Week #18

That’s a wrap on the 2023 season!  OldNo7 played the final week as a victory lap because the championship was already in the bag, and crushed the Bros once again to finish the season a whopping 19 rank-points ahead in the standings for a perfect ending to the season.   Old only won two weeks which was less than Beaud (6 wins), Prof (4 wins), and FE (3 wins), but Old finished in the blue 11 out of 18 weeks during the season and in the red only once.  Old was dragged down for weeks due to having a subpar college player who also missed games to injury but once college football ended Old was able to easily put Beaud to pasture.  Old ends the season with the QB2 (Dak), RB1 (CMC), WR1 (Ty Hill), and WR4 (Amon-Ra).  Dak was probably the best bargain of the group because he was not even cut.

The BeaudoinBrothers’ season finished in catastrophic fashion with a second last place in the last 5 weeks and 4th time in the red during that period.  Not that Beaud really cared in week #18 because Beaud was locked into second place and had already traded their 7th round pick to Dec so a bad result in week #18 only affected Dec, not Beaud.  The Bros’ coach did the noble thing however and still fielded a regular lineup to try to win but with Kelce rested so the Bros did not have a TE.  Also Hurts was horrible before being pulled early and finished with a negative score.  Only Stroud showed up to play with 23.25 pts to carry his team into the playoffs.  With Hurts having a moderately disappointing season as QB6 he’s probably not worth franchise player anymore and Kelce is not getting younger so it’s not clear who the Bros can possibly franchise in 2024.  The Bros played to win in 2023 and made several picks for the present, not for the future, and they will pay the price next year.

ProfessorMJ crushed Bas in the final week to secure third place in the standings and grabbed the first pick in the 7th round of the draft next year.  Pollard had a rare good game with 12 pts but nonetheless ends the season a very poor RB22 – among the worst franchise players of the season (but not the worst, see below).  Thankfully for Prof, the scoring for the Cowboys have been going to Prof despite Pollard being below average because CD Lamb scored 2 more TDs this week and ends the year as WR2.  He should easily replace Pollard as franchise player in 2024.  It is also worth noting E Engram’s 19.75-pt effort this week who has filled in nicely during Andrews’ injury, in fact Andrews was not missed at all because Engram outplayed him on a point per game average (TE3 vs TE5) during the season.

The GloriousBastards had a chance for second place after week #16 but weeks #17-18 were a disaster with only 3 rank-points during that period so they had to settle for 4th place.  J Chase was not helped by Burrow’s injury recently and this week was typical with only 4.75 pts.  He finishes the season as WR9 which left to be desired.  With Purdy rested, Bas had to start Fields who sucked with 7 pts.  His days as a starting QB in the NFL are numbered (let alone the PQBFL), he did not get the job done this year and he’s simply not a good passer.   One rare bright spot this week was J Conner who scored 24 pts but he’s not getting younger so it’s unclear what his value will be next year.  He finished RB5 in 2023 which was a great result.  However Bas will most likely invest in Bijan who scored 18.75 pts this week to cap a disappointing season as ROO10, missing on the top 9.  Even as a RB he would only rank RB14 so an improvement is needed to harvest franchise player value.

FE did not really have a realistic shot at beating Bas, in fact even with first place this week FE would have tied Bas in the standings but would have lost due to the tie-breaker so it would not have mattered.  FE ends in 5th place, in line with a fairly average season of 75 wins 69 losses.  Ekeler had another bad week with only 4 pts and it seems ages ago that he was worth a franchise player.  He ends the season as RB23, one spot below Pollard, a truly nauseating outcome because unlike Prof, FE had franchised two guys not only one so Ekeler was far more optional than Pollard was.  Josh Allen ends the season as QB1 but did not do so in dominant fashion, turning the ball over 3 times again in an erratic season but doing enough to give the Bills the #2 seed and scoring 18.25 pts this week.

WaxOnWaxOff had to avoid a poor week in order to hold on to 6th place in front of Dec, and it was mission accomplished by finishing 4th this week so Wax ends the season one rank-point ahead of Dec (83 to 82).  Barkley had a nice final game as Wax franchise player with 19.5 pts but he might not return to Wax in 2024.  As RB8 his performance was not good enough, and it’s not even clear where he will play in 2024, maybe not in NYC.  Ju Jefferson will most likely remain as franchise player and he scored an impressive 28 pts without Cousins – in fact even with Cousins early in the season, Jefferson had not scored more than 22.25 pts.  Jefferson ends his injury-plagued season at WR5.

Because Wax finished 4th this week, Dec would have needed to finish first by a huge margin to not only tie Wax in the standings but also make a comeback in total points to win the tiebreaker.  Instead Dec finished 2nd which fell short.   J Taylor was team leader with 24.25 pts and will probably remain as franchise player.  Taylor had some rust early on but nonetheless finished as RB4 in the PQBFL.  Mahomes sat the week and Tua Tago was poor with 5.25 pts.  For a while Tago was ahead of Mahomes but he finishes the season as QB11, right behind Mahomes at QB10.  Neither of them are worth franchise players at this stage although one of them, if not both, might return as saved players.  It’s worth noting that Breece Hall had an even better week than Taylor but he was on the bench.  Hall scored 25.75 pts against the tough Pats defense and as RB6 he’s also a clear franchise player contender.  We might very well see a RB duo as franchise for Dec in 2024.

The Admirals were locked in 8th place and finished 7th this week.  Adm ends the season with a huge lead in injury points, 2661 for Adm compared to 2162 for Wax and 1907 for Ball, all other teams being far behind.  However Adm failed to beat the all-time record high of 2752 injury points set by the BeaudoinBrothers in 2021 when the Bros limped to finish in 6th place in what was the worst season in franchise history.  This week Zay Flowers was rested and Mingo was injured so Adm did not have a rookie.  Also 4/5 WRs were rested or injured so Adm could only start Olave who could not do the work of 2 WRs all by himself and scored 12.75 pts.  D Henry had Adm’s top score this week with 18.75 pts in what was possibly his final game (and lone season) in Adm uniform.  He ends the season as RB7 which was ok but not great, and with an expected decline in 2024 he’s not the hard bull that he used to be.

The Ballers finished 5th this week which was a decent score but were already locked into last place anyway.  At least it serves as having a ok pick in the 7th round next year rather than drafting towards the end of that round.  Josh Jacobs missed to injury and as RB15 he’s one more franchise RB whose days as franchise are numbered.  That said, Diggs did not do a lot better.  This week he scored a pedestrian 11.25 pts and ends the season as WR10.  So perhaps the franchise player in 2024 will be none other than L-Jax the pseudo “MVP”.  He was rested this week and ends the season QB3 which is worthy of franchise conversation.




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