You guys smell that? That sweet breath of fresh air? That's the smell of Jake managing to get not only a win, but a win AND a top 5 point. And with that, a weekly challenge win thanks to Tyler Boyd's monster day on the bench. Wow. Miracles do happen, just look at that.
Since we last spoke back yonder in Week 5, two absolute losers have been eradicated from the survivor pool. First was Garrett, who put up a depressing 85.3 last week, and this week is Ryan, who had a measly 88.3 and is NOT a survivor any longer. With the win, John Luke pulls even with TK at 96 regular season wins, and Mike trails right behind with 95.
Where have my points gone?
Now, part of me has been watching this season and thinking "holy shit we just are NOT scoring, besides like Collin and TK. Is the whole league just down this year? What's happening?" So naturally, I decided to do a little digging.
Through 6 weeks (I'm typing this on Monday so I don't have week 7 results in yet), the league-wide PPG average was 124.1, which is actually above the all-time PPG average of 120.3. However, when we look at the all-time league average of games through just the first six weeks of each season, we see a different story. This year's 124.1 PPG is the lowest PPG average through 6 weeks since 2017, where we somehow averaged 111.6 (which like... holy shit we were trash that year). Now it isn't by a lot, but the point stands that yes, by a little bit, we are scoring less than in recent years. This is what I have to do to sleep at night nowadays.
Recaps
Wow talk about opposite day. In 4 of the games, the team positioned 4 spots below the opponent pulled off the upset. #8 Jake over #4 TK, #10 Garrett over #6 Ryan, #5 Tmo over #1 Collin, and #7 John Luke over #3 Austin. Only Nathan fucked up our upset week against his own, selfish brother, you punk.
Tyler 161.4 - 141.34 Collin (Game Score: 92.9)
Collin's first loss of the season came despite a strong performance, most of which was thanks to a monster game from Joe Burrow with 48.24 points. Complimenting Burrow, every position player on Collin's team scored 10+ points, and Collin still earned a top 5 point on the week. Tyler, who entered the week 2-4 with only 3 Top 5s, took home the top score of the week thanks to 30-point games from both Ja'Marr Chase and Kenneth Walker III, along with a breakout game (finally) from George Kittle (21.8).
John Luke 114.9 - 112.78 Austin (80.5)
The closest matchup of the week was JL's tight win over Austin, only 2.18 points. John Luke was also the 5th highest scorer in the league, leaving Austin without any points to the standings this week (suck it bitch). John Luke's victory can be attested primarily to Josh Jacob's 38.5 points. Austin, meanwhile, saw 20+ points from Mike Williams and Rhamondre Stevenson, but Williams looks to lose some of his value if Keenan Allen returns to full strength in week 9 after the Chargers bye. JL's win is even more impressive given the 4 players he had on bye, including Stefon Diggs and Devonta Smith.
Jake 134.46 - 100.5 TK (69.5)
Hot DAMN look at that shit boys. That's what I'm talking about. Austin Ekeler (36.7) has been lighting up the scoreboard, and recent trade Aaron Jones pulled in 28.6 in Green Bay's loss to the Commanders. Keenan Allen, limited on his first game back since week 1, was a waste, but JuJu made up for it with 25 points of his own. TK was seriously limited by two primary factors. Lamar was held to only 10 points on 180 total yards, and CMC worked on limited time with the 49ers as the fresh face in their playbook with his recent trade. TK did have a surprise 21 points from the Titans though, which was a nice little treat.
Ryan 88.32 - 98.82 Garrett (62.7)
When Ryan started Matt... Ryan... this week, we knew it was all over. 17.5 from Davante Adams and another 18 from Joe Mixon was nice, but otherwise Ryan's team struggled to get anything going at all. Garrett wasn't much better, with two players scoring 2 or fewer points. Justin Herbert (20.12) put up an okay performance and Alvin Kamara (17.5) did well enough, but Garrett's fortunes this week were mostly in playing a Ryan team without Josh Allen.
Nathan 95.46 - 118.72 Mike (67.5)
The Bro Bowl this year was just plan disappointing. Nate, we were SO close to pulling off a complete upset week. YOU did this, and I hope you feel bad about it. Mike even managed to sneak into a top 5 spot ahead of JL with his 118 points. Patrick Mahomes was the star of this show, scoring 34.92 in the Chief's blowout win over the 49ers. Otherwise, the only 20+ outing in this whole matchup was 20.9 towards Nathan's efforts from Raheem Mostert. The win and top 5 let Mike jump Austin in the standings for 2nd place and in solid position for the playoffs here in the middle of the season.