The
red-hot Decepticons won for the second time in three weeks and
leapfrogged both Adm and FE in the standings to reach 4th place for the
first time all year. Such a mid-season surge is puzzling given
that just a few weeks ago Dec was last in the standings and got the
double-whammy of losing A Rodgers to injury. Neither of Rivers
and Cutler are having great seasons, but they have nonetheless done the
job in replacement so far. This week Rivers found a way to score
almost 20 points against the Jaguars (FE), the top defense in the
PQBFL. On the ground, L Murray continues to be unimpressive for
example 14 rushes for 42 yards this week, but he found the end zone
three
times to boost his final score. Rookie Kamara has made a big
difference for Dec as mentioned previously. Even though he is
still the backup to M Ingram (Adm), he continues to produce, this time
with over 100 yards rushing and a TD.
Equally puzzling has been the BeaudoinBrothers' performance recently
despite a flurry of injuries and a very unimpressive starting
lineup. The Bros found a way to beat both Wax and Old this week
to extend their lead in the standings to 3 rank-points. Last week
Beaud started an injured TE, and this week Beaud could only start one
RB because all others were injured or on bye. The only healthy RB
was A Peterson and his presence did not make a difference anyway,
ending the game with only 0.5 pt. But no RB, no problem, the Bros
could carry on. Same thing at the rookie position. Watson's
injury was supposed to be crushing but Foster scored 14 pts last week,
and this week Kizer had his best game of the year with 20.25 pts.
Brady had a solid game with 25.75 pts on the road in Denver which is
nothing to sneeze at. So the BeaudoinBrothers survive one more
week without being knocked out, which is important because perhaps help is on the way with D Johnson's possible
return.
OldNo7 finished third for the third straight week and moved past Wax in
the standings. This week was not shaping up to be that great
until Newton exploded on MNF with a whopping 40 pts to secure an
important win against Wax. Newton was able to compensate for mediocre
games from almost everywhere on Old's lineup on offense. McCoy
only scored 4 pts, M Gordon only 3.5 pts, K Allen only 6.5 pts, Baldwin
not too bad with 5-95 but no TD and failed to reach double-digits, and
TE J James was shut out and did not do his job during Kelce's bye
week. Fortunately E Engram scored a TD again and scored over 12
pts for the fourth straight week which is impressive for a rookie
TE. At the DL position, Old has been struggling all year but O
Vernon finally came back from injury this week and scored 10 pts in his first
game since week #4.
WaxOnWaxOff underwhelmed once again this week with 4th place and
getting beat by both Beaud and Old. On paper this team should be
the most dominant of the PQBFL but cannot get on track for various
reasons. This week once again the Wax coach started the correct
QB with 26.5 pts from Stafford while top PQBFL QB R Wilson was benched
and he scored 18.25 pts. So the problem is not coaching this year,
but bad performances at critical times. This week Wax was close
to Old and Beaud and only needed a few more points for second
place. When a healthy franchise player such as A Brown only
scores 5.25 pts in a cup cake matchup against Indy, this is a major
issue. And what to say of bone head Fournette? Only 3.75
pts after his one-game suspension. I guess the time off did not
help. If Fournette had been suspended again, Wax would have
started Trubisky instead (17.75 pts) and would have beat Beaud and
Old. The RB situation remains an issue with B Powell scoring zero
this week, but Crowell's 12.75 pts alone was enough to beat Beaud
and Old combined at the RB position.
The Admirals finished bottom three for the 6th time in seven weeks and
dropped next to last in the standings after being on top following week
#3. K Hunt has not done much recently, but this week he was on
bye and both backups were injured so it was painful for Adm. D
Brees does not have to throw the ball much this season given the Saints'
success on the ground and he only scored 11.5 pts this week. Fortunately
Ingram started for Adm and his 3 TDs plus 131 yards rushing led Adm
with 25.75 pts. Gurley did not score but he got 68 yards on the
ground and in the air for a total of 136 total yards. The rest of
the lineup was very disappoiting. Adm's defense was as porous as
was supposed to be before the season began. The Panthers,
Campbell, V Miller, C Jones, and Clinton-Dix only combined for 20
pts. TE M Bennett had to start once again before G Olsen comes
back from injury, and now that Bennett is in New England and out of Green Bay, he stopped faking
injury but only scored 4.75 pts.
FE barely topped 100 pts so week #10 was almost as bad as week
#8. The main culprit for this week's struggles was T Taylor with
a disastrous game of only 56 passing yards and an INT before being
pulled from the game and possibly being done forever in a Bills
uniform. Taylor should not even belong in the PQBFL anyway.
FE decided to bench Cousins (25 pts) because of a possibly tough
matchup against the Vikings but that turned out to be a costly
mistake. At LB, Sean Lee got a concussion early in the game and
left with only one point. The other LB did not do much better,
Vic Beasley only finished with 2 pts without injury. The Jaguars
defense was not as dominant this week and almost lost the game and
needed overtime against the Chargers. WR Hopkins had an ok game
with 7-111 but no TD so he is clearly affected by Watson's
absense. L Bell also had ok stats (112 yds from scrimmage) but no
TD and that won't cut it for a first round pick playing against a bad
team (Indy).
The GloriousBastards finished below 100 pts for the third time and last
for the fourth time this season. Bas is now 14 rank points behind
Adm in 6th place so they are locked into last place unless there is a
miracle because Luck is not coming back, and Elliott will no longer sue
the league to get his suspension removed so he will miss the next few
weeks. That is actually good news for Bas because the team needs
him to be finished with his suspension to keep good value in 2018 as a
franchise player expected to play all 16 games. As if Bas did not
have enough injury issues, D Freeman suffered a concussion and left the
game early with only 0.25 pt. If Freeman had played a full game,
most likely Bas would have finished ahead of FE and Adm. DL C
Jordan also finished with a goose egg which is surprising because he
was having a great season before that. He dropped from DL1 to DL2
in the PQBFL, right behind C Campbell (Adm).
Newton was able to compensate for mediocre
games from almost everywhere on Old's lineup on offense. McCoy
only scored 4 pts, M Gordon only 3.5 pts, K Allen only 6.5 pts, Baldwin
not too bad with 5-95 but no TD and failed to reach double-digits, and
TE J James was shut out and did not do his job during Kelce's bye
week. Fortunately E Engram scored a TD again and scored over 12
pts for the fourth straight week which is impressive for a rookie
TE. At the DL position, Old has been struggling all year but O
Vernon finally came back from injury this week and scored 10 pts in his first
game since week #4.