Week #12

The BeaudoinBrothers finished first for the second straight week but once again beat OldNo7 only by one spot so this week did very little to create separation at the top of the standings.  Before the trade deadline, Beaud acquired RB David Montgomery from Dec by spending some 2024 draft capital and it paid off immediately with Montgomery scoring 12.75 pts while backup RBs did not do enough such that if Montgomery was not in Beaud’s lineup, Beaud would not have beat Old by a small margin of 3.5 pts so this 2-rank point swing vs Old could loom large towards the end of the season.  Beaud was trailing Old big in the projections before the Sunday games started but the Bros made it rain on Sunday with 5 TDs from Hurts, 3 TDs from Stroud, and even R Stevenson who had a rare start contributed with a TD of his own.  Defense was less impressive with only 2 pts from Dugger, also Lavonte David was injured so the Bros started Quay Walker who had his second worst game of the season with only 6 pts.

Unlike Beaud, Prof, and Bas who all attempted to improve their team at the trade deadline, OldNo7 stayed put on their stacked roster.  While Old has very few holes to fill, there is one hole that has remained wide open in the last five weeks: the college position.  McCall missed the game again this week causing Old to post another goose egg on the scoreboard and this week was more painful than others due to the tight matchup against Beaud.  Except for week #11 where not having a college starter probably did not make an impact on the rankings, in weeks #8-9-10 it possibly did with Old finishing behind the team ahead by 4.75 pts, 4.5 pts, and 2.75 pts.  So in total the lack of healthy college player could have cost up to 5 rank-points against Beaud because this week might have been worth 2.  Old had built a huge lead after the Thursday and Friday games with 39.75 pts from Prescott, 21.5 pts from CMC, and 20 pts from Ty Hill.  Only Amon-Ra failed to reach his projection in the early games but he was not bad with a stat line of 9-95.  Unfortunately things unraveled on Sunday with the Browns defense getting surprisingly beat by the Broncos and finished with only 4.5 pts while the 49ers were on the bench with 19 pts which hurt Old tremendously.  Also rookie Levis had another maddening game with only 5.75 pts so he has only scored 30 pts total in the last 4 weeks after making Old’s GM salivate with 37.5 pts in week #8 in his NFL debut – what a tease.  A productive Levis will be critical for Old to win the PQBFL and recently it’s simply not happening right now so Old needs to turn the tide.

The GloriousBastards finished in the top 3 for the third straight week but unfortunately with Beaud and Old doing just as well if not better, Bas’ chances to win the league have not improved, in fact they have deteriorated.  Bas is now almost 20 rank points behind first place so they will need to focus on the race for 3rd, 4th, and 5th.  Bas has jumped ahead of FE this week and moved to 5 rank-points behind struggling Prof, so third place is well within reach.  However despite their recent success, Bas might have shot themselves in the foot by giving up Justin Herbert to Prof.  Do they really trust Justin Fields that much?  Fields was error-prone this week with 2 turnovers and no TD for 5.75 pts.  Herbert was not much better this week but going forward it seems Herbert is the far safer starter and in fact he still ranks QB4 in the league whereas Fields should be a backup QB not a starter, as he ranks QB14 in the PQBFL.  Or perhaps Bas trusts Purdy who is better at QB6, but nonetheless the trade seems to have improved Prof more than Bas.  Newly acquired Conner started for Bas but did next to nothing with 2.5 pts.  Mike Evans could help Bas down the stretch and he scored 21.5 pts on the bench this week, but will Bas bench J Chase or DeVonta Smith often enough to make this trade worthwhile?  Smith scored 19.25 pts this week so it’s not like Evans would have made much of a difference, and it will often be hard to bench J Chase even with Burrow out for the year.

Admirals continued to pile up injury points with a league-high 214 pts (ahead of Wax with 183) but Adm nonetheless trends up despite the headwinds.  Adm had finished last 4 times out of 6 from week 3 to 8 but now in the last 4 weeks Adm has finished out of the bottom 3 for the third time.  Adm scored 146.25 pts which was a season-high for Adm and good enough for 4th place.  The Cards got blown out but K Murray did not turn the ball over and scored twice for 18.5 pts so in the end he had a respectable result.  Rookie Zay Flowers put the Chargers away with a late TD in addition to another TD he had scored in the first half.  D Henry had not done much in weeks 10-11 but he came back to life against the poor Panthers defense with 2 TDs and 17.25 pts.  Even TE Everett who is starting for Adm only due to injuries contributed with 4 receptions and a TD for 11 pts.  Adm was held back this week by the lack of production from J Gibbs who only scored 6 pts on Turkey day as the Lions got upset by the Packers. 

