Written by Cory Puffett
Published October 9, 2018

This was our league’s 73rd week of regular season play, calling to mind the 1940 NFL Championship Game in which the Bears obliterated the Redskins to the tune of 73-0. Fitting, then, that the Redskins got annihilated by the Saints on Monday Night Football to end this week of fantasy football play.

This was the ninth time in AFL history that our highest and lowest scorers were matched up against each other. William Battle beat Andrew Perez by 71.3 points, the third highest margin of victory in those nine games.

This also was the 17th time the league’s top scorer won the game of the week. The last time this happened was just last week when Eric did it.

Week 4 marked the first time all 12 teams scored at least 100 points, and we almost did it again this week. Andrew ruined it by scoring just 71.7 points. Our league total of 1418.7 points scored this week seems really low, especially in comparison to last week’s total of more than 1500 points. But this was still the fourth highest scoring week in league history and, despite Andrew’s score, our six losing teams averaged 108.9 points, the second highest such average in league history.

One more comment on Andrew before we move on: he became the seventh player to fall below the 100-point threshold for a week this year. He had been the last man standing above that threshold each of the last three seasons.

While the scoring was not as low as we might think on first glance, it wasa low-scoring week for quarterbacks. Not one of our starting quarterbacks this week cracked the top 40 single-game scores at the position. In fact, only two players at any position managed to do so.

James Conner scored 34.5 points for Will Massimini, placing him in a tie for 31st on the all-time running back leaderboard while Eric Ebron, with 27 points for Anthony, moves into a three-way tie for 15th on the tight end list. That three-way tie includes Jared Cook who lodged his 27-point game just a week ago.

William Battle led the league with 143.0 points, good for #35 in league history. Adam’s 140.0-point outburst puts him in 43rd and was his highest score in more than two years.

Will Massimini, meanwhile, scored 130.4 points in his loss to Adam. His total is the fifth highest losing score in league history. On that note, Will, of course, was our unlucky owner of the week. He had a 9-2 breakdown this week.

Brandon Saunders, meanwhile, was our luckiest owner of the week. He had just a 3-8 breakdown but was matched up with Danny, who was our third lowest scorer. Brandon has been exceptionally lucky this season. He had an unlucky loss last week, but three of his four wins have come with scores in the bottom half of the league. Through five weeks, he has a 1.55 WAE (wins above expected), which is the highest in the league.

Will’s unlucky loss brings him down to a WAE of -1.73, which, although further along that extreme than Brandon is on the lucky side, does not make him the unluckiest owner in the AFL. That title goes to Anthony Battle, who has a WAE of -1.95. He should be, roughly, 2-3 but sits at 0-5.

Our defensive streamer of the week is, for the third time already this season, Will Massimini. After starting the Bears defense for the first four weeks of the season, he finally had to actually stream a defense while Chicago was on bye.

Will went with the Arizona Cardinals and got 25 points from him, bringing his streaming total to 97 points on the season. On the bottom of that list is Andrew who has just 28 points from his defenses through five weeks.

Our kicker streamer of the week is Adam, who got 13 points from Texans kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn. Sean pulled into a tie with Danny atop the season rankings with 48 points from the kicker position. Eric is currently in last with 23 points as he continues to roll with Steelers kicker Chris Boswell.

Our top coach this week was Sean Kennedy. He earned 16.9 points and a win by starting Isaiah Crowell against ESPN’s recommendation, LeSean McCoy.

Evan also earned a win this week for an honorable mention. He earned 3.1 points by succeeding on one of two coaching risks. He earned 8 points by starting Mohamed Sanu over Marvin Jones Jr. but lost 4.9 points by starting Austin Ekeler instead of Alfred Blue. His was a very close game so he needed Sanu to come away with the win.

On the flip side, Anthony cost his team 11.3 points and a win by failing on one of two coaching risks. He did earn 2.7 points starting Emmanuel Sanders over Keelan Cole, but he lost 14 points by starting Jared Goff instead of Tom Brady, the very move that earned him an honorable mention as a top coach last week.

We also have an honorable mention for worst coach this week because Danny Hatcher also cost his team a win. Like Evan, Danny was in a close contest and so the 2.8 points he lost out on by starting Alshon Jeffery instead of Latavius Murray made the difference.

This week, William Battle and Cory Puffett each had three offensive players among the top five scorers at their positions. Five others had two each and Danny was the only owner without any such players. Eric was the only owner to win his matchup with fewer players in the top five at their positions than his opponent. Eric had two such players and Cory had three.

Check out the review of Week 5 and this week’s power rankings below:

Game of the Week: William Battle at Andrew Perez

After one of the best games of the week in AFL history in week 4, this week’s was a blowout. For the ninth time in league history, our top scorer faced our lowest scorer. Andrew’s score is the lowest of the season in the league, one point shy of his brother’s Week 1 total.