Week #5

Week 5 introduced the season's first bye-week scramble, but WaxOnWaxOff did not notice: Wax erupted for a season-high 197.5 pts behind Jaylen Warren, Bucky Irving, and Joe Burrow. The GloriousBastards finished 2nd with 172.25 and retained the overall lead in the standings, while the Admirals survived two ineffective bye replacements to take 3rd with 162.25. The BeaudoinBrothers' 150.5 and 4th place were more impressive than they look after Chuba Hubbard's bye was compounded by in-game injuries to David Montgomery and CeeDee Lamb. At the other end, the Ballers fell to a season-low 77 while leaving Puka Nacua's 29.25 on the bench. Bas leads the cumulative standings with 45 rank pts, followed by Beaud at 42.5 and OldNo7 at 42.

WaxOnWaxOff finally turned all that roster promise into a weekly victory, and did it with an offensive avalanche. Jaylen Warren ran for 101 yards, caught six passes for 87 more, and scored on plays of 50 and 80 yards for 34.75 pts. Bucky Irving added 27.5, while Joe Burrow threw four TDs without an interception for 30. Will Anderson Jr. supplied the violence on the other side of the ball with three sacks, three tackles for loss, and three QB hits, scoring 16 and retaining the DL1 spot at a 14.9 average. Even rookie Kenyon Sadiq's -1 could not spoil a 197.5-point total. Wax had Jordan Love's 30.5 on the bench, but Burrow's 30 made that an academic complaint rather than a coaching disaster. After four weeks of chasing the pack, Wax vaults into 7th overall with 31.5 rank pts.

The GloriousBastards handled their first bye without drama and produced the week's most balanced lineup. Kansas City's defense had been the regular choice but were on bye, so Jacksonville stepped in and delivered a useful eight pts. Ja'Marr Chase scored 21.75, Derrick Henry 20, Garrett Wilson 19, Sam LaPorta 16.25, Brock Purdy 15.75, and Fred Warner 14; nobody had to rescue the team because almost everybody contributed. Jayden Daniels' 31 and Isaiah Likely's 26.5 were stranded on the bench, leaving considerably more upside than the final lineup showed, but 172.25 was still enough for 2nd. Bas has now finished 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 4th, and 2nd, which is why the league lead remains theirs at 45 rank pts.

This week the Admirals' bye replacements did not exactly deliver the goods, but the stars covered for them. Rashee Rice's replacement Jakobi Meyers managed only 3.75, and Josh Hoover produced 5.5 in place of Brad Jackson at COL. Jahmyr Gibbs rendered those problems survivable with 151 rushing yards, 56 receiving yards, and two TDs for 30.5. Parker Washington was even more explosive, turning six catches into 124 yards and two TDs for 27, while Josh Allen scored 26 and Houston's defense allowed only three pts and 187 yards for another 20. That is how a lineup gets to 162.25 despite four starters combining for only 9.25. Adm climbs back to 6th overall, tied with ProfessorMJ at 34 rank pts but behind on cumulative scoring.

The BeaudoinBrothers were mugged by the schedule and then kicked while they were down. The PQBFL's 5th best RB Chuba Hubbard was on bye, so David Montgomery entered the lineup; Montgomery suffered a groin injury in the second quarter and was ruled out after five carries for 11 yards, leaving Beaud with one point. CeeDee Lamb then left Thursday's game with a quad injury and did not return, turning the PQBFL's third best WR normally bankable production into 2.25. Losing one starter during a game stings; losing two after already replacing a bye-week RB was hard to recover. Matthew Stafford's 27.75, Minnesota's 19, Jordan Battle's 17, and TE1 Brock Bowers' 16.5 still dragged the lineup to 150.5 and 4th place. Rhamondre Stevenson's 13.5 would have beaten Montgomery in hindsight, but no sane pregame decision starts with predicting a second-quarter injury not to mention that Rhamondre himself simply benefited from T Henderson (Old) getting injured in that game. Beaud moves to 42.5 rank pts, 2nd overall.

OldNo7 took the steady route to 147 pts and 5th. Jared Goff threw three TDs, ran for another, and scored 31.5; WR1 Jaxon Smith-Njigba added 17.75 on 118 scrimmage yards and a TD, while Tyler Warren caught seven passes for 83 yards and also scored on a one-yard run for 16. The first bye week did nick the defense: George Karlaftis, normally Old's DL starter, sat out and Kobie Turner returned only three pts in that slot. Chase Brown's three was the bigger drag, especially with Jacory Croskey-Merritt's 15 available on the bench. Still, Old has finished in the top five every week and holds 3rd overall at 42 rank pts. The weekly fireworks vary; the floor has not.

ProfessorMJ's 143.5 and 6th place came from surviving two separate bye problems, one of which became a double whammy. The PQBFL's top RB Ken Walker III was off, and intended replacement Kyle Monangai was injured, forcing a zero into the lineup beside Tony Pollard's five. Darian Mensah's college bye also sent Prof to Charlie Becker, who produced only 1.25. Christian Watson and George Pickens did their best to make the missing production irrelevant: Watson caught six passes for 143 yards and two long TDs for 29, while Pickens added 21.5. That receiver pair kept an otherwise strained lineup respectable, but there is only so much a team can absorb when a bye and an injury hit the same position. Prof remains 5th overall with 34 rank pts, edging the Admirals on cumulative scoring.

FlyingElvis received a 44.25-point masterpiece from Drake Maye and somehow finished only 7th with 142.75, indicating that team still has major problems to deal with. Maye threw for 374 yards and four TDs, ran for another score, and accounted for nearly one-third of the entire lineup. Jason Myers added 17.5 and Matthew Golden 14, but the support thinned quickly: Mark Andrews scored 2.25, Kewan Lacy 2.25, T.J. Watt zero, and Carnell Tate 1.25. Tate's one catch for six yards is an especially sour moment for a relatively expensive fourth-round pick, 36th overall. He now sits ROO9 with a 6.35 average, less than half of ROO1 Josiah Trotter's 14.5 (Old); it is notable the top three rookies in the PQBFL are all defensive players drafted as late as 80th, 119th, and 122nd overall. A rookie season is not decided in five weeks, but the early return on that draft capital for C Tate is poor. FE is 8th overall with 23 rank pts.

The Decepticons got the full bye-week experience and escaped with 140.75 pts and 8th. Patrick Mahomes II, the QB5 at a 22.38 average, was replaced by Geno Freakin Smith, who threw for only 182 yards, lost a fumble, and scored 12. More damaging was the absence of LB1 Devin Lloyd, whose 18.5 average towers over the seven from Patrick Queen and five from Robert Spillane this week. Trey McBride's 17.25 and league-leading kicker Spencer Shrader's 15 kept the lineup afloat, and rookie Denzel Boston added 12.25. The bench could have had some answers—Davante Adams scored 17.5, Braelon Allen 17, and Sonny Styles 15.5—but the compulsory positions still felt the missing stars. Dec holds 4th overall with 37 rank pts.

FlyEaglesFly replaced bye-week receiver Xavier Worthy with Keon Coleman, and Coleman did score a TD but unfortunately it was his only catch of the day. The rest of the offense did not cooperate. Jalen Hurts scored 13.75, Rome Odunze two, Dalton Schultz 4.5, and Cairo Santos finished at zero after missing a 43-yard field goal. Christian McCaffrey's 14.25 led the lineup, which tells the story of a team without a genuine eruption. Aaron Rodgers threw up 27.25 on the bench, doubling Hurts.  This was mentioned in this column last week, of course benching Hurts for Rodgers would be difficult but considering how many Eagles WRs are injured and that Rodgers has outscored Hurts by 1.1 pt per game this year so far, the point remains.  Benching Rodgers accounted for almost the entire 30.75-point gap between the selected lineup and the maximum possible, had coaching efficiency been 100%. FEF's 109.25 was only 9th this week, but it was at least enough to avoid another bottom-two finish. The team remains 10th overall with 12 rank pts.

BetterBallers entered Week 5 without injured franchise QB Lamar Jackson and with regular linebacker Drue Tranquill on bye, then not submitting a starting lineup led to subpar automatic starter replacements. Malik Willis supplied 74 rushing yards and two total TDs, but 137 passing yards, two interceptions, and a lost fumble held him to 13.5. Jacoby Brissett threw for 292 yards and three TDs for 24.5 on the bench. The worse miss was on defense: Pittsburgh scored four while Green Bay scored 22. James Cook III's 18.25 and MarShawn Lloyd's 13.5 were not enough to cover those 29 lost points, and Bett slid under 100 at 98.75. Injuries and byes created the opening, but lineup selection widened it. BetterBallers sits 9th overall with 20 rank pts.

The Ballers' season found a new basement at 77 pts. Nick Bolton's bye removed a regular defender, Malachi Toney's college bye forced Cooper Cousins into the COL slot, and Cousins joined rookie Cole Payton in producing zero. Kyler Murray scored 19.25 and Jameson Williams 16.25, but no other starter reached 13. The painful part was not a lack of roster production: Puka Nacua caught enough passes and yardage to score 29.25 on the bench due to Ball not submitting a starting lineup this week, Ollie Gordon II added 13.75 there, and Reed Blankenship had 10.5. The selected lineup captured only 56.41% of its 136.5-point maximum possible, the week's lowest efficiency by a mile. Five straight bottom-three finishes have left Ballers last overall with nine rank pts; at this stage, the bench is not depth, it is evidence.

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