You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, well this is the opposite of that.
In a week of lousy performances, pretty much the entire league should be ashamed of itself.
First, the good news: It was the first time all season that no team scored under 80 points.
Now, the bad news: It was the first time this season that the week's leading scorer had less than 132 points. (Fire Ants, yes, those Fire Ants, led all teams with 113 points.)
The average score for the week, 96.3 points per team, was 4 points under our previous low average and nearly 11 points below our season average after eight weeks.
You may want to blame the players on your team for underperforming or you may bemoan the bye weeks, but I choose to blame you (and me, of course).
The bright spots among the five "winning" teams (if you can call them that) would have to be When and Republic. Each team has won three straight games and both are squarely in the playoff hunt.
That means the playoff picture looks like this. If the remaining five weeks of games were decided by coin tosses, eight of the 10 teams would have a better than 57 percent chance of getting in.
That's because those eight teams are all separated by one game. Three teams have 5-3 records, and five have 4-4 records. That's parity, folks!
Let's get to the recaps, starting with the closest game.
When 93, Steeles 83
Team When's owner said it best in the chat board for this matchup: "unfreakingbelievable."
Let me be straight with you here. If a team willingly starts two injured players, one player projected to get 0 points, and only one quarterback, that team shouldn't win.
But don't tell that to Mr. Nguyen; When win when he does just that.
Sure, When became just the second team to have four Club Zero players in one week (Fartsicle did it last week and lost bad). But When did it in style, getting double-digit points from five of the other seven players on his roster.
Even still, 93 points isn't enough to win, right? I mean, Practice has scored more than 93 in seven of eight weeks, and he's 2-6.
Somebody forgot to tell Steeles, who naturally assumed that he'd stomp a seven-player roster. Even ESPN projected him to outscore When by 62 points.
But Steeles did nothing of the sort, and he became the second player to score 60 or more points below his projected total (Hahne scored 77 under projected in his Week 3 meltdown).
What went wrong for Steeles? He had two Club Zero players of his own, poor quarterback play, and a combined six points from his three starting receivers not named Andre Johnson.
It's a bummer for Steeles, but hey, he still makes the playoffs 88 out of 100 times, according to projections.
Explosion 107, Practice 96
I've said it before, and I'll probably say it again: You have to feel bad for Practice.
As we seem to do every week, let's compare 10th-place Practice with first-place Trees.
Trees points scored: 943 (highest in league)
Practice points scored: 931 (second-highest in league)
Trees points against: 738 (lowest in league)
Practice points against: 933 (highest in league)
Notice the difference there? Let me do the math for you. There's a thin, 12-point gap in points scored but a gaping 195-point gap in points against. That's more than 24 points per week, folks.
Give Trees' schedule to Practice, and Practice would have five wins, not two.
Give Practice's schedule to Trees, and Trees would have four wins, not five.
Conclusion? Trees is just plain good, and Practice is just plain unlucky.
A silver lining for Practice, though. He gets the award for oldest starting quarterback tandem. Favre and Kitna's combined age is a whopping 79. Their combined point total? Less whopping: 21.
I'm running out of time for this matchup. Am I forgetting anything? Oh, yeah: Nice job, Explosion.
Republic 96, Hahne 84
As I said in the open, let's tip our caps to Republic, who has now won three in a row. Hahne, meanwhile has lost five of his past 6 games and sits in ninth place -- right above Practice, who has outscored him by 140 points.
Republic has had his share of bad luck, though. Last week, his leading scorer, Kenny Britt, left his 44 points on the bench. This week, he starts Britt, who gets injured and finished with zero.
Last week, Republic started Green-Ellis, who had 8. This week, Green-Ellis had 25 on the bench.
Neither move cost Republic the week, but those precious points lost could come back to haunt him later.
As for Hahne, he could've moved Witten or Sproles into starting position and won. But Hahne still has a solid team, and his starting quarterback pair (P. Manning and Fitzpatrick) looks strong.
Ants 113, Trees 93
[Insert bad nature joke]
Haha, am I right? Ants and Trees? Get it?
Anyway, how about those... Detroit Lions? Yep, those Detroit Lions helped Ants earn 45 of his 113 points thanks to 29 from Calvin Johnson and 16 from the defense. And don't look now, but Ants has recovered from his 0-3 start to a respectable 4-4 record. He's in the hunt!
Meanwhile, traditional fantasy powerhouses Adrian Peterson and T.O. got theirs, combining for 38 points, but the rest of the Trees just didn't show up, resulting in the team's first sub-100 day since Week 1.
That means every team has had at least two sub-100 days except... Explosion! His 85-point Week 1 performance remains his only double-digit day.
Fartsicle 112, Screech 86
Screech got stuffed in a locker for the second week in a row, scoring a personal season low and becoming the last team to break the 90-point... floor?
For Fart, it was all David Garrard, all the time. If Garrard had scored his average, 12 points, instead of a whopping 32 points against the Cowboys, this would've been a much closer game. But Fart still would've won, as he got it done during a low week for the league.
He even won despite starting an injured kicker and despite many of his players being on bye week.
Am I bitter? Yep!
Random Observation
Four of the 10 starting tight ends in the JFL in Week 8 finished with 0 points.
Final thoughts
Crap! I lost!
Post-final thoughts
Check out the record week for Club Zero, An's Stat Page, Playoff Odds, etc. Just use the navbar at the top of the page.
Thanks for reading!
