Week 8 Report:
Looks like I had a 'senior moment' in last week's report and made the Week 8 Game of the Week a matchup that doesn't take place until Week 10. No idea how this happened, but apparently you're all too kind (or unobservant) to have pointed this out to me! Clearly it was a consequence of rushing to beat the Thursday night kick off so this week's report is done at a more leisurely pace (i.e. late).
Sheriff (5-3) 101.46 - WPIL (1-7) 99.68 - Talk about running good! WPIL finally made an appearance on the thread this week after catching up on the report of his solitary win earlier in the season. Thankfully for Sheriff, this didn't actually prompt him to make any changes to his team for the week, otherwise he'd be celebrating win number 2, and I'd be having to take the piss out of myself in the match report. In a surprisingly competitive encounter, WPIL's team managed to score almost 100 points despite playing The Law Firm and Andre Johnson during their bye week. A re-jig from the bench to bring in Albert Morris would have gained him sufficient points to overcome my score of 101pts. Despite the Wembley game being a blowout it did allow me to witness first hand Tom Brady's accumulation of 28pts which, together with the contributions from WR and the Giants' DEF, were just enough. WPIL's team were led by Matt Stafford, who managed to outscore Brady, and had big contributions from Flex, K & DEF. Thankfully, the bye week players proved to be the difference, just, and I don't get to pay the price for gambling on Dreesen ahead of Pettigrew (that went well!), or Tanner over Woodhead.
Bobby1 (5-3) 93.02 - Camel (5-3) 68.14 - So, contrary to earlier reports (
) Camel didn't face LeKnave this week in a battle for 2nd place, but did take on another contender in Bobby1, and it was Mr Quayle's team that prevailed in a comfortable win to bring both teams back into the queue sitting on 5-3 records. Camel will no doubt be mystified that his team failed to deliver a double digit score, other than a disappointing 14pts from Aaron Rodgers and a surprising 20pts from Michael Crabtree on his bench. However, even the addition of Crabtree's points wouldn't have been enough and he's the latest victim of one of those head-scratching weeks when big name players fail to deliver the goods en-masse. For Phil, the contributions from Lynch, Julio Jones (sick rubs from the Wembley screens to repeatedly show me his TD vs my inept Eagles!) and McGahee were enough for him not to worry about a disappointing looking score of 14 from Drew Brees. For a matchup with Brees vs Rodgers, the overall scores from this game were surprisingly low.
Marky/sharplea (3-5) 110.58 - Nakor (7-1) 76.28 - IT'S HAPPENED AT LAST, HE'S BEEN BEATEN!!! Yes, the seemingly unstoppable Nakor has finally succumbed to his first defeat and it's perhaps a little surprising for it to be at the hands of the league's ultimate yo-yo team, Taco Style, who put together their 3rd consecutive 100+ pt score after failing to get above 95 in the 4 weeks before that. This nicely timed run of form keeps them with hopes of a late run at the playoffs. The big damage was done by the freak of nature that is Gronk, with an impressive Wembley performance (and check out the hilarious YouTube footage of him spiking a microphone at the Fan Rally on Saturday!). Big Ben also had a big week. Nakor's week can best be summed up by the fact that his top score came from a kicker (albeit an impressive 19pts from Lawrence Tynes). The question now is will he bounce back straight away, or is this the start of the wobble?
jek187 (4-4) 106.18 - Tighty (3-5) 53.34 - After a morale-boosting win in Week 7, Tighty's team returns to their previous poor scoring form and gets blown out by Siberian Alcoholics, moving jek precariously to the fringe of the playoff spots. Week 7 aside, that's 3 out of the last 4 weeks in which Tighty's top score was 68 points, and he desperately needs a change in form to make a play-off charge. Jamaal Charles was inexplicably underused in Week 7 (even Romeo Crennel had no answer as to why, and he's only the head coach!) and, even worse, he took a massive blow to the head in Thursday's early Week 8 game, so the prognosis looks shaky for Mr Prew's chances at this time. Jek found himself with a tough decision as to whether to risk game-time decision Jimmy Graham in the late game, but missing out on those points didn't matter and the top of his line up brought scores of 24, 19 and 33 points from Ryan, Ridley and Martin. It looks like we can't count out the challenge from across the pond in this league just yet!
