This was the third week in a row and sixth time this season that Alex faced the week’s top scorer. This was not an unlucky loss, however. In fact, for the second week in a row and the ninth time in AFL history, we had no lucky winners or unlucky losers as the Top 6 scorers all won their games.

Stephen won his sixth career Tom Brady Award and, since this was also designated the Game of the Week, he also took home his fifth career Peyton Manning Award. Stephen is now 5-5 in his 10 career game of the week appearances while Alex falls to 2-5 in his seven appearances. This was the 28th time in AFL history that a manager won both awards in the same week.

Thought it wound up not factoring in because of Stephen’s significant margin of victory, Alex left an inactive Alvin Kamara in his lineup Thursday night, the first inactive player started by any team this season. That was an issue for Alex last year but hadn’t been so far in 2021.

Evan earned a crucial win against Sean this week to force a three-way tie atop the AFL West. In fact, with tiebreakers Evan now has the division lead!

A big help to his effort was a 30.12-point performance by Justin Jefferson in the Minnesota Vikings’ loss to the previously-winless Detroit Lions. Jefferson’s point total ranks as the 99th highest total for a starting wide receiver in AFL history. He was one of four Top 5 positional performances in Evan’s starting lineup this week.

Sean was this week’s kicker coach of the week. Philadelphia Eagles kicker Jake Elliott scored 18.2 points as he nailed all seven of his kicks, four of them field goals, all of them from beyond 30 yards. More than 35% of Sean’s point total this week came from non-offensive players.

Evan could have been this week’s defensive coach of the week, but he left the highest scoring defensive unit on his bench. The LA Chargers scored 26.9 points as they forced five turnovers (one of them a fourth down stop) and recorded a defensive touchdown in their blowout win over the Cincinnati Bengals.

Still, Evan was the coach of the week in Week 13. He was the only manager to net positive points from coaching risks this week and he succeeded on both of his risks to earn 6.02 points. He earned 1.68 points by adding and starting Taysom Hill instead of Jimmy Garoppolo at quarterback and an additional 4.34 points by starting Jerry Jeudy at FLEX instead of Rex Burkhead.

Now that he has the division lead on tiebreakers, PlayoffComputer projects Evan to have a 43.7% chance to win the AFL West and a 47.4% chance to make the playoffs.

Evan is now tied for the second longest active streak of 100-point games with three of them in a row.

In the only matchup featuring two teams with 100+ points, Will took advantage of a couple of duds in Cory’s starting lineup to win his game and keep his playoff hopes alive, albeit by the thinnest of margins. PlayoffComputer puts Will’s playoff odds at less than a ten-thousandth of a percent.

Will could have extended his winning margin by a significant amount and, in fact, earned this week’s Hue Jackson Award by costing his team the most points vs FleaFlicker suggestions.

Will took only one coaching risk, starting Pittsburgh Steelers tight end Pat Freiermuth over Philadelphia Eagles tight end Dallas Goedert. Goedert had a great game, though, scoring 25.6 points, which would have been tied for the 35th highest point total at the position in AFL history had he been in Will’s lineup. Instead, Freiermuth was in the lineup and scored 20.2 points fewer than Goedert.

Defensive coach of the week honors do go to Will, though. He earned 19.12 points from the Seattle Seahawks defense. They were only the third highest scoring defensive unit in the NFL using our scoring system, but the top two were both benched.

Cory managed to reach triple digits this week despite Darrell Henderson and Adam Thielen combining for just 0.1 points in his starting lineup. Though he didn’t get the defensive and kicker performances he’s been used to over the past few weeks, he remains the season-long leader in scoring at both positions. He has 187.04 defensive points and 145.7 kicker points in 2021.

William finished fourth in scoring this week and earned a very important win over his brother on his birthday weekend. We’ve discussed William’s bad luck this season at length but he kept his playoff hopes alive with this win.

Anthony left the second highest scoring defense on his bench this week. The Kansas City Chiefs scored 25.36 points that went to waste for him.

William is tied with Evan for the second longest active 100-point streak at three games.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about this matchup in terms of historical significance.

Brandon’s 67.66 points rank as the 10th lowest score since we expanded rosters in 2016. He did not have a single Top 5 starter at any position.

Brandon has now gone four straight games without scoring 100 points, tying his longest career streak which he set in the first four weeks of this season.

Eric’s win, coupled with Anthony’s loss, gives him sole possession of first place in the AFL Central. He’ll play the Battle brothers over the next week weeks so this certainly doesn’t guarantee him a spot in the playoffs, but he took advantage of his matchup with the league’s worst team of 2021.

After passing Anthony last week, Eric fell back to last place in kicker scoring for the year. He has 78.5 points from the position, just 53.8% of Cory’s total at the top of the kicker leaderboard.

Andrew won this matchup but enough other things around the league went against him to eliminate him from the playoffs.

