OldNo7 bounced back from last week’s last place in a big way, tying
the league weekly high score of 185.25 pts (Dec, week #4). The
standings are so close that in only one week, Old moved from 7th place
(and only one rank-point ahead of last place) to 4th place in the
standings. Rookie Sony Michel has been a big difference compared
to early in the season where Old did not have a viable rookie.
Michel is now healthy and scored 2 TDs for 18.75 pts. QB M Ryan
had an off game last week which hurt Old, but this week he was back on
track with 29.75 pts against the weak Bucs defense. Despite the
ups and downs, Ryan is QB2 in the PQBFL behind Mahomes (Dec). M
Gordon is another high flyer on Old’s team, this week Gordon added
three more scores for 29.5 pts. In this day and age of
passing-friendly NFL, no other RB can score that much besides Gurley
(Adm). Speaking of passing offense, nobody has been able to stop
Thielen so far. He added 23 more points this week and remains on
top of the WR leaders. He has scored double digits every week
this season and if we ignore his week #1 due to rust (11 pts), his
worst game was 17.75 pts which is higher than the average of any other
WR besides T Hill (FE) and D Adams (Bas).
The GloriousBastards finished 2nd for the second straight week and the
rough 4-week start is now a distant memory. Bas is out of the
league’s cellar for the first time of the year and will be within
striking distance of the league leaders if this level of performance
can be sustained. Bas might have won this week if the team had
traded for a DL because C Jordan was on bye and M Wilkerson is injured;
Bas finished 6.5 pts behind Old. Unlike Bas’s recent success,
this week was not because of Mayfield. He was not bad with 9.25
pts but nothing to write home about. Bas benefited from a big
game by the Texans defense against the shitty Bills, scored a TD, three
turnovers, and held the Bills to only 229 total yards. Both LBs K
Alexander and B Martinez scored 12 pts, and Bas’s offense was even
better with 23.25 pts from K Hunt thanks to a long TD reception and
27.5 pts from D Adams in a shootout against the 49ers including a
game-tying TD reception in the last 2 minutes. The rest of the
offense did not light up the scoreboard, but Brady (18.25 pts), E
Elliott (15.75 pts), JJ Smith-Schuster (15.5 pts) were all firmly into
double digit territory to distance the competition.
The Admirals scored a team season-high 175.25 pts but it was only worth
3rd place this week. However the good news is that Adm keeps
finishing in the top half and has been by far the most consistent team
in the PQBFL so with the recent struggles from Dec, Adm now sits alone
in first place, 3 rank-points ahead of Dec and Wax. Everybody in
the league has either finished last at least once (FE, Ball, Bas, Old,
Wax), or next to last at least twice (Beaud, Dec), except for Adm who
did not finish lower than 5th so far which is very impressive.
Adm continues to produce despite a trade two weeks ago with FE which
does not appear to have fixed any of Adm’s weaknesses. Adm wanted
a rookie but this week newly acquired R Freeman was benched (1.75 pts)
and N Hines started and only scored 2.75 pts. Adm also acquired
top rated college QB K Tate who is simply not getting the job done,
this week he scored a goose egg. This week Gurley was the team
leader with 29.75 pts as his dominance continues, this time with 2 TDs
and a whopping 208 yards on the ground. WR M Thomas was on bye
but Adm did not miss anything because backup E Sanders scored and
caught 7 passes for 115 yards which is Thomas-like level of
production. Defense was rock-solid this week for Adm, with the
Vikings dominating the Cards as expected and only allowed 10 offensive
points. In that same game, DB Budda Baker scored a TD on a fumble
recovery after Adm’s own DL Chandler Jones sacked the QB so this single
play contributed a sack, QB hit, forced fumble, fumble recovery, and TD
for Adm’s DL+DB duo, without having an impact on the scoring of the
Vikings defense which was not on the field.
WaxOnWaxOff scored a decent 143 pts and finished in the top half of the
standings, moving up the standings to tie Dec but got a bit further
behind Adm. A Rodgers scored 27.75 pts on MNF but Wax was already
so far behind the top 3 teams this week that it was a lost cause.
A Brown had not done much all game against the Bengals until he caught
a game winning TD pass with 10 seconds left in the game to salvage a
decent week with 17.25 pts. Surprisingly A Hooper was the top
receiver this week for Wax with 17.5 pts with 9-71 and a TD.
Given that Wax has J Reed and J Doyle on the roster, who would have
thought that Hooper would be of any use at the TE position, yet there
he is at TE5 in the PQBFL and perhaps he will keep the starting role
for Wax even when Doyle is back from injury. On defense Kuechly
was ok with 9 pts but more is expected of him. He is averaging
9.4 pts this year which is only good for LB12, and not what Wax had in
mind when drafting him as the very first defensive player in the 5th
round. TJ Watt has performed much better as LB3, but his
production is so sack-driven rather than tackle driven that his
inconsistency is maddening. This week, TJ Watt had no sack, which
means an off-game with only 3.5 pts.