Horneris (5-3) 126.78 - Linux (1-7) 40.28 - Linux takes a leaf out of the WPIL coaching manual, leaves 2 bye-week players in his starting line up, and consequently gets battered by Horneris, who sets a new record winning margin for the season (meaning that Linux has now been on the receiving end of the top 2 games on this list). Linux also takes over the dubious honour of the season's lowest total. Brent's team put together a very handy score, littered with double-digit contributions from most of his players. In the end, he would have won the tie fielding only Titus Young and LeSean McCoy! Surprisingly, Linux's total did include a couple of double digit scores from Forte and the Packers' DEF, but the rest of his starting line up added only another 14pts combined. Horneris moves to 5-3, Linux is now in a battle to avoid bottom spot by the looks of things!
LeKnave (6-2) 91.66 - ChipRich (3-5) 83.00 - A slightly odd match-up, timing wise, as LeKnave's team were all done by the end of the early Sunday games (and had Peterson and Harvin in action on Thursday), whilst a lot of Rich's team were playing the later games, so this was a case of LeKnave putting up a total and then saying "beat that" to Rich. The total of 91.66 was decent, but not unbeatable, with the Viking's duo being the top two contributors, but Rich was unable to match it, falling 8.66 points short in the end. He left enough points on the bench with Dwyer and Donald Brown to have made this possible, but it would have been a bit of a reach to expect anyone to have predicted dropping Maclin and Bradshaw ahead of them to accomodate this. LeKnave is now in reach of Nakor at 6-2, so it's possible that we may soon have a new league leader!
Overall, the league is showing the first signs of separation at the bottom, with two teams now 2 games adrift of the others. Nakor's loss has tightened things up at the top and the 4 teams in playoff spots at 5-3 are within reach of Jek, who is the only one with a 4-4 record. Consequently, his matchup vs The Camel has a lot of significance this week, whilst Nakor has to fend off the challenge of in-form Horneris. Tighty will also have to pull off a major shock to defeat LeKnave based on recent form.
A few matchups have had some early scoring from the Chargers victory over the terrible Chiefs and the Desperation Bowl of Eagles@Saints will be the final game played out, so I'll have the added stress of Fantasy results on top of the usual pain that watching the Eagles brings me (not that I expect any sympathy from you lot for this). Next week's report may very well be more of a rant than usual if things go as badly as I fear. #FireAndy
YTD Records:
Highest Team Score:1) 166.80 - B Side's (Week 5)
2) 149.94 - Sheriff's Stars (Week 2)
3) 143.84 - B Side's (Week 4)
Lowest Team Score:1) 40.28 - Ruxin's Ravens (Week 8 )
2) 47.90 - WeHateDallas (Week 5)
3) 53.34 - PancakeBlock (Week 8 )
Lowest Winning Team Score:1) 77.00 - Carisbrooke Chodes (Week 7) vs Dr Mantis Toboggan MD
2) 80.20 - Siberian Alcoholics (Week 5) vs Taco Style FF
3) 81.34 - Taco Style FF (Week 2) vs PancakeBlock
Highest Losing Team Score: 113.48
1) 113.48 - Robbies Gould en Shower (Week 5) vs Middleton Tyas Mayhem
2) 109.08 - Taco Style FF (Week 1) vs Robbies Gould en Shower
3) 108.96 - Carisbrooke Chodes (Week 2) vs Sheriff's Stars
Largest Winning Margin:1) 86.50 - Dr Mantis Toboggan MD (Week 8 ) vs Ruxin's Ravens
2) 73.34 - B Side's (Week 5) vs Ruxin's Ravens
3) 64.96 - Carisbrooke Chodes (Week 5) vs WeHateDallas
Narrowest Winning Margin:1) 0.38 - B Side's (Week 3) vs Siberian Alcoholics
2) 0.60 - Siberian Alcoholics (Week 7) vs Robbies Gould en Shower
3) 1.14 - Sheriff's Stars (Week 4) vs Ruxin's Ravens
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