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Written by Cory Puffett
Published September 26, 2024
I'll offer just a few observations from Week 3 as we move into the second 20% of our season.
Things are not looking good for our defending champion. While it was not uncommon in our league's first several years for the reigning champ to wind up in the Snyder bracket of the consolation ladder the following season, we haven't seen it happen since Sean Kennedy won the Snyder game in 2020 a year after winning Sabol Bowl VII. Brandon Saunders has quite an uphill battle these next 12 weeks to avoid a similar fate.
It doesn't help his 2024 prospects that he refuses to use Malik Nabers. No doubt the Giants fan will have a lot of fun for the next several years having his team's new best player on his fantasy roster. Hopefully his production will be worth the significant handicap he's given himself for this season by drafting a player in the 3rd round who won't see a start until 2025.
Will Massimini got a lucky win?!? Will entered the 2024 season with the unluckiest record in league history, standing at 11 wins below expected for his career. Having already suffered 20 unlucky losses across our league's first 11 seasons, his 10th career lucky win must have been a welcome result, especially since last year he had an 0-3 luck record.
Sean Kennedy and Cory Puffett are showing remarkable consistency to start this season. Every other manager has had at least one game with fewer than 100 points, so the question is which of them will outlast the other.
I mentioned last week that we've never seen all 12 managers fall below that mark early than Week 6. In our FleaFlicker era, the earliest it happened was in 2022 when Sean was the last to fall in Week 8, which also happened to be the week Cory set the AFL record with more than 200 points in a single game.
Over the past two weeks, I've gone back through our 156 regular season weeks to look at how many times a manager won the Tom Brady Award (high score) a week after winning the David Carr Award (low score) and vice versa.
I don't include occurrences that bridge two seasons, though there were three instances of a manager winning the Brady Award in Week 1 after finishing the previous year with a Carr Award, and two instances of the reverse.
Taking those instances out, we've had seven managers claim the Brady Award a week after being the low scorer. The last two were Will Massimini and Stephen April in the second weeks of the past two seasons.
There have been eight times a manager won the Carr Award a week after being the high scorer. Heading into Monday, Stephen was in line to be the ninth, but his six Monday night players took care of business. The last two managers this has happened to were Andrew Perez in Week 8 of the 2022 season and Anthony Battle in Week 2 of the 2021 season. Remarkably, Anthony has done this four times in his career.
Finally, I'll briefly mention that this is the week our consistency metric begins to impact power rankings. Consistency looks at both the standard deviation of your own scores across the season to date and where your scores fell compared to the league average. Lower absolute values tend to indicate more inconsistency from week to week for your team while higher absolute values indicate higher consistency. Positive and negative values, as expected, indicate good teams and bad teams.
As such, this metric essentially ranks teams among four teirs: (1) consistency good, (2) inconsistently above average, (3) inconsistently below average, (4) consistently below average.
Right now, Sean is far and away at the top of this list with a 2.09 consistency score. In second is Cory at 0.66. They are the only managers who have scored more than 107.62 points (our league average through three weeks) in every game this season, though Cory's Week 1 score only cleared that mark by 2.5 points.
At the bottom of our chart is Eric Meyer at a -0.88 consistency score and then Will Massimini at -0.83. They scored above league average in Weeks 1 and 2, respectively, but neither by more than three points.
Game of the Week: Jeffery McDonald (96.52) vs Eric Meyer (85.72)
Game of the Week: Jeffery McDonald (96.52) vs Eric Meyer (85.72)
All-time H2H: Jeffery leads series 1-0
While this wasn’t the most exciting game in Week 3, it could have been much worse. Of three matchups without either team scoring 100 points, this was the highest scoring. While Zack Moss and Chris Olave joined the week’s Scott O’Brien Award winner, Harrison Butker, to provide a strong foundation for Eric, a poor game by C.J. Stroud and several other duds left the 2016 Sabol Bowl champ out to dry.
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Instead, Jeffery earned his first career Peyton Manning Award in his first career game of the week appearance. Lamar Jackson provided the fire power, finishing just shy of 30 points, while Stefon Diggs, Travis Etienne, and Jerome Ford provided double-digit outings to give the first-year manager a win despite falling below 100 points for the first time in his AFL career.