Still, Andrew enjoyed a nice win against the best team in the AFL. This was thanks in large part to his late-week decision not to take a coaching risk by starting Zach Ertz over George Kittle, who sat on his bench until almost the last minute.

Kittle wound up scoring 34.52 points, the 4th highest total by a starting tight end in AFL history!

Alex, meanwhile, left a couple of Top 5 positional performances on his bench. Kirk Cousins was the week’s #5 quarterback with 23.08 points and the Dallas Cowboys were the week’s #3 defense with 24.56 points.

With Alex Kincaid failing to reach 100 points for the first time since Week 8, Andrew is now the active leader in consecutive 100-point games. He’s hit triple digits in four straight games.

Andrew remains last in defensive scoring this season, but he is no longer under 100 points thanks to a 14-point performance by the Vikings in their embarrassing loss to the Lions.

Despite the loss, Alex has a 99.8% chance of making the playoffs according to PlayoffComputer.

Andrew has three Philadelphia Eagles running backs on his roster, which is not only very bizarre but will force him to get on the waiver wire this week since the Eagles are on bye.

There’s a chance Andrew could get Deebo Samuel back from his groin injury this week, though early reports seemed to be suggesting Samuel would be unavailable to the 49ers until at least Week 15.

Meanwhile, Alex will have to keep an eye on a few injury and health situations on his roster. Melvin Gordon and Alvin Kamara both missed this past week with hip and ACL injuries, respectively.

Keenan Allen, meanwhile, was placed on the Chargers’ COVID list on Monday. He’s vaccinated so depending on how bad his symptoms are and how he tests late in the week, he could be available on Sunday.

Stephen has a prime opportunity to take a 2-0 head-to-head lead in this season series. He has no bye weeks or injuries to navigate.

Alex, meanwhile, will be without Jonathan Taylor, DeVonta Smith, Kendrick Bourne, and the Eagles defense. He’ll also have to keep an eye on Joe Mixon, who is questionable for Sunday’s tilt with the 49ers due to a neck injury.

Brandon will be without Colts receiver Michael Pittman this week due to his bye week. Kenny Golladay is questionable with a rib injury and Allen Robinson missed this past week with a hamstring injury.

It’s a tough injury situation for his wide receiver corps but he’ll have Chuba Hubbard back from the bye and hopefully his volume in relief of an injured CMC will help him out.

Anthony, meanwhile, is in great shape this week. Kareem Hunt is questionable with a calf injury but otherwise he’s got his regular starting lineup in one piece minus his standout rookie Jaylen Waddle, who is on bye. Waddle has been the WR17 in our league so far this season.

Eric finally got Logan Thomas back this past week and he immediately suffered a knee injury that has him doubtful for this week. He has a few bye weeks to manage but his bench appears to have good options to cover those players’ absences.

William, meanwhile, doesn’t have too much to worry about this week. He has already cut Kenyan Drake, Blake Jarwin, and Matt Ryan so he appears to be gearing up for a few waiver wire bids. He has a league-high $195 of his FAAB still available to him.

He’ll keep an eye this week on a couple of injuries. Tee Higgins is questionable with an ankle injury and Austin Ekeler is questionable for an undisclosed reason.

The first matchup between Cory and Sean was back in Week 9 and Sean took advantage of Cory’s lowest score of the season to take the early head-to-head advantage.

Cory has to deal with bye weeks at defense and kicker as the Dolphins defense and their tight end Mike Gesicki, as well as the Patriots defense and their kicker Nick Folk, are on bye. Cory picked up the Broncos defense last week and they’ll face the Detroit Lions but he’ll have to figure out his kicker and tight end situations.

Sean will also have to pick up a kicker with Jake Elliott’s Eagles on bye. Damien Harris was a big part of New England’s Monday night win, but his bye week probably won’t affect Sean too much. He aggravated a hamstring injury on Monday night and might not have been available this weekend anyway.

Cory, meanwhile, will have to navigate an ankle injury that took Adam Thielen out of the Vikings game right after his only catch and has him doubtful for Thursday night against Pittsburgh. He also has an interesting set of running back tandem participants with Darrell Henderson, Aaron Jones, Javonte Williams, Jamaal Williams, and Tony Pollard all apparently part of committees.

Elijah Mitchell is questionable with a concussion, but Will is otherwise in pretty good shape this week. He won’t have the option of starting the wrong tight end this week since Dallas Goedert is on bye, but he’s been pretty dedicated to Pat Freiermuth lately anyway.

The big issue for Will’s team is the availability of Jalen Hurts. He’s got an ankle injury and is now on bye, so the question will be, if Will can pull out a win this week, whether Hurts is healthy enough to play in Week 15.

Evan would love to have Darren Waller back from his knee and back combo injury this week, but early reports don’t seem to give him much more than a 50/50 chance to be available this Sunday.

The good news for Evan is that Aaron Rodgers is back from bye and seems to be more optimistic about the health of his toe and the rest of his impact players are available to him.