Written by Cory Puffett
Published October 12, 2017 to Puff on the NFL
Another week is in the books as we pass the third-way point of the season. I’m a little late getting to this so I’ll be as brief as possible. I apologize in advance for any misspelled words or incorrect grammar resulting from my speed-typing.
This was the 19th highest scoring week in league history (now 59 regular season weeks in the books) with 1270.7 points scored between our 12 teams.
Viroj led the charge with 133.9 points, the #51 highest single-week team score in league history. Evan almost made the top 80 list with his 129.7-point effort, good for #68 all time.
Speaking of Viroj leading the league in scoring, he has now won two consecutive Tom Brady Awards after posting a dismal 2-31 breakdown in the season’s first three weeks. Today’s news of Ezekiel Elliott’s suspension being upheld may be bad news depending on when that is enacted.
Danny won the league’s other weekly trophy, the Peyton Manning Award, with his victory over Andrew in the game of the week. This gives Danny a 2-game lead against the other three teams in the AFL Central as we enter the league’s second week of division play this season.
Evan started Deshaun Watson for a second week in a row, and for a second week in a row Deshaun Watson delivered. He gave Evan 35.9 points, good for the #19 highest single-week score for a quarterback in league history. It was also a 0.3-point improvement over his performance last week, which now sits at #22 on that list.
Two running backs made the top 40 single-game list for their position in week 5. Leonard Fournette gave Adam 33.7 points, good for #32 all-time, and Melvin Gordon gave Eric 33.3 points, good for #35 on the list.
This week featured the league’s 8th “toilet bowl” of all time, and the second this season. In fact, this is the second time in league history that we have seen this scoring anomaly in consecutive weeks. Eric defeated Anthony despite being the second lowest scoring team this week. Their point differential of 14.7 is solidly in the middle of such games, being the 4th lowest. This was Eric’s first time being involved in such a contest. Anthony joins last week’s victim, Brandon, with an 0-2 record in such games.
Obviously, then, our luckiest coach of the week was Eric, who won with a 1-10 breakdown. This means someone had to be on the short end of the stick. Before telling you who that was, let me just say that in 59 regular season weeks in AFL history, only three times have the top six scorers all won in the same week, and it hasn’t happened since week 10 of 2014!
This week’s unluckiest coach was Brandon, who had an 8-3 breakdown, the 4th best in the league, but lost to Evan’s 10-1 breakdown. This is the best breakdown for a losing team so far this season, so Brandon is really the extra unluckiest coach this week.
Our top coach was Adam, who started LeGarrette Blount and Alex Collins over Jonathan Stewart and Tarik Cohen. Only one of those decisions was correct, but the net result was a gain of 6 points, more than anybody else in the league.
The week’s worst coach was actually Viroj, believe it or not. Despite leading the league in scoring, he cost his team a league-high 17.6 points by starting Brandon Marshall and Wayne Collins over Will Fuller V and Joe Mixon.
Viroj and Danny each had three players in the top five at their positions. Five other owners had two each. The only league member without any player in the top five at his position this week was Anthony.
Check out the review of Week 5 below:
Game of the Week: Andrew Perez at Danny Hatcher
Tyrell Williams scored just 2.7 points, but every other offensive players on Danny’s team scored at least 10.9 points. While D-Hop was the only to top 20, this effort was more than enough to secure Danny a victory over Andrew, who had two offensive players score less than one point. Danny is now firmly in the driver’s seat in the AFL Central.