Stephen April (119.56) vs Cory Puffett (142.23)
Stephen April (119.56) vs Cory Puffett (142.23)
All-time H2H: Cory leads series 5-4
Evan Ash (125.40) vs Alex Kincaid (138.20)
Evan Ash (125.40) vs Alex Kincaid (138.20)
All-time H2H: Evan leads series 5-4
Brandon Saunders (71.83) vs Sean Kennedy (139.55)
Brandon Saunders (71.83) vs Sean Kennedy (139.55)
All-time H2H: Brandon leads series 10-4
Anthony Battle (94.31) vs Alex Mayo (63.48)
Anthony Battle (94.31) vs Alex Mayo (63.48)
All-time H2H: Anthony leads series 5-3
William Battle (77.92) vs Will Massimini (90.26)
William Battle (77.92) vs Will Massimini (90.26)
All-time H2H: Will leads series 9-5
Free Agent All-Stars vs Tom Brady Award Winner
Every week, we take the best possible lineup made of players who were available on waivers in the AFL at the end of the week and compare it to the top scoring team of the week in our league. Included percentages for the Free Agent All-Star players represent the percentage of FleaFlicker leagues in which each the player was rostered as of data gathering (usually Tuesday morning).
Final Score:
Free Agent All-Stars – 165.21
Cory Puffett – 152.23
YTD Tom Brady Award Winner Record: 1-2
IR Report
In our league, any player can be placed on IR regardless of injury designation. Once on IR, the player cannot be moved, dropped, or traded for a minimum of three weeks.
After Week 1, IR placements are retroactive to the prior week as long as the player was already on the team's roster but was not in the starting lineup during that prior week. This means those players will be eligible to come off IR after just a two-week stay.
Weekly Manager Awards
How were this week's $10 divvied up? Weekly awards with no financial benefit can also be found here
Weekly Manager Awards
How were this week's $10 divvied up? Weekly awards with no financial benefit can also be found here
$4 - Tom Brady Award (Highest Scorer) Cory Puffett #15 in his career (4th most all-time)
142.23 points Does not rank in Top 100 all-time
$1 - Norm Van Brocklin Award (Top QB) Anthony Battle #15 in his career (4th most all-time)
Josh Allen, 34.61 13th career QB1 week
$1 - Adrian Peterson Award (Top RB) Alex Kincaid #10 in his career
Kyren Williams, 33.37 2nd career RB1 week
$1 - Flipper Anderson Award (Top WR) Evan Ash #19 in his career (2nd most all-time)
Jauan Jennings, 41.55 1st career WR1 week
$1 - Shannon Sharpe Award (Top TE) Sean Kennedy #16 in his career (t-3rd most all-time)
Dallas Goedert, 20.75 4th career TE1 week
$1 - Scott O'Brien Award (Top K) Eric Meyer #16 in his career (3rd most all-time)
Harrison Butker, 12.70 5th career K1 week
$1 - Chuck Noll Award (Top DEF) Alex Mayo #8 in his career
Buffalo Bills, 22.02 9th DEF1 week all-time
David Carr Award (Lowest Scorer) Alex Mayo #3 in his career
#1 Power Ranking Sean Kennedy #11 in his career
#12 Power Ranking Brandon Saunders #16 in his career (t-4th most all-time)
Note: Three different managers have occupied the #1 spot and three different managers have occupied the #12 spot in our first three weekly power rankings in 2024.
Coaching Report
Who earned or cost him team the most points or a win based on coaching decisions? Find out here.
Coaching Report
Who earned or cost him team the most points or a win based on coaching decisions? Find out here.
Chuck Knox Award (Best Coach) Sean Kennedy #14 in his career (most all-time)
Sean had one coaching risk in Week 3, picking up Blake Grupe instead of Nick Folk for a streaming start at kicker. It was a successful risk and earned him a league-high 5.20 points.