WaxOnWaxOff finished in the middle this week with 136 pts and remains locked in 6th place in the standings, far ahead of Dec and far behind FE.  It was the first week since losing Burrow and this week it’s not the QB position which was a problem in fact Stafford scored 25.5 pts which is better than what Burrow scored all year except on a couple of occasions.  The problem was more about position players RBs-WRs who all underperformed, three out of 4 scoring less than half of their projection.  Jaylen Warren’s surge as the top RB in Pittsburgh seems to have been premature as he was limited to 2 pts in part due to a lost fumble while N Harris (Old) was much better with 13.25 pts.  S Barkley did not fumble but his yardage was even worse than Warren and he finished the game with only 4.25 pts.  DK Metcalf was barely better with 4.5 pts and the Hawks got neutralized by the 49ers defense.  Wax had more success on defense thanks to 15.5 pts from the Pats despite losing the game, 16 pts from Nick Bosa, and 14.5 pts from Okereke.

At the mid-point of the season FlyingElvis still had an outside chance to win the PQBFL by trailing first place by 10 rank-points but in the last 3 weeks FE has been the worst team in the PQBFL besides the Ballers with only 11 rank-points for FE, tied with Dec during that period who also has 11 rank-points from weeks #10-12.  FE has finally fallen behind Bas in the standings and now sits in 5th place.  The PQBFL’s top scorer Josh Allen did all he could against the Eagles with 37 pts but that was still not enough to propel FE near the top because Etienne and A Cooper both got injured during their game and were limited to 7 pts and 2.75 pts, respectively.  But injuries cannot explain the poor game from Ekeler with 2.25 pts (one fumble lost) and Kittle with 3.75 pts.  Even the freakin’ kicker Riley Patterson had only one kick to attempt this week (an extra point) and he missed it.  Rookie B Young disappointed again with 5 pts but now that the Panthers’ coaching staff has been wiped clean perhaps he can improve down the stretch.  FE had moderate success on defense this week with 17 pts from the Ravens and 15 pts from TJ Watt.

The Decepticons had an uneventful week with 7th place, pretty much to the image of the full season where Dec also ranks and will most likely end the year – 7th.  Mahomes was adequate but not stellar as it’s often been the case this year with 22.5 pts but this time the difference is that backup Tua Tago would have been a far worse choice of starter with only 4 pts on the bench which means that for the full year Mahomes has now caught up with Tago (both 18.5 pts per week on average).  J Taylor had a good game with 2 TDs but Breece Halls remains stuck in neutral with 5.5 pts this week which was the 3rd time in 4 weeks that he could not reach double digits.  With Achane injured, rookie Jayden Reed picked up the slack with a TD and 12.5 pts and also WR Waddle had a good game with 13.5 pts but once again it was Ty Hill (Old) who had the TD unfortunately for Dec, not Waddle.  Dec finished only 1.25 pt behind FE and the finger can be pointed at TE Schultz who was horrendous with only 1 reception for 2 yds and kicker Zuerlein who missed an extra-point and had a negative score. 

After avoiding the red in the first 10 weeks, Prof finished 8th for the second straight time and has been virtually knocked out of the race now, trailing Beaud and Old by 14 and 12 ranks-points.  It could be possible to catch one of them if they suddenly trip and fall, but catching both seems unsurmountable.  Now that Prof acquired Ju Herbert, D Carr might have made his final start for Prof and it was not a good one with only 6 pts.  Pollard, AJ Brown, and CD Lamb all scored a TD but their stats were not that good such that all three together underformed their projection by 3 pts as a group.  Injuries are slowly starting to catch up Prof with M Andrews out this week and backup Engram was pedestrian with 7.25 pts; also star DL Garrett got injured and scored only 4.5 pts.  Prior to this week he was only 0.1 pt behind Crosby (Adm); despite B Burns being a quite good replacement (DL5 in the league), he’s not Garrett.  Another disappointment for Prof this week was the lack of production from D Swift who only scored 7 pts in a game where the Eagles lit up the scoreboard with 37.

The Ballers scored more than 100 pts for the first time since week #8 but unfortunately week #12 was also the highest scoring week in the PQBFL since week #8 so Ball was last again – for the fourth straight week.  The Ballers had plenty of chances to finish out of last because unlike previous weeks there were several bright spots.  The unlikely leader of the week was rookie Rashee Rice with 20.25 pts who might have a chance to become a reliable weapon for Mahomes considering the numerous drops by other WRs.  RB Jacobs also scored a long TD and finished the game with 18.25 pts to easily beat his projection.  Diggs also beat his projection with a TD and 6 receptions.  The Ravens keep winning but surprisingly it’s not because of L Jackson who was quiet once again with 12.5 pts.  Jackson has only scored more than 12.5 once in the last 5 weeks and has not justified his draft status as a third round pick.  There were numerous other holes in Ball’s starting lineup such as LB Golden with a goose egg so nothing new to comment about this chump from what was written last week, no healthy TE to start (0/3) for Ball, and Cooper Kupp being stunningly a non-factor with only 3.75 pts in a game where Stafford threw for 4 TDs. 





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