Anthony prevented Eric from becoming the first manager in AFL history to reach 20 Game-of-the-Week victories.

After failing in his first attempt to secure a Peyton Manning Award this season, back in Week 5, Ant has won the award in back-to-back weeks and now has 17 of them in his career, passing Evan Ash for the second most all-time behind Eric’s 19. He improves to 17-15 in his career GOTW appearances while Eric falls to 19-8.

Anthony’s biggest difference maker was Alvin Kamara. The Saints all-pro running back entered Week 8 without a single touchdown this season. He scored three of them this week and gave Ant a huge lift with his 38.99 points, the 32nd most in AFL history by a starting running back.

In a low-scoring week for defenses across the AFL, the Philadelphia Eagles also made a significant contribution to Anthony’s performance with a league-high 14.92 points, earning Anthony defensive coach of the week honors.

One bit of disappointment about this loss for Eric, other than the fact that it was the league’s only unlucky loss of the week and his second of the past four weeks (he’s also had two lucky wins in that span, so it all balances out) is that Eric had the higher optimal point total for the week.

Part of his downfall was his failure to wake up early enough to switch Evan Engram into his lineup for Darren Waller, who was a game-time decision later in the day. Starting Jamaal Williams for Michael Carter and the Cleveland Browns for the Atlanta Falcons would have been enough, though none of those “errors” go down as coaching risks as the outcomes all ran counter to FleaFlicker’s projections.

A record has fallen! Never in our nearly 10-year history had a team scored 200 points in a single game. In fact, no team had ever reached 190 points in a week. Cory’s 205.71 points breaks the previous record set by Sean Kennedy in Week 5 of 2021 when he scored 188.26 points, which in turn broke the record of 185.00 points Eric Meyer set in the 2016 AFL Championship.

The record-breaking performance gives Cory his 11th career Tom Brady Award and his first since Week 12 of last season, tying him with Sean Kennedy and Will Massimini for the fourth most in AFL history.

Cory had six Top 5 positional performers this week, all but his kicker, defense, and one offensive player. The standout performance came from Christian McCaffrey, who recorded touchdowns as both a passer, runner, and receiver, the first player to do so since LaDainian Tomlinson, who our league’s MVP Award is named for.

McCaffrey’s 37.82 points ranked 42nd all-time among running back performances. Cory got another 35.50 points from A.J. Brown, which ties the Eagles receiver for 31st among AFL wide receiver games.

Cory overcame a couple of coaching mistakes this week. One didn’t go down as a coaching risk, but he would have been a couple points better off had he started Tua Tagovailoa, the week’s #1 quarterback in our league’s scoring, instead of Jalen Hurts, who, to be fair, finished 2nd in the AFL this week.

More costly was Cory’s coaching risk to added and start Matt Gay at kicker instead of Michael Badgley, a decision which cost Cory 8.20 points and earned him the Week 8 Hue Jackson Award.

Andrew was the lowest scorer of the week, making this the 15th time in AFL history the highest and lowest scoring teams were matched up. Cory’s win differential of 120.79 points is the highest in any of those 15 games and likely the highest in AFL history.

A week after beating Evan, the one manager he had yet to beat since joining the AFL in 2020, Alex has now lost to 10 of his 11 league-mates. The only man yet to beat him will look to change that this coming week, but more on that in the preview post later this week.

Will’s biggest contributor was Derrick Henry, who has been on a rampage since failing to reach double digits in the season’s opening two weeks. This week he scored 38.46 points, the second highest total among running backs in the AFL and the 36th most all-time.

The victory allowed Will to climb to within three games of the AFL West leader with seven games remaining in the regular season and had repercussions for Alex, as well, keeping preventing him from taking advantage of Sean Kennedy’s loss to take sole possession of the AFL East division lead.

Will is the AFL’s unluckiest manager by breakdown at 0.9 wins below expected.

While the first three games were pretty much blowouts, this and the final two games we have to discuss were much closer affairs. One thing that kept this game competitive was the pair of running backs the two players had leading their teams.

On the victorious side of Evan’s Dark Avengers, Tony Pollard took full advantage of Ezekiel Elliott’s absence to record 35.67 points, the 64th most ever by a starting AFL running back in a single game.

Not to be significantly outdone, D’Onta Foreman capitalized on Chuba Hubbard’s injury to scored 35.28 points, which ranked 72nd on that same leaderboard.

Perhaps most impressive was Evan’s ability to overcome leaving the week’s QB3, Rayne Dakota Prescott, on his bench, missing out on his 27.90-point performance.

While the loss cuts Brandon’s advantage in his division down to just a game, the good news for him is that he is now the owner of the AFL’s longest active 100-point game streak. He’s reached that mark in each of his last four games, taking over the active lead thanks to Sean’s first game under 100 points this season. More on that in a moment.

Alex made a huge mistake this week when he left Kyle Pitts out of his lineup. The Falcons second-year tight end was the TE3 in the AFL with 17.20 points and they were wasted on Alex’s bench.

The decision to start Irv Smith instead of Pitts cost Alex 13.60 points, and he cost his team almost another point by starting Brian Robinson instead of David Montgomery. Coaching was so bad in the AFL this week, though, that Alex is Week 8’s best coach thanks to the 19.92 points he earned by starting Taylor Heinicke instead of Trevor Lawrence, bringing his net coaching points earned to a league-high 5.41 points.

Of course, that total only comes about halfway to accounting for Alex’s important victory against Stephen. The rest of the explanation likely lies with Nick Folk. The New England Patriots kicker enjoyed his third game of the season with at least six made kicks, and his second of the season with five made field goals.

It’s the second time this year Folk has scored 20 points in a game and his 22.90-point outing in Week 8 is the third highest total recorded by a kicker in any AFL game. The performance earns Alex kicker coach of the week honors.

William earned a lucky win this week as the AFL’s eight highest scorer. He is now one of four lucky managers in the AFL against the league’s weekly median.

Sean had been the AFL’s only manager to score 100 points or more in every game this season. That streak ended this week, leaving Brandon Saunders as the league’s active leader, followed by Cory Puffett and Stephen April. This is the first time since 2007 that no manager had a streak of at least 10 games over 100 points to begin the season.