Hue Jackson Award (Worst Coach) Brandon Saunders #6 in his career
Brandon earned his second consecutive Hue Jackson Award by failing on both of his Week 3 coaching risks and costing his team a league-high 21.77 points. He lost a single point from picking up Chase McLaughlin instead of Nick Folk for a kicker streaming start and 20.77 poins by starting Xavier Worthy at WR and again leaving Malik Nabers on his TAXI.
Managers took a combined 16 coaching risks this week and were successful on 8. The league's net point differential was -39.73
To date in 2024, the AFL has a .512 success rate on 43 total coaching risks with a -74.72 point differential
Manager Luck Report
Who suffered an unlucky loss or earned a lucky win this week? Who have been the luckiest and unluckiest managers this season? Find out here.
Manager Luck Report
Who suffered an unlucky loss or earned a lucky win this week? Who have been the luckiest and unluckiest managers this season? Find out here.
Lucky Wins
Will Massimini 4-7 breakdown (#8 scorer for the week)
Anthony Battle 5-6 breakdown (#7 scorer for the week)
Unlucky Losses
Evan Ash 8-3 breakdown (#4 scorer for the week)
Stephen April 7-4 breakdown (#5 scorer for the week)
Luckiest managers through Week 3 (all-play)
Jeffery McDonald 1.1 wins above expected
Eric Meyer 1.0 wins above expected
Luckiest managers through Week 3 (median scoring)
Eric Meyer 1 wins above expected
Jeffery McDonald 1 wins above expected
Anthony Battle 1 wins above expected
Will Massimini 1 wins above expected
Unluckiest managers through Week 3 (all-play)
Evan Ash 1.2 wins below expected
Alex Kincaid 0.9 wins below expected
Brandon Saunders 0.9 wins below expected
Unluckiest managers through Week # (median scoring)
Alex Kincaid 1 wins below expected
Brandon Saunders 1 wins below expected
Stephen April 1 wins below expected
Evan Ash 1 wins below expected
Positional Top 100 Leaderboards
These players posted one of the 100 best performances in AFL history within their position groups.
Positional Top 100 Leaderboards
These players posted one of the 100 best performances in AFL history within their position groups.
Jauan Jennings, WR Evan Ash 41.55 Points (#13 all-time)
Missed Opportunities
The players riding their managers' benches would have been key contributors.
Missed Opportunities
The players riding their managers' benches would have been key contributors.
Eric Meyer left the #2 QB performance of the week on his taxi
Jayden Daniels, 31.85 Points
Brandon Saunders left the #3 WR performance of the week on his taxi
Malik Nabers, 24.81 Points
Nabers was the true WR2 on Brandon's TAXI in Week 2 with 24.05 points
Will Massimini left the #4 WR performance of the week on his bench
Amari Cooper, 24.20 Points
Evan Ash left the #3 TE performance of the week on his IR
Jake Ferguson, 12.40 Points
Brandon Saunders left the #5 TE performance of the week on his bench
Dalton Kincaid, 11.80 Points
Evan Ash left the #3 DEF performance of the week on his bench
Seattle Seahawks, 18.06 Points
Eric Meyer left the #4 DEF performance of the week on his bench
Minnesota Vikings, 17.76 Points
Minnesota was the DEF2 on Eric's bench in Week 2 with 17.08 points
Top 100 Team Scores
These managers' earned one of the 100 highest team scores in AFL history.
Top 100 Team Scores
These managers' earned one of the 100 highest team scores in AFL history.
None in Week 3
Weekly League-wide Point Total
How high- or low-scoring was this week in the context of AFL history?
Weekly League-wide Point Total
How high- or low-scoring was this week in the context of AFL history?
The AFL scored 1,244.98 points in Week 3
This does not rank in the Top 50 in league history out of 158 regular season weeks
Scoring Anomalies
Did the second-highest scoring team lose? Or the second-lowest scoring team win? These sorts of anomalies and more are included here.
Scoring Anomalies
Did the second-highest scoring team lose? Or the second-lowest scoring team win? These sorts of anomalies and more are included here.
Cory Puffett's league-leading active streak of 100-point games extended to 7 games while Alex Mayo's streak ended at 6 games.
Anthony Battle and Eric Meyer extended their league-leading active drought of 100-point games to two games.
Anthony is one game away from tying the longest drought of his career.
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