The
GloriousBastards won for the second time in three weeks and took
advantage of a big week by the Ballers and OldNo7 who both beat Dec and
Wax, so GB continued their never-ending climb to the top of the
standings. After 4 weeks, Bas was dead last with only 9
rank-points, 5 rank-points behind 7th place and 19 rank-points behind
Dec in 1st place. In the subsequent 10 weeks GB has 66 rank
points compared to 50 for Dec so they are now only 3 rank-points away
from the top with three weeks to go, so hope still exists. If
only K Hunt had not fucked up, GB would be in better position. A
comeback of 19 rank-points would shatter the previous record. We
would need to go back to the history book but there might not be any
other team in league history that overcome a double-digit
deficit. A Jones did well in replacement of Hunt with 15.75 pts,
but it was QB Brady who led the team with 30 pts. The choice to
start him over Goff was key because Goff was benched after several
starts recently and it was the right call because Goff was awful with
-6.75 pts. TE Kittle also had a monster game of 25.5 pts with 7-210 and
a long TD. With this performance he is almost guaranteed to
finish in the top 4 TEs in the PQBFL.
The Ballers had the best finish since week 1’s win with second place
and moved to 2 rank-points behind OldNo7 in the standings. The
week started with a bang with a massive 47.75 pt game by D Henry who
came out of nowhere, almost outscoring his total production from weeks
1-13 (69.75 pts) without having even missed a game to injury during
that period. Ju Jones also had a good game with 25.25 pts which
was the 5th time in 6 weeks (since his bye) that he scored 17.25 pts or
more. He is now WR8 which is more aligned with what was expected
at the time of the draft, unlike his early season struggles. The
Ballers also had a good week on defense with 20.5 pts from the Bears
who dominated the Rams offense and it was a great coaching call to
start them instead of the Eagles who only scored 1.5 pt in a loss in
Dallas. M Jack had his best game since week 1 with 17 pts and
rookie T Edmunds almost did the same with 13 pts.
OldNo7 had a decent week with 150.25 pts and finished 3rd but lost
ground to the Ballers. The team was affected by an intra-game
injury to L McCoy who only finished with 1 rushing yard and the coach
goofed by starting D Lee who was suspended. The big boost for Old
came from A Cooper once again with 41.75 pts as he beat the Eagles by
himself with 10-217 and 3 TDs including the winning TD in OT. He
was slow off the gate after the trade to Dallas, but he has scored 84.5
pts in the last 3 weeks after scoring only 68.25 pts in weeks
#1-11. He has picked up the slack for A Thielen who had another
off game, this time with only 8.75 pts, his first game without reaching
10 pts all year. On defense Old got a pair of double-digit
performances from M Garrett and Ju Houston which helped Old to beat
Wax.
WaxOnWaxOff had another so-so week but kept their head above water for
one more week and actually moved closer to first place with 3
rank-points behind Dec, despite now dropping to 3rd place, actually
tied in 2nd with Bas but not having the tie-breaker. Wax beat Dec
by only 4.5 pt this week which was critical to stay in the race.
This happened because of a gutsy coaching call to start the Rams
defense against the Bears on the road rather than start the Bills at
home against the Jets. The Rams scored 10.5 pts compared to only
3 pts by the Bills which got the job done to edge Dec. Giving a
rare start to Ogletree was also brilliant, the LB rewarded his coach
with 14.5 pts compared to 5.5 pts from TJ Watt and 7 pts from Mosley,
both on the bench. The other starter Kuechly is a no brainer each
week and he helped Wax with 17 pts, almost as good as rookie Leonard
who scored 17.5 pts in another dominating outing.
