Despite
being the best team from weeks #5-11, the Glorious Bastards had not won
a single time during that hot stretch. Things changed this week
with a smashing win of 200+ points and with both Adm and Wax stumbling,
Bas is finally within striking distance of first place, only 5 rank
points behind Dec, 4 rank points behind Wax, and 3 rank points behind
Adm. Mayfield was on bye last week which affected Bas who
finished 4th, but the team is different with Mayfield in the lineup; he
scored 30.25 pts this week. Given that the backup rookies scored
zero (J Washington) and negative points (J Wilkins), Mayfield alone was
the difference between 1st place and 3rd place. JJSS also scored
30.25 pts thanks to a 97-yard TD reception and 12 other receptions,
making teammate A Brown’s (Wax) 12.25 pts look quite weak.
Everybody else on offense scored double digits except the kicker, the
college QB, and TE Kittle who came close (8.75 pts). Same story
on defense: everybody scored double digits except R Jones who was close
with 9.5 pts.
The BeaudoinBrothers extended their good streak to three weeks with
186.75 pts and not having scored less than 176.75 pts during this
period. The problem is that the team is gaining ground on Adm,
Wax, and Dec who were already very far ahead. The team Beaud
could catch up was Bas but GB has been almost as good as Beaud recently
so the Bros remain locked in 5th place with only limited hope of
finishing higher. Fournette being in the lineup continued to have
a major impact, scoring 19 pts this week before the bonehead was
ejected from the game and suspended, so next week will be back to a
shitty backup RB as a starter for Beaud. The Colts offense had a
decent game so that meant good scoring for Luck and TY Hilton, however
none of Luck’s TDs went to Hilton so it capped the WR’s score. K
Allen scored a TD again, which helped him to score 13+ for the fourth
straight week after not reaching that score in each of weeks
#2-7. Josh Allen’s return to health also made a big difference
for Beaud with a 26-pt contribution in a home win against the Jaguars
defense. On defense the Ravens feasted against the sorry Raiders
with 2 TDs.
The Decepticons scored over 180 pts for the third time this season but
unlike the first two times (the ‘Cons won those weeks, 2 and 4), this
time it was only worth 3rd place. It was a satisfying week
nonetheless because with Mahomes on bye, it was certainly not the week
Dec was expected to crush both Adm and Wax but with the struggles of
both those teams Dec is waking up being in sole possession of first
place. It must be mentioned that not having Mahomes is not a big
issue given that Dec’s backup is Brees and he is the second best QB in
the PQBFL so he would be the starter on any other team than Dec.
Brees delivered with 27.25 pts, edging his weekly projection.
McCaffrey also had a monster game with 2 TDs and over 100 yards both
rushing and receiving for a total of over 200 yards. Dec was in a
dog fight with Old for 3rd place until SNF when Diggs was able to keep
pace with Thielen (Old) for roughly the same score, which combined with
Rudolph’s first game above 8 pts since week #3, it ensured Dec would
beat Old with a decent game by JJ Watt on MNF which easily happened
with Watt scoring 19.5 pts. In fact Watt was almost good enough
to beat Beaud but Dec fell short, and the coach can be blamed because
he prematurely thought Deion Jones was recovered from injury but he was
not and that left points on the bench which would have beat
Beaud. A very rare mistake by the Dec coach.
OldNo7 had a big week with 171.75 pts but unfortunately that was only
good for 4th place this week and Beaud got further away in the
standings. Old could have done better if not for starting Kirksey
and E Engram who were injured but they would not have beat Dec
anyway. The big impact was Kelce was on bye and he was missed
given that the only healthy TE was Seals-Jones only scored 1.25 pts
from the bench. The top scorer for Old this week was none other
than A Cooper, only one week after being trashed in this column so the
writer is forced to eat his words. Cooper scored 33 pts compared
to 28.75 pts for weeks #5-11 combined. Maybe there is hope for
him in Dallas after all. At RB, Cook and S Michel are slowly
getting healthy and scored 13.25 pts and 17 pts, but the same cannot be
said of Gordon who scored 17.5 pts but went down to injury.
