Week #3

After a very rough start of the season, FE exploded for 171.5 pts and first place, easily distancing Old in second place.  The biggest difference between weeks 1-2 and week 3 for FE was that the Eagles were forced to throw the ball so finally Hurts could put some stats on the board.  He finished the game with 30.5 pts which is more than he scored in weeks 1-2 combined.  There was also a big turnaround for Mark Andrews who was trashed in this column one week ago due to being completely invisible.  This week he took command with 2 TDs and 23.5 pts after his paltry 1.25 pt and 1 pt efforts to begin the season.  FE also had standouts on defense with the Seahawks dominating the Saints and scoring a TD (18.5 pts), plus the duo of LBs TJ Watt and B Wagner were all over the field with 37.5 pts combined.

OldNo7 had a catastrophic last place in week 1 but nicely recovered with 3rd place in week #2 and now second place in week #3 to climb in the top half of the standings.  QB Caleb took advantage of the piss poor Cowboys defense with 36.75 pts.  It’s worth noting that Caleb was not that bad in weeks 1-2 either so he is surprisingly ranked QB2 in the PQBFL now, ahead of Josh Allen.  Caleb got some support from WRs StBrown and JSN who each scored a TD and had reasonably good stats (16.75 pts and 15.75 pts).  Unlike the WRs, CMC did not score but he was busy otherwise with 140 yds from scrimmage for 14 pts.  On defense Karlaftis was a monster against the Giants with 20.5 pts to climb in DL4 in the league. 

The GloriousBastards did not dominate and were playing without J Daniels and Purdy so the coach was forced to start Nix who was serviceable but unflashy with 16.25 pts.  In such circumstances Bas might have expected to lose ground against top opponents but considering that Beaud, Prof, and Wax all finished in the bottom 4 it turned out to be a great week for Bas all things considered.  Bas now has a comfortable 4 and 5 rank point lead over Beaud and Prof who are both ailing not to mention the nosedive of Wax so the Bastards suddenly become heavy favorites after only 3 weeks.  The one thing which might prevent Bas from running away with the title are injuries, not only QB but also RB.  In the draft analysis it was noted that drafting only 4 RBs was a risky strategy and now already 2/4 RBs are on IR: Conner and A Jones.  For the moment Bas benefits from this because A Jones being out means Jordan Mason has more workload and it paid off this week with 21.5 pts.  But when buy weeks come around things might get rocky for Bas.  There is also a secondary effect on J Chase who lost Burrow as he only scored 5.75 pts this week in an inept effort by the Bengals with their backup QB.

The Admirals pulled away from a tight pack on MNF thanks to 21.25 pts by Gibbs to secure 4th place.  Josh Allen had started the week on the right foot with 27.5 pts against the Dolphins to put Adm on track to finish out of the red for the first time of the season.  As noted above for FE, the Eagles started throwing the ball for once, and AJ Brown benefited, not only Hurts.  Brown scored 16.25 pts for Adm to partially make up for his very bad season start (he ranks WR27 so far).  However there were bad news for Adm this week, the biggest one being DL Bosa being lost for the season after scoring 5 pts this week.  Backups Hines-Allen and Sweat are ok (DL12-13 out of 23) but they are not Bosa, who ranked second best DL with an average of 11.8 pts so far, and will need to look to 2026 to rebound.

The Decepticons had their best score of the season with 140.25 pts and highest finish with 5th place.  The best scorer of the week for Dec was J Taylor who for the first time did not see his QB D Jones vulture rushing TDs, Taylor scored three of them this week for a total of 29.75 pts.  So far he is the best RB in the PQBFL by a healthy margin in front of J Cook (Ball).  In terms of injuries Dec got to good news for the rookie position.  Kicker Loop started and only scored 6 pts, but he’s bench-bound soon because the Chargers lost Najee Harris (Ball) for the season which paves the way for Dec’s rookie O Hampton who scored 16.25 pts on the bench this week.  Also benefiting from injuries is Skattebo who scored 18 pts on the bench,  now that T Tracy (Wax) is down as well. 

