After a dominant opener for both managers in which they both finished among the top three scorers, both slipped a bit in Week 2.

Lucky for Stephen, his fall was only from 1st to 4th in scoring while Eric slipped from 3rd to 11th!

Perhaps fortunately for Eric, there wasn’t much he could have done. He was the only manager this week with an optimal lineup score under 100 points. To that end, he won’t be too frustrated by his decision to, once again, keep Hunter Henry out of his starting lineup in favor of Darren Waller.

Waller, to his credit, was the TE4 this week. But Hunter Henry was the TE2 and it is the second week in a row to begin the season that Henry has been a Top 2 tight end while riding pine for Eric’s squad.

With his victory, Stephen earned the 6th Peyton Manning Award of his career and his first since late in the 2021 season. His record in game of the week appearances is now 6-5 while he handed Eric his 9th loss in 28 appearances.

Though Cameron Dicker was not a Top 5 kicker this week, his back-to-back double-digit weeks allowed Stephen to pass Sean this week as the leader in the race for the 2023 Mark Moseley Award. He now has 22.30 points from the position, the most in the AFL.

What a game for Will! After losing a game in blowout fashion to a team that didn’t even score 100 points in Week 1, Will bounced back in a big way in Week 2.

In AFL history, discounting instances where a manager was the lowest scorer in the final week of one season before beginning the next as the top scorer, which has happened three times, this is the sixth time a manager has won the David Carr Award one week and the Tom Brady Award the next week within the same season.

Will was the second manager to do it when he accomplished the feat between Weeks 11 and 12 in the 2015 season. Of the previous five managers to do it, only Anthony Battle repeated as the Tom Brady Award winner the following week, when he led the league in scoring in Weeks 5 and 6 of the 2019 season after being the lowest scorer in Week 4.

This is Will’s 12th career Tom Brady Award. He ties Cory Puffett for the fourth most in league history. Will last claimed the award in Week 8 of the 2021 season.

His 158.75 points ranks 39th in league history, just a week after recording the 11th lowest total since starting lineups expanded in 2016. He was led by the Pittsburgh Steelers defense, which forced four turnovers, not including two fourth down stops, and scored two touchdowns on Monday night against the Browns.

Their 33.68 points is the 10th highest single-game defensive performance in AFL history, pushing Pittsburgh’s 32.5-point performance in Week 10 of the 2019 season to #11. That 2019 outing was also to Will’s benefit.

Thanks to the Steelers and to rookie 49ers kicker Jake Moody’s 14.70 points, Will won both the Scott O’Brien Kicker Coach of the Week Award and the Chuck Noll Defensive Coach of the Week Award.

It is the 19th time Will has been the kicker coach of the week, extending his record for the most all-time, and the 17th time he was been the defensive coach of the week, which ties Sean Kennedy for the second most all time just one behind William Battle.

This also marks the 20th time in AFL history that both awards go to the same manager. The first four times, one of the two awards was shared between multiple managers. Will was the first manager to be the sole winner of both when he accomplished the feat in Week 2 of the 2018 season.

Will led all AFL managers with five Top 5 position performers in Week 2.

The only thing I can really say for our defending Sabol Bowl champion that won’t be said in the power rankings is that he did manage to score 100 points thanks largely to another solid performance from rookie running back Bijan Robinson. At least he finally got his title belt this week.

Despite only one game resulting in more total points this week, there wasn’t very much of historical significance to come out of Alex’s 20-point victory over Anthony.

T.J. Hockenson contributed a cool 22.20 points to Alex’s effort, tying him for the 89th highest single-game total for a tight end in league history. Kirk Cousins, Saquon Barkley, and Tampa Bay’s defense all joined Hockenson as Top 5 positional scorers, tying Alex with the other Alex (Mayo) for the second most of the week behind Will.

The Dallas Cowboys weren’t quite as impactful on defense as they were against the Giants in Week 1, but the put together another very solid performance for Anthony, bringing his defensive point total for the season to 55.34 points, keeping him at the front of the race for the 2023 Buddy Ryan Award. 

