Week 5: Power Rankings

 

He can't keep getting away with this... can he?

Monday Night Football. Chiefs vs Raiders. There's a lot on the line for the 1 win Raiders team, but more importantly there's a chance for the only undefeated team in our league to get taken down a peg.

Mahomes throws his 4th TD of the game and shortly after Davante Adams catches his second (on only 3 total catches btw) when the Raiders inexplicably go for 2 with 4:27 remaining . 4 points separate the hero of our story (me obviously) from the two time champion and undefeated LAMARtians.

All we need is one more TD for Mahomes or one more huge play for Adams. 

Mahomes misses the deep throw to Mecole Hardman (or maybe Hardman runs the wrong route, you can never tell with this guy) leading to a KC punt and we get one more shot for Adams.

And then.. this happens. On a final bomb TD pass attempt he's taken out by his own teammate, sealing the game for LAMARtians who now have 2 straight victories of 5 points or fewer and one lucky sub-90 point victory start the season.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. Fortunately for LAMARtians, his team is both. Tune in next week to see if he finally loses (he won't).

Power Rankings

Look. I don't want to do matchup reviews this week. I covered the only exciting one above and I'm out of interesting ways to describe ~100 point blow outs. Instead, lets look ahead to the playoff picture and do some power rankings.

Title Contenders: these teams are close to playoff locks already and would need bad injury luck to derail their season

• Roswell LAMARtians : Austin Ekeler's decline has been greatly exaggerated. Coming back to 2021 form he has put up 30+ points in two straight weeks and covered up for some bizarrely low passing volume from Lamar Jackson. The breakout of Damien Pierce really puts this team over the top for the first slot in our rankings.
• Ancient Allens: The strength of this team comes from 3 pillars: Derrick Henry's return from last years injury to continued dominance, DK Metcalf's success in a better than expected Geno Smith offense, and Josh Allen's huge scoring advantage over most starting QBs. While Allens can't count on 38 point weeks from "TE" Taysom Hill, he does seem to be this year's cheat code for that position.
• Momo: As I've said multiple times across these reports, Jalen Hurts is an actually good NFL quarterback in addition to being an insanely valuable fantasy asset. Dominance from Cooper Kupp is to be expected now but the real surprise star has been Jeff Wilson who has put up solid 10-20 point weeks in every matchup since Elijah Mitchell's week 1 injury.
• Jets Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams: The Justin Jefferson/Nick Chubb picks in rounds 1 and 2 are carrying this team right now. And honestly with the huge amount of uncertainty in fantasy football simply hitting on both of your first picks is enough to make you a leader in the league. Jets Fuel has also gotten great value off the waivers playing Olave and Njoku.

In the Hunt: these teams are treading water and have a good shot at playoffs. If things bounce their way they could upset our leaders.

• Ballderberg: The Breece Hall breakout game has happened, and Dalvin cook is also returning to form. This team might have the best RBs in the league going forward and just needs his WRs (ARSB and Tee Higgins) to get healthy to jump up into our leaders group.
• The Loch Ness Burrow: On paper, this team has it all. Tons or RB depth, dependable WRs, and a great QB. In reality there have been some issues. Joe Burrow has been pretty mediocre for fantasy this season and is getting out-performed by multiple waiver wire QBs. More importantly, pick 1.01 JT has done basically nothing since his huge explosion in week 1. The Colts and Bengals offenses are both a little disappointing on the year and need to get fixed for this team to shine.
• Hazers: The good? Saquon is back and Ramondre Stevenson has a clear path to the starting role in NE. The bad? Michael Carter's role should continue to shrink in New York as Breece hall consumes it and Russel Wilson is either hurt, bad, or both. This team feels very middle of the pack to me and doesn't have a lot of upside players on the bench that could turn it into a contender easily.
• Chipped by Billy G: 2 weeks of 0s from DeAndre Swift have set this team back, but they have the top end talent to compete when he's healthy. Expect a good finish to the season for this team as Brady gets all his WR weapons back and Miles Sanders redeems himself from his 2021 reputation.

Cliff Hangers: these teams are hanging on after 5 weeks, hoping for some luck to push them back into the playoff picture

• KY: This team is confusing to evaluate. CMC and Tyreek hill have both been fine for fantasy but neither is crushing at their position and that has lead to a lot of mediocre weeks for this squad. James Conner only breaking 10 points once through 5 weeks is disappointing, but this seems mostly to be covered up by good games from James Robinson and CEH. This team is close to moving up a tier and shouldn't be this bad.
• Kelsey Lohan's Ghost: 6,0,6,0,21 . Those are Alvin Kamara's point totals each of the first 5 weeks, which is disgustingly bad value for a 1st round pick. This team also stupidly sent away a solid WR in Mike Williams for Kyle Pitts to continue to be useless.
• Oh Godwin He Can See : The Najee Harris/Cam Akers RB pairing has been brutal through 5 weeks. Neither back has surpassed 75 rushing yards yet and they have only 2 TDs between them. The return of JK Dobbins offers a ray of sunlight if the Baltimore offense can get moving again.
• Bye Week : Underperforming WRs are the story for this team. Yes, losing Dak in week 1 hurts, but QBs are easier to replace than many other positions. Bateman's dropoff as Lamar has seemingly stopped passing the ball is rough but it's DJ Moore's abysmal season with Baker Mayfield that has really sunk this squad so far. 
  
  Oh yeah, and I guess spending a 2nd on Javonte Williams wasn't too helpful either.

Dead and Buried: these teams are done. Bad injury luck or other insane circumstances have ended their seasons before the half way point.

• No one yet! I know a couple of teams that expected to see their names here but 5 weeks is too early to bury anyone completely.

Disastrous Pickup of the Week

The biggest spender of the week was Kelsey Lohan, picking up a resurgent Rashad Penny whose owner desperately wanted them back. In the end Penny would carry the ball just 8 times before breaking his leg.

The truly unfortunate thing is that backup Kenneth Walker III was dropped in this transaction. yikes.

Shameful Benching of the Week

Kirk Cousins, by KY. While Goff was getting shut out by the Patriots this QB took his team to a 29-22 win over Chicago and outscored Goff by 17 points. Fortunately for KY that didn't end up being a big enough difference to decide the game.