The Decepticons got their worst week since the week 5-6 funk with only
138 pts and fifth place which will make the season ending more exciting
in a 3-way race with Wax and Bas. AJ Green’s injury is painful
for Dec and backup R Woods is not fully benefitting from C Kupp (FE)’s
absence and only scored 10 pts. Diggs did even worse with only 8
pts. At RB Kamara did not score and failed to reach double
digits, and at QB the coach outsmarted himself by starting Rivers
(13.75 pts) instead of Mahomes (19.25 pts) which cost Dec 4th place
against Wax. TE Rudolph was bad again with 2.25 pts so Eifert’s
injury stings at the TE position too. Defense was above average
for Dec again, Wagner scoring 14 pts; D Jones was not as dominant with
9 pts but this pair sit at LB1 and LB2 in the PQBFL although D Jones
has only played 3 games this year. Rookie L Jackson had his best
game of the year with 19.5 pts and after nearly beating the Chiefs he
might hold on to the job even if Flacco is healthy.
If the Bros’s season was hanging by a thread before this week after a
strong run between weeks 10-13, the season is now officially over with
a dismal 118.75 pts and 6th place. The only good news is that the
team now has a chance to beat struggling Adm in the standings with 5
rank points to catch up in 3 weeks. If that is to happen, Beaud
will need more than only 7.25 pts from D Johnson and Fournette combined
– a disastrous combo for a franchise player and first pick
overall. Johnson is simply not getting the job done even though
the new OC is trying to use him in the passing game, unlike the first
OC earlier this year. This week, Johnson was targeted 10 times as
a receiver and caught 8 of those passes, but it was only good for 12
yards. Not even 2 yards per catch – whoa. Ertz had an off
game with only 6.75 pts and he can be blamed for not delivering the
goods in a key matchup in Dallas. Also the Panthers D had to
start given that the Ravens had all they could handle in KC and the
Panthers came up small with only 3.5 pts in Cleveland. DB T White
had to start with DB L Collins out for the year and did not do much
with only 4 pts.
FlyingElvis avoided last place which only served to cause trouble to
the Admirals. FE had a few excellent games this week, notably
Drake’s miracle TD to beat the Pats on the last play of the game, which
allowed Drake to score 14.5 pts because before that he was mostly
invisible. Ty Hill was his normal self with 8-139 although he did
not score a TD which limited his production to 15.25 pts. Gronk
woke up to 19.25 pts after being called too early as washed up and no
longer worthy of a quality starting TE. This was his best game of
the year and he moved up to TE6 with a good chance of finishing the
year as TE5, because he sits right behind injured OJ Howard
(Beaud). Rookie Barkley beat the Skins by himself with 24.25 pts
and will most likely finish as the top rookie in the PQBFL. The
rest of FE’s lineup had a few very bad games, particularly Cousins who
failed to reach 10 pts on MNF and because of him FE did not beat
Beaud. RB Ty Montgomery is only starting because FE is
desparate. He finished the game with 1 rushing yard and 1
receiving yard, which beat Duke Johnson on the bench who had 2 rushes
for minus 6 yards and no reception. Funchess was given the start
at WR and he could not even catch a pass on 3 targets, so now he has
only 1 catch in 2 games. What a loser.
The Admirals’ fall from grace is now complete with a last place for the
second time in three weeks and Adm dropped 10 rank-points behind first
place so the championship is no longer realistic with 3 weeks
left. Adm might not even finish in the top half of the standings
if they cannot hold on to Beaud’s push. This is a stunning turn
of events given that at the mid point of the year, after 9 weeks Adm
led Wax and Dec by 5 rank-points and had not finished lower than 5th
all year. Week 14 was even worse than week 12 with Adm barely
scoring 100 pts. Newton did not score a TD and threw an INT late
in the game to confirm the Panthers’ loss. Gurley had his most
difficult game of the year with only 4.75 pts, being limited to only 48
total yards and no TD. Rookie Ridley has been a bust since being
acquired by trade. He only had a good game in week 12 with 14.5
pts which did not even help Adm out of last place that week, and in the
other 4 weeks with Adm he only scored 16.25 pts combined. This is
barely better than Royce Freeman, which was Adm’s other rookie trade
acquisition from FE which was even worse than the Ridley trade given
that Tyreek Hill is outscoring both D Hopkins and M Thomas.
Hines, Kirk, and Pettis were the homegrown rookies on Adm’s team and
none of them have panned out.
