The
Admirals won for the first time since 2014 week #8 with an explosive
181.75 pts. Not bad for a team who was averaging 109.1 pts per
week prior to this week. Adm benefited from Bas' last place
finish to get the maximum 6 rank-points on Bas and got out of last
place perhaps for good, now with a 4-rank points lead in the
standings. As usual Brees was the team leader with 36.25 pts in a
49-point offensive trashing of the Rams. However the difference
this week is that Brees got support from other players in the
lineup. On SNF, E Sanders and Von Miller catapulted Adm to first
place with 22 pts and 24.5 pts respectively. Kam Chancellor also
had a good game with 13 pts. He missed several games to injury,
but since coming back in week #10 he has scored at least 12.5 pts every
game. The rookie position was for a long time a big problem for
Adm, but this week D Henry took over some duties away from D Murray
(Dec) and he actually got the TD and more rushing yards too.
Henry finished with 11 pts.
OldNo7 had their best score of the season with 179 pts but fell just
short of the win. Old needed more from Wentz on MNF but Wentz was
limited to a short rushing TD and had an INT. Big Ben had a
relatively easy game in IND with 3 TDs and no turnover. L McCoy
seems to be back healthy and scored 2 TDs, a 2-pt conversion, in
addition to rushing for over 100 yards. At WR, ODB has recently
been overshadowing rookie Shepard (Wax) who was outscoring him early
this season. In week #12, ODB scored 22.75 pts while Shepard did
not have a single reception. Defense was very strong for Old this
week, with all of the Hawks, O Vernon, P Brown, and M Barron scoring
double-digits. The lowest score was 7 pts from L Collins, the one
player who was usually the defensive leader in previous weeks.
The main reason Old could not beat Adm is because of low scores from D
Martin (4.5 pts) and A Cooper (5 pts).
The BeaudoinBrothers scored an impressive 172.5 pts but it was not
better than 3rd place in what was the highest scoring week of the
season by a long shot. Beaud had the opportunity to distance
themselves considerably from Dec in first place, but only gained a
couple of rank-points despite beating Dec by a wide margin. The
Broncos defense and D Thomas did not get the job done on SNF, and A
Rodgers was unable to overcome the deficit to beat Old and Adm.
Other than D Thomas and the Broncos, it was all offense for the Bros
this week because individual defenders did poorly, accounting for only
25 pts total. On offense, rookie M Thomas continues to crush his
teammate B Cooks (Wax), scoring 26.25 pts compared to Cooks' stunning
goose egg. At RB, J-Stew scored twice and rushed for almost
100 yards, significantly beating his weekly projection. D Johnson
and M Evans had good games with 18.25 pts and 25 pts but that was a
more common occurrence for them than for J-Stew.
WaxOnWaxOff almost scored 150 pts and finished in the middle of the
pack, in a close call in front of Dec. Wax will not finish higher
than 5th in the standings this year and now has to look back at Adm who
is only 4 rank-points behind. WR A Brown only caught 5 passes,
but 3 of them were for TDs so that resulted in a healthy score of 30.5
pts. TE J Reed had an impressive game on Turkey Day with 24.75
pts despite an injured shoulder. On SNF, the Chiefs did well with
10 pts in Denver thanks to a kickoff returned for a TD, and did just
enough to beat Dec at the finish line. The rest of the defense
was also good with double-digit scores from A Donald, A Ogletree, and K
Alexander. As mentioned above, rookie Shepard was a
disappointment this week and will soon head to the Wax bench in favor
of emerging rookie T Boyd. Since we cannot let one week go by
without commenting on Wax's coaching efficiency, note that Wax was the
worst again, in large part because of the QB position. It seems
Wax almost always starts the wrong QB every single week. In week
#12, R Wilson started against the Bucs which should have been a good
matchup, but he only scored 6.5 pts. Stafford and E Manning both
have a higher average than R Wilson this season, and this week was no
different because they easily beat Wilson, scoring 15 pts and 24.25
pts, respectively.
The Decepticons finished a disappointing 5th place despite scoring 148
pts. Dec lost ground to Beaud and now back 5 rank-points from
first place with 5 weeks to go, Dec cannot afford to any bad week which
could lead to losing multiple rank-points in the same week to
Beaud. They need 5 straight weeks of at least good scores, if not
great. A few weeks ago everything was shaping up for Dec, with
Eifert coming back to health and with the expectation that rookie QB
Goff (or Lynch) would eventually start. That has happened, but
now an issue is emerging at RB. L Miller and F Gore are average
at best, and star D Murray is losing carries to rookie D Henry which
means that he won't remain RB2 in the PQBFL for much longer. This
week Miller and Murray only scored 3.25 pts and 6 pts. At TE,
Eifert is healthy indeed but the Dec coach benched him and his 13.25
pts and started loser Ebron who did not catch a single pass. He
should have known to eat his turkey after the game, not before.
That mistake by the coach is unlikely to be repeated any time
soon. Ju Jones also had a rough game with only 5.75 pts, but Dec
was saved by the massive game from JPP who did almost everything
against the shit Browns, scoring a TD, 3 sacks, and 1 forced
fumble. His game alone was enough to beat FE. Note that the
rest of Dec's defense was also strong, with K Alonso scoring 19 pts,
the Bengals 8.5 pts, and B Wagner 9 pts.
FlyingElvis finished 6th for the second straight week and lost 3rd
place in the standings to OldNo7. K Mack had a big game of 26 pts
including a TD which would have been the defensive player of the week
if he had not been topped by JPP (Dec). E Elliott continued his
relentless scoring with 20 more points this week. However at key
positions of RB and WR, FE could not get much going with M Gordon and L
Blount not finding the end zone and not exceeding 70 yards rushing. WR
A Robinson was even worse with only 3 pts. J Nelson was decent
with 12.5 pts but he did not score and underperformed relative to his
weekly projection. While FE's individual defenders had a good
week, the Rams D was absolutely dreadful, getting lit up for 49 pts and
555 yards in New Orleans. They ended the game with -2.5
pts.
After spending the entire season out of last place in the standings,
Bas finished last for the third week this season and finally hit the
cellar of the league due to Adm's top week. Injuries have hit Bas
hard and the thinner depth of an expansion team have finally caught
up. Luck missed the game to a concussion and C Palmer was
adequate in his replacement with 16.5 pts. However the situation
was not as good at RB where Lacy and CJ Anderson continue to be out,
and backups T Coleman and J Hill only scored 6 pts and 6.75 pts.
At TE, Gronk played so he did not accrue injury points, but he was held
without a catch, clearly not himself. The Bastards will most
likely take over the injury point lead after week #13 because Adm is
getting healthier. The strong point of the week was scoring by
LBs where T Davis and B McKinney combined for 30 pts. On offense,
other than C Palmer and a short TD by T Coleman, nobody scored a TD
besides rookie C Coleman who had an ok game with 11.75 pts.
