I always forget how long it takes me to compile the numbers for this first one and I never get this out as quickly as I hoped.  This will appear in the League News on the website, but I don’t know how many of you guys are aware that even exists.

Wild Card weekend is over, and we move on to the Divisional Round.  Not really any crazy results this past weekend, so it should have made it easier for us.  Easy for me to say sitting in 79^th place.  Anyway, our winner last year, Lisa Joy, beat Gilbert Colon by 13.64 points.  That was our largest margin of victory since 2018 when Xavier Hunter bested Mike Losel by 14.15 points.  Every year in between the difference between first and second was less than five points, and three times it was less than a point.  It’s tough to run away with this thing.

We have 130 entries this season.  We’ll use the same payout structure that we used last year.  The payouts will be as follows:

# of teams:	130
Cost per Team:	$20.00
Website Cost:	$20.00
Total:	$2,580.00
1st:	$1,367.40	53%
2nd:	$490.20	19%
3rd:	$258.00	10%
4th:	$180.60	7%
5th:	$103.20	4%
6th:	$77.40	3%
WC High Score:	$25.80	1%
Div. High Score:	$25.80	1%
Champ. High Score:	$25.80	1%
SB High Score:	$25.80	1%
	$2,580.00	100%

 

 

Almost everyone has paid already.  Thank you for that!  I’ll be reaching out to the few that have not to make arrangements, if I haven’t already. If you win and have Venmo, which most of you do, you will get paid the night of the Super Bowl.

Here's a quick look at some things that I found interesting from this week:

Last year’s winner, Lisa Joy, had 122.23 points after the Wild Card Round.  This season, 72 of us are on that pace or better.  Lisa Joy finished with the second highest winning score that we’ve had, so the group in general is off to a pretty hot start so far.  Our current leader, Football Enjoyer, has 205.16 points.  That is 88.8% of the points that were possible to score this week.  Additionally, that is 23.69 points more than our highest weekly score was last year when Paul Kramer 2 put up 181.47 in the Divisional round.  Eric Campbell, Matt Dziomba and Milan Lucic (terrible team name) have all posted higher scores than that this week as well.

There are always a few players that get antsy about their lineup and make a late swap.  We had a few of them this week, most of which weren’t too big of a swing one way or the other:

               

• One that worked out: Arek Andrzejewski dropped Pat Freiermuth, who scored 2.26 points and added Dallas Goedert, who scored scored 18.41, good for an extra 16.15 points out of his TE spot.

 

• One that kind of worked out: John Delbosque picked up DK Metcalf, who only scored 4.94 points, but he dropped Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who of course did not play and now he’s still available to him.

 

Of the 1170 players used this weekend:

 

• 99 were from Buffalo
• 91 were from Carolina
• 65 were from Chicago
• 79 were from Green Bay
• 137 were from Houston
• 159 were from Jacksonville
• 78 were from LA Chargers
• 84 were from LA Rams
• 60 were from New England
• 116 were from Philadelphia
• 77 were from Pittsburgh
• 1 was from Seattle
• 124 were from San Francisco

 

Of the 130 Flex spots that were used:

 

• 94 were QBs
• 22 were RBs
• 14 were WRs
• 0 were TEs

 

The QB used the most was: Trevor Lawrence (21.24 points) – 47 times, followed by Josh Allen (28.76) – 45 times.

 

• The top QB this week was Jordan Love with 34.56 points.  Only 18 people used him.  He was the Top Overall Scorer of the week.

 

• Number two was Allen.

 

• 2 people used Aaron Rodgers, Lisa Joy and Lisa Tatta.  They would have been better off using Big Ben.  Rodgers scored -2.08 points.  Roethlisberger would have at least gotten them 0.

  

• All 12 starting QBs were used at least one time.

  

The RB used the most was: Christian McCaffrey (27.42) – 73 times, followed by Travis Etienne (21.13) – 48 times.

 

• 15 different RBs were used.  CMC was the top scoring RB, 5^th overall.  

 

• Omarion Hampton was the lowest scoring RB that was played this week. He was used 3 times and scored 0 points.  He only had one carry after it was assumed he’d have the bulk of the Chargers carries.

 

• Chuba Hubbard was the third highest scoring RB. Nobody used him.  He scored 19.51 points.  17 people used Rico Dowdle who scored 2.32 points.

 

The WR used the most was: Tetairoa McMillan (10.67) – 55 times, followed by A.J. Brown (4.75) – 36 times.

 

• 25 different WRs were used.

 

• Puka Nacua, in what feels like it is the case every week, was the top WR with 32.17 points, good for the 2^nd most points overall for the week.  He was used 29 times.  

 

• 4 WRs in the top 10 for the week were not used by anyone.  Christian Kirk was #3 with 25.08 points, Demarcus Robinson #6 with 20.77, DJ Moore was #8 with 16.48 and Matthew Golden was #9 with 15.88 points.

 

• Xavier Legette was the lowest scoring WR that was used.  He scored 1.56 points, but was only used one time, by JWO#2.

 

The TE used the most was: George Kittle (1.42) – 27 times, followed by Colston Loveland (20.59) – 21 times.

 

• 11 different TEs were used. 

 

• Loveland was the top scorer.

 

• Kittle was the lowest scorer of the TEs that were used.  Cole Kmet was the lowest scorer of the position group overall.  He had one rush for one yard, good for 0.10 points.

 

• Overall, we did a pretty good job of picking TE.  The top four scorers of the week were used 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th most.  Kittle getting hurt stopped it from being a perfect spread.

 

The K used the most was: Cam Little (6.4) – 35 times, followed by Ka'imi Fairbairn (8.2) – 29 times.

 

• 10 Ks were used.

 

• Cairo Santos was the top scorer at 13.7 points. He was only used twice, by JWO#1 and Lombardi Hopefuls 2

 

• The lowest scoring K was Brandon McManus. He scored 1.0 point and was used by 4 teams.

 

• Nobody used Matt Prater or Jake Elliott. Prater was the 3^rd highest scoring K with 12.9 points.

 

The Def/ST used the most was:  Houston Texans (27.44) – 60 times, followed by the Pittsburgh Steelers (14.11) – 19 times.

 

• 12 Def/ST were used but only 11 of them played this week.  John Delbosque was hellbent on getting a Seahawk in his lineup and used their Def/ST.

 

• Houston was the highest scoring Def/ST of the week, good for 4^th overall.

 

• The 49’ers were the lowest scoring Def/ST with 6.55 points.  They were used by 2 people, Everett Herbeck and Golden Oldie.

 

• Nobody used Carolina.  They were the third lowest scoring Def/ST of the week at 7.25 points.

 

These teams were bold enough to be the only one that used these players this week:

• Brandin Cooks - Neil Keane - 7.06 points
• Brian Thomas Jr. - JWO#2 - 9.47 points
• J. Stroud - Felty1 - 4 points
• Calvin Austin III - JWO#1 - 3.56 points
• Jalen Coker (#2 WR) - Paul Kraemer - 25.38 points
• Khalil Shakir (#7 WR) - C. Stelzer - 17.74 points
• Xavier Legette - JWO#2 - 1.56 points

 

And finally, here is what the perfect lineup for this week would have looked like:

WC
Perfect Weekly Lineup
QB:	Jordan Love	34.56
RB:	Christian McCaffrey	27.42
RB:	Travis Etienne	21.13
WR:	Puka Nacua	32.17
WR:	Jalen Coker	25.38
TE:	Colston Loveland	20.59
Flex:	Josh Allen	28.76
K:	Cairo Santos	13.70
Def/ST:	Houston Texans	27.44
	Total:	231.15