News:

Week 5 brought the dream of a perfect season to an end once again. This is hardly surprising. We’ve had a few 11 – 2 seasons and Archie had a 12 – 2 season in the more recent, 17 game season era but 14 – 0 is something I doubt we ever see.

In the NFL, the water cooler gossip remains the injury epidemic this year. Case in point, teams like the 49ers are getting ready to run Brandon Cooks out there this week. A number of other teams are trying to run the ball with three-headed committees of crap too – not ideal for fantasy managers that struggle at the position at the best of times.

How bout those Cowboys though? How do you let the Baker-less, 0 – 4 Bucs come into your house and beat you? Allegedly a fan and contract employee at the stadium called it “embarrassing” in the tunnel after the game within earshot of Dak Prescott. After that, it was also alleged Dak got the guy fired for saying it.

That looks to be untrue – or at least unverified – but for me, the worrisome part is that a) someone would try to attach a story like that to Dak and b) that a significant group of people would hear the rumour and think, “Yeah, that checks out.”

Yikes…

Shark move of the week:

Lots of moves worthy of mention this week. Kudos to Mort who had Drake Maye in his line-up for his Week 5 blow-up game. Maye was better in Week 4 than he had been but that didn’t make him an auto-start against LV.

Hats off to Grid for high score of the week as well, led by some of the names we’d expect but also by a solid special teams tandem, Tre McBride and Parker “I’m the real BTJ” Washington.

Speaking of fantasy special teams, Brandon got a cool 30.50 points out of his kicker and DEF with another 32.50 in reserve on his bench.

Honourable mentions aside, I’m going with Neil “The Coordinator” vdb who seems to have a very formidable stable of RBs on his hands. When Tony Pollard is your RB4, you’re doing something right.

Guppy move of the week:

Perhaps I’m indirectly giving the award to myself but honestly, my intention is to give it to the Chargers. Going into the season, I honestly expected them to be a “top third” NFL offense this year but it’s shockingly bad – like “start firing people” bad.

Let this sink in: Herbert is only rostered in 65% of Yahoo fantasy leagues.

Back to real football, ask Browns or Jets or Saints fans what it’s like to go years with nothing more than a warm body at QB. Ask them if they would take Herbert. Now imagine having Justin Herbert, who started his career with an offensive rookie of the year award but over six seasons hasn’t won a play-off game, now has Harbaugh and McDaniel for coaches but is 0 – 5 this year with no o-line, no running game and almost no one to throw the ball to. Brutal.

Smack talk award of the week:

Much of the smack talk this week centred around league trades. There’s certainly been a lot more… liquidity in the market this year than others and I’m kind of indifferent about that. Some league commishes wring their hands at a lack of trading, feel like something is broken and look for ways to “fix” it by meddling in the natural order of things. I’m certainly not one of those.

That said, the spike in trades is curious though but more in that “re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” kind of way than in a “league disrupting” kind of way.

Anyway, kudos to Andy who was sort of on the right track when trying to track the migration patterns of the Piper’s roster and transactions this year. If you take a left turn at Deebo, in a very roundabout way, Doug has turned Scary Terry and Joe Burrow (QB4) into CJ Stroud (QB12), which is a bit like turning a 2025 Cadillac Escalade and a 2020 Honda Accord into 2016 Acura RSX with a whale tail.

Welcome to fantasy football hell award of the week:

It’s about this time of year I direct your attention to the Point for and Points against categories. Wins and losses are always the way we keep score but points can be an indicator of good luck and/or bad luck year to date. For example, the Brewers are third in points scored but first in points against, suggesting they are probably better than their record. Conversely, the Mucklucks are last in points scored but 11th in points against. That suggests to me some early season good luck has been involved.

As we enter the bye weeks, our line-up decisions and “secondary scoring” (to borrow a phrase from hockey) will be tested. No one looks as good with their first or second rounder moved to the bench but some teams will look better than others.