The BeaudoinBrothers continued to slide with 6th place.  After Burrow’s injury they picked up D Jones and started him.  He did better than backups Stroud and Lawrence, but Jones’ 17 pts is not enough to carry the team on his shoulders.  During JJ McCarthy’s absence, backup rookie Schwesinger did well with 14 pts to climb to ROO4 in the PQBFL.  The problem for the Bros this week was low coaching efficiency and benching the wrong players.  Some decisions would have been hard to make but they will come up again.  Can Bowers be benched in favor of Jake Ferguson?  This week Ferguson scored 17 pts on the bench while Bowers was limited to 7.75 pts as a starter.  Zay Flowers was good in weeks 1-2 so he started week 3 but he stunk on MNF to sink the Bros with only 2.5 pts, while Waddle and Pearsall easily beat him on the bench with 12.75 pts and 13.75 pts.  Perhaps the decision will be easier at RB.  Hubbard started but only scored 7.5 pts despite the Panthers winning the game 30-0.  What?  And backup Montgomery scored 28.25 pts on the bench even in a game where Gibbs scores 2 TDs.

The Ballers had their highest score of the season 137 pts but week 3 was also the highest scoring for the league as a whole so the Ballers finished the lowest of the season, in 7th place.  Not even L-Jax’s 32 pts on MNF could save them from the bottom 3 this time.  Ball would have finished in 5th place if they had not benched star DL Hutchinson who scored 9 pts on MNF.  Not only did Ball start C Jones instead (6 pts) but even sent backup DL D Lawrence to play the flex position, leaving Hutchinson fuming on the bench.  If there is one defensive player out of the squad of 8 that suck on Ball’s defense who should never be benched, it’s Hutchinson.  And this week the coach got burnt.  This is not a new theme, the Ballers currently rank 3rd in strength of starters so they could compete but the coach has doomed them, ranking dead last in coaching efficiency.  There were other critical lineup decisions this week.  Starting the Colts defense against the Titans had some logic to it, and in fact the Colts did well with a pick-6 and easy win for 17 pts.  But the Vikings defense scored almost twice as much with 33.5 pts on the bench in the crushing of the Burrow-less Bengals, scoring 2 TDs on their own.  Then at the TE position, Ertz had a nice season start to it’s understandable that the coach was tempted to start him in week 3, but he was playing without Jayden Daniels this time which resulted in his weakest game of the year with only 4.75 pts.  Meanwhile Hockenson scored 12.25 pts on the bench.

ProfessorMJ lost CD Lamb early in the game before scoring a single point, which killed Prof’s chances this week considering how close the scores were.  Lamb would have probably scored at least 10 pts (his projection was 14+) and 10 pts would have been good enough for at least 3 ranks.  Now that Lamb is out multiple weeks and that Addison is not back from suspension, the outlook seems dire at the position.  But it would be unreasonable to blame it all on a single injury.  Nabers only scoring 3.5 pts in a game that the Giants were playing from behind all game is inexcusable, he had the opportunity to save Prof from such low finish but he did not.  And what about Breece Hall being outrushed by teammate B Allen (Beaud)?  Hall only had 21 yards on 9 carries compared to 30 yds on 6 carries for B Allen.  Rookie T Horton was surprisingly the top scorer of the week with 18.5 pts but as mentioned in week 2 this is not sustainable.  Half of that scoring was a punt return for a TD which will not happen with regularity, and Horton still only caught 3 short passes (one of them for a TD) in a game where the Seahawks dominated a poor defense with 44 pts of offense.  To make matters worse, Horton’s effort this week was wasted because Prof finished so far ahead of Wax, with or without Horton.

WaxOnWaxOff hit rock bottom this week with a league-low 106 pts, a far cry from Wax’s opening statement of 185.25 pts in week 1.  Wax has a few injuries but at first glance, not more than other teams.  Missing Kittle is probably the most painful as backup Jonnu Smith only scored 2.5 pts and Higbee had a goose egg on the bench.  Egbuka is banged up but nonetheless scored 10.25 pts this week so it was not that bad.  It is not clear that Ju Jefferson is worse off with Wentz than McCarthy but this week it did not work well with only 8.75 pts for Jefferson despite the Vikings scoring 48 pts as the Vikings did more damage on the ground.  It was the opposite in Philly where Barkley was going nowhere with 5.5 pts because the Eagles were playing from behind.  Wax spent a very high pick (13th overall) on WR McConkey but so far it has not paid off.  McConkey has yet to hit the double digit mark in any game, and week 3 was his worst yet with only 6 pts.





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