missing a QB but also all three TEs were injured.  Thank god there were no bye weeks because it would have been worse for Adm.  One position where Adm has 4/5 players healthy is WR but K Toney started and was barely better than an injured guy, scoring only one point: 1 reception for 4 yards, plus one carry for negative yards.





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