While his only 20-point scorer of the game was Patrick Mahomes, Anthony still put together a pretty solid performance with his 113 points. That was good enough to make him the #6 scorer of the week, making this the second unlucky loss we’ve seen in the AFL this season.

Anthony joins Cory as the two unluckiest managers of the season so far, both at one win below expectation based on Top 6 performances. And because both Sean and Cory failed to reach 100 points, Anthony now has the longest active streak with six straight games hitting triple digits.

Brandon left a lot of points on his bench this week. Not only was his optimal point total higher than Andrew’s score, it was five points higher than Andrew’s own optimal total.

Brandon took the Week 2 Chuck Knox Award as the best coach in the AFL. It’s his 7th career Knox Award. Brandon earned a league-high 16.48 points by succeeding on one of his two coaching risks. He cost his team 1.16 points by starting George Pickens over Pika Nacua this week, but he also earned 17.64 points by giving the nod to Nico Collins over Khalil Herbert in his FLEX.

His decision-making didn’t come without some missteps, however. Along with the $90 in FAAB Brandon spent to pick up Nacua this past week, he spent another $45 on Kyren Williams only to leave the Rams running back on his bench. Williams went off for 27.07 points and was the RB3 in Week 2.

Andrew’s players didn’t enter the AFL’s record books in any significant way this week, but of his nine starters only two failed to reach double digits. For a manager who has struggled mightily over the past several years, to the tune of five straight years playing in the Snyder consolation bracket, this week should feel very good. Hopefully there will be more of the same for him this season.

Brandon and Andrew are both trying to get better production from their non-offensive players. Andrew has the fewest defensive points in the league so far this season with 8.15 points while Brandon is bringing up the bottom of the kicker scoring standings at 5.50 points. At least neither remains in the negative, where they were on those respective leaderboards following Week 1.

Dominating the head-to-head series, Evan is 4-0 against Alex when he scores at least 100 points. Both made mistakes this week. While Evan made more costly mistakes, he got away with them.

Alex left the Miami Dolphins defense and their 13.15 points on his bench. They were the #5 defense of the week.

Evan left the TE5 on his bench as Taysom Hill scored 9.71 points, far better than the 0.49 points he scored in Evan’s lineup in Week 1.

Evan had the RB1, Brian Robinson, in his lineup this weekend, but he could have had both of the top two running backs in fantasy in his lineup had he started D’Andre Swift on Thursday night after Kenneth Gainwell was ruled out of the contest.

Swift had 28.04 points, and to make matters worse, FleaFlicker projections suggested he should have been in Evan’s lineup over Odell Beckham. That coaching risk cost Evan a league-high 23.44 points, earning him the Hue Jackson Award, the 16th of his career which ties Andrew Perez for the most all-time.

In a true toilet bowl of a game, only Eric Meyer’s terrible week prevented this from being the 13th time in AFL history the bottom two scoring teams went head-to-head.

After suffering a loss as the second highest scorer in Week 1, Cory’s team imploded in Week 2. Aaron Jones was ruled out ahead of Sunday’s game due to a hamstring injury he suffered on his second touchdown in Week 1, Joe Burrow tweaked his calf injury late in the 4th quarter on Sunday, and he lost Nick Chubb for the season after a brutal knee injury on Monday night.

To make matters worse, Cory left the QB3, Russell Wilson, and his 26.82 points on his bench and he left another 26.94 points on his bench in the form of the week’s RB3, Raheem Mostert.

Sean was this week’s lucky winner, finishing as the #10 scorer for the week. He and Evan Ash are both one win above expectation by Top 6 performances through Week 2.

For Cory, this is his 7th career David Carr Award, breaking a tie with Stephen April and Adam Perez for the 10th most in AFL history. He had been on quite a streak as he hadn’t had to claim this award since Week 11 of the 2019 season. As you may expect, Cory as the only manager in Week 2 without a single Top 5 positional scorer.