FlyingElvis continues to be middling at best in the absence of L Bell
and with D Freeman’s injury, this time finishing 5th but dropping to
last place in the standings, tied with Beaud, Bas, and Ball.
Fortunately newly acquired T Hill had a monster game of 33 pts, after
having not done all that much since week #1 (average barely above 10
pts per game from week #2-5). Also rookie Barkley continues to
dominate (28 pts this week) and will prove to be well worth a 1st round
pick, in addition to perhaps becoming FE’s franchise player for years
to come. Unfortunately the rest of FE’s lineup was subpar,
starting with Cousins who committed 2 turnovers against the Cards at
home and finished the game with 13.75 pts, well short of
expectations. At WR C Kupp got hurt early and did not finish the
game, which cost FE dearly because Kupp did not even have time to catch
one reception. Gronk was nothing special with 3 catches and no
TD, Gano missed an extra point, and the Jaguars were lit up by the
Cowboys allowing 40 pts. As the 6th best defense in the PQBFL,
the Jaguars have officially lost their top notch label as one of the
strongest forces on D.
The BeaudoinBrothers’ struggles continued this week with a
disappointing 6th place and the team is now tied for last place,
although they have scored more total points than FE, Bas, and Ball, and
barely less than Old and Wax who are ahead in the standings. The
skill position players are simply killing the Bros, D Johnson is not
being used as a receiver which is destroying his value, this week he
only got 15 receiving yards and despite a TD he finished with a
mediocre 7.75 pts which included a fumble lost. M Lynch is no
longer a viable replacement for injured Fournette with 4.75 pts this
week. Lynch scored double digits in each of the first 4 weeks but
he only has 8 pts in the last 2 weeks combined as he is bothered by a
groin injury. At WR a bad situation is turning worse, with K
Allen not catching the TDs from Rivers (M Williams is) and Gordon is
scoring most of the TDs on the ground anyway. Another week,
another bad result from K Allen, this time only 8 pts and he has not
scored over 12.75 pts all year except week #1. J Landry has been
a disappointment since Mayfield took over, this week he only caught 2
passes on 10 targets. TY Hilton’s injury is not helping matters
but Jeffery is now healthy but the coach left him on the bench
again. Jeffery scored 22.5 pts on the bench so after playing only
3 games he ranks WR10 in the PQBFL which is better than TY Hilton
(WR19) and K Allen (WR21); he must start to give the Bros a
spark. This week the Bros were affected by in-game injuries to K
Mack (2 pts), Josh Allen (4.25 pts) and Joe Schobert (7 pts) all of
which left valuable points on the board bu exiting early.
The Decepticons took it on the chin for a second straight week and have
now dropped to 2nd place tied with Wax. With Kamara on bye it was
not expected to be Dec’s best week and L Miller did not do much as a
replacement (5.75 pts), but McCaffrey also did not help with only 66
yards from scrimmage and no TD. AJ Green was fine with 7-85 but
he did not score. Co-starter S Diggs is quickly fading as
Cousins’ rapport with Thielen improves, this week Diggs was limited to
3-33. K Rudolph is also affected by Thielen getting the lion’s
share of targets, this week Rudolph only scored 5.75 pts and dropped to
TE6 in the PQBFL. After a good season start, Rudolph has not
scored more than 7.75 pts in the last 3 weeks. On defense, it’s
hard to think that the Saints (12th defense in the PQBFL) being on bye
would be a liability for Dec, but it is. The Falcons D is even
worse, ranking dead last of all defenses in the PQBFL. This week
the Falcons beat the Bucs, but they did not do so because of defense:
they allowed 29 pts and more than 500 yards of total offense.
The Ballers finished last for the second time this season and their
early season good start has officially vanished, with the team now tied
for last place in the standings. Early draft pick D Watson has
not been delivering the goods so far at QB17, week #6 being his worst
outing with only 0.75 pt against the surprising Bills defense. It
was the first time of the year Watson could not reach double
digits. At RB Breida continues to be a serviceable option with C
Thompson and Gio Bernard injured, this time he scored 11 pts and moved
up to RB12 in the league. However having injuries at this
critical position is hard to overcome for an expansion team and D Henry
who is supposed to be the leader of this RB group is not getting it
done, this week he was limited to 2 pts. At WR it was more of the
same, Ju Jones had good stats 10-143 but no TD, and ODB is hampered by
bad QB play and ended the game with 8 pts. It’s not every week
that he can be the recipient of a TD pass from S Barkley. The
Ballers would have failed to reach 100 pts this week if not from good
games from TE Njoku (15.75 pts) and Crosby who bounced back from his
week #5 disaster with 4/4 on FGs and 3/3 on x-pts.