Gordon is the second best RB in the PQBFL after Gurley (Adm) so he will
be missed especially given that backups McCoy and T Coleman are not the
most reliable. On defense, the leader was J Poyer who was key in
a Bills win with 9 tackles, 1 assist, and one INT for a total of 15
pts. M Garrett had a so-so day with only one sack but he blocked
a FG which padded his stats.
FlyingElvis shuffled the cards this week and played trouble maker with
Wax and Adm with a surprising 147.5 pts and 5th place, FE’s best result
since week #4. This was unexpected given that one of the few
performers on FE’s team is Ty Hill and he was on bye, and the coach
goofed by starting Hitchens; he should have known Hitchens was on bye
since the coach benched Ty Hill. Gronk was back in the lineup and
scored a TD which helped FE. Barkley continued to perform at a
high level with 25.75 pts and if he was a RB rather than a rookie he
would rank RB3 behind Gurley and Gordon. The team’s top scorer
this week was Cousins with 32.5 pts. Cousins has generally done
well this year, ranking QB12, but after a hot start he had been more
quiet between weeks 5-11 with an average of 14.7 pts after averaging
25.8 pts in the first four weeks. RB Drake was also a difference
maker this week with 21 pts. It’s interesting how this guy can be
a complete bum one week and a stud the next. At WR FE had
everybody on bye or injured which meant that über loser K Benjamin
started and only scored 2.5 pts. Other than D Parker (Dec), he is
the worst WR in the PQBFL so one must be in a very bad situation to be
forced to start him.
Similar to FE, the Ballers were trouble makers with 138.75 pts and
caused some pain to Adm and Wax this week. R Wilson got a rare
start over D Watson but it turned out to be the wrong call by a modest
margin, Wilson scoring 24.5 pts compared to 30.75 pts for Watson on the
bench. At WR the same problem as earlier this season came back:
good stats from Ju Jones and ODB, but no TD. Defense was somewhat
better with 13.5 pts from the Bears including a TD and 12 pts from DB
Ju Simmons thanks to a blocked kick. At RB Breida pulled his
weight with a 100-yard rushing game but the same cannot be said of D
Henry who stunk with only 2 pts due to a fumble lost. However
backup RBs were useless with Gio Bernard 1.75 pts and J Richard 1.25
pts on the bench, and Chris Thompson injured.
WaxOnWaxOff finished 7th for the second time in 4 weeks. It is
amazing that this team is still in the thick of the race given that
they have been outscored by a substantial margin by Dec, Adm, and even
Bas. Also the Bros are only 23 total points behind, an average of
not even 2 pts per week yet the Bros have no shot at the title and Wax
could pull it off with some luck. The problems for Wax this week
were that all receivers A Brown, M Evans, and Jo Reed had decent stats
but no TD. Same story for Mixon: 155 yards total but no TD. Roeth
got one long TD and 462 yds but more than just one TD is expected so it
is no surprise that the Steelers ended up losing their game especially
since Roeth threw two picks. So Wax finished the week with only
one TD from the entire lineup which won’t get the job done. On
defense the Bills held their own but they scored only a modest 6 pts
with the Rams on bye. The rest of the defense was so-so
particulary TJ Watt whose inconsistency is maddening, this week only
scoring one point. At LB4 he is having a good year but he has
scored 6 pts or less in 6 weeks out of 11.
The Admirals had slowed down recently but week #12 was an unmitigated
disaster with only 103.75 pts. Adm finished last after not
finishing lower than 5th all year. This dropped Adm to third
place in the standings. Of course Gurley on bye was a drag, but
Ingram (5.5 pts) and J White (6.5 pts) did not do much. For White
it is clear that his mid season success was only because Michel and
Burkhead were injured and now that both are back to health White will
not be productive going forward. However the RBs woes do not
explain the star duo Hopkins + M Thomas being limited to 14.25 pts
combined on the same week that TE Olsen sucked with only 3.5 pts while
backup Ebron goes off for 2 TDs on the bench. On defense nobody
scored more than 6.5 pts (Chandler Jones and Steelers D) so they all
underperformed their weekly projection at the same time. The only
bright spot was C Ridley finally scoring some points since the trade
with 14.5 pts but those points were useless this week – where was he
when Adm needed him to step up in the last couple of weeks?
