For the 13th time in AFL history, a team with a 1-10 breakdown for the week won their matchup. For the 4th time in league history, such a matchup was designated the Game of the Week.

The last time the two lowest scoring teams faced off was in Week 12 of the 2020 season, also a game of the week, when Evan Ash defeated Stephen April in an even lower scoring contest, 84.96-83.26.

This is Brandon’s 13th career Peyton Manning Award, his last coming two weeks ago in Week 6. He is 4-0 in games of the week this year, improving his career mark to 13-17. Sean is now 0-2 this season when playing in the game of the week, having also lost in Week 7, and is now 9-12 in his career.

As the lowest scorer, Sean claimed his 13th career David Carr Award, his last coming two weeks ago in Week 6. He passes Andrew Perez for the fourth most in league history. Sean is one of two AFL managers in the midst of respective 3-game stretches without a 100-point game.

It goes without saying Brandon was the luckiest manager of the week. He is now up to 1.6 wins above expected based on breakdown record and 2 WAE based on Top 6 performances, making him the luckiest manager of the season thus far.

While you would never criticize somebody for starting Travis Kelce, if Brandon had started Trey McBride over him, or over any of his four wide receivers for that matter, he would not have been the second lowest scorer on the week. McBride was the TE2 this week, but his 20.25 points were wasted on Brandon’s bench.

From a super low scoring matchup to a super high scoring one we go. The 297.58 points these two managers combined for make this the 9th highest scoring game in AFL history.

Stephen’s team total ranks 13th in AFL history and is nearly 10 points higher than the next highest single-game team total of the 2023 season. He earned his 8th career Tom Brady Award, tied with Alex Kincaid for the seventh most in league history. It is his second Brady Award of the season following his Week 1 performance that also resulted in an unlucky loss for his opponent.

Stephen was aided by a huge game from Jahmyr Gibbs on Monday night, who managed to score 30.38 points despite finding the end zone only one time. Gibbs was the RB1 on the week. In all, Stephen had an incredible six Top 5 positional performers, two more than any other manager. He had two of the Top 5 RBs and two of the Top 5 WRs in the AFL in Week 8.

It could have been an even more dominant win for Stephen but he left the week’s DEF5 on his bench, the Minnesota Vikings’ 17.75 points wasted on his bench.

Anthony lost despite boasting the WR1 and the DEF1 of Week 8. CeeDee Lamb led all receivers with 35.58 points, ranking 36th on the AFL’s all-time wide receiver leaderboard. Meanwhile, in their return to his starting lineup, the Dallas Cowboys defense scored 24.46 points, the 86th best single-game defensive score in league history, and earned Anthony his 14th career Chuck Noll Award, tying him with Cory Puffett for the fourth most in AFL history.

Anthony will have to settle for the consolation that he snapped a two-game 100-point drought just before equaling his career long. He also extended his lead in the race for the Buddy Ryan Award. He is up to 138.31 points from the defensive position this year.

Stephen is on the opposite end of that race with a league-worst 34.15 points from his defenses. Despite this, he extended his league-leading active streak of reaching triple digits to eight games.

Anthony was the unluckiest manager of the week and is now at 1.5 wins below expected based on breakdown record, the unluckiest mark in the league. Based on Top 6 performances, he is at 2 WBE, tying him with Cory for the worst luck in the AFL.

Anthony did earn his 7th career Chuck Knox Award and his second of the season. His last came in Week 1. He earned a league high 14.40 points by succeeding on both of his coaching risks. By starting Jake Elliott at kicker instead of Nick Folk he earned 6.10 coaching points; the other 8.30 points came from his decision to start Amari Cooper instead of Christian Watson.

In another high-scoring affair, Alex joined Anthony in suffering an unlucky loss as the #6 scorer in the AFL in Week 8.

On its own it wouldn’t have made the difference, but Alex did leave the week’s WR4 on his bench in the form of 23.55 points from Rashid Shaheed.

Andrew, meanwhile, had two top positional scorers this week. Neither the TE1 nor the TE2 were started in Week 8, so George Kittle becomes the default TE1 with his 20.00-point outing, joining Brandon McManus and his 17.60 points.

McManus now ranked 52nd on the AFL’s single-game kicker list and earned Andrew his 11th career Scott O’Brien Award, tied with his brother Adam for the 8th most in AFL history. He now has 91.50 points from the kicker position this year, overtaking Evan for the lead in the Mark Moseley Award race.

Despite taking the loss, Alex did boast the week’s QB1 in Josh Allen, who contributed 31.81 points to help Alex extend his 100-point streak to seven games, the second longest active streak in the league.

Evan had little trouble winning his sixth game of the season despite leaving the week’s TE1 on his bench. Taysom Hill scored 24.05 points, which would have been #60 on the AFL’s all-time tight end list, but instead will see a Top 5 positional performance go to waste on Evan’s bench for the second week in a row and the third time this season.

While Evan is arguably the second luckiest manager in the AFL this season, sitting at 1.5 and 1.0 WAE vs breakdown and Top 6 performances, respectively, he didn’t need any luck in this one. Alex is the only manager in the AFL without a lucky win or an unlucky loss this season.

Part of Alex’s trouble this week came from his decision to ignore FleaFlicker projections and bench DeAndre Hopkins in favor of Kendrick Bourne. That lone coaching risk cost Alex a league-high 22.60 points, earning him his 7th career Hue Jackson Award and his second of the season. He ties Cory Puffett, William Battle, and Will Massimini for the fourth most Hue Jackson Award in league history and it is the seventh time a manager has taken home the Hue Jackson Award the week after claiming the Chuck Knox Award.

Hopkins would have been the WR2 on the week and his 32.35 points would have ranked 76th on the AFL’s all-time wide receiver leaderboard.

Cory got some mid-Sunday Halloween scaries when Amon-Ra St. Brown popped up on the injury report. Entering Monday night he had a decision to make between an under-the-weather St. Brown and Jakobi Meyers, but it wound up not being a decision because I totally forgot until a few minutes after kickoff when I realized I still had St. Brown in my lineup when I had intended to switch him out for Meyers.

Fantasy football wasn’t really on my radar these past several days, but it worked out as I would have lost by about half a point if I had subbed in the “safer” Meyers. Instead, I won by double digits.

Back to third-person, Cory would have regretted leaving the Week’s QB2, Sam Howell on his bench. His 31.79 points were a far cry from the 6.53 he scored when forced into Cory’s Week 7 lineup and would have flipped that Week 7 game. But Joe Burrow came through in the late afternoon with a 31-point performance of his own to be the AFL’s QB2 and the real QB3 of the week.

Eric is somehow 2-1 since he started trading away many of his assets. Prior to this week, he was in the same boat as Alex Kincaid with no lucky wins or unlucky losses. That’s no longer the case as he joined Brandon Saunders in earning a lucky Week 8 victory.

William didn’t help his cause by leaving David Njoku on his bench this week. The Browns tight end scored 15.60 points and was the real TE5 of the week. Not only would switching him in for Dalton Schultz have been enough to give him the win, but it would also have put him over 100 points. Now he is on a 3-game drought and could equal his career long if he fails to reach 100 points in Week 9.