Week 8

Well that was an interesting week! Who saw Houston v. Seattle being a ridiculously high scoring shootout? Who saw Dallas v. Washington being a complete stinker for both QBs?? Who saw Matt beating Bill?!? Okay, getting ahead of myself, I know. Let's take things one step at a time...

Andrew v. Tim

Another week, another heartbreaking non-win for Tim. Womp womp. But as has also become a habit for Tim - he probably had no business even being in the running for a win in this one! I mean, aside from DeAndre Hopkins (35pts!) racking up 224 yards and a TD on just 8 catches and JuJu Smith-Schuster (30pts) going for 193 yards and a TD on 7 catches - Tim had a whole mess of single digit scorers littering his lineup. (Well, he also had Will Fuller (31pts) with five catches for 125 yards and 2 TDs... on the bench. There's an easy BBB.) So what started off looking like a crushing loss turned into just a regular one. And, I mean, that's a solid consolation prize for getting bumped off the playoff bubble - right?

Andrew rubbed some salt in the wound right from the start when Jerrick McKinnon (20pts) had another big game at 9:30am from London. (Side note - Latavius Murray, whom Tim paid big FAAB bucks for scored three points in that same game.) Then Melvin Gordon (24pts), who was questionable to even play on Sunday, took his first carry 87 yards for a TD. Because obviously. Throw in 17 points for Alshon Jeffrey on just two catches and 15 points for Jamison Crowder (two points shy of his total from the previous six games combined) and it was almost just too good to be true for Andrew. But sadly for the rest of us, it was true.

Andrew improves to 6-2 on the year and moves into a tie for first place in the Sweaty Jocks division - despite the loss of OBJ. He'll hope to keep it up in week nine against Kevin, even though it'll be tougher than normal assignment as both Gordon and McKinnon are on byes. On the flip side, Tim will hope to get back into the win column (and playoff picture) with an easy matchup against a Meinel team that'll also be hit hard by the byes.

Matt v. Bill

But giving hope to the rest of us peons in week 8 was Matt. He came into this matchup with Bill on the heels of yet another abysmal performance, not to mention as a 30 point underdog. And yet despite those long odds, he found a way to hand Bill his second loss of the season!

It wasn't pretty, let's get that straight. Matt had a big fat goose egg from both Terrelle Pryor (duh) and Zach Miller. (Side note: Miller had zero points because he dislocated his knee - causing enough damage to require emergency surgery so he wouldn't need to have his leg amputated! Matt's really stepping it up on this injury game. This marks a third straight week of a player getting a season ending injury on the Islanders' roster.) But a few other players picked up the slack as Shady McCoy (26pts) had his second straight 20+ point week, the Cowboys lackluster D/ST pieced together 21 points in a rainy mess against the Redskins, QB Matt Stafford (19pts) didn't get injured (somehow) and Free Agent add Tyler Lockett (18pts) had his best game of the season.

And Bill? Well, he had a decent week with 93 points. It just wasn't decent enough - despite RB Ezekiel Elliot scoring 28 points. (28 more points than he'll score in any of the next six weeks. <snicker>) Actually, Bill did have some small degree of hope coming into MNF - since he needed 16 points to tie Matt's score and RB Kareem Hunt was projected at exactly 16 points. But those small hopes were dashed as Hunt managed just 6 points and failed to reach 100 yards from scrimmage for the first time all season.

The loss puts Bill in second place for the first time all season, and ironically enough he'll have to face new top dog Jared in week 9... without Zeke, TB12 or Gronk. Needless to say, it's gonna be an uphill climb. And speaking of uphill climbs: Matt has another tough one on his hands as he faces Earl, though he'll get to do it at full strength. (As "full strength" as Matt's team gets, anyway.)

Dustin v. Nick

Okay, last of the top three scoring matchups this week and it's between... Dustin and Nick? No kidding?? I mean, we're used to seeing these teams in high scoring games - but usually just because their opponents score like 120+ points. Well, okay, that still holds true for Nick. But Dustin came out of nowhere and dropped a 127 point bomb on the increasingly hapless Pigskins!

A big part of that, obviously, can be attributed to whatever crack Eric was smoking when he traded QB DeShaun Watson (37pts!) to Dustin for WR Jarvis Landry. Pretty much every commentator out there had Watson pegged for regression - but he hasn't scored less than 20 fantasy points since week 2, so that just may not happen. (So much for selling high!) Dustin also had a pretty shocking 20 points from TE Jack Doyle (far and away his best game of the season) and then another big 19 point score from the KC Defense on MNF just to add insult to injury. That icing on that cake earned Dustin the Strong Like Abe award (proving the two people who voted for him in last week's poll wrong, if nothing else) as well as the Pitcher for his 70 point win.

On the other side of the coin, Nick had... uh... Robby Anderson? His 18 point game against the Falcons was almost the only bright spot on Nick's roster. Well, his starting roster anyway. The three players on Nick's bench who actually scored points (two others didn't play and Torrey Smith only technically played football on Sunday) came just seven points away from matching the total of all nine players on Nick's starting roster. That's about all I need to say about that, I suppose. (Except I'll also go ahead and mention that Nick took home both the 90lb weakling AND the Catcher for this gem.)

The big question for Dustin is - can he keep it up? He draws Eric in week 9, so I want to say odds are looking good. (But we all know never to count on Dustin staying good.) Also looking good are the odds that Nick loses to Jeremy, because math.

Jared v. Earl

Heading to the back nine, we'll actually start with a pretty decent matchup between a first place team... and a team that is probably more deserving of that first place spot.

Yes, Jared won yet another game - despite scoring more than a hundred points in just 1/4 of his games thus far this season. He started out the week with a whopping 28 points from the Baltimore Defense and finished it with a 21 point monster from TE Travis Kelce (his highest fantasy score of the season) on MNF. In between? Nobody scored hire than 13 points. But hey, the aggregate was enough to get Jared his seventh win of the season - so who's complaining?

Well, Earl probably is - for one. He was without stud RB Leonard Fournette due to a bye week and his other stud RB, Le'Veon Bell (12pts), didn't look very studly in an otherwise exciting SNF game between the Steelers and Lions. Much like Bill, Earl looked to have some hope for a change of fortune heading into MNF - with QB Alex Smith yet to play. But Smith only managed a disappointing 13 fantasy points and even those points succeeded in pumping up Kelce's (aka: Jared's) score more than his own.

Earl falls to 4-3-1 on the season and remains in 4th place overall, despite still boasting the largest scoring differential in the league. He'll face Matt, in what should be an easier win, in week 9. Jared, on the other hand, wins his seventh consecutive game - putting him at 7-1-0 on the season and in sole possession of first place after Bill's loss to Matt. He'll try to look a little bit better than average on the score sheet as he faces Bill in week 9.

Jeremy v. Eric

And that brings us a little closer to the bottom of the scoring pyramid with two familiar faces - Eric and Jeremy. I said in last week's recap that this matchup would likely show which of these teams (who both over achieved in week 7) was a contender and which was a pretender. And I guess you could say the results were conclusive? (Even though Jeremy's winning 87 point score would've only beaten three other teams this week.)

Jeremy's RB group seems pretty solid, if not spectacular. Mark Ingram (13pts) continues to look the part of an RB1, despite a slight case of the fumbles. And both Dion Lewis (14pts) and Alex Collins (16pts... on the bench) are looking like absolute steals - after Tim stupidly threw them in as pot sweeteners in his trade for Sammy Watkins. The results from his pass catchers were somewhat less impressive as Mike Evans (6pts) lead the lot and no one else managed more than 2 points. But what does that matter when your QB (Russell Wilson) nets 4 TDs on 452 yards for a whopping 37 fantasy points? Not much.

And speaking of great QB results - Eric had another superb week from the QB on his bench! That's right, in a Sports league streak outmatched only by Jared's winning streak - Eric benched his better QB for a fifth week in a row as Jameis Winston managed one lousy point in the starting spot while Tyrod Taylor put up 16 points where it didn't matter. Eric seems dead set on breaking that streak, however, as he dropped Taylor a couple days later in order to pick up... Jimmy Garoppolo? Ummm... okay. Eric did have a good outing from the Eagles D (22pts), but it was MUCH too little too late for Pepe to salvage... anything.

The loss drops Eric to 2-6 on the season, tied for dead last with James. He matches up fairly evenly with Dustin in week 9 - but we've heard that story before. Jeremy, however, moves to 4-4 on the season with his win and in this highly competitive league that's good enough to put him in the playoff picture! He'll try to continue moving in the right direction with a very winnable matchup against Nick in week 9.

Kevin v. James

And finally, in our other battle for obsolescence, we find two more familiar faces - Kevin and James. Both teams had just two players each that put up a double digit score in their starting lineups, but Kevin had a few more "high" single digit scores and managed to eek out a win. (Though he did likely lose star WR Chris Hogan for several weeks in the process, due to a shoulder injury.) I would go deeper into the stats but I really just can't stomach it. It was 79-58, for crying out loud. That's like finding highlights in a game between the 49ers and the Browns!

The win makes Kevin slightly better than terrible at 3-5 on the season; he'll most likely lose to Andrew in week 9. The loss puts James at 2-6 and back in last place where he belongs. Since he has five of his "starting" players on bye in week 9, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say he'll be 2-7 at this time next week - even though he only has to play Tim. We